Recently we explained the math behind our “over $10 Billion worldwide” estimate on Super Bowl betting.
Now I will explain how we arrived at the $100 Million estimate on the Super Bowl coin toss.
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 do nothing to change 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)
There is two ways for us to approach the coin toss:
1)
LVH is on record projecting their coin toss handle will be $75,000 this year.
A consensus estimate from multiple experts I spoke to expect LVH to handle no more than 5% of Nevada’s overall Super Bowl handle – which implies the state will handle $1.5 million on the coin toss.
Based upon our survey of 5 major sportsbook managers, the consensus estimate is that Nevada accounts of .86% of the worldwide Super Bowl handle.
$1.5 million divided by .0086 = $174.5 million worldwide on coin flip.
2)
A second, independent estimate comes from Chris Andrews (who spent 30 years behind the counter as a bookmaker). According to Chris, the coin toss accounted for 1.14 of his Super Bowl handle during a recent year.
Our sportsbook survey is projecting $90.94 million in Nevada this year.
.0114 times $90.94 million = $1.04 million divided by .0086 = $120.5 million worldwide.
Note that Chris actually charged a 40 cent line (-120/-120) on the coin flip – so it’s safe to say his coin flip percentage of action was lower than average (some books offer as low as -102).
Pregame.com's $100 million estimate is extremely conservative.
The goal of our worldwide estimates is to:
1) Help the mass media understand just how big sports betting is
while . . .
2) Providing conservative estimates that no reasonable person could question.