A record number of Americans are betting on the Super Bowl this year

• A record 50 million Americans are expected to bet on the Super Bowl.
• For the first time, the majority of bettors are projected to flock to official sportsbooks rather than making casual bets with friends.

Year after year, the Super Bowl is the US's most watched television program. But this Sunday, a record number of viewers are expected to do more than just watch the commercials.

Over 50 million Americans — or roughly one in five US adults — are projected to place a bet on the Super Bowl, per an American Gaming Association survey conducted last week of over 2,100 Americans. Bettors are expected to wager a combined $16 billion on the event, double the AGA's projected total from last year.

If you've ever participated in a Super Bowl squares contest, you might not have thought of it as gambling, but the AGA counted these people among the bettors.

For the first time, however, the AGA said it's projecting the number of traditional Super Bowl bettors — through online or retail sportsbooks — to exceed the number who bet casually with friends or through a squares contest. That's 30 million projected traditional bettors to 28 million casual, with some people expected to participate in both formats.

Legal sports betting has surged in the US since the Supreme Court paved the way for it in 2018. As of January, it's legal to bet on sports in 33 states plus DC, and it's legal — but not yet operational — in three others. Mobile sports betting in particular is only legal in 26 states.

Legalization has been a boon for states' tax coffers. New York state for instance, was on track to collect over $650 million dollars in tax revenue from sports betting in 2022, per one projection.

While business is booming, the money changing hands between casual bettors likely isn't the only money states and sports betting companies will miss out on this Sunday.

In a September AGA survey of over 5,200 US adults, 49% of sports bettors said they had placed at least one bet with an illegal operator over the past year — 15% said they did so for all their bets. The AGA estimated that these operators — which largely consist of online sportsbooks based in other countries — account for nearly 40% of the US sports betting market.

Earlier this week, Las Vegas's MGM Grand sportsbook told Yahoo that most bettors were backing the Philadelphia Eagles over the Kansas City Chiefs. The sportsbook has the Eagles as 1.5 point favorites.