The Super Bowl is the gambling holiday of the year.
It’s already been estimated that nearly $23 billion will be wagered on the big game. But where does all that money come from?
A decent amount will obviously be on the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers to win. And bettors are surely hammering the over/under.
For BetMGM, a minority of the wagers are actually on the spread, moneyline and total.
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Some of the more than 400 proposition bets for Super Bowl LI between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots are displayed at the Race & Sports SuperBook at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino Jan. 26, 2018, in Las Vegas. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Gary Deutsch, BetMGM’s chief financial officer, estimates that roughly 60% of wagers have been on prop bets.
In normal sports wagering, props typically revolve around players. Bettors are able to wager an over/under on a certain player’s receiving, rushing or passing yards. In baseball, one can wager simply if someone will record a hit.
There are countless other props for any game. One could even bet on whether there would be a hole-in-one at this weekend’s Waste Management Open at TPC Sawgrass.
But for the Super Bowl, the prop bet market multiplies by infinity. Gamblers can go way beyond the game itself and can now wager on the result of the coin toss or the color of the Gatorade poured onto the winning coach. Outside the United States, there are plenty of bets involving Taylor Swift, including if Travis Kelce will propose to her after the game.
Since gambling has become legalized in much of the country, prop bets have been all the rage, but it’s the obscure markets fans covet during the Super Bowl.
A video board displays an advertisement for Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium Feb. 1, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
“I think it’s just popular culture. It’s fun, it’s a big party, it’s an event and people want to have something fun that’s quickly resolved,” Deutsch told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “Some of these bets are over very quickly, so they know if they’ve won. We’re meeting the demand of a market, and the Super Bowl is very much a celebratory party environment. Until sports betting became legal, there was no way to bet on these. So, now, we can make them available, and we think people like it.”
Deutsch estimates half the wagers on the Super Bowl are placed in the final 48 hours before kickoff, even though lines have been out for nearly two weeks.
But the high rollers are the bettors who get in on the action early, says Deutsch.
“The more significant bets, people betting multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, those come in earlier. But the smaller bets will be in the last half day,” he says.
Naturally, everyone who bets wants to get rich quick with the old trusty parlay.
They’re not actually trustworthy. But they are fun when they hit. And that’s why Deutsch has seen so many of them wagered for the big game.
Allegiant Stadium Dec. 15, 2021, in Las Vegas after a news conference announcing the venue will host the 2024 Super Bowl. (David Becker/Getty Images)
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“The casual bettors seem to like the lottery type of bet,” Deutsch says, who estimates at least half the wagers so far on the game are parlays.
“It’s one thing to bet $100. But if you put down $10 on something that you don’t really think would happen, but it’d be great if it does, you turn that $10 into $100 because of a string of extremely unlikely events that have come together.
“And you have that lottery excitement of a win. A lot of people like those types of payouts, a lot more than we projected four or five years ago.”
The Super Bowl kicks off at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday.
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