Gamblers wagered a record $132.5 million at Nevada casinos on Super Bowl 50 with an upset win for the Denver Broncos over the Carolina Panthers giving sportsbooks their highest profit in two years on the NFL showpiece.
Unaudited figures showed the value of bets made in Nevada’s 194 sports books easily surpassed the previous high of $119.4 million bet on the Super Bowl two years ago, the Nevada Gaming Control Board said on Monday.
Nevada sports books kept a combined $13.3 million from Super Bowl bets, or 10.1 percent on the action. That was more than four times greater than the $3.2 million they kept last year and the highest since pocketing a record $19.6 million in 2014.
Denver were a 5-1/2-point underdog to top-seeded Carolina ahead of Sunday’s game in Santa Clara, California, but used a ferocious defense to pull out a 24-10 victory.
Every year, the NFL championship game creates a gambling frenzy in Nevada that is considered by some to be a bellwether for the broader U.S. economy.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, editing by Nick Mulvenney)