$325 million. That’s the legal handle that PlayUSA.com is predicting will be wagered on Super Bowl LIII. Nevada will have the plurality of bets, some $160 million, with New Jersey seeing $100 million in action, including online wagers. The nascent Pennsylvania sports-betting market will generate $30 million, followed by Mississippi ($17.5 million), 
West Virginia ($10 million), Delaware ($5 million), Rhode Island ($1 million), and New Mexico ($500,000, all from one casino). The Silver State, which set a record last year will surpass its own $158.5 million high-water mark and should hold $1.2 million of the money bet (which shows you why high sports-betting taxes make no sense). Of the Garden State, PlayNJ.com analyst Dustin Gouker predicted, “The excitement of being able to legally place a bet for the first time in New Jersey, an intriguing matchup with two high-powered offenses and plenty of star power, and the proliferation of proposition bets, should all combine to make for an impressive total.” And while we’re on the subject, PR Newswire, just call it the Super Bowl, not the pusillanimous “NFL’s Big Game.”
Point-spread bettors be warned: The Los Angeles Rams have a dreadful record of covering the spread this season. Perhaps that is why the overwhelming percentage of action is on the New England Patriots. Meanwhile, reinforcing its message of why sports betting should be legal, the American Gaming Association released its own estimate of Super Bowl handle: $6 million, including black-market action. Using its own survey, the AGA predicted that 22.7 million Americans would bet and 52% of their 
action would be on the Rams. Almost 2 million would bet illegally with an untold number more using offshore bookie sites to place wagers. In his first public statement as AGA prexy, Bill Miller said, “These results, however, also point to the continued viability of the dangerous, illegal sports betting market in America. It is more important than ever for jurisdictions to enact sound policies that provide a safe, legal alternative with protections for the nearly 23 million Americans who will place a bet on the big game.” (It’s the Super Bowl, Bill. Ask the ghost of Lamar Hunt about it.)
The AGA also referred readers to an earlier, Nielsen Sports survey that predicted the NFL could earn a season-long $2.3 billion from sports betting, led by “$1.75 billion in new revenue from increased consumption of the league’s products.” Spending by betting operators and data providers would generate another $573 million, while the likes of DraftKings would spend $451 million on advertising, and sponsorships would engender an extra $92 million. “Legal, regulated sports betting will create huge new revenue opportunities for sports leagues – and the NFL could be the biggest winner of all,” said AGA Senior Vice President Sara Slane at the time.
* If you were along the Las Vegas Strip at the right moment last week, you might have seen pieces of the Hard Rock Hotel marquee being driven past. Although the giant sign 
is gone from the HRH, it will live on at the Neon Museum. Restoration service is being donated by Young Electric Sign Co. (so big thanks to Yesco), which will put the six sections of the sign back together and reinstall the lighting. Kudos to everyone involved in preserving this memorial to an era in Vegas history.
* Sometime Las Vegas fixture Andrew Dice Clay is caught doing stand up at the Tropicana Las Vegas in a New York Times reconsideration of his place in our pop culture. Working with Woody Allen in Blue Jasmine did wonders for Clay’s image and the NYT finds him on the way to becoming a well-regarded character actor, a reinvention at age 61.
* If you’re planning a Las Vegas trip well ahead of time (let’s say two months out), you’ve got a window of opportunity to see James Turrell‘s art installation “Akhob,” hidden away on the top floor of CityCenter‘s Louis Vuitton store. It’s one of the few Las Vegas spectacles that’s absolutely free to the public. As for the experience, AtlasOscura rhapsodizes, “The effect created is one of giving your eyes a gentle, soothing bath in the most brilliant colors imaginable. Vibrant hues shift imperceptibly from one to another, bleeding in and out of each other on a cycle that lasts 24 minutes. At times, the precise combination of colors makes it nearly impossible to find the door through which one had just entered.” You’ll find the necessary contact information here.
As for Turrell, he’s moved on to even bigger things. His new project is an “immersive observatory” inside a dormant Arizona volcanic crater. The goal is to “inspire transdisciplinary approaches to creativity.” At the moment it’s way off the main drag and open only by invitation. One of the installations in a 900-foot, “mind-bending” pinhole camera/tunnel.
