New Jersey, New York, gear up for record Super Bowl wagering numbers

After so many months of National Football League action, we are down to the final day of the 2021 season.

Today is Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.

Will you be watching the game at a bar, a party, or maybe just sitting in your house so you can watch the game and be focused?

If I was a fan of the Los Angeles Rams or Cincinnati Bengals, I would probably be sitting at home, trying to block out all of the noise around the biggest football game of the season.

But most people will be watching in groups, especially now, as the pandemic finally (hopefully?) starts to run its course.

One other thing that many people will be doing is betting on the game. With the recent legalization of sports betting in New York, all of the Tri-state area can now legally place wagers on the Super Bowl online.

Everyone has made predictions on the game, from FilterOff co-creator Zach Schleien to all of the experts around the country. With the Bengals in the game for the first time in over three decades, the Rams playing the game at home, and the Super Bowl in the glitzy new SoFi Stadium, ticket prices have been through the roof. It is a chance for all of Hollywood to make an appearance at the biggest event of the year, to witness not just the game, but the Super Bowl Halftime show as well as all of the pageantry that goes with the contest.

Covers.com Senior Industry Analyst Jason Logan expects this game to be massive on and off the field.

“I think the appetite for sports betting is much bigger than it was last year,” Logan said. “It is much bigger than it was five years ago or 10 years ago. But also too, because it is legal, people are more apt to get involved. So the stigma of sports betting is kind of being pulled back.

“The numbers that they throw out there are for the regulated markets, and they are very much dwarfed by the unregulated online markets and the paper hand markets. There is so much money moving through other channels on this game that it will blow your mind. But obviously, this will be the biggest bet Super Bowl.

“I remember hearing about million dollar bets, and those were rare on the Super Bowl, even until up about five or six years ago. And now, it is no thing for these guys to take $3 million bets, or $5 million bets, here and there.

According to an Offers.bet spokesperson, this game could break all kinds of records for betting around the country:

“We are hearing some crazy numbers. There could be over $8 billion bet with legal sports books in America, and maybe double that in other ways. Sports betting has arrived, and will be here to stay.”

Most of the action on the game comes from people wagering on prop bets, which allows people to find wagers that might not have to do with the actual game: even casual fans can take a 50/50 shot on the coin toss, or what color the Gatorade will be at the end of the game.

“I have been with Covers for 17 years,” Logan said. “I can remember probably two sheets of prop bets when I started, with the Eagles Patriots. It has grown exponentially more and more. I give a nod to the popularity of fantasy football, and daily fantasy football, as a way of players have gravitated to handicapping player performance, rather than the overall team performance.

“That has gone hand in hand with the rise of prop bet popularity. When I started out, props were on the fence as a sucker’s bet: a lot of the sharp guys wouldn’t be caught dead betting props. But now, you see a lot of sharp guys passing on the point spreads and totals, because they know that Super Bowl spread and total are going to be the tightest they see all year.

“The prop markets now are shark-infested waters. The sharp guys, and the analytics guys, they really love the prop markets.”