Pregame.com is projecting over $10 Billion dollars will be bet worldwide on Super Bowl 47. How did we arrive that that number?
It would be nice if 100% of sports betting were legal, which would give us exact and certified betting handle numbers. But that is far from the case – and like any estimate, the best anyone can do is use the numbers we are certain of and extrapolate estimates.
(The alternative is to not consider anything we are not certain of – which would add to the mass media’s ignorance about just how big sports betting is. Plus, if we did not consider anything we are not certain of, the gambling handle would be zero)
The good news is that for prior 22 years Nevada has accounted for Super Bowl betting separately – allowing for quite accurate Nevada projections.
Last week we polled 4 big-name Las Vegas sportsbook managers, and asked them to project this year’s handle.
The average number from the four = 91.4 million
At the same time, BetOnline was taking action on the Nevada over/under, and had the number at 90.5 million.
Let’s split the difference and say $90.94 million.
In the time since our survey the action has come in heavier than expected and many are now projecting over $94 million – but our goal is to stay conservative with our estimates, so we’ll stick with the $90.94 million.
Next question:
What percentage of the worldwide handle does Nevada represent?
We also asked this question to our 4 Nevada books and one offshore book.
The average answer was .86%
IMO, this is still too high – Vegas will be naturally bias toward their place in the world, and I’ve talked to many I respect who believe the number to be closer to .5 percent. But let’s be conservative again use the .86%
It’s important to note that the Vegas percentage is not the same for all sports (Vegas will have a relatively higher percentage for American-centric sports like college football, and a relatively smaller percentage of a sport like the NFL – which has more of a worldwide fanbase.
$90.94 million
divided by
.0086
equals $10.57 Billion
Are there any other factors?
Two important ones:
A) The Nevada handle DOES account for all Super Bowl future bets – which means the reported figure is more than the actual amount bet on the game.
B) The Nevada handle does NOT account for alternative props Nevada does not allow, football square pools, and office pools.
B is certainly bigger than A – which means we are once again being conservative.
So an estimate of “over $10 Billion" it is!