Western Pennsylvania sportsbooks bracing for Super Bowl action

The Steelers might not be in the Super Bowl this year, but that’s not stopping Pittsburghers from placing wagers on which team might take home the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Bets are rolling in at local casinos ahead of Sunday’s game pitting the favored Kansas City Chiefs (-3, at most sportsbooks) against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with early wagers showing Pittsburgh fans seemingly split over who will win.

“Right now, it looks like it’s almost even. It looks like the money’s coming in on both sides,” said Sean Sullivan, general manager of Live! Casino Pittsburgh at the Westmoreland Mall.

Sullivan noted early bets placed at the Hempfield sportsbook appeared to be skewing toward the Chiefs. He added, however, that those numbers could change as more people place bets over the weekend at the casino, which opened in November.

“A lot of the money will come pouring in toward the weekend, and part of that is people want to read the latest and greatest,” Sullivan said. “Everybody’s going to wait and watch.”

At Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, 53% of money line bets placed at the facility by mid-week favored the Buccaneers winning, according to Andre Barnabei, vice president of gaming at Rivers. More money, almost 67%, has been wagered on the team, he noted.

Nationally, bets are expected to favor the Chiefs, according to a report from the American Gaming Association. Initial projections show 56% of wagers placed on the Chiefs and 44% on the Buccaneers, the report shows.

Still, a couple of high-dollar bets have come in on Tampa Bay.

ESPN reported that Houston furniture store owner Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale on Wednesday put down $3.46 million on the Bucs, getting +3.5 points. Another bettor in Las Vegas last week wagered $2.3 million on Tampa Bay.

While the Super Bowl is one of the largest events for sports betting, the number of people placing bets this year is expected to decline because of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the AGA, about 23.2 million Americans are expected to wager $4.3 billion on the Super Bowl this year. That’s a decrease from the 26 million Americans who were expected to wager $6.8 billion on the game last year.

The drop largely will come from fewer people placing wagers in-­person at sportsbooks. Compared with 2020, the number of people placing bets at a sportsbook is expected to decrease by 61%. Still, people are expected to turn to online betting in droves, with 7.6 million bets expected virtually, up 63% year-over-year.

Other factors impacting this year’s figures, which include legal and illegal bets, include a 21% decrease in bets placed with bookies compared with 2020. Similar declines are predicted for bets placed in office pools and squares as well as with casual bets placed with friends.

Those decreases come after years of growth for the sports betting industry across the country. Pennsylvania, now one of the country’s top sports betting markets, has seen year-over-year growth since it was legalized in the state in November 2018, resulting in sports wagers totaling more than $4.5 billion.

So far, the state’s best month came in October, when $525.8 million was wagered at casinos across the state, data show. Before October, the state’s highest month was August, when almost $365 million was wagered through sports betting.

Locally, casinos are preparing for slightly smaller in-person events because of social distancing restrictions.

Rivers typically draws a large crowd for the Super Bowl. Space on Sunday will be limited to help adhere to the mitigation orders. The number of people in the sportsbook will drop from around 230 people to roughly 100.

During the Super Bowl, additional space usually is opened up to allow for more bettors to gather at the casino during the game. This year, in place of event space that can hold up to 500 people, the facility is downsizing the a ballroom, where the number of people will be capped at 60.

At Live! Casino, an event planned for the FanDuel Sportsbook and the restaurant Sports & Social Steel City can hold up to 200 people.

Despite the restrictions, Sullivan expressed excitement over the event, the first to be held at the Westmoreland County casino.

“The Super Bowl is gigantic, or the Big Game, is gigantic to sports betting everywhere,” Sullivan said. “Every year it’s the biggest event followed by March Madness. It’s expected to be the biggest event this year. … That’s kind of exciting. This is a monster of an event.”

Barnabei added that he still expects people to turn out for the event, saying, “We expect to have a packed house and a busy weekend at the sportsbook.”