Super Bowl Betting At US Sportsbooks Set To Skyrocket
The legal US sports betting landscape has changed a lot since last year’s Super Bowl. Bettors in no less than 14 states will have the opportunity to place legal wagers on next week’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
Last year, when the New England Patriots squared off against the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 53, just eight states offered legal sports betting, and several of those industries were in their infancy.
The list of legal sports betting states for Super Bowl 53 comprised:
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- Delaware
- Mississippi
- West Virginia
- Rhode Island
- Pennsylvania
- New Mexico
The new states that will take legal wagers on Super Bowl 54 are:
- New York
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Oregon
- New Hampshire
- Arkansas
And that will result in significantly higher betting numbers on this year’s big game. Around $200 million was wagered legally on last year’s game – well short of expectations, which ran as high as $325 million.
Mobile Sports Betting States Jump from Three to Nine
An even more impactful change is the number of states with mobile betting. That jumped 300%.
In 2019, just three states were offering mobile betting, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Nevada. This time around there are nine states accepting mobile wagers.
To put it in perspective, for the upcoming game, there are more states with mobile sports betting than states with any kind of legal sports betting last year.
Bettors in the following states can place wagers on Super Bowl 54 from a mobile device:
And bettors in five other states can place legal sports bets at a licensed brick and mortar retailers:
The increase in both retail and mobile options, coupled with the continuing maturation of the legal US sports betting industry should cause handle to explode for the February 2 game.
Legal Betting Will Explode, But What About Illegal Betting?
With more legal options, the amount wagered legally in the US is expected to skyrocket. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the amount wagered illegally will fall off a cliff.
As H2 Gambling Capital’s David Henwood told attendees at ICE North America in May 2019, the legal markets haven’t had a significant impact on offshore betting.
According to Henwood’s presentation, just 4% of bettors had shifted their play from illegal markets to legal markets. Further, as Henwood explained, the offshore markets weren’t down 4%, they were growing, thanks to the added exposure of the Supreme Court case and the subsequent legalization efforts in statehouses.
It’s important to note that H2’s research only covers the earliest days of the post-PASPA legal US sports betting industry. There’s no telling what the impact of legal markets on offshore operators is now that we’re 12-plus months further down the road.
That said, legal betting certainly hasn’t cannibalized Nevada’s handle. Much like the situation with offshore sportsbooks, increased access appears to be helping Nevada. But big event betting is a different animal. So, expect the February revenue report issued by the Nevada Gaming Control Board to receive heavy scrutiny, as analysts try to determine what impact (positive or negative) the spread of legal wagering might have on Nevada as a destination betting market.
Steve Ruddock is the content director for BettingUSA and the Editor-in-Chief of Gaming Law Review.
Steve has covered the legal and legislative developments in the US gambling sector for more than a decade for online and print publications.
