Biggest bets for Super Bowl LIII
LAS VEGAS (KUSI) – Jay Kornegay, Vice President of Race and Sports Operations at Westgate Las Vegas goes over the biggest bets for the Super Bowl.
Thousands of football fans from around the country converge at Las Vegas casinos every February to place their bets on the Super Bowl’s winner, MVP, first touchdown scorer and hundreds of other outcomes. They cheer, boo and hold their breath as they watch every moment of the game at sportsbooks, VIP parties and other gatherings.
If they’re lucky, they then get in long lines to cash out.
That enthusiasm is worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Las Vegas, and for the first time Sunday, it will face legal competition outside Nevada as casinos in seven more states have opened sportsbooks since the U.S. Supreme Court issued a relevant ruling in May. But the race for the betting dollars is not worrying officials or casino operators. This Super Bowl, they say, will be business as usual.
Their confidence comes from the magnetism of Las Vegas: Storied casinos, superb hospitality and dining, plus a growing list of world-class entertainment options that together create the Sin City vibe that draws millions every year. Seldom do people come to this desert oasis nowadays exclusively to bet.
“People come to Vegas for four-five hours around the Super Bowl, but they come for a lot more to fill the other 48 hours that they are here in town for that weekend,” said Jay Rood, who heads sports betting operations for MGM Resorts International. “I really don’t think that Vegas, or Nevada, has anything to worry about in the future. I think it’s only going to increase our customer base and probably deliver more people to our doorstep.”
Tourism officials expect 306,000 people to travel to Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend, with a projected economic impact of $426 million. The figures from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority represent a $1.4 million year-over-year increase in economic impact with about the same number of visitors.
Gamblers wagered a record $158.6 million on the big game at Nevada’s nearly 200 sportsbooks last year, over $20.1 million more than in 2017. But the sportsbooks made a profit of only about $1.2 million, as some reported six- and seven-figure losses in part because of a seemingly deep-pocketed mystery bettor.
Nevada’s effective monopoly on sports betting ended last spring, when the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on that form of gambling. Casinos in seven other states — Rhode Island, Delaware, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Mexico— are accepting wagers on the game between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams. And by 2020, the list could be longer with lawmakers in two dozen states thinking about allowing sports betting.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which is responsible for promoting the destination, estimates that 93.5 percent of the city’s roughly 147,000 available rooms will be booked this weekend.
