Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans can enjoy their team’s distinction as the first ever to play the Super Bowl in its own city when Raymond James Stadium hosts Super Bowl 55, as the Bucs host the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs.

What Bucs fans can’t enjoy is a convenient option to bet on the game. The closest legal sportsbooks for fans in the Tampa Bay area are many hundreds of miles away, at southern Mississippi’s riverboat facilities or at tribal casinos in western North Carolina.

RELATED: Where Chiefs Fans Can Bet on Their Team in Super Bowl 2021

For fans in New England, where Tom Brady’s presence assures even higher interest in Super Bowl betting than normal, it’s a brighter story.

New England Super Bowl Betting Options

Brady, the legendary quarterback who led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles, will be the star attraction for the Bucs against the Chiefs. Any New Englanders who are still diehard Brady fans even after his departure – or folks who still can’t believe he left the Pats and are inclined to bet against him – can get NFL betting action in New Hampshire or Rhode Island.

Those small states are the best options in New England, except perhaps for fans in southwestern Connecticut who can trek to New Jersey and enjoy dozens of online sportsbook options in the nation’s most lucrative sports betting state.

Rhode Island has two physical sportsbooks: Tiverton Casino Hotel near the East Coast and Twin River Casino in Lincoln, in the north (thus closer for Massachusetts residents). But NFL betting fans either wanting to ride Brady or wanting to fade him don’t have to physically go to either casino.

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Rhode Island mobile sports betting is legal throughout the state after Gov. Gina Raimondo waived the state’s in-person registrations requirement in summer 2020. So now, especially in Massachusetts or Connecticut, all folks have to do is be physically located in Rhode Island to register.

As for New Hampshire, there are no casinos but there is statewide mobile sports betting, exclusively through Boston-based DraftKings. The sportsbook has two physical locations in southern New Hampshire, in Seabrook and Manchester, fairly close to Massachusetts.

Push for Massachusetts Sports Betting

Legalizing sports betting in Massachusetts has been a long slog (though there is more progress there than in Florida, where Brady actually plays). There’s a decent chance that the state could make legal sports betting happen in 2021; Gov. Charlie Baker is in favor and so are all of Boston’s major pro sports teams.

Like most states dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Massachusetts faces a budget shortfall and that could help sports betting legislation gain momentum. It just won’t happen in time for Pats fans to support Brady by betting on the Bucs in Super Bowl 55, or to place a wager on the Chiefs to bet against him.