Ahead of the coin toss at the Sofi Stadium this coming Sunday, we can already guess that this will be a record year for regulated betting on the Super Bowl.
This is largely due to the newly-expanded population base that can now bet legally on sports. With the addition in the last six months of Arizona, Connecticut, New York and now Louisiana, the total population that can now place a bet on the NFL season has reached nearly 125 million people.
According to the analysts at Macquarie, bettors wagered $486 million on last year’s Super Bowl. The team at Macquarie then goes on to estimate that this year will see over $800 million bet on the game itself.
That itself could be an under-estimation.
The TV rating evidence
To support the argument that Sunday will see a betting bonanza, we also have evidence of a greater enthusiasm from TV viewers to support the notion that this year will see unprecedented interest in Super Bowl wagering.
The figures from ratings company Nielsen for the regular season, released in January before the playoffs, showed that interest in televised football was at a six-year high. The 272 games of the regular season averaged 17.1 million viewers across television and digital platforms. That represented a 10% increase from 2020 and was the league’s highest average since 2015.
Now, naturally, we can’t assume the rise in viewing numbers and the increase in regulated betting across a large part of the country are directly linked. Correlation is not causation, of course.
Moreover, the 2021 regular season rise in viewing figures was partly a response to last season’s Covid-striken season when games were played in empty stadiums. It was a strange viewing experience and many viewers are thought to have turned off.
But we can’t ignore the link to betting and several betting-related factors should at least be added to the equation.
Fan engagement means something
First, is the much-debated marketing onslaught.
The sportsbooks know that the start of the NFL season is their best recruiting sergeant. Their maximum advertising and promotional efforts all took place – for states that were legal at the time – around the start of the season. It meant that more people were made aware of the potential for betting on the NFL than at any other time previously.
Second, that marketing effort has extended to a raft of sponsorship deals between the team and betting operators. Most of the touchpoints between the teams and their fans will have been accompanied by some sort of betting promotion or marketing message. Combined with the widespread advertising, that is bound to have had a normalizing effect.
Legalized betting, in other words, would have been hard to avoid in states where it is available.
Getting the message across
This is why we can be reasonably confident about that $800 million-plus estimate from Macquarie; indeed, the likelihood is that this figure might be surpassed by some distance.
And that matters not for reasons of profit. Depending on how the main betting markets work out for both the books and their customers, if the margins are low enough, then the net benefit to the bookmakers from the game itself might be relatively small.
Much is made by many in the sector about why we shouldn’t pay too much attention to handle figures and in most instances they are right. It is revenue figures, and specifically net gaming revenue figures, that can give a better guide to the health of the sports betting sector.
But for this game, this year, the handle figure is important. Focusing on the profit in this one instance would be to miss the point.
It is the symbolic value of the sector of millions of football fans safely, and hopefully enjoyably, betting on the game in a regulated environment with all that entails about reputable operators and responsible gambling provisions that is priceless.
The football medium is the message
That is a propaganda message that the sector should embrace.
It will be evidence of enthusiasm among ordinary consumers to have betting options available in their state and the final handle number will give another nudge to those politicians discussing sports betting in their state. It tells the legislatures that they are not only depriving their citizens of the ability to bet safely in their state, they are also denying their coffers the potential revenues from taxing the activity.
We all know this message – it has been in operation for many years and is one that will continue until further states legislate. But now and then, a piece of advertising such as is presented by this year’s Super Bowl can be useful.
So let’s hope that the handle number exceeds all expectations. For the good of the game.
