FANCY A FLUTTER? AMERICANS TO BET £13BN ON SUPER BOWL
AMERICAN football lovers will splash a record £13bn on bets at this weekend’s Super Bowl Sunday, more than double the £6.2bn wagered last year.
Some 30m in the US plan to gamble on the big game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, up from 18.2m for last year’s event, according to American Gaming Association estimates.
Betfair owner Flutter said it expects to handle over 17m bets for the date, more than double the amount it processed last year and four times as many as it did in 2021.
Flutter’s US arm FanDuel has taken 177m bets over the entire NFL season so far, with the London-listed firm cashing in on loosening gambling rules in the States to offset tightening rules on home soil.
FanDuel, which is the number one operator in the US, said 60pc of punters had put their money on favourites, Philadelphia Eagles. The NFL’s flagship game normally attracts audiences of more than 100m and should provide a windfall for gambling companies on both sides of the pond.
In 2022, 1.3m Brits tuned into the Super Bowl through the BBC alone.
More than 100,000 Brits attend the NFL International Series at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London every year.
Popstar Rihanna (pictured) will also make her return to the spotlight at Sunday’s highly anticipated half-time show. The Diamonds and Umbrella singer’s upcoming performance marks the first time she will perform live since 2018 when she sang at the Grammy Awards with DJ Khaled.
Rihanna revealed she agreed to the show just three months after giving birth to her and boyfriend A$AP Rocky’s first child last May.