Nevada Super Bowl Betting Results Good

In addition to New York, Nevada also won the Super Bowl this year. Nevada sports books (with the majority of the action of course in Las Vegas) pulled in just shy of 94 million dollars in wagers ($93.8 million), "winning" $5 million. The hold percentage was 5.4%, which beat the theoretical hold percentage on typical 11/10 straight wager sports bets of 4.54%. Part of that could be due to slightly more money wagered on the losing side of the point spread, but most likely that is due to the books actually coming up short on the point spread portions of the wagers, but making that money back on losing parlay and proposition bets, which have better hold percentages for the sports books.

The Las Vegas Sun article also touts that this year's handle was the second-largest Super Bowl handle in the last decade. Before too many champagne corks pop, do realize that what is wagered legally in Nevada is but a small fraction of illegal sports betting in the United States. My estimate that for the Super Bowl, the illegal betting was about ten times the legal betting, or about ONE BILLION DOLLARS (now put your pinky to your lips like Dr. Evil).

As part of the National Gaming Impact Study Commission effort, the FBI estimated that one billion dollars was illegally wagered each week of the NFL regular season. That study was published in 1999 - this is 2012. Yahoo has a decent overview article regarding sports wagering and the position that legal sports betting should be expanded in the United States. I agree.

If interested, other previous posts on sports betting are available for view, with my recommended choices here, here and here, with the first post discussing the softening view of the NBA to potentially expanded sports betting.