The Gaming Control Board said Tuesday nearly $136.1 million was wagered on the game between Tampa Bay and Kansas City at the state’s 184 sportsbooks. The Buccaneers, a 3-point underdog, defeated the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs, 31-9.

The wagers – the lowest overall total since 2016 – translated into revenues of nearly $12.6 million, a win percentage of 9.2% for the sportsbook operators.

Gaming Control Board Senior Research Analyst Michael Lawton credited the game’s final score finishing under the total of 56 points set by sportsbook operators, along with a high hold percentage on various proposition wagers. “The public likes to bet the over,” Lawton said. “A lot of parlays were tied to the over.”

Lawton said in his conversations last week with sportsbook operators, most were expected much of the wagers to come in over the weekend.

“The state numbers generally were in line with my expectations, perhaps a bit better,” said William Hill US CEO Joe Asher. “Obviously, everyone knew visitation to Las Vegas was going to be down due to COVID so the numbers were solid when viewed through that prism.”

Asher said William Hill saw “strong two-way action” on the game with heavy money on the Chiefs but also on Tampa Bay on the money line. “Most of the money was on the over, so the result coming in way under certainly was good for the books, although there was a lot of late money on the under,” Asher said.

The total wagers were 12% below last year’s $154.7 million bet on Super Bowl LIV. The state’s highest wagering total ever came in 2018 when $158.6 million was bet on Philadelphia’s 41-33 win over New England.

UNLV gaming historian David G. Schwartz tweeted the overall wagering total was a good sign for Nevada, given that resort casinos throughout the state are still operating under 25% capacity limitations and state-mandated COVID-19 health, safety, and cleaning protocols.

Schwartz also discounted new competition to Nevada’s legacy sports betting industry. An additional 19 states and Washington D.C. offered legal sports wagering on the Super Bowl. “That might not be a terrible number, given the restrictions on travel and in-person gathering,” Schwartz said. “I wouldn’t chalk it up to more competition, since before COVID it was trending in the opposite direction.”

Lawton couldn’t say if Nevada’s overall was impacted by an outage at sportsbooks operated at MGM Resorts International casinos. MGM’s sports betting is operated by BetMGM, a joint venture between the casino company and Entain PLC. The system was down for several hours during the game included both the mobile app and the retail sportsbooks.

In an email late Sunday night, a BetMGM spokeswoman said the outage was only felt in Nevada, but the company had settled all its winning wagers. Three other states had reported Super Bowl wagering totals as of Tuesday morning.
New Jersey’s 12 retail sportsbooks and 21 sports wagering mobile apps recorded roughly $117.4 million in wagers, with the operators holding $11.3 million.

Pennsylvania gaming regulators said $53.6 million was wagered on the Super Bowl, a 74% increase from a year ago. The state said $47.5 million of the wagers came through online and mobile bets. Revenue to the state was more than $9.4 million. Last year, state sportsbooks had a $3.3 million loss on the game.

Regulators said had 15 retail sports betting locations and 12 online wagering sites taking bets on Super Bowl LV, an increase from 12 sportsbooks and eight mobile sites from a year ago.

In Illinois, gaming regulators said sportsbooks took in $45.6 million in wagers on the Super Bowl, holding $7.6 million in revenues. The state said more than $42.7 million was wagered online.
Nevada did not break out how much of the Super Bowl betting came through online wagers.