Online betting on the Super Bowl has surged this year, with many gamblers waiting until just before kickoff to place their bets, according to a company that tracks the whereabouts of Internet gamblers.
Data released Monday by GeoComply shows that the number of verification checks carried out over the weekend increased by more than 22% compared to last year.
This year it has processed just over 122 million checks in 28 of the 29 states that offer online sports betting, not including Florida.
The company makes sure players are where they say they are before allowing their online bets to be completed, a process known as geolocation which is the basis of online betting in the United States
The data records the number of times the company has been called to verify a customer’s location. It is considered a good indicator for at least a minimal level of sports betting activity, of which more than 80% is done online in the United States
“The continued transition to the legal market has set the stage for a historic first Super Bowl in Las Vegas, and the record-breaking results we saw did not disappoint,” said Anna Sainsbury, CEO and co-founder of Vancouver-based GeoComply , Canada. .
The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 on Sunday night to win their second consecutive NFL title.
States require a gambler to be physically located within their borders in order to place bets online. Geolocation technology uses a combination of cellular data, software, hardware and databases to determine where a phone or laptop that is trying to place a bet actually is at any given time.
While it is true that customers can log in and check their position without actually placing a bet, many gamblers also place more than one bet after a single login.
Over Super Bowl weekend, GeoComply reported a total of 8.5 million active accounts, up 15% from last year’s Super Bowl.
During the two weeks leading up to the big game, the company saw more than 1.77 million new users sign up for legal online betting accounts.
Since the start of the 2023-2024 NFL season, customers have added more than 13.7 million new accounts, a 28% increase over last season.
And as usual, many people waited until the last moment to place bets. The company said that just minutes before kick-off, it saw a huge spike in traffic totaling nearly 15,000 transactions per second. This was the highest level ever recorded on GeoComply systems, nearly doubling last year’s peak.
The fact that the match went to extra time for only the second time hit many bookmakers hard, offering strong odds that this would not happen. And many bets were on the Chiefs to win, even if the 49ers entered the game as slight favorites.
Sportsbooks suffered a multimillion-dollar loss in the game that went into overtime, a popular bet that paid out about 9 to 1, said Craig Mucklow, vice president of trading for Caesars Sportsbook. He said Caesars lost by seven figures on the overtime bet alone, with an average bet of $16.
Caesars did better with player props, many of which weren’t made. This includes betting on whether prominent players like Travis Kelce, Isiah Pacheco, Deebo Samuel or Brandon Aiyuk would score a touchdown, which none of them have done.
“It was a bad Super Bowl for sports betting,” said Tristan Davis, a senior trader at BetMGM. “Many bettors have seen the Chiefs win and over on star players,” referring to bets on the statistical performances of individual players.
FanDuel, the official odds provider of The Associated Press, said it placed 14 million bets totaling $307 million, both setting records. Those bets came from 2.5 million FanDuel customers.
DraftKings will not release data Monday on its Super Bowl performance.
Several sportsbooks have also issued odds on the winner of next year’s Super Bowl, with the 49ers slightly ahead of the Chiefs.