Research from the brain trust at Sportshandle.com has shown what could have been: Super Bowl Sunday could have seen $400m in sports handle for California and Ohio... if only the two states had legal sports betting.
Teams from the two states – the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals – will be facing off this Sunday at Super Bowl LVI. The game is to be held at the SoFi Stadium in the City of Angels.
In Ohio, where there is an abundance of joy due to the fact this is the Bengals’ first appearance in the NFL championship game since 1989, analysts believe that the handle would have reached $100m, with $7m in gross gaming revenue, and tax revenue as high as $700,000.
In California the numbers are significantly higher, but then, California is the most populace state in the country and nearly four times the size of Ohio. Here, they believe that $300m would have been wagered for a gross gaming revenue of $21m and a potential tax revenue of $2.1m.
The next time Ohioans see one of their teams in the Super Bowl might be another 30 years away (or 60: the Cleveland Browns haven’t been there since 1965), but, rest assured, by then, you will be able to place a legal bet there.
In December of last year, Governor Mike DeWine signed a law which set in motion the arrival of mobile betting.
The rules are currently being drawn out but betting must be live no later than January 1, 2023.
Betting in California will follow a slightly more tortuous path: tribal retail betting is on a ballot initiative next November but the possibility of mobile wagering is still awash in uncertainty.
Presently, sports betting is live and legal in 30 states, as well as Washington D.C. Since last year’s NFL Championship, the number of people able to legally bet has grown massively. Indeed, in the last year, Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming have launched legal sports betting.
