A betting frenzy
As expected, Super Bowl LVII proved a record-breaking event for US sportsbooks as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in a nail-biting 38-35 result.
FanDuel sportsbook averaged two million active users
FanDuel confirmed that during the betting peak it was accepting 50,000 wagers per second on the big game. Before the event, the sportsbook operator forecasted that it would deal with more than 17 million wagers on the Super Bowl. The FanDuel sportsbook averaged two million active users during the game.
Meanwhile, MGM Resorts International confirmed this Super Bowl was its best ever, combining handle for its BetMGM online sportsbook and nine retail sportsbooks across the the country. It was also the highest total handle it has ever taken in for a single sporting event.
GeoComply – a company that verifies where gamblers are placing bets – witnessed around 100 million sports wagering transactions across Super Bowl weekend. This represents a 25% year-on-year increase.
Plenty of interest
As the Chiefs and Eagles were so evenly matched, it is no surprise that there were some big winners and losers from wagering on the event. DraftKings accepted a $1.7m wager on the Chiefs, leading to a payout of $2.7m when they claimed victory. Others weren’t so lucky, with Caesars Sportsbook reporting a $2.2m bet on the Eagles winning the game with a -1.5 points handicap.
One of the major winners was rapper superstar Drake. The Canadian placed seven bets totaling $965,000 on Sunday’s game. His biggest bet was $700,000 on the Chiefs winning outright, bagging him almost $1.5m. His other six bets were unsuccessful but he still secured an overall net profit of $512,000.
the Chiefs are the early favorites to retain their title
While the action is now over until next season, sportsbooks have already started taking in bets for next year’s Super Bowl. Naturally, the Chiefs are the early favorites to retain their title.
State by state
In advance of Super Bowl LVII, the American Gaming Association (AGA) forecasted that over 50 million Americans would bet on the game, with the estimated total handle reaching $16bn.
Notably, this year marked the first time that a Super Bowl took place in a state with legal sports betting. GeoComply noticed more than 100,000 verifiable sports betting transactions within and close to State Farm Stadium, the location for the big game.
The state with the most Super Bowl betting activity was New York, reporting 14 million geolocation transactions across 851,000 unique betting accounts. Ohio was top of the rankings for the state with the most new sportsbook accounts created across the weekend. Over 1.1 million new accounts were created in the state where legal sports betting went live last month.