Bettors did better and casinos did worse than usual on the Super Bowl this year: The Nevada Gaming Control Board reports that just under $87.5 million was wagered on Sunday’s game and sports books ended up coming out ahead by $724,176.
Although betting was up from the $82.7 million wagered on last year’s game, the casinos’ profit of less than 1 percent is far worse than the casinos usually do.
The only time in the last 10 years that Nevada casinos have lost money on the Super Bowl was the Giants’ upset of the Patriots in 2008, when the casinos lost a collective $2.5 million on $92 million bet. Other than that year, the Packers’ 31-25 victory over the Steelers (in which Green Bay covered the spread and the teams’ total of 56 points reached the over) was the worst Super Bowl for casinos in the last decade.
For the casinos, the best Super Bowl of the last 10 years came in 2005, when bettors wagered more than $90 million and casinos came out ahead by more than $15 million when the Patriots beat the Eagles.