Whopping $16B to be wagered on Sunday

The cat is out of the bag, the genie has escaped from the bottle, and sports betting continues to explode in popularity as we approach Super Bowl LVII.

On Tuesday, the American Gaming Association (AGA) forecasted that one in five American adults will place a bet on Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Eagles and Chiefs. That number is expected to result in a record $16 billion in wagering throughout the country.

That’s more than double the expected amount wagered in last year’s Super Bowl. It is impossible to get the exact number each year, as these figures deal with legal online sports betting apps, illegal bookies and casual bets among friends and relatives.

At least some of that growth in sports wagering is reflective of three new states taking legal bets. Kansas, Ohio and Massachusetts joined the fold in the past 12 months, contributing to the bump in sports betting handle.

Massachusetts is only offering retail sports betting at the moment, with mobile expected to go live prior to the onset of the NCAA Tournament in March.

GeoComply, the software responsible for tracking a sports bettor’s location in each state, reported a massive 550 million-plus geolocation checks between the playoffs and the AFC Championship, up 50 percent from last year.

When the Chiefs played the Cardinals in Arizona last September, there were more than 66,000 geolocation checks at State Farm Stadium, nearly the largest volume of any stadium that week.

It seems all but assured that this will be a record-breaking Super Bowl for gambling, especially since this will be the first one to be located inside a state with legalized sports betting, with Arizona legalizing sports betting in April 2021.

Rob Gronkowski will be kicking a live field goal during the third quarter of the Super Bowl with $10 million in free bets on the line for any FanDuel user who places a pre-moneyline bet on the big game.