Football fans are placing huge Super Bowl bets at Coast casinos. How much could they win?
Coast casinos are busy accepting bets on the Cincinatti Bengals or Los Angeles Rams to win the Super Bowl this week, but lost what is believed to be the biggest mobile sports bet ever placed.
Just how much is being wagered and which team is in the lead at the 12 casinos hasn’t been calculated.
“As I’m sure you can imagine in this part of the country, we are seeing fans betting heavily on the Bengals and Joe Burrow,” said Mary Cracchiolo Spain, spokeswoman for the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino. Burrow was quarterback for Louisiana State University before leading the Bengals into the Super Bowl.
Two large bets placed at the Beau Rivage were made on the opposing teams, Spain said. One is a $50,000 wager on the Bengals to win and it would pay $1 million, plus the original wager. The other is $10,000 on the Rams, which would win $120,000.
The sportsbooks at the Coast casinos will be busy Sunday, with the televisions tuned to the Super Bowl and in-game bets — like if the coin toss land heads or tails — being placed throughout the contest.
But Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale chose to make his landmark bet closer to home. He drove from Texas to Louisiana to bet $4.53 million on the Cincinnati Bengals to win the Super Bowl.
Louisiana just launched mobile sports betting on Jan. 28, and McIngvale drove 100 miles from Houston to a convenience store just across the Louisiana border. He used Caesars Sportsbook app and had to keep upping his bet because the app wouldn’t let him bet that much at one time.
Those from South Mississippi will recall how, in October 2019, McIngvale arrived at DraftKings at Scarlet Pearl Sportsbook in D’Iberville with a briefcase full of money. He placed a $3.5 million bet on the Astros to win the World Series — then returned to Scarlet Pearl a few weeks later to place another $1 million wager on Houston for a total of $4.5 million.
He also stopped at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi on his second visit and placed a $600,000 wager on his team, Spain said.
The Astros lost that year, but McIngvale continues to place large bets, which he said brings him great public relations for his Gallery Furniture store in Houston.
McIngvale likely wouldn’t have driven on to Mississippi to place the bet, even if the state had mobile sports betting. The latest bills to legalize online sports betting died in committee last week because about five of the casino owners in the state are not in favor of it, said Casey Eure, House Gaming Committee chairman.
A survey by the American Gaming Association says a record number of bets will be placed on the game, totaling $7.61 billion, or $3.3 billion more than on last year’s game.
Gambling foot traffic was up in 2021 at at least five Coast casino sites.
