And speaking of the Strip, despite Allegiant Stadium's proximity to it, none of the players on either the Chiefs or the 49ers are going to be staying there.

Instead, they are out at Lake Las Vegas, about 25 miles away, part of an effort to, quote, separate Super Bowl players from Vegas vice.

That's at least how the Sa n Francisco Chronicle put it.

And one of those vices, of course, is gambling, a topic that we spoke about with Matt Holt of U.S.

Integrity.

Matt Holt, CEO and Founder of U.S.

Integrity, thank you for joining us at the Westgate SuperBook, which is obviously a very attractive place to bet for fans, but it's the exact kind of place the NFL does not want any of its players.

And some think that is part of the reason why the NFL has had all of its players in this year's Super Bowl way out at Lake Las Vegas.

Do you think it's necessary for them to have the players all the way out there?

(Matt Holt) I don't know if it's necessary.

But if we look at all these amazing screens and all the money and time commitment that this property has put into its sportsbook, it just shows you how important sports are to every ecosystem, including the gambling ecosystem here in Las Vegas.

I just think with the first-ever one in Las Vegas, having them out at Lake Las Vegas, it's not just about the gambling component, but also to keep them a little bit shuddered, I think, from the hundreds of thousands of fans that are going to float through here this week.

-That makes sense.

Okay.

So since 2018, when the Supreme Court overturned that ban on sports betting, allowing states to implement it if they want, what kind of issues have you seen involving athletes betting on games?

A broad picture.

-Sure.

So if we just talk about overall issues, integrity related, we average about 15 to 20 alerts per month, half of which, a little over half, probably about 55%, turn into suspensions, bans, and arrests related to nefarious sports betting activity.

So about 100 to 125 people a year getting caught participating in regulated sports betting in some type of nefarious way.

And I think year to year what we've seen is it changes, right, in what people are trying to do, how we're able to catch those folks.

What we saw in 2023 was a huge surge of what we call "prohibited bettors."

And what most state regulations say is if you play, coach, officiate, or are a person of influence in a particular sport, you are not able to wager on that sport.

And so something as simple as a trainer betting $5 on his team or some of the players that we've seen very publicly, NFL and other leagues, who wager on their own events, that's called prohibited bettor.

It doesn't mean they're trying to fix the game, manipulate the game, but even wagering on the outcome of an event that you participate, in most states is considered a violation of those regs and league policy.

-So the 100 violations you mentioned, how would you characterize that?

Is this a big problem?

Not that big of a problem?

-Well, I think that we have the same level of nefarious activity we've always had.

We just have more transparency, more data, more availability, more of a commitment from the league and the operator side to share information in a real-time basis.

So I think the same level of activity was always happening.

I just think now we have the mechanism and means in place to catch the bad actors.

-Which is your job exactly.

-That is my job.

Exactly.

-You opened this company for that purpose in Henderson.

And, wow, how it's grown.

-Yeah, from 4 people in 2018 to 71 employees today.

-Wow!

Back to that 100 cases or so.

Of those, about how many are NFL related?

-Well, I think this past year publicly, if we just look at the publicly adjudicated cases for like prohibited bettor, I think we're at about 14 or 15.

And there were some other cases potentially that, you know, according to confidentiality and privacy issues we can't get into.

But if we just talk about the issue of 2023, which is prohibited bettor and the cases that were publicly adjudicated, I think it was 14 or 15 NFL cases.

-Okay.

-And in most cases, it was simply a player violating the league policy, wagering on NFL events or other events from an NFL facility.

-Which is, you can bet on other sports-- -Yes.

- --but not from a team facility?

-Correct.

-Or from a sportsbook?

-Yes.

-Okay.

So much is being made though about Las Vegas hosting the Super Bowl and the presence of gambling.

And oh, my gosh, all eyes are going to be on the potential for it to be fixed or influenced in some way.

For example, USA Today wrote, quote, Like Mahomes and Christian McCaffrey, integrity is ramping up for its biggest game of the season.

Your reaction to that?

-I think it's the Vegas stigma, because at the end of the day with 39 states with regulated legal sports betting, basically wherever they have the Super Bowl is going to have legal sports betting.

And Nevada is not even the number one state in terms of overall handle of sports betting.

It's New York then New Jersey.

We're like number five or six.

So there's the threat of gambling everywhere.

But at the end of the day, it's the Vegas stigma I think here, the idea it's the first ever Super Bowl in Vegas.

Vegas was always the city of sin, the prohibited den for a Super Bowl.

And so the fact that we're finally playing host, I think has brought some extra eyeballs to the gambling component.

But if we actually look at the numbers, we're certainly at no greater risk than some of the other states.

-In your many years in the casino industry, did you ever see Las Vegas hosting a Super Bowl?

-No.

I'm so proud of this city.

As someone who moved here in 2005 and watched this city sort of grow up and emerge in the sports ecosystem, I'm so excited and proud for Las Vegas this week.

-And the last thing: We spoke off camera about your biggest work this Super Bowl week and then for the Pro Bowl related to prop bets.

-Oh, yes.

-How so?

-Well, anything that's decided on a field of play can obviously be approved and offered for wagering.

And if it's not, in many states they have what we call an approved wager catalog, which are all the bet types that are approved.

Now this is the time of the year and this is the one game where we do see operators sometimes maybe push the boundaries of what they want to offer and make available to their customers.

It's our job to work with the state regulators, in many cases, to go through those props and say, Is there a heightened risk or vulnerability to the integrity of the actual wager itself by offering it?

Like, How many times will you see Taylor Swift?

At the end of the day, they may zoom in on her eight times.

What if it pans over her another five accidentally and someone's able to zoom in microscopically?

Suddenly, it's a subjective wager.

And then with the Pro Bowl what was interesting this year is several of the events were actually weren't live, but were tape-delayed.

And one of the biggest fears of any sportsbook is accepting wagers down on something that already took place.

That's called past posting.

It's not only against state regs and laws, but obviously if you knew what already happened, then you could seriously take advantage of the sportsbooks and casinos.

-Very interesting.

Matt Holt, thank you for your time.

-Thank you, Amber.

-Our Super Bowl coverage continues now from Mandalay Bay.

More specifically, we are on Radio Row, which has become a part of every Super Bowl, with dozens of media outlets setting up shop and interviewing the various athletes, celebrities, and analysts and oddsmakers that pass on through.

And I bring up oddsmakers because this is where we were able to catch up with Westgate SuperBook Oddsmaker Jay Kornegay, and talked about some Super Bowl betting specifics.

All right.

So Jay, it is Tuesday, February 6, as we speak.

Where did you open the spread at, and where are you at right now?

(Jay Kornegay) We opened San Francisco minus 2 1/2, and it immediately dropped down to 1 in about a day and a half.

Once we got down to 1, we saw a number of big plays come in on San Francisco, which drove the lineup to 2 1/2.

That's where it currently stays.

But we can see that the public is siding with Kansas City.

So once the public gets ahold of it this weekend, it might come back down.

-What about the total?

Where did you open that?

-We opened at 47 1/2, and it remains at 47 1/2.

-So you haven't taken much action on that, then?

-We've taken action on it.

It's just been very balanced action, you know, both under and over is getting plenty of support.

-Okay.

What about prop bets?

What seems to be the most popular out of the-- how many did you post?

I picked up a packet when we were just at the Westgate SuperBook.

-Yeah, there's 43 pages there.

We have just over 500.

We've certainly added a few more this year, because we are the host city and trying to come up with different things.

We just run out of time, Amber, and that's what really restricts us.

But the most popular props are not the crazy ones that everybody likes to talk about.

It's actually the simple ones that people can understand.

So the MVP of the game, the player to score the first touchdown, those are really popular props.

It feels like everybody has a ticket on those.

-What about Taylor Swift props?

You're not going to find that in here, right?

-You won't find the Taylor Swift props or the color of the Gatorade or the length of the national anthem, because they're not considered sporting events.

They're not taking place on the field of play.

So, sorry to disappoint all the Swifties out there, but I can understand that.

I mean, there's no official result of how many times they show Taylor during the course of the game.

There's no official result of the shade of her lipstick or anything like that.

It's got to happen on the field of play.

So if it's pretty much in the box score and has an official result, we can throw it up on the betting boards.

-And is that a rule only in Nevada?

-Well, as far as I know, I don't think there's a US market that will allow those type of Swifty props, but you will find them offshore or overseas in Europe and UK.

But in the United States, most likely not.

-Okay.

Now speaking of Nevada, what do out-of-state bettors need to know if they are coming here and want to bet on an app?

-Well, there's a big difference between Nevada and the rest of the country.

Nevada requires you to sign up in person at a physical sportsbook.

All the other states allow you to sign up for an app remotely so you could do it from your home, your car, at the local bar.

So when they come in, they're gonna have to sign up for an app and go to-- they're most likely staying at a hotel that has a sportsbook.

Go down there, sign up as soon as you get in either Friday night or sometime Saturday.

They don't need to wait till Sunday, because it's going to be a lot of heartburn if they wait till Sunday, because it's so crazy on Super Bowl Sunday, that they're gonna probably be second-guessing themselves if they don't sign up prior to Sunday morning.

-Do you anticipate that being a major complaint coming out of this Super Bowl in Las Vegas, that you have to physically go in person to open up an app?

-I think so because the rest of the country is very spoiled.

And I can understand that.

I mean, it's very convenient, you know, to sign up from your home or your local tavern versus going, physically going down to a local sportsbook to sign up.

I think there's going to be some gripes.

But I think once they do it, it's a very simple process.

But the inconvenience of going down physically to a sportsbook, I think we're going to hear some gripes.

-Do you think that should be changed in Nevada?

-I personally do.

I think so.

I think that the rest of the country has proven that it works.

There has been a couple of hiccups across the country.

But for the most part, I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

-Remind me of the record handle in Nevada for the Super Bowl.

When was that set, and what was it?

-It was set two years ago when we had the Rams play the Bengals, and it was set-- the record, the bar I should say, it was up to 179.8 million.

Almost $180 million was the betting record set two years ago.

-Do you think that will be beat this year?

-I do.

I would expect it to happen, but I'm not very good at predicting these, Amber.

But I do believe with all the extra traffic that we have, we have even just for our property itself over at the Westgate.

We have more VIPs.

We have more celebrities coming in.

We have more venues that we had popped up this year because we are the host city.

I'd be very disappointed if we don't break the record set two years ago.

-And last thing: You've been an oddsmaker in Las Vegas how long now?

-Oh, 37 years.

-Did you ever imagine Las Vegas would host a Super Bowl?

-Absolutely not.

The NFL was clear on their stance against sports gaming.

And that was all the way until the Raiders were announced that they were moving here.

So even prior to that, you know, days before they announced it, I was in that boat that it was never going to happen.

Once they announced that the Raiders were moving here, we knew that was going to open up the door, the expansion of sports gaming across the country.

You know, it was-- it just happened overnight.

That's kind of what we kind of chuckle about.

But our respect for the NFL prior to PASPA being overturned and after, you know, remains.

We really do respect their stance.

We're all on the same boat; we want to protect the integrity of the game.

-PASPA being the Supreme Court ruling in 2018.

Jay Kornegay, thank you for your time.

Happy Super Bowl.

-Thanks, Amber.

-From a national perspective, nearly 68 million Americans plan on betting on this year's Super Bowl, a 35% increase from the year before.