Ahead of Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, the leading independent, pragmatic voice on gambling policy, Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG), announced details regarding a new study, highlighting the prevalence of illegal betting on the popular game.

The new survey was commissioned by the CFG to the recognizable technical intelligence platform, Yield Sec, and sought to deliver insights regarding the legal and illegal betting activities on the popular American football championship game.

Majority of the Super Bowl bets to go via illegal bookies

Despite the statewide expansion of sports betting, which is available to customers in 38 states and D.C., the newly released study predicted that an overwhelming majority of the Super Bowl LIX wagers would go down with illegal operators.

Per the Yield Sec study, the total wagers on this year's Super Bowl are expected to hit $6.4bn.

This total translates to the expected wagers via illegal and legal gambling operators across the country.

Concerningly, the study outlined that an estimated $4.8bn or 75% of all bets are expected to be placed with illegal operators.

The study estimated that 429m bets would be placed on Super Bowl 2025 and 68% or 292m of those bets across the country would be with illegal gambling operators.

Yield Sec's recently released report estimated that legal wagers on the Super Bowl this year would amount to only 25% or $1.6bn.

According to the newly released data, this result is "demonstrating the continued dominance by illegal online gambling across the US illegal operators are set to siphon nearly $5bn of taxable wagering away from the marketplace."

Post-event report is expected to be released soon

Ismail Vali, Yield Sec's Founder and CEO, explained in a statement: "Last year, Yield Sec predicted Americans would place $5.4 billion in online bets on the big game, of which just $1.4 bn would be bet legally. We were right."

The executive added: "And, if we are right on the legal number, then we are right on the illegal number. The Yield Sec platform uses an apples and apples methodology for looking across all of the audience, all of their activity, all of the time."

The Campaign for Fairer Gambling's Founder, Derek Webb, spoke about the importance of understanding gambling trends affecting the entire industry.

"Yield Sec has an exceptional ability to estimate the total market, including legal and illegal participation," he added.

Webb criticized gambling supporters for "misrepresenting the benefits of legalization," in the context of the growing illegal gambling sector.

Finally, he said: "The American economy and American consumers are paying the price."

While Super Bowl 2025 wrapped up on Sunday, CFG confirmed that a post-event report with insights is expected to be published in the upcoming weeks.

The post-event report is expected to uncover further details, raising awareness about the scale of the illegal gambling industry across the country.

Image credit: Pixabay.com