The sportsbooks in the state of Nevada stayed busy this past weekend as Super Bowl 50 brought in a record number of punters. On Monday, the Nevada Gaming Control Board released the figures from the 194 sportsbooks that are licensed in the state, showing a total of $132.5m wagers taken for Super Bowl 50, beating the previous record set by the Super Bowl XL VIII of $119.4m.
Betting ranked third in the all-time win totals just behind the $19.7m of 2014 and $15.4m from 2005. 10.1% of the Super Bowl wagers were retained by the books, which is higher than the 16.5% that was earned in 2014 and 2.8% from 2015. With the results, it marks the eighth consecutive year that the sportsbooks have been able to turn a profit during the Super Bowl since 2008.
Early action showed favor towards the Carolina Panthers but by Wednesday, bettors began to lean towards Denver. Once kickoff began, sportsbooks were reporting that the action was evenly split. This year, prop bets were popular, with signs pointing to as much as 60% of the total wagers coming from prop bets.
For the first time ever, sportsbooks took bets on the most valuable player and bettors took advantage. The winner was Von Miller, a player who had odds of 40 to 1 with William Hill US before the influx of wagers pushed the odds to 12 to 1. Other sportsbooks had him as high as 60 to 1 odds of winning MVP.