It goes without saying, but whenever the Super Bowl arrives, it means plenty of business is coming for the Las Vegas sportsbooks and the ones all over the state. However, with a decline in tourism numbers of late, it looks like things are impacting wagers as a whole. That’s because the news came in that Nevada sportsbooks posted the lowest Super Bowl betting handle in 10 years, which is concerning.
That’s right, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, there was a total sports betting handle in the state of Nevada of around $133 million. This was the lowest amount bet on the game since the 2016 Super Bowl, which surely caught local officials a bit off guard. So, why the low numbers? Again, we think tourism impacted things here in a negative way.
With such a low handle, it should come as no surprise that the total sports betting revenue for the Super Bowl was around $9 million. While normally this would be a lot of money for a state, that’s not the case for Nevada, as much bigger numbers have been posted in the past. So, $133 million for a total handle and only about $9 million in revenue? That was the case for the game between the Seahawks and Patriots, which is disappointing.
To put things into context, a total sports betting handle of $151 million was posted in 2025, with $22 million in revenue. That means nearly $20 million less year over year, with around $19 million less in the total revenue as well. It goes without saying, but this was a down year for Super Bowl betting for Las Vegas and Nevada, which will hopefully not be the case next year too.
Looking at things, there’s no question the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl had a negative impact on the Las Vegas sportsbooks. This was no shocker, as once Seattle won the NFC Championship Game over the Rams and the Patriots took down the Broncos in the AFC Championship Game, the Seahawks opened as 4.5-point favorites. Because of this, plenty of money went on the Seattle moneyline and the Seahawks delivered for their fans.
While the game started off a bit sloppy and things were tight in the first half, the Seahawks were able to pull away a bit in the second half. The fact that no touchdowns were scored early also had the sportsbooks sweating, but Seattle and New England changed that in a big way in the final 30 minutes of play. With the Seahawks dominating too, it hurt the local sportsbooks in terms of payouts.
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As for the 2026 Super Bowl, you’ve got to give credit to the Seahawks for getting the job done, as not a lot of people thought Sam Darnold would be able to pull things off and lead Seattle to its second Super Bowl title in franchise history. He did, with running back Kenneth Walker taking home the Super Bowl MVP honors, which was of course a huge honor for him.
So, how are things going to go down next fall? It’s important to remember that the Seahawks are early favorites to win the 2027 Super Bowl, with the NFC West powerhouse hoping to repeat as back-to-back title winners for the first time in franchise history. This of course is not going to be easy for Darnold and Co., as the Chiefs, Eagles, Packers, Rams and others are going to do whatever is needed to prevent that.
The good news for Seattle here is that they’re going to return plenty of talent on both sides of the ball. Walker is expected to hit free agency, but with the NFL Draft coming in April, the reigning Super Bowl champs could look to add a young running back early in the draft – that’s been a recipe for success for teams in recent years and Seattle could look to replicate things that way.
Per the best online sports betting sites, the Seahawks have been given +750 odds to win the title once again. The Rams are right behind them at +800. It will be interesting to see how next season goes down, but there’s going to be a little extra pressure on the sportsbooks in Las Vegas and Nevada to bounce back betting handle wise and with the revenue numbers. Only time will tell if that happens or not.
