In-game Super Bowl betting is the ultimate rush for sports bettors. It's the ability to wager on the game AFTER it's already started. This means that as the score changes and events happen, you'll be able to make real-time moneyline, spread, and totals bets. Super Bowl Betting Promotions: DraftKings Inc DKNG 1.12% is offering a double your money if a touchdown is scored in Super Bowl LV. FanDuel is giving new users 55 to 1. The Super Bowl has gotten MUCH more entertaining since the turn of the century, and sportsbooks and sharp bettors have noticed. Although the inflection points in outcome/margin of victory above seem to be 2003 /2004, the average betting line (ATS) for the Super Bowl. According to Betfirm, over $150M is bet on the Super Bowl (LEGALLY, it's estimated that over $5B in total are bet on the game every year). It's undoubtedly America's most widely wagered sporting event. The state that won a U.S. Supreme Court case in 2018 clearing the way for any state to offer legal sports betting saw more than $117 million bet on this year's Super Bowl. The 12 retail and 21 mobile sportsbooks kept $11.3 million of that as winnings.
Not this year. Not even close.
Tuesday's release of the betting numbers by the Nevada Gaming Control Board showed the state's handle on the game was just over $136 million. That's well short of the record of $158.58 million set in 2018. In fact, the handle this year was the lowest in five years for Nevada.
The Good News?
The state's sportsbooks won $12.5 million, a percentage of 9.2%.
It was the same scene at every Nevada sportsbook on Super Bowl Sunday with limited seating and smaller parties. But with the help of mobile phone apps, there weren't a lot of books unhappy with their overall handle in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 31-9 win over the favored Kansas City Chiefs (-3).
Most books had similar stories on how they won and lost on the day with the biggest win coming from the game staying under (56) and the biggest loss being on Super Bowl futures and the Bucs money line (+140).
'It was a very solid day for us,' said Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook VP Jay Kornegay. 'We did well in three-fourths of the main categories. We did well on the point spread, total and props. The Bucs money line was the only negative, but we're not complaining. We'll take that every year.
'It was a satisfying day. Handle was almost exactly the number we posted last year despite the future pool being well below last year (due to the pandemic). We actually wrote more on this year's game than we did last year.'
The handle for the game was larger than last season at the SuperBook despite no huge rush from visitors on Friday and Saturday. The phone accounts may have been the big winner here.
'We ended up with a good win,' said Station Casinos sportsbook director Jason McCormick. 'Zip on the future book, but the under, parlay cards, and props all shook out O.K.'
William Hill's 100-plus sportsbooks in Nevada were elated with their phone handle with head bookmaker Nick Bogdanovich telling me last week that 70% of their handle on the game was through the phones.
'We lost on futures, lost on the money line, but won the total, side, and won a little on the props,' Bogdanovich said. 'It was a solid day with a monster handle.'
I got the feeling between Kornegay and Bogdanovich that a Nevada state Super Bowl record of $158 million in handle could be challenged. Nevada's BetMGM sportsbook director Jeff Stoneback wasn't so confident but was happy with the result.
'It was a decent day for us, the under (56) was best for us,' Stoneback said. 'The props turned out O.K. as well, but we lost seven-figures in Super Bowl futures.'
Big Game, Big Bets
Quite a few people had large bets all over Las Vegas taking 50-1 and 60-1 odds before Tom Brady was announced as his destination on March 19 where most books dropped down to 14-1 odds after Brady signed with Tampa.
Stoneback had unforeseen issues occur on Sunday that went beyond the game. The technology of the phones helped books create more volume but it also shut a major chain of books down at the worst moment.
'We were down from about 10 minutes to kickoff until 9:30 p.m. (PT) and while most of the people affected were understanding about the situation there were a few that were very vocal about being unhappy and not getting paid right after the game,' Stoneback said.
It's the most helpless feeling as the boss of a book when the system shuts down and not knowing how to fix it. Magnify the feeling times 100 on Super Bowl day. The volume through the phones and counter stressed out the system BetMGM uses.
The good news for Stoneback and the MGM books on the strip was that they didn't have their usual Super Bowl crowd.
'The Mirage had only 47% occupancy on Saturday night,' he said. 'We have more people coming for Valentine's Day weekend next week.'
The results of not having as much over-the-counter cash coming in on Saturday and Sunday is what made Stoneback a bit skeptical of setting a Nevada Super Bowl handle record. However, they had bigger bets this season than 2020 such as $2.3 million bet on the Bucs +3.5 (-115), $500,000 bet on the Chiefs money line, and on game day had another $2.5 million on the Chiefs money line as well as $1 million teaser on the Bucs to over (+9, 50) which lost.
That's over $6 million on handle alone on four different bets. That's some huge action. But they also didn't give their players the option to bet in-game or halftime, which is another huge chunk expected.
The South Point's Chris Andrews said they did 'really good' and also had a surprise for their guests with newly retired NASCAR driver Brendan Gaughan writing tickets at window No. 12. No word on the void count, but it's something he and his father South Point owner Micheal Gaughan have been doing for years to chip in.
Circa Sports director Matt Metcalf said they 'had a good day and lost a couple of big parlays to Tampa, but it ended up being the best result for them outside of KC winning by 1 or 2.'
Up north at the Atlantis Reno sportsbook, director Marc Nelson said he would have preferred another result, but they still ended up winning over 8% on the day. He needed Chiefs and under the most. Nelson stayed at -3.5 (EVEN), the longest in the state.
All the books stayed unified in not moving below -3 down to -2.5 and all needed the under 56, which the sharps bet down early from 57. Parlay risk with the over connected with either team was gigantic.
The Kansas City Chiefs' offense wasn't the only thing that experienced difficulty on Super Bowl Sunday.
Last-minute Super Bowl bettors got shut out of sports betting apps as sites cratered under the unprecedented amount of user traffic.
The following sports betting apps in Pennsylvania had outages during their busiest day:
DraftKings, BetRivers and Barstool are all powered by Kambi. DraftKings issued a statement that stated the problems were caused by high traffic to Kambi, its backend provider.
Here's a statement from a DraftKings's spokesperson regarding the outages:
'We're aware customers were unable to access our mobile and online Sportsbook. It appears this outage was caused by a surge in traffic that caused problems for our backend provider. Our DFS and pools products, supported by in-house technology, are functioning without issue. This incident is why we believe owning our own technology is important.'
DraftKings is planning to move onto its SBTech platform this year.
In December, FanDuel, DraftKings and Barstool were the top three operators, respectively, in terms of total sports betting handle in Pennsylvania.
FanDuel sportsbook
Sports Betting On Super Bowl Wins
FanDuel customer support tweeted at 5:43 p.m. ET that they were aware customers in Michigan and Illinois were having trouble logging in and placing wagers.
Users in Pennsylvania expressed similar frustration. Various attempts to log in from 5:30 p.m. through 6:30 p.m. showed this message:
At 8:47 p.m., FanDuel tweeted the following:
Customers in all states should once again be able to access the Sportsbook platform. You may still receive a notification that the system was initially unable to log you in, if this happens please wait a moment before trying again. We appreciate your patience! https://t.co/yOIBf8Knti
— FD Customer Support (@FanDuel_Support) February 8, 2021
FanDuel users in PA also had problems logging in and placing bets during NFL Championship Sunday.
FanDuel is third most-downloaded app
The FanDuel Sportsbook app was the third-most downloaded app in the Apple Store on Super Bowl Sunday behind TikTok and Robinhood.
FanDuel's 55-1 new customer offer paid out $17 million. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win and cover (+3) paid out more than $27 million to FanDuel customers in pre-match betting on the core spread and moneyline markets. In a post-Super Bowl email, FanDuel noted that in-play wagers, prop bets and parlays will be calculated and paid out to customers throughout the evening and will change final numbers.
A spokesperson from FanDuel told LegalSportsReport:
'At no time did our platform cease operating and our team worked quickly to restore and stabilize service in the affected markets.'
DraftKings sportsbook
DraftKings wasn't immune to the stoppage of play.
Some DraftKings users in PA who tried to place a bet in the hour leading up to kickoff got this error message:
We are continuing to work to resolve customers having issues placing bets. We will provide an update once this is resolved. https://t.co/gRAb7iULij
— DraftKings CX Team (@DK_Assist) February 7, 2021
DraftKings also issued a warning about wagers taking longer to payout.
Barstool sportsbook
Barstool online sportsbook posted the highest revenue of all sportsbooks in PA in December. The site also experienced difficulty due to the high volume of users.
Maybe your app should work
— Kyle Dolbow (@KyleDolbow) February 7, 2021
Portnoy frustrated, Barstool refunds bad beat
Barstool hosted a Big Game Live Bet Showdown at Greektown Casino in Michigan during Super Bowl LV. A crashed app shut down the showdown. Portnoy went on a tirade to start the live stream:
'The app is not working. It hasn't been working for 45 minutes. F— everybody who is f—ing it up and they know who they are. They are catching f—ing hell right now because they are making me f—ing look bad and Penn look bad. F— the people who f—ed the app up.'
This does nothing but everybody who bet the live bet challenge will get 1000 bucks.
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) February 8, 2021
Can You Bet Online For The Super Bowl
After Super Bowl 55, Barstool ruled the 'Logan Paul/Rob Gronkowski bet' a win. Gronkowski finished with 67 receiving yards.
We are marking this as a win because of how bad a beat it was. @LoganPaul 1-0 with @BSSportsbookhttps://t.co/2oPHABLICD
— Barstool Sportsbook (@BSSportsbook) February 8, 2021
Who is Kambi?
FanDuel, DraftKings and Barstool are all familiar names. But who is Kambi?
Kambi is a B2B sports betting provider that helps consumer-facing operators provide sports betting services. The company has four areas of expertise for its sports betting offering:
- Technical platform
- Odds and trading
- User interface
- Risk management
![Sports betting on super bowl selections Sports betting on super bowl selections](https://blog.nitrogensports.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Super-Bowl-LIV-1024x683.jpg)
Most-bet Super Bowl
Expectations were high prior to Super Bowl LV.
A total of 23.2 million Americans planned to bet a total of $4.3 billion on this year's Super Bowl according to American Gaming Association (AGA) research.
A record 7.6 million people were going to bet with online sportsbooks this year, up 63% year-over-year.
'This year's Super Bowl is expected to generate the largest single-event legal handle in American sports betting history,' said AGA President and CEO Bill Miller. 'With a robust legal market, Americans are abandoning illegal bookies and taking their action into the regulated marketplace in record numbers.'
Early indications are Super Bowl LV delivered. It also explains mobile betting sites' technical issues. FanDuel told LSR that the outages were due to 'unprecedented demand' around the Super Bowl.
A rep from BetMGM said that it was the most-bet Super Bowl. BetMGM had issues in Nevada but not in Pennsylvania.
ESPN gambling reporter David Payne Purdum tweeted this regarding Super Bowl LV betting volume:
Online sports betting volume during Super Bowl weekend increased 254% year-over-year, according to geolocation data from GeoComply distributed by Morgan Stanley.
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) February 8, 2021
Lead image credit: AP Photo/Mark Humphrey