It is that time of year again. As Super Bowl season 2025 is now in its winding down phase, the analysis in the aftermath of another iconic NFL heavyweight clash begins pouring in.
Alas, the Kansas City Chiefs were rather unceremoniously de-throned last Sunday by the Philidelphia Eagles, ending their two-year reign at the top of the NFL. However, as is always the case in this type of big matchup, the scoreline does not quite tell the full story. Now, Gambling Insider takes a deep dive into data provided exclusively by Betby on the betting habits of players during the game.
The teams: An Eagles upset
Any team going up by 34-0 in a Super Bowl can be reasonably defined as an upset, as such domination in a match between the best two sides in an NFL season is rare. This, however, was the score on Sunday 9 February 2025 going into the third quarter, with the Chiefs failing to have registered on the scoreboard.
While this Chiefs side has shown that it is more than capable of Super Bowl comebacks in the past, the mountain was by this stage too steep to climb – with the game ending 40-22 to the Eagles. The dominant nature of the game was a surprise to many; however, an Eagles win was – according to Betby’s data – also unpredicted by most.
Indeed, The KC Chiefs dominated the wagering landscape in the build-up to the game, with data revealing that the side accounted for 59.45% of bets placed, alongside accounting for 61.26% of the overall money placed by bettors on each of the two teams. This, paired with the fact that the winner market was by far the most bet on by players, suggests that the Chiefs were heavily backed going into the showdown.
Overall, pre-match wagering reigned over live bets once again, accounting for 74.42% of the bets placed on the Super Bowl. However, despite live bets only making up 25.58% of total bets, live turnover accounted for 30.39% of the overall turnover figure - suggesting that higher value bets were being placed during the match.
The players: Barkley steals the show
When a man who is frequently name-checked as one of the greatest Quarterbacks of all time is on the field, it would be a reasonable expectation for him to be in the limelight of betting traffic. Surprisingly however, Patrick Mahomes was not the most bet on player of the 2025 Super Bowl, as traffic on the Eagles’ Running back Saquon Barkley slightly outweighed Mahomes’.
As evidenced above, Barkley accounted for not only 14.94% of bets placed on players, but also 19.94% of the money placed on those players.
Barkley’s high engagement figures could be explained by his position on the field – a point which is most clearly exemplified by observing the most popular player markets.
As shown below, Player touchdowns was by far the most popular player market for bettors wagering on the Super Bowl, accounting for 25.34% of bets and 34.47% of turnover – indicating that players were betting big on the number of touchdowns. Further, the second and third most popular markets were player rushing yards and player receiving yards, respectively – whereas passing yards from the quarterback position came in at the fifth most popular market, accounting for just 5.57% of wagering turnover.
The markets: Winner takes it all
More broadly, observing the wider markets, it will come as no surprise to learn that – as previously mentioned – betting on the winner of the game was a highly popular vertical for players at the Super Bowl.
Overall, wagering figures on the outcome of the match accounted for 44.24% of bets, alongside 64.40% of turnover – completely eclipsing all other markets. Interestingly, while handicap only accounted for 5.75% of bets, it did account for 11.52% of turnover, highlighting that players were happy to bet big in this area.
The antithesis of this was player touchdowns, which accounted for a virtually identical number of bets as handicap (5.74%) but only made up 1.86% of overall turnover figures. Similarly, player rushing yards only accounted for 0.60% of turnover despite making up 2.92% of bets, with player passing yards making up just 0.30% of turnover, despite accounting for 2.05% of bets.
