National Football League

Why Chiefs-Eagles will make Super Bowl sports betting history

Updated Feb. 8, 2023 9:02 p.m. ET

Twenty years ago, the city of Las Vegas couldn’t even buy ad time during the Super Bowl. In 2010, the NFL softened slightly, allowing for advertising, but there could be no gambling references and no images of gambling – not even clips of the iconic Las Vegas Strip.

Since then, the relationship between sports betting and the NFL has improved. But even just five years ago, no one could’ve anticipated what will happen Sunday at Super Bowl LVII.

A Super Bowl will be contested not only in a state that offers legal, regulated sports betting – Arizona – but in a stadium that literally has a retail sportsbook on its grounds.

When the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles kick off at 6:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app, it will mark the first time a Super Bowl has been played in a state that allows people to legally bet on the game – even from their stadium seats, if they choose.

It’s quite a quantum shift, much of it in just the past half-decade. Those five years mirror Casey Clark’s tenure with the American Gaming Association, and even Clark – whose trade group helps represent the interests of the U.S. gaming industry – is stunned by the speed with which sports betting, and the NFL will reach Sunday’s milestone moment.

"This has really happened remarkably quickly," Clark said.

From One Market to 33

Clark joined the AGA in September 2017, shortly before the Supreme Court heard the case to overturn the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). New Jersey wanted in on legal, regulated, single-game sports betting – previously the domain only of Nevada, due to PASPA.

On May 14, 2018, the Supreme Court struck down PASPA, terming it an unconstitutional violation of states’ rights based on the 10th Amendment. That decision led to the expansion of legal, regulated sports betting across the country. Inevitably, that expansion was going to occur in a state that hosted a Super Bowl. Now, it has.

"We should stop and realize how quickly this market has come to life," said Clark, senior vice president of the AGA. "We had one market 4 ½ years ago, in Nevada. Now, we have 33 markets. More than half of American adults can bet from home."

And they can do so with the protections that come from a legal, regulated market. Clark isn’t oblivious to the fact that outside of Nevada, millions of Americans were betting on Super Bowls – and the NFL in general, along with every other major sport – long before PASPA was overturned. Whether with a local bookie or with unregulated offshore sportsbooks, Americans’ appetite to get down on the Big Game wasn’t suppressed.

"Americans have been betting on sports for a really long time. All of this activity was happening in the shadows less than five years ago," Clark said. "They now have the ability to bet legally. Only in the last five years have we begun to unlock the safeguards in the marketplace."

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Veteran of the Game

For Johnny Avello, it’s been far more than a five-year process. Avello booked games at sportsbooks up and down Las Vegas Boulevard for 33 years. For the past four-plus years, he’s been the director of sportsbook operations for DraftKings, which now operates in 20 states across the nation.

One of those states is Arizona, where DraftKings Sportsbook has a significant presence this week on Super Bowl Radio Row and beyond.

"It is a milestone. It’s DraftKings’ fifth Super Bowl, and the first time it’s in a legal state," Avello said, while noting the two teams participating are either within or border legal jurisdictions. The Eagles hail from Pennsylvania, one of the first expansion states post-PASPA strike down. The Chiefs are actually based in Missouri, but just across the border from Kansas, one of the latest states to legalize sports betting.

"That really helps this year out even more," Avello said, before getting back to Sunday’s big first for the NFL and sports betting. "I’m not surprised now, having seen the way this has evolved. But from where we were seven or eight years ago, I’m very surprised."

Avello credited the NFL for adapting to a changing time and changing attitudes toward sports betting.

"At one point, the NFL looked at us as the bad guys," Avello said. "But once we showed them how it worked in Las Vegas, they had a whole different outlook on the business. They saw the opportunity and wanted to be a part of it."

And as Clark noted, from an integrity standpoint, it was in the NFL’s best interest to work with the legal sports betting industry.

"The NFL has put out a really great product for a long time. They want to see the protections of a regulated market be applied to their product, as well," Clark said.

Outside Looking In

Jason McIntyre, FOX Sports Betting Analyst and co-host of The Herd with Colin Cowherd, is not in the sports betting industry. Rather, he’s a consumer of the product, someone who enjoys sports betting and appreciates it as an entertainment option.

McIntyre said that with the PASPA strike down and expansion of legal betting, the NFL recognized a revenue opportunity when it saw one. But in so doing, the NFL not only shed its antiquated views on sports betting but also helped improve the public image of it.

McIntyre said sports betting was previously seen as something that takes place in dark backrooms filled with cigar-chomping bookies and bettors. That image was hard to overcome prior to PASPA’s fall, despite many within the industry rightly pointing out that sports betting in Nevada was the gold standard in legal, regulated operations.

Now the NFL has sportsbook partners, and, it can’t be stated enough, a Super Bowl taking place at a stadium with a retail sportsbook.

"They’ve destigmatized sports betting," McIntyre said of the NFL. "It was not a good connotation before. Now, the NFL has softened that reputation. It can be entertaining. Not everybody has to have $20,000 bets on the game.

"It can be fun. Everybody wants to have fun. Everybody enjoys having some skin in the game, in the same way that March Madness is with the brackets. People love betting on the NFL."

Indeed they do. The NFL drives the American sports betting bus, and the Super Bowl is in the front seat as the most-wagered-on single-day event in the nation. This year, the AGA estimates that 50.4 million American adults will bet on Super Bowl LVII, a 61% increase from 2022. And the total amount wagered – be it on typical sports bets or as part of pools with friends or Super Bowl squares contests – is estimated at a whopping $16 billion, more than double that of Super Bowl LVI.

Betting on the Game, at the Game!

Right in the thick of Super Bowl Sunday festivities will be the BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium. Located just outside the entrance and right near where thousands will tailgate, the two-story sportsbook/sports bar has 16 betting kiosks and four in-person teller windows.

"We’re right in the middle of it," BetMGM vice president of trading Jason Scott said. "I think given our location, you’ll see a lot of people drop in Sunday and have a bet and a burger and a beer."

Having arrived from the Australian sports betting market in 2019, Scott hasn’t been at this American game nearly as long as Avello. But he echoed both Avello’s and Clark’s sentiments on Sunday’s Super Bowl being a landmark achievement for the U.S. betting industry and the NFL.

"The growth and the spread and acceptance of sports betting in this country has changed markedly in the past few years," Scott said. "We’re not only accepted, we’re in demand with all the advertising mediums. And in more than 30 states, we’re now an accepted part of the community.

"Perhaps it’s a little surprising with the speed. But what hasn’t surprised me is the hunger and the thirst our customers had for sports betting. It was always there, but it was underground."

The convergence of the Super Bowl and a sports-betting state serves to bring the industry even more above ground. For Scott and his peers, that’s an important part of the process.

"We’re looking to expand in a responsible, sensible manner," he said. "I think the quicker we can bring money onshore – there’s still a lot of money going offshore; it’s hard to quantify – the better it is for the consumer."

Related to that, the AGA’s Clark noted the importance of a responsible gaming message from all stakeholders.

"We’ve made an investment in content to make sure we have an educated and informed bettor," Clark said, specifically noting widespread buy-in from the NFL and other major sports leagues in the AGA’s "Have a Game Plan, Bet Responsibly" campaign.

Viva Las Vegas

No question, the Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl is the highest-profile event so far to be contested in a legal U.S. sports betting jurisdiction.

"I think it will only help to grow sports betting nationally. It’ll hasten the growth," Scott said. "It’s a great thing for the NFL and a great thing for us to be part of it."

Added Clark: "We’ll continue to see sports betting grow, particularly when you bring the Super Bowl to a legal betting market. More than one-third of NFL fans say legalized betting on sports has made watching an NFL game more exciting."

That’s what makes next year’s Super Bowl even more appealing. For the first time, the Big Game will take place in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Raiders. It’s quite a 180-degree turn from the days when Vegas couldn’t even buy time for a Super Bowl commercial.

"This year, to have it in a state where sports betting is legal is great," Avello said. "But next year, having it in Vegas, that’s something I thought I’d never see."

Many people see this year’s first-ever confluence of the Super Bowl and sports betting as the ultimate milestone. But not McIntyre, in kind of a "hold my beer" statement.

"I would say not yet. I think the milestone will be when it’s in Las Vegas," he said of a Super Bowl in the shadow of the Strip. "I’m very much looking forward to that one. Vegas is the gambling oasis. This year is probably the test balloon. Give it a shot in Arizona, see how it goes, and next year, Vegas will be ready to go."

FOX Sports' Vikas Chokshi contributed to this article.

Patrick Everson is a sports betting analyst for FOX Sports and senior reporter for VegasInsider.com. He is a distinguished journalist in the national sports betting space. He’s based in Las Vegas, where he enjoys golfing in 110-degree heat. Follow him on Twitter: @PatrickE_Vegas.

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