Nevada sportsbooks won a record $22.13 million from bettors in the Philadelphia Eagles’ 40-22 rout of the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, but the overall handle on the game was just $151.6 million, down 20.2% from last year when the game was held at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium.
“As we had anticipated, this year’s total did not surpass last year’s all-time record,” Michael Lawton, senior economic analyst of the state’s Gaming Control Board, said after releasing the figures at 12:18 p.m. PT on Tuesday. “Not having the game at Allegiant was a contributing factor in addition to not having a team from neighboring California play in the game like last year.
“Although the wagering totals did not establish a new all-time record, the win amount did. Nevada’s books reported a Super Bowl win amount of $22.13 million on a hold of 14.6%. This establishes a new all-time record, beating the previous high of $19.7 million recorded in 2014 (Seattle Seahawks’ 48-3 rout of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII). Prop bets in addition to the underdog Eagles winning outright contributed to a successful day for Nevada’s sports books.”
Circa vice president Mike Palm said last week on VSiN’s “Follow the Money” show that the handle leading up to the game was “disappointing.” There were several reports during the week that Las Vegas visitation numbers were down and hotels were dropping room rates, so there was plenty of foreshadowing that handle wouldn’t approach last year’s record. After the state’s figures were released Tuesday, Palm was again on “Follow the Money” and said Circa’s handle was down 10%, and that was echoed by Jeffrey Benson, Circa’s director of operations.
“Our handle was down slightly,” Benson said by text on Tuesday afternoon, “but we had our second-best result in our history.”
Obviously none of the hotels and books were complaining after the record win. As Lawton said, the upset by the Eagles burned a lot of bettors and helped the books, even though the two biggest reported bets were $800,000 and $750,000 (both at BetMGM) on the Eagles +110 on the money line, but even more of the public was on the Chiefs, who were going for a three-peat. Most books also reported having far more future-book liability on the Chiefs, which is also included in the overall handle figures as those wagers are decided on Super Sunday.
The game going Over the betting total of 48.5 points cut into the profits, but it was a small price to pay for the books, who also did well on the ever-growing prop bets, especially with popular players like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Saquon Barkley coming up short on their props. Palm did say, however, that Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts winning MVP wasn’t a good result as he was offered at +300 and was bet down to +260 before rising again.
On another interesting note, even though Nevada has been passed in monthly handle figures by other states, the Silver State has continued to top the nation on the biggest betting day of the year, including last February; however, it’s already been announced that New Jersey topped Nevada for this year’s Super Bowl with a win of $25.2 million on a handle of $168.7 million, a hold of 14.9%. Results from other states will be trickling in over the next few weeks.
