How To Find Legal Super Bowl Betting Sites For Chiefs vs. Eagles
The Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events in the world, so naturally, sportsbooks look to pick up new customers interested in placing a bet or two on the game.
There is a problem, though. Not all of those sportsbooks offering Super Bowl odds and enticing promotions are legitimate operations and licensed by US regulators.
The majority of US jurisdictions offer legal sports betting, consisting of 38 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Yet for every legal household name, like DraftKings or FanDuel, there are offshore sportsbooks known even by non-bettors that can dominate search results and add new customers just as easily as the legal books.
Use this guide to make sure that any bets you place on the Super Bowl and beyond are with legal, regulated sportsbooks.
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Bet on the Super Bowl with regulated operators
One thing offshore sportsbooks do to sound more legitimate is to include in their FAQ pages that they are licensed operations. This typically is not a lie, but it also does not tell the whole truth.
International licenses do not apply to gambling in the US. Any website that is legal for gambling in a state will be licensed and regulated by that state’s gaming board. These legal sites typically display the logo or information of the regulating body on their homepages, so look for that information at the top or bottom of their landing page.
Pay attention to language and location. If the website does not say it is licensed and regulated by a local government agency, it is likely an offshore and prohibited sportsbook.
No crypto at US sportsbooks
One of the easiest ways to identify an illegal sportsbook is if it accepts crypto for transactions.
There are no legal US sports betting websites that allow you to use crypto to deposit or withdraw funds.
Those waters are a bit muddied by the recent decision from Crypto.com to offer sports markets for trade on its platform. It may look and sound like sports betting, but it is technically commodity trading, which is regulated by a federal body.
Location sharing needed to bet on Super Bowl 59
Another easy way to identify if a site is legal is if it requires a bettor’s location before accepting a wager.
US sportsbooks rely heavily on geolocation technology to make sure their platforms do not take bets from outside of particular state. A bettor must be physically located in a legal state to place a bet. Attempting to place the bet from out of state will tell bettors they are not within the geolocation boundaries of the app. Using a VPN will also lead to a failed transaction.
Interstate gambling is illegal under the Wire Act, which says using any type of wire communication, like phones or the internet, to transmit bets across state lines is illegal.
Sign up before the big game
Do not wait until too close to game time to sign up and place your bets. While sportsbooks have improved their Super Bowl operations year after year, there always remains the possibility of something going wrong.
That could be overloaded servers that are making it longer for new customers to create accounts. Or it could be on the user’s end, where some of their “know your customer” information is not checking out the way it should. Sportsbooks typically have chat help waiting for those types of issues, but given it’s Super Bowl Sunday, there could be a lengthy wait to get help.
