- New Jersey has announced their preliminary numbers for Super Bowl LVI showing a handle of $143.7 million USD.
- Garden State sportsbooks made a profit of $7.8 million USD for a hold percentage of 5.4%.
- New Jersey sportsbooks took $117.4 million USD of action on Super Bowl LV with a profit of $11.3 million USD for a 9.6% hold.
One day after Nevada reported Super Bowl betting revenue that completely destroyed the previous record handle, New Jersey has weighed in with their numbers. The preliminary numbers out of the Garden State aren’t quite on the level of Nevada but still pretty impressive–and a record for the short history of New Jersey sports betting.
The 12 retail sports books and 24 mobile wagering platforms pulled in a betting handle of $143.7 million USD for Super Bowl LVI. This is a significant increase from last year’s handle on Super Bowl LV which was $117.4 million USD. New Jersey reported a $54.2 million USD handle on Super Bowl LIV in 2020 and a handle of $34.89 million USD on Super Bowl LIII in 2019.
New Jersey sportsbooks made $7.8 million USD on Super Bowl LVI for a hold percentage of 5.4%. As was the case in Nevada, the hold for Super Bowl LV in 2021 was higher despite the lower handle–$11.3 million USD for a 9.6% hold. At least New Jersey’s hold on the Super Bowl is trending in the right direction–in 2019 and 2020, they lost $4.57 million USD on Super Bowl LIII and $4.28 million on Super Bowl LIV. If you’re scoring at home, that’s a negative hold percentage of -13% and -7.8% respectively.
We’re going to wait until we get a more comprehensive set of revenue numbers from the relevant US jurisdictions before we make any sweeping generalizations about what these numbers mean. At first glance, New Jersey has to be very happy with the Super Bowl LVI revenue report. They’re now completely surrounded by neighboring states that also offer some form of sports betting but it sure didn’t look to have a negative impact on revenue. In particular, New York’s long term unsustainable Ponzi scheme of a sports betting racket put up some killer revenue figures in their first month of operation. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of revenue report they turn in but they’ll be hard pressed to match New Jersey. The hold percentage struck me as somewhat low in both Nevada and New Jersey given the outcome of the game–in theory, a Super Bowl result with the favorite winning but not covering in a game that goes ‘Under’ is a ‘perfect storm’ for bookmakers.
It’s important to keep in mind that the narrative of a Super Bowl money line favorite, pointspread dog and ‘Under’ total being indicative of a huge killing for sportsbooks is largely outdated. It wasn’t that long ago that the side, total and moneyline in the Super Bowl accounted for the overwhelming majority of bets with prop bets being little more than a gimmick. The game has changed completely–today, live betting and props account for the majority of Super Bowl wagering. Nevada sportsbooks took a beating on a couple of props that were heavily bet by the public and that very well could have kept the hold percentage down. I’d imagine the same thing happened in other states.
