Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI isn’t just the big game for football and advertising. It’s also the big game for gambling.
Legal betting on the NFL title game, including online gambling and retail sportsbooks, could total $1 billion in the U.S., estimates PlayUSA a gambling information firm. That would about double last year’s total of more than $500 million.
"$1 billion in legal wagering on a single game would be an impressive milestone for the industry," said Dustin Gouker, lead analyst for PlayUSA.com.
"It would have seemed impossible just a few years ago to reach such heights, but with the expansion of sports betting over the last year, it is inevitable that legal wagering will soar."
The surge reflects the fact that 10 new states launched legal sports betting since the 2021 Super Bowl.
By game time Sunday, sports betting will be legal in 30 states and Washington, D.C., according to PlayUSA.
The movement by states to authorize gambling stems from a 2018 Supreme Court decision legalizing sports betting.
"The sports-betting landscape has changed dramatically since last year's game," said Eric Ramsey, data analyst for PlayUSA.
"More than half of all Americans now live in a legal jurisdiction, and even well-established markets such as New Jersey and Nevada have grown significantly over the last year, as mobile betting gains in popularity."
To be sure, legal betting on the game will likely be dwarfed by illegal betting. The American Gaming Association estimates that combined legal and illegal U.S. betting on last year’s Super Bowl totaled $4.3 billion.
Limiting the legal numbers in this year’s game is the fact that Ohio and California, represented by the participating Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams, don’t have legalized sports gambling yet.
Ohio regulators have indicated sports gambling will begin there by Jan. 1, 2023. And California’s legislature hasn’t approved sports betting. No team from a state with legal sports betting has yet played in the Super Bowl.
PlayUSA forecasts that among states, Nevada will generate the biggest legal wagering total on the Super Bowl with $175 million, followed by New York with $160 million.
Meanwhile, gamblers will wager on a lot more than the final score. "Americans have become increasingly comfortable with online betting in general and the less conventional bets it facilitates, such as in-game wagering," said PlayUSA’s Ramsey.
"This should really help boost Super Bowl betting, which for years has enticed bettors with fun prop bets and other unconventional wagers.
"The big difference this year is those types of bets are easier than ever to make in more places than ever before."
