Super Bowl Success in Las Vegas: How Football Has Embraced Gambling
Super Bowl LVIII was a success by almost all measures unless you’re a San Francisco 49ers fan. A total of 61,629 fans watched the Kansas City Chiefs claim the Vince Lombardi Trophy after a defensive battle opened up in the fourth quarter. With the cries of jubilation and sorrow all but faded, analysts have been sifting through what’s left of the first Super Bowl in Las Vegas.
A Win for Football
What they’ve found are a number of highlights. Getting 61,629 fans into Allegiant Stadium was an admirable feat, but it didn’t quite break the Super Bowl attendance record of 103,985. The game did break the all-time viewership record, though. As reported by CNN, the broadcast averaged 123.4 million viewers in the US. In Canada, almost 50% of the population (19 million people) watched all or some of the game.
The Super Bowl is always popular; we know that. The fact it took place in Las Vegas this year may have something to do with it. Football has become intimately attached to the gambling industry both in the US and Canada over the last five years.
It started with sports betting, but it has since spread to the casino gaming world. If you go online and look through a top casino’s gaming lobby, you’ll find football-themed slots, as well as blackjack and roulette games.
Football Found its Position
This link-up isn’t the only reason Super Bowl LVIII was a hit, but it certainly hasn’t hurt football’s profile. Data from Statista shows that the US gambling market was worth $23 billion in 2023. Based on this, a PlayToday report estimates that 155 million people in the US have gambled online at least once.
Expanding out across North America, the report also states that 19 million people in Canada gamble online. That’s a lot of people potentially playing games such as American Football Premium Blackjack or betting on the Super Bowl. What will be interesting to see is how much of an impact the Super Bowl in Las Vegas will have on this budding relationship between football and gambling.
Will there be more casino games based on football? That’s certainly possible.
As it stands, the latest craze in casino gaming is crash games. Alook at crash games’ mechanics in Canada, will reveal that the premise is relatively simple. An object starts moving, and as it does, a prize multiplier increases. Players have the option to cash out whenever they want. The object crashes at random, so if a player hasn’t cashed out before that happens, they lose their stake.
The market for crash games is growing rapidly, and already, there are sports-themed games like Penalty Champion and Big Bass Crash. Based on this, there’s no reason a football-themed crash game couldn’t become popular.
The Bonds Get Stronger
If that happens, it’s yet another bond that ties together football and gambling. That could lead to virtual football betting games. Many of the top online casinos in the US and Canada currently offer virtual sports betting.
These simulated games cover all manner of sports, including soccer and tennis. Therefore, it’s totally possible that American football could appear in various guises. Again, that would only strengthen the relationship between football and gambling, which appears to be a mutually beneficial one.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “I think I got the message about doing the Super Bowl again in Las Vegas”
— Vincent Bonsignore (@VinnyBonsignore) February 12, 2024
(Pretty much inevitable it will be back here)
The Super Bowl taking place in Las Vegas wasn’t a coincidence. Yes, it was mainly prompted by the Raiders relocating and making Las Vegas a football city. However, it’s important to look at why that move happened. What’s more, it also seems to make sense for the NFL’s Roger Goodell, who has already hinted that the Super Bowl will return to Las Vegas.
Money fueled the decision, but there’s now an undeniable link between football and the gambling industry. Vegas is the home of gambling, so a move made sense. That’s the biggest signal yet that football and gambling have formed a strong bond.
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