Whether it’s to support our favorite team or simply make the game more interesting, betting and the Super Bowl have always gone hand in hand.
But while most of us can get an adrenaline rush from having a few hundred bucks riding on the big game, what about celebrities with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in their bank account? Part of the rush of gambling is risking something that you don’t want to lose, and multi-millionaire actors and athletes probably won’t get too worked up about winning or losing a bet unless they put some serious cheddar on the line.
Here’s a list of celebrities who have either been known to put some big money down on sporting events or have the rooting interests and financial resources to do so for Super Bowl 52 between the Patriots and Eagles.
If there was a prop on which celebrity will make the biggest bet on Super Bowl 52, my money would be on Mayweather.
Even if the boxer denies that he put more than $10 million on the Denver Broncos to win Super Bowl 48 (if the Broncos had won, maybe his story would be different), Mayweather describes himself as “one of the biggest sportsbook bettors in Las Vegas.” He once told ESPN that he sometimes bets millions on games, and he tried to bet $400,000 on himself in last year’s huge bout with Conor McGregor.
After taking home more than $100 million from that fight with McGregor, Mayweather’s got even more money to play with for this year’s Super Bowl.
Sir Charles makes no secret about his love for gambling. 
In 2006, he publicly admitted to losing more than $10 million in his life through gambling, including one 6-hour stint that cost him $2.5 million.
After attending the Eagles’ win over Minnesota in the NFC Championship game, the former Sixers star will probably have a tough time resisting putting some money down on the Eagles to pull off the upset against New England. Given Barkley’s track record as a gambler, you may want to consider taking the opposite side.
A lifelong fan of the Cincinnati Reds who played Rick (Wild Thing) Vaughn in the classic baseball movies Major League and Major League 2, Sheen is known more for being a fan of the diamond than the gridiron.
But, given that former wife Denise Richards once said in a sworn delegation that Sheen wagered on sports every day and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seems likely that Sheen will have something significant riding on the result of Super Bowl 52.
It’s probably no coincidence that Sheen’s former character on Two And A Half Men was always gambling on sports as well..
When Cooper played a diehard Eagles fan Pat Solatano in Silver Linings Playbook, it didn’t require much of an acting job. Cooper has bled green all his life as a Philadelphia native, a love for the Eagles that was instilled by his late father, Charles.
Cooper was captured on video singing the Eagles’ fight song with Philadelphia owner Jeffrey Lurie during a 2015 home game against the Giants, and was in the stadium again this year for the NFC championship game rout of Minnesota.
With a net worth of approximately $100 million, Cooper may be tempted to put his money where his heart is with a wager on his beloved Eagles.
We haven’t seen Reid appear in a football movie during her acting career, but that doesn’t mean the 42-year-old New Jersey native doesn’t enjoy some NFL pigskin.
A long-time fan of the Eagles, Reid may also have picked up some football knowledge in 2004 when she briefly dated former Baltimore Ravens quarterback Kyle Boller.
There’s a bit of gambling in Reid’s blood as well, evidenced by the time she sat down with Aerosmith legend Steven Tyler to play some blackjack at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel in 2002.
Although the Black Mamba has lived and worked on the west coast since he came out of high school, he’s never abandoned his Philadelphia roots. At least when it comes to football, where Bryant has always been a loyal backer of the Eagles.
In fact, Bryant can take a little bit of credit for helping the Eagles get to the Super Bowl, delivering Philadelphia players an in-person pep talk when the Eagles were in LA to play the Rams in early December.
“You have moments when you go up and down, but when the spirit of the team is a strong one, a collective one, then you have something truly special,” Bryant told an NBC Philadelphia reporter afterward. As bad luck would have it, the Eagles lost starting QB Carson Wentz for the season due to injury a few days later, and have had to rely on keeping a positive spirit ever since.
When it comes to gambling, Bryant has been known to let it ride on occasion, once lending teammate Tony Gaffney $10,000 to play with during a rookie initiation party in Las Vegas.
Although Wahlberg actually wore an Eagles uniform while playing the role of receiver Vince Papale in the 2006 movie Invincible, there’s no denying that the allegiances of the popular actor/producer lie with the Patriots.
The native Bostonian congratulated Tom Brady on the field following New England’s 28-24 win over the Seahawks in Super Bowl 49, he likely played a role in Brady’s cameo appearance in Ted 2, and he’s even got his own doppelganger on the Patriots roster in Julian Edelman.
If Wahlberg does decide to back up his love for the Pats with a big bet on Super Bowl 52, hopefully he has more success than Jim Bennett, the character he played in The Gambler. Bennett, you might recall, lost a pile of money playing blackjack before desperately trying to get one of his university students to throw a college basketball game.
Let’s lump these guys together because they’re friends, 
Boston-born actors and share mutual love for both the Patriots and for gambling.
Damon starred in one of the greatest gambling movies of all-time, Rounders, in which he played a reformed poker player who returned to the table to protect his friends from creditors and pay off his own debts. Meanwhile, Affleck reportedly lost a $400,000 hand of poker in 2001 and is known to be a heavy gambler himself.
Damon made a friendly wager with his assistant Colin on Super Bowl 49 between the Seahawks and Patriots, resulting in Colin having to wear a Patriots jersey everywhere he went for a year. Don’t be surprised if Damon or Affleck end up with more than that riding on this year’s result.
I’m probably stretching a little bit here, since Vergara has stated publicly that she is a fan of the New York Giants. Still, the Modern Family star and Cover Girl model has been spotted on the sidelines at Eagles games in the past, she may want to see a team from the NFC East win it all, and we all know fans of New York teams don’t root for clubs from Boston.
After hauling in more than $41 million in 2017, Vergara’s certainly got the resources to put a millskie down on Super Bowl 52. And although football means something entirely different in her native Colombia, Vergara could also turn to TV husband Ed O’Neill for some NFL gambling tips.
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