Nevada has led all states in Super Bowl weekend handle each year since 1976 when the first modern sportsbook opened in the United States. There are claims out there that New York will break Nevada’s long streak this year, and this will undoubtedly be aided by William Hill’s Nevada app crashing just before kickoff of Super Bowl 57.
At the time of writing, William Hill’s NV app had been down for almost 24 hours, and they still had yet to restore the app’s functionality. Super Bowl Sunday was the absolute worst time for this to happen, and will surely have an impact on Nevada’s statewide handle, as William Hill has perhaps the most widespread presence in the Silver State. Nevada was projected to generate approximately $163 of the nation’s expected $1 billion in legal bets over the weekend, about $10 million more than the state of New York. Final numbers have yet to be posted, but you can expect the margin will be closer than this $10 million figure with the app outage. While William Hill customers were able to get most of their pre-game bets off, this outage obviously impacted their ability to get their wagers in mid-game, which has become a huge part of the overall sports betting picture in the US.
It is truly a terrible feeling for an online sports bettor when they cannot access their account (and their funds!), and an outage of this scale could have a substantial long-term effect for bettors who want nothing more than to be able to place a bet from their cell phone. William Hill released a statement saying that there was no ETA on when the app would be fixed, and customers were still not able to get their money out at retail sportsbook locations, as they were down across the board. In 2021, there were multiple sportsbooks who went down for a brief period due to high amounts of traffic, including BetMGM, Barstool, BetRivers, DraftKings, and FanDuel. It is not currently known why the William Hill NV app crashed in the first place, but it can almost definitely be attributed to high traffic levels. Given the time and duration of the crash, this can only be described as a catastrophic outcome for Will Hill. In the coming years, local Nevadans, as well as visiting out-of-state residents, will recall this period when William Hill was unable to process wagers for the biggest annual sporting event, and that may lead to them taking their business elsewhere.
