US Betting Sites Report Record Breaking Super Bowl Figures
Sunday, February 13, 2022, marked the date of this year’s Super Bowl. In the event, the Los Angeles Rams secured a victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in a 20-23 finish. The riveting Super Bowl saw the Rams come from behind in the fourth quarter to pick up the eventual win, with Matthew Stafford securing the last points with only one minute 25 seconds left on the clock. And while this was a success for the Los Angeles team, online sports betting sites also reported a huge success in terms of wagers being placed for the event.
This served as credence towards the idea that legal sports betting is gaining ground in newly regulated markets, including New York. BetMGM, for example, spoke of a record number of users signing up for the first time via its app specifically on Sunday game day. Additionally, it reported handling twice as many bets as it did during the Super Bowl event that took place in 2021.
Adam Greenblatt, serving as Chief Executive Officer for BetMGM, which is a venture crafted between the Entain gambling company of the UK and the MGM casino group, said that he felt “encouraged” by the strong betting results from the weekend. And he finished off by adding that of all U.S. states being able to engage in gambling via BetMGM, New York stood out as the one that accounted for the majority of the digital wagers.
At the same time, this was backed up by a rival gaming operator known as Penn National. According to the sportsbook, the 2022’s Super Bowl provided “a record” when it came to the total number of bets placed, the amount of money wagered on the event and the number of unique daily bettors. This all took place via the operator’s Barstool Sportsbook site.
And just to confirm that these figures being reported were quite accurate, GeoComply, which is a geolocation group, made a report on Monday that stated it had identified over 80.1 million transactions taking place in relation to the Super Bowl. That serves as well over double the amount registered for the Super Bowl of last year.
More Records Could Be Broken in the Future
It may be true that this year has proven to be a record-breaking one for sports betting around the Super Bowl event, but WynnBets believes that this is just the start. More records will be broken every single year as more U.S. states proceed with legalising online sports betting, according to a representative for the brand. WynnBets was only operating in two states during last year’s Super Bowl, but now it provides its services in nine states, which has proven to bolster revenues.
It was only a short time ago that it was reported by the New York Post that the mobile sports betting industry had generated $70 million (£44.3 million) in tax revenue within its first 30 days of being active. Almost $2 billion (£1.47 billion) was recorded in wagers being placed, which led to the large influx of tax revenue in that report. This was without taking into consideration the bets that were placed during the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Yet it served as the first Super Bowl since New York legalised online sports betting. It didn’t take long for the state to become one of the most dominant for operators, considering it has a population that stands at around 20 million. And that comes despite there being a severe tax being imposed on gambling revenues within The Empire State.
Legal online sports betting has been gaining significant ground across the USA since the Supreme Court overturned a ban on states outside of Nevada allowing it to be introduced in 2018. The number of those states wanting to integrate legal online sports betting into their legislation has accelerated during the pandemic, with people in power looking to recoup losses during lockdowns. Last year saw 12 more states begin offering the legal gambling activity to residents, including both Florida and North Carolina. This means that 31 of the 50 U.S. states provide some form of legal sports betting within their borders.
AGA Predicts Further Growth
Prior to the Super Bowl taking place, the American Gaming Association (AGA) made a prediction that around $7.6 billion (£5.6 billion) would be spent in wagers on this year’s event by 31.4 million Americans. That marks an almost 80% increase on wagers placed in the previous year. Individual figures relating to this will be released by states like New York and nearby New Jersey later on in the week.
Back in 2008, an NFL spokesman conversed with The New York Times over doing everything that they could to ensure that the American football league would not become a vehicle for betting to occur. It seems as though there has now been a marked shift in the decision to embrace sports betting across the United States.
FanDuel made mention of the fact that it had paid out over $175 million (£129.3 million) in response to correct bets for Sunday’s Super Bowl event. Yet it declined to give an insight into how much was wagered on its sports betting platform during the event prior to releasing official figures of its own earnings on Friday this week.
It is no secret that online sports betting operators have been in serious competition with one another as they all try to get their fair share and then some of the new legal markets. Millions of dollars have been spent on advertising within the new legal markets, and the promise of bonus bets have been found at multiple sites as well. This has led many gamblers to place wagers with what they consider to be “free money”.
BetMGM, on the other hand, is one company that has not been so aggressively advertising its services as some of its competitors. A spokesperson for the company said in January that it expected a long-term acquisition cost relating to each of its customers to be around $250 (£185). Amy Howe, operating as Chief Executive Officer for FanDuel, spoke with the Financial Times in 2021 though, and said that the level of the spend on marketing for sportsbooks was completely unsustainable.
