Betting fever grips nation

After a nail-biting game and one of the all-time great half-time shows, sportsbook operators have begun to report their betting figures from Super Bowl LVI. According to those stats, Super Bowl betting didn’t just break records this year, it shattered them.

sportsbooks raked in a betting handle of $179.8m

The most eye-catching figures come from Nevada. There, the 179 sportsbooks raked in a betting handle of $179.8m for the Cincinnati Bengals versus Los Angeles Rams game, blowing the roof off last year’s handle of $136.1m. Sportsbooks secured a hold of $15.4m on Sunday’s game with a percentage of 8.6%.

Nevada’s $179.8m Super Bowl betting handle figure surpassed the previous 2018 record of $158.6m, set when the Philadelphia Eagles upset the New England Patriots.

Despite these astonishing figures, sportsbooks will hope for even greater returns for Super Bowl LVII. League officials handed the event to Arizona’s State Farm Stadium on Monday. If all goes to plan, it will mark the first Super Bowl played in a state with legal betting and the first in a stadium offering a sportsbook.

Nevada, a sportsbook paradise

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Red Rock Resorts sportsbook director Chuck Esposito has attributed the record Nevada Super Bowl handle to a number of factors, none more so than the US’s “general acceptance” of sports betting.

He also noted the “increased volume on both in-play (betting) and props; the continued growth of mobile; the restrictions on masks lifted; the 100% occupancy compared to 50% last year; and the willingness industry-wide to take higher limits.”

The Review-Journal cites Lawton as stating via email that: “The catalysts for this year’s record was that (Sunday’s) game had two very distinct betting options for customers due to the spread being at -4? and the money line wagers, which attracted healthy action on both sides.”

Encouraging figures elsewhere

Geolocation firm GeoComply took to Twitter Monday to share its findings on US Super Bowl betting. It found that more than 80.1 million Super Bowl betting transactions occurred over the weekend, significantly more than the action on last year’s clash between the Tampa Bay Buccanneers and Kansas City Chiefs:

Unsurprisingly — given the additional 12 states that legalized sports betting in 2021 — but still staggering, the number of unique accounts that accessed legal online sportsbooks increased by 95% to 5.6 million.

New York topped the list of BetMGM’s active US states for most digital wagers

BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt also shared some observations, confirming that a record amount of unique users signed up to the operator’s sports betting app on Sunday. He said the sportsbook handled twice the wagers it did for Super Bowl LVI. Greenblatt added that New York topped the list of BetMGM’s active US states for most digital wagers made.

On to Arizona

This all bodes well for next year’s Super Bowl in Arizona, which will make history before anyone even punts a football. On Monday, after the Los Angeles Super Bowl committee officially ‘handed over’ the Super Bowl to Arizona, State Farm Stadium shared a video via Twitter of the Arizona Host Committee already counting down the days:

Super Bowl LVII will be the first to take place in a state where sports betting is legal. In addition, as gaming law and sports betting attorney Daniel Wallach shared via Twitter, State Farm Stadium will be the first Super Bowl host to have its own sportsbook:

The BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium will also make the Cardinals the first NFL franchise to have an in-stadium sportsbook. Officials expect to open the 16,800-sq-ft sportsbook by the 2022 NFL season. It will feature over 25 sports betting kiosks, 38 TVs, and a 265-square-foot video wall, according to designs unveiled by the Cardinals on Monday.