By: Jonathan Karas
March 19th, 2025
Photo Credit: FOX Business
As sports betting as a whole reached new heights in 2024, the same could be said for Super Bowl 59 between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs. Overall for the year of 2024, $450 billion dollars were wagered in total bets across all legal sportsbooks. This is a major increase from the year prior, in which $120 billion dollars were waged across sports (Sportsbook Review). As sports betting becomes more legal and accessible to all, evidently, the numbers continue to climb each year.
Betting Now Legal in Over Half of the U.S.
As of the end of 2024, 38 US states have some form of legalized sports betting, with Missouri in the process of joining that group (American Gaming Association). Furthermore, since 2019 (the year following the Supreme Court giving states the green light to legalize betting), there have been at least 3 states per year to legalize sports betting, with Delaware, Vermont, North Carolina, and Missouri coming this past year (Legal Sports Report). According to this same report, big-time sports states like Texas, California, Georgia, and Alabama could be close to legalizing betting as well in the coming months and years. With all of this said, as more states continue to legalize sports betting, the more we will see growth in terms of dollars going in and out of sportsbooks across the country. With the total jumping to 39 states at the moment, it makes sense that 2024 was the biggest year ever for sports betting, and 2025 is likely to smash more records in the same sense.
Sportsbook Breakdown
Caesar’s Sportsbook and BetMGM Sportsbook both stated that Super Bowl 59 was the single most bet on event in their histories. Caesar’s also reported that more parlays (multiple-leg bets) were placed than normal straight bets for the first time in Super Bowl history (KGW8). Furthermore, we heard from Craig Mucklow, the Vice President of Trading at Caesar’s, that given the unique situation of Patrick Mahomes and his Chiefs falling behind so quickly and early, spread bets flooded in as the Kansas City’s odds continued to rise. While many seemed to believe that Mahomes had some 2017 Tom Brady in him, that was not the case and the books reaped the rewards (KGW8). DraftKings was another book that had a field day in terms of success with the Super Bowl, seeing over 12 million bets placed on the game along with leading the way in terms of sportsbooks that were downloaded on the app store (New York Post).
Big-Name Players who Burned Bettors
According to the New York Post report, one bettor raked in $800,000 betting on the Eagles to win the game, while another player lost $25,000 betting on KC’s Travis Kelce to win Super Bowl MVP. Kelce was not the only big name player that lost people money. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley had a bit of a down game by his standards as well. Despite eclipsing the all-time single season rushing record (including playoffs) during the game, he was held without a touchdown and to just 57 rushing yards. Barkley did not cash in on his heavily bet on anytime TD, or his over/under rushing yards set at 111.5.
Novelty Numbers
One of the most fun parts about betting on the Super Bowl is the wide array of interesting novelty bets that are offered. This gets even the more casual fan involved, as novelty bets include things going on at and around the game. UK’s Daily Mail reported how a lot of the more niche novelty bets, regarding something like Travis Kelce proposing to girlfriend Taylor Swift after the game for example, are a lot more strictly regulated and therefore unavailable on some of the bigger platforms like FanDuel (Daily Mail UK). While the actual numbers about novelty bets were harder to find, here are some of the results of some of the popular novelty bets from the game, via DraftKings:
Coin Toss - Chiefs won the toss (TAILS)
Who Super Bowl MVP thanks first in speech - Jalen Hurts, thanked god
Gatorade Color (dumped on winning coach) - Green/Yellow, Eagles’ Nick Sirianni
Length of National Anthem - UNDER 120.5 seconds
As betting becomes increasingly popular (and legal) within the United States, each Super Bowl from here on out is likely to break records just like this year’s did.
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