January 26th, 2022, YouGov
Each year on a Sunday in early February, much of America’s focus turns to the Super Bowl - regardless of football fandom - making it the biggest domestic sporting event, the biggest television event, and the biggest gambling event of the year.
A new YouGov poll reveals how America’s Super Bowl gamblers intend to place their bets, what factors are most important to them and on what aspects of the game they’re keen to wager.
For starters, 10% will place a bet on the Super Bowl this year, marking a slide from last year. Compared to this time last year, a higher proportion of those who plan to wager on the Super Bowl will place bets at an online sportsbook (45% in 2021 vs. 50% in 2022) or an in-person sportsbook (15% vs. 14%). Survey results show significantly fewer in this group will enter friendly wagers with family or friends, such as squares or pools (63% vs. 42%), perhaps indicating a passage away from this type of informal betting and towards more commercial offers.
This year’s halftime show is packed with five rap and R&B titans – Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar. The halftime festivities generally attract some wagers, such as what song is played first or whether an act makes a surprise appearance. However, fewer respondents this year indicated they intend to place money on the show, with 15% saying so compared to 25% in 2021.
As fewer gamblers plan to place bets on the theatrics around the game, more intend to bet on the game itself compared to last year (82% vs. 77%).
Commercials remain a huge draw to the game as well – for some the main reason for tuning in – and 10% of Super Bowl gamblers intend to place a bet on some aspect of the commercial breaks (roughly the same as last year at 14%). Common bets include how many commercials will air, or which quarter will broadcast the most commercials.
Finally, we see some movement in what factors Super Bowl gamblers believe are important when choosing where to place their money. A plurality believe their hunch or feel is the most important factor (25%); however that figure is down five points compared to last year (29%). General understanding of a team’s previous results is important to a sizable portion (14%), as are the odds (23%), both of which are more important factors than they were last year.
Other factors gamblers view as the most important include team support (11%), promotions available (11%) and tips they’ve received (5%).
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Methodology: YouGov polled 1,200 US adults online on January 24, 2022. The survey was carried out through YouGov Direct. Data is weighted by age, gender, education level, political affiliation, and ethnicity. Results are nationally representative of adults in the United States. The margin of error is 2.8% for the overall sample. Learn more about YouGov Direct.