Estimated $16B Will Be Wagered on Super Bowl 57. Does Any Other Event Compare?
The Super Bowl is a yearly marker for sports bettors and the gaming industry. The amount of money and people taking stakes in the game has progressively increased over the years. Last year, it was estimated that a record 31.4 million Americans gambled on the Super Bowl, wagering a total of $7.6 billion dollars.
The estimated total number of bettors and dollars wagered has almost doubled from last year’s Super Bowl. The American Gaming Association (AGA) estimates that over $16 billion will be wagered on the Super Bowl this weekend.
It is truly an unfathomable amount of money to consider being gambled on a singular sporting game. With the astounding estimates from the AGA, it made me wonder, does any other sporting event come close in its attraction of bettors?
March Madness
Before the 2022 March madness tournament, it was estimated that a total of 45 million Americans would place wagers. It was estimated that those bettors wagered over $3.1 billion on the tournament as a whole.
March Madness puts up respectable betting numbers, but the truth is that even with a month-long extravaganza of basketball, the betting phenomenon is incomparable to the Super Bowl.
FIFA World Cup
An estimated 20.5 million adults in the US were said to have gambled on the FIFA world cup this past winter. It was estimated by the American Gaming Association that $1.8 billion would be wagered on the tournament, which would be the most Americans will have ever participated in the tournament from a betting angle.
It also helps that the American team had real expectations in Qatar, and Americans were more interested in the World Cup festivities than seemingly ever before.
Gambling Tides are Turning
48 out of the 50 states in the US allow gambling in one form or another. The two states that refuse to yield along with the times are Hawaii and Utah. It is estimated that more than half of Americans live in a state with legal sports betting. By making betting markets more accessible to people, it has reduced feelings of taboo around gambling that the public has had for many years.
Results
The Super Bowl is truly the pinnacle event of the sports world, and the amount of dollars wagered follows suit. No event even comes close to half the amount of dollars that will be gambled on the Super Bowl this weekend.
Even with a grand total of 67 games played in March Madness, the amount of money wagered pales compared to the Super Bowl this weekend.
