Super Bowl LIX between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs on February 9^th, 2025, at the Caesars Superdome, was the eleventh Super Bowl to be held in New Orleans, and it was not the close affair we expected! In fact, the Eagles reached an insurmountable lead of 34 points before the Chiefs managed a first score. The event boasted record peak views of around 135 million, up from 124 million last year.

It was also a record-breaking 2025 in gambling terms, with significant growth in online betting compared to last year’s, reflecting the continued expansion of legal online sports betting in the US. An estimated $1.39 billion was gambled on Super Bowl LIX, up from $1.25 billion in legal bets for Super Bowl LVIII — a growth of about 11%. This figure marks the first time the American Gaming Association (AGA) based its estimate solely on legal wagers, unlike previous years that included illegal and casual bets, suggesting the actual increase in regulated online activity could be even higher as the market shifts toward legal channels.

This year also saw at least one $1m bet and a six-figure wager on the coin flip (tails by the way).

Continent 8 customer, FanDuel, reported record-breaking activity for Super Bowl LIX, with over 16.6 million bets placed by almost 3 million customers, a nearly 20% increase in bets from the 14 million recorded for LVIII (which totalled $307 million in wagers from 2.5 million users). In New York alone, a key online sports betting market, the Super Bowl LIX week saw a handle (total amount wagered) of over $557 million, with $155 million tied directly to the game, outpacing last year’s figures. FanDuel’s handle in New York for that week was $222.2 million, and DraftKings reported $193.9 million, both reflecting robust growth.

Continent 8’s numbers

As the largest network, infrastructure and cybersecurity supplier to the US and global regulated iGaming market, Continent 8 can report its stats for Super Bowl LIX:

• 23% increase in outbound, and 30% increase in inbound global internet network traffic on 2025 game day compared to 2024.
• Internet volume was 70% Continent 8 passed to internet, and 30% Continent 8 passed to CDN and hyperscale cloud providers like AWS, Azure and GCP.
• Cloudflare represented the largest CDN source for Continent 8 customer volume of traffic at 50%, with AWS Cloudfront the next peer. Shown in the below illustration is the distributed network flow of traffic from an online sportsbook customer of Continent 8 and how the traffic reaches Cloudflare at the lowest latency journey:

• AWS Internet ASN was the largest single exchanging traffic with Continent 8, at over 8 Gbps continuous throughput, as represented in the below graph showing time peaks and colour per customer:

• In the US, Virginia and Newark (New Jersey) were the largest by volume data exchange locations, this demonstrates the significant volume of traffic exchanged with CDN and hyperscale providers.
• The event wasn’t just big in US terms, we saw significant increases in EU traffic, with Continent 8’s Dublin edge seeing the highest traffic increases.

• Of course, Continent 8 also provides private connectivity to CDN and hyperscale providers via its Cloud Exchange service, this too saw a significant increase in volume but offered customers the lowest latency, jitter and packet loss and highest availability SLA.

Being prepared for a surge in betting

Continent 8 is no stranger to supporting high-traffic sporting contests. Whether it is annually for the Grand National or Cheltenham horse racing events in the UK and Ireland, the UEFA Champions League across Europe, March Madness in the US, or every four years for the UEFA Euro finals or FIFA World Cup, we know what it takes to ensure platform uptime.

As the partner of choice for iGaming and sports betting hosting, for both operators and suppliers alike, live in 31 US states, and supporting more than 90% of the largest brands in the marketplace (EGR US Power Rankings), we have the solutions and support systems in place that ultimately give companies the confidence they need to maximise the acquisition and retention opportunities these events present.

As standard for identified special sporting events, we:

• Put a maintenance activity freeze across the network for the duration of the event.
• Have arrangements to heighten our monitoring of third-party maintenance, too.
• Align shift patterns for our SMC (first and second-line support) team for the event (see our Behind-the-Scenes blog ).
  
• Put additional escalation managers and personnel in place for shifts, offering enhanced 24/7 support.

In addition to this:

• NetOps and SysOps teams ensure and verify the capacity of the North American backbone for all major US sites and continue to monitor traffic throughout the event.
• DC Tech and Facilities teams are on hand for onsite support and remote hands engagement.

What’s key throughout is ensuring our customers are aware of all activity with notifications regularly sent such as internet and MPLS data, as well as average and maximum traffic in and out.

The Super Bowl is a huge event for sportsbooks, particularly now that the US has opened up online gambling (in varying capacity) in 31 states.

And after a very short amount of breathing space, we prepare for March Madness in the same vein!

Why Continent 8 in the US?

Live in 31 states: Our expansion in the US began with a state-of-the-art data centre in Atlantic City, enabling customers to take advantage of the online sports betting market opportunities in New Jersey, while gaining immediate access to the Continent 8 global network. Today, we are live in 31 US states, with several new sites in the pipeline.

First-to-market: We have an aggressive strategy to ensure we are the first iGaming hosting provider in state, enabling our customers to capitalise on the fast-growing and competitive US iGaming and online sports betting market. Most recently, we went live in Missouri.

Regulated and compliant: We have vast regulatory experience and a dedicated compliance team, with strong regulator relationships across states, ensuring a complaint iGaming hosting solution for each.

Growing global team: We are a global team of 300+ specialists with a local presence – we ensure we have a team on the ground in the US to help you expand.

Learn more about our trusted solutions in the US here or contact the team via sales@continent8.com