Who would have thought that COVID-19 would have a huge impact on the most-watched sporting event of the year, but it did. According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, SuperBowl LV produced the lowest total amount of bets at Nevada sportsbooks since 2016. The NGCB points to COVID-19 indoor seating capacity limits as a cause. And when you take a look at the hype that led up to the game, it had all the earmarks of setting records across the board. The fact that bettors didn’t swarm sportsbooks as they have in the past had to be caused by something and once again the pandemic becomes the scapegoat.
The Epic Match-Up
Okay, let’s look at the teams who were in the NFL Championship Game known as SuperBowl LV. You had the Tampa Bay Buccaneers led by quarterback Tom Brady and the Kansas City Chiefs quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes. This alone was heavily promoted as the greatest quarterback match-up in SuperBowl history. And looking ahead to the 2021 NFL season, this clash of titans is projected to take place again on Super Bowl LVI. According to STSbet, the Kansas City Chiefs have +230 odds to win the AFC, while Tom Brady and the Bucs are at +333 to reach another Super Bowl.
But at the betting windows at Nevada sportsbooks, a different story was developing. A total of $136,096,460 was wagered on SuperBowl Sunday through the 184 active sportsbooks in Nevada. The 31-9 victory for Tampa Bay over Kansas City produced a win for the sportsbooks of $12,574,125 with a hold percentage of 9.2. Comparing that to just the year before, and the math points to something going on with volume. The SuperBowl LV total handle was down 12% – or $18,582,781 – from the $154,679,241 that was wagered in 2020 when Kansas City beat San Francisco 31-20. You would have to go back a total of five years to find a SuperBowl handle worse than the one recorded for SuperBowl LV. That would be the 2016 match that saw Denver beat Carolina 24-10 and generated a total amount of bets of $132,545,587.
How COVID-19 Impacted Nevada Sportsbooks
The NGCB was pretty clear in their assessment of the situation stating, “The capacity restrictions in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 presented a very challenging operating environment for Nevada’s sportsbooks…in Nevada, the SuperBowl handle is driven by visitation and Las Vegas along with other areas across the state are destination markets for customers to come and wager on the game.” Director for trading for William Hill US, Nick Bogdanovich confirmed that betting on SuperBowl Sunday was far from super, but still significant. “We won the point spread. We won the total. We lost the money line. We lost futures and we won props. The first half was really good, we had a monster decision on that. The second half was really good, we had a big decision on that.” However, Bogdanovich says in-game wagering was – in a word – quiet. “They were betting the Chiefs to come from behind.” Also, he noted that bettors were betting on the in-game Under which cut into the winnings of sportsbooks. Regardless, the 55th NFL Championship Game betting totals ranked as the fifth-highest since Nevada has been tracking them in 1991.
What About Online Wagering?
Well, you can blame this on Murphy’s Law rather than COVID-19. Several states that had multiple mobile apps at the ready to attract SuperBowl betting activity experienced outages – yes, the dreaded SuperBowl electronics malfunction curse – which rendered several online sportsbooks useless before and during the game. Sportsbooks reporting technical difficulties included BetMGM in Nevada with FanDuel, BetRivers, DraftKings, and Barstool all indicating that they had suffered losses due to unexpected outages. As much as it would be nice to speculate that the outages were caused by the influx of bettors seeking wagers online in response to COVID-19 restrictions, the truth may never be known. But for now, let’s say that was the problem and that the technology wasn’t ready to handle the pressure. SuperBowl was another one of those big sporting events where the wagering flows as freely as beer and pizza which would ordinarily spell success for everyone involved. Just imagine the nightmare if the game had gone into overtime and the Chiefs didn’t win.
There Is A Silver Lining In Here
Here’s the kicker. Although total wagering figures in Nevada took a nosedive, the national legal sports betting totals are nothing short of record-breaking. At the time of this writing, not all states had reported their figures and already the wagering handle is over $418 million. That’s quite a jump from the national total of $262.5 million from last year’s non-COVID SuperBowl. Here are some of the state totals: Nevada currently tops the list at $136.1 million with New Jersey second with $117.4 million. Pennsylvania is third with $53.6 million. Illinois is next with $45.6 million, Colorado recorded $30 million, Iowa had $16.3 million, Mississippi totaled $8 million, Rhode Island had a handle of $6.5 million, Oregon brought in $3.5 million and Delaware rounds out the list to date at $1.9 million. So, it is safe to say that SuperBowl was still a major attraction in the world of sports betting, but a couple of hurdles may have resulted in handles being less than they could have been. With blame being placed on COVID-19 and technical problems for many mobile sportsbook apps, it is unknown how much of a loss occurred.
Summary
The NFL Championship Game known as SuperBowl is one of the largest sporting events on the planet. It’s not called “super” for nothing. The 2021 edition of the game, SuperBowl LV, was the first one played amid pandemic restrictions which may have had a negative effect on the sports betting activity that normally takes place as part of the game. Add to this, technical problems that saw several sportsbook apps experience outages before and during SuperBowl and you have a perfect storm of problems that plagued the wagering figures. Regardless of these issues, and a huge drop in the overall handle in Nevada, the total for all of the United States still points to football’s SuperBowl LV as the biggest betting draw of all-time.
