The numbers are staggering.

And impossible to confirm.

But the intelligent estimate is that 200 million people throughout the world have placed bets totaling $5 billion on a football game that's scheduled to be played this evening in Miami.

Not all of the money, of course, has been wagered legally, which is one of the reasons it's impossible to get a handle on the handle for Super Bowl XLIV between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints.

But you can be sure it's X times M to the nth degree.

In Nevada, where sports betting is legal, the bookmaking operations in the state's casinos expect to see about $90 million in action.

Internet operations, legal or quasi-legal depending on how they operate, will see about $2 billion, according to industry estimates.

The rest is anybody's guess.

"Your volume's going to double, maybe triple," said Johnny B, who has been in and out of the sports betting "business" in Philadelphia and South Jersey for the last 20 years.

"I was small. I used to do about $100,000 a week," he said. "Super Bowl, I'd do about $200,000."

Everyone, he said, wants a piece of the action.

Regular customers are trying for one last big score or trying to make up in one game for all they've lost during the season.

"It's get even . . . or get even worse," said a South Philadelphia gambler named Jack who said he has been in that position.

(Nearly everyone interviewed for this article requested anonymity or wanted to be identified by his first name only because bookmaking is illegal outside Nevada.)

There are first-time, novice gamblers caught up in the excitement of the event. And invariably, Johnny B said, there are women who don't understand or care about football, but who have a husband or boyfriend who has turned the game into a social event.

Shaking his head and rolling his eyes, Johnny B talked about women who would bet $50 on a team because they liked the quarterback, liked the team's colors, liked the nickname.

"Now the boyfriend or the husband is betting $5,000 the other way because he's trying to make up for everything he's lost all year, and she's screaming and hollering the whole game because she has $50 riding on it," he said. "Next thing you know there's yellow tape around the house and it's a domestic crime scene."

Another bookie called the Super Bowl "amateur night" and said neither the real gambler nor the experienced bookmaker is crazy about a one-game event.

"Gamblers like to win, but most of them, what they really like is the action," he said.

Someone running a sports book "wants as many bets as possible. That's how you make money."