In A Bizarre Twist, Illinois Sportsbooks Were Not Allowed To Take Off-Field Super Bowl Bets

As if it hasn’t been challenging enough for the gambling industry to work with restrictions that change often regarding COVID-19 safety. Then the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) steps in and puts restrictions of their own up preventing those bettors who like a little bit of fun action along with their serious bets from taking advantage of numerous Super Bowl props. What made the IGB move even more painful for sportsbooks in the state was that Super Bowl 55 was the first NFL Championship Game that legal betting was allowed to take place on. Even if you are just a casual gambler, you should know that Super Bowl is the granddaddy of all betting activities in the sporting world. 

What Was Allowed 

Marcus Fruchter, the IGB administrator, explained in the days before SuperBowl 55 that betting was only going to be allowed on “activity directly within the control or jurisdiction of the NFL and/or individuals subject to the NFL integrity policy.” But what did that really mean? Well, if you are one of those gamblers who like to play the novelty prop bets, you’d be out of luck during this year’s SuperBowl event. According to Fruchter, it was “imperative that sports wagering be conducted with the highest standards of integrity, and without any appearance or possibility of potential impropriety.” so unless you were dropping cash on standard football bets, you’d be out of luck.

What Wasn’t Allowed

Well, if we are going to talk about novelty prop bets, we should probably give you some examples of a few of the off-field lines that bettors outside of Illinois had access to. You may wish to sit down for these as they are most certainly off-the-wall but represent a small number of the unusual bets that tend to be part of SuperBowl Sunday.

Another Poem By Amanda Gorman

Gorman stole the spotlight during the Presidential Inauguration ceremony last month when she reciting a poem she wrote titled “The Hill We Climb.” She was once again front and center before SuperBowl started. Prop bets related to her appearance revolved around what the first word will be in her new poem. There was also a line on how long her poem was going to take to be read and which of the honorary captains she mentioned first. 

Making History At SuperBowl

SuperBowl

SuperBowl 55 was a ground-breaking event on numerous fronts but one of the most visible of them was Sarah Thomas. She became the first-ever female official to participate on-field during a SuperBowl. Prop bets on her historic first were many. Some of them were, shall we say, way off the scale of integrity that IGB administrator Fruchter mentioned. Others were a bit more fun such as the lines that were in place for how she wore her hair. Your choices were “up in her hat” (+175) or “down in a ponytail” (-250).

High-Fives All The Way ‘Round

High-fives tend to be a common prop bet during SuperBowl and Tom Brady gets the credit for inspiring this unusual bet. You may recall that when the Buccaneers extended their lead over the Saints in the NFL Divisional Round that Brady attempted to complete a high-five with the game referee. The prop bet was whether or not he tried to do it again during SuperBowl 55. The “yes” bet had +650 odds and the “no” bet sat at -1400.

Illinois Entered Super Bowl Weekend With Another Record

Talk about adding insult to injury. According to the IGB’s monthly stats, the state of Illinois set another record in November for the handle collected through the eight sportsbooks in operation. That’s quite significant when you consider that legal sports betting has been active in the state for less than a year. In that time, gamblers have dropped just about $1.4 billion on sporting events ranging from soccer and football to basketball and motorsports. The November total handle was more than $449 million which was higher than the previous record of $435 million set in October 2020. So obviously online sports betting is a trending new industry that would have exploded during SuperBowl 55. We’ll have to wait until those stats are released to know for sure, but as popular as in-field wagers would have been, novelty off-field bets would have helped increase the handle. Sadly, that will never truly be known but can be speculated from all different angles.

Why It Matters

The sports gambling landscape in Illinois has encountered, and weathered, several difficult hurdles within days of becoming legalized in March 2020. COVID-19 restrictions quickly went into place that saw casinos closed for several months. With online sports gambling as one of the new options, bettors had to register in-person at a land-based casino to open their online betting account. COVID restrictions forced a change in that guideline which permitted Illinois gamblers to register remotely online. That proved to be a smart move based on the betting action that currently takes place online in Illinois. The IGB stats released for November 2020 show that almost 97% of all wagers placed in the state were processed online. Football happened to be the biggest draw during that month with a betting handle of $253 million. That was close to five times more of the betting activity that went to the second-highest sporting event that month – soccer.

Summary

Illinois has embraced sports betting and turned it into a major industry in less than a year. With football collecting more of the wagers leading up to SuperBowl 55, the IGB placed restrictions on the types of bets that would be allowed during the NFL Championship Game. Bettors were only permitted to place bets on in-field activities which ruled out several of the novelty prop bets that accompany SuperBowl and add a little more fun to the game of gambling. So if you had planned on betting whether or not game official Sarah Thomas had her hair in a ponytail, you couldn’t place that wager within the state of Illinois. But you could still bet on who would win the game.

 

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