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The California-hosted Super Bowl came and went… and now that the dust has settled: many feel a tad bit letdown. And no, not because of Bad Bunny’s halftime performance, which polarized many Americans. No, we’re talking about the legal sports betting industry.
Early gambling numbers are slowly trickling out of many states, and it’s not looking pretty. Betting volume is down, and so are profits from state to state.
Mind you, this is despite the game between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots drawing the second-biggest TV audience for a Super Bowl (second only to the Eagles-Chiefs game from 2025). This despite the betting favorite (Seattle) winning the game. This despite the under hitting (casual bettors overwhelmingly bet overs).
Sportsbooks got their ideal betting outcomes from the game, but the numbers haven’t followed from what we’ve seen. Why? Well, let’s discuss that in this article. Keep reading, and we’ll get to the bottom of it.
Nevada Sees Big Decrease In Super Bowl Betting
Let’s begin with Nevada, the original state for sports betting. Yes, the proliferation of legal sports betting — now up to 39 out of 50 states with it — has taken a bite out of Nevada’s market, but it’s still Nevada. Las Vegas betting still draws droves of bettors, especially for events like the Super Bowl.
Nevada was the first to report its betting numbers for the big game, and it wasn’t pretty. Official numbers inside the state say that $133.8 million was bet on Super Bowl LX with Nevada sportsbooks. This marks a 10-year betting low for the state.
Moreover, the state reported wins of $9.9 million after paying out winners. That’s good enough for a 7.7 percent hold, but that’s roughly down half of a year ago. Nevada sportsbooks won a record $22.1 million last year due to Eagles upsetting the favored Chiefs.
The Nevada numbers are on-trend, we suppose. This is the second consecutive year that Nevada saw a decrease in Super Bowl wagering. Its peak year was 2024 when the Chiefs and 49ers met in the finale. But still, this was a major falloff. You have to go back to the 2016 game between the Panthers and Broncos (it did $132.5 million in bets) to see such a bad year.
And remember, 2016 was before PAPSA was revoked, which created this sports betting frenzy in the first place. But hey, maybe that’s the reason for Nevada’s bad Super Bowl outting? The state’s just lost betting to other states? Maybe.
After all, Las Vegas tourism is struggling as a whole. In 2025, tourism to Sin City fell by 7.5 percent. It’s believed it’s mostly from international tourists, many of whom are alienated by President Trump’s America First rhetoric and crackdown on international visas. So that’s a possible theory, but then again, other states saw similar declines to Nevada, as we’ll get into in the next section.
New York Betting Saw Similar Declines
If Nevada was the former sports betting king, then New York is the current one. This state has done six straight months of at least $2 billion in sports betting handle — an industry record. New York sports betting has become the undisputed No. 1 sports betting market in the country in terms of revenue and profits.
So how did they fare during the Super Bowl? Very close to Nevada’s decline, actually. New York State Gaming Commission reported it generated a $144.9-million handle on the game. This is a 9.4 percent drop last year when it did just a hair under $160 million.
Though, New York was almost identical in profits kept, unlike Nevada. For this most recent game, the state had a 3.2 percent hold and produced $46.5 million total in gross revenue. This revenue figure is only 2 percent under of 2025. Why such a disparity compared to what Nevada reported? Probably because many more Eagles fans live in the New York area and bet on their team — unlike Nevada, which had more casual bettors putting money on the favored Chiefs.
What Is Behind Super Bowl Betting Struggles?
These are two examples of less Super Bowl betting activity, but the jury isn’t out yet. Most states haven’t reported their numbers yet so perhaps our analysis will be proved wrong in time. But still, seeing the two most prominent markets drop double digits isn’t promising….
Why the decline? One could guess the matchup wasn’t all that appealing. Neither the Seahawks or Patriots had the star power of Patrick Mahomes or the Taylor Swift-linked Travis Kelce. But then again, the TV ratings were hardly affected. The matchup still did monster numbers.
But here’s one other theory: the game’s location in San Francisco’s Levi Stadium. As we likely know, California is one of 12 states without legal sports betting. Naturally, that dulls some of the sports betting excitement around the event. Certainly, we saw the opposite take hold in 2024 when Las Vegas hosted the game — and proceeded to have record betting numbers for th Chiefs-49ers.
We wouldn’t discount this theory. California gets a second straight Super Bowl when Los Angeles gets next year’s matchup. If betting numbers continue to struggle, this theory would certainly carry more credence. Something to monitor for 2027…
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