The first football meeting between Florida and Miami in five years — and the first since legal sports betting launched in the state — shows fans staying true to their schools in a heated and storied rivalry.
Hard Rock Bet produced an electoral map of sorts to detail the betting patterns, breaking down how each of the 67 counties in the state of 22 million has monetized opinion from Pensacola to Key West.
Not surprisingly, Miami-Dade County has been a major swing district for the Hurricanes. With the most residents of any county in Florida and the home turf of the school, Miami-Dade leads all jurisdictions in bets placed on the winner. And the locals are not wavering on the home team, with 77.2% betting on a Hurricanes victory, as of Friday, at -115.
As is the case with fandom in Florida, Gator and Florida State mania permeates the peninsula, but Miami mania is more localized. Wagering on the Canes goes south as the map goes north.
According to Hard Rock Bet:
- 72.5% of bettors in Broward took Miami
- In Palm Beach County, 59.7%
- In Martin County, 54.1%
Gators, Hurricanes Carve Up Florida Map
Blatant homerism wagering is not just a South Florida phenomenon.
Hard Rock Bet, noting that its data scrape had been taken “before any out-of-towners attending Saturday’s game [in Gainesville] could skew it,” found that 85.9% of bets in Alachua County, where the Gators’ campus is located, were on Florida. The Gators were +135 on the moneyline and a 2.5-point underdogs as of Friday afternoon.
And don’t dare stroll in Lafayette County – population 8,226- bragging about your Hurricanes parlay and waving around your sports betting app. According to the complete Hard Rock Bet analysis, 99% of the bets from the Gainesville-area county are on the Gators to win.
But what is to be made of Gilchrist County? Wedged between Alachua and Lafayette, it was split down the middle.
And way up in the Panhandle is plucky Okaloosa County, brandishing its Hurricane green at 50-50 also.
Hard Rock Bet is the only legal sports betting option in Florida, having weathered numerous legal challenges to its monopoly granted through the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s compact with the state.
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