Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (87) runs with the ball as Houston Texans safety Calen Bullock (21) and linebacker Henry To'oTo'o (39) defend during the first half of an NFL football AFC divisional playoff game Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Travis Heying)

Whether you’re interested in the halftime performance, your neighbor’s chili recipe or just an excuse to have a little party on Sunday evening, most Americans will be tuning in for the Super Bowl. The game is the most-watched event in the country, and certainly many in Lawrence will be rooting for the Chiefs to pull off a historic “three-peat” against the Philadelphia Eagles.

But millions of Americans will also be watching with skin in the game, because of the rise of legalized sports gambling and how easy it is to place bets from your phone.

Justin Balthrop, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Kansas, said that more people place a bet on the Super Bowl compared to any other single sporting event “by a huge margin.”

“There are so many more eyes on it, so many more people will wager on the Super Bowl than wager on anything else,” Balthrop said.

Although gambling on sports has been common across the United States for years, it historically often occurred in a black market. But after a Supreme Court decision in 2018, states were allowed to legalize sports betting, and 38 states had as of last year. Kansas legalized it in 2022.

Sportsbooks have continued to grow and grow, with many companies offering mobile apps that allow users to place a bet from their phones. Last year, a report suggested 68 million adults were expected to gamble on the Super Bowl with a total of $23.1 billion on the line. Balthrop said that number is expected to increase by 30% this year.

Part of that rise in gambling is the ease of access through mobile sportsbooks, Balthrop said, but the number of things that can be bet on in the Super Bowl creates so many options. Bettors can wager on prop bets ranging from the traditional — like how many receptions Travis Kelce will have or the number of touchdowns Saquon Barkley will score — to the seemingly inane. People can place bets on the coin toss or what color the Gatorade in the traditional “Gatorade bath” celebration will be that literally last from pre-kickoff to the postgame celebration.

Having that many options means that gamblers chasing the reward chemicals that fire in the brain after a successful bet can set up bets “almost constantly” during the Super Bowl, Balthrop said. Balthrop noted that sports betting is “more than just a hobby” for him, and he understands the appeal, but that doesn’t mean it can’t cause problems.

Balthrop had co-written an article about the way that online sports betting can be more damaging than other forms of gambling. The paper found that online sports betting leads to increased betting activity, higher credit card balances, less available credit and a reduction in net investments.

Balthrop said part of that can be because of the nature of sports fans. Many avid sports fans believe they have an advantage in sports gambling compared to other forms of gambling like buying lottery tickets or playing the slots, but Balthrop said sportsbooks setting the odds have an advantage, even over knowledgeable fans.

Additionally, fandom itself can lead to irrational behavior. Balthrop, who teaches investment theory at KU — a field which works on optimizing investments — noted that when sports gambling was first legalized in the state, many sportsbooks offered introductory offers like first bets free to lure people to open accounts. He said the number one first bet in Kansas was for the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl in 2023, making fans both now financially invested and emotionally invested. Rationally, it would make more sense to hedge the bet — if your favorite team loses, at least you win some money — but sports bettors “doubled down” instead.

“These things don’t work symmetrically,” Balthrop said.

Since sports betting was legalized, Balthrop said that sports betting has become much more normalized — a huge shift from sports leagues’ previous stances. Major leagues like the NFL now have official gambling partners and gambling has turned into a multibillion-dollar legal industry now.

Although Balthrop doesn’t have an issue with people gambling, he does worry about the combination of factors that has made sports betting potentially problematic. The ability to use a mobile app to bet, instead of driving all the way to a casino or physical location, combines phone addiction with a potentially addictive activity in gambling to create “a perfect storm.” And with the fact that sportsbooks have been incentivized to increase participation in gambling, he is concerned that there can be more people who have gambling problems down the line.

“It really can be a perfect storm (for problem gambling),” Balthrop said.