Super Bowl Spikes, Everyday Risk

While restaurants and retailers spent most of Super Bowl Sunday worrying about keeping chips, wings and beer on tap and the shelf, compliance leaders know there’s another strategy being played out – at the checkout and on the doorstep. The surge in fake IDs, and the pressures they place on frontline workers, raises legal risk and reputational exposure. In fact, our technology has detected as many as 10x more fake IDs on Super Bowl Sunday than an average day, something that should raise an operational warning light for retailers.

Super Bowl Sunday: A Hidden Compliance Stress Test

Events like Super Bowl Sunday, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Eve and spring break bring together two powerful forces. First, underage customers are more motivated to try to obtain alcohol or other age-restricted goods at these times. Second, our data has shown that nearly half of U.S. adults aged 18-25 reported knowing someone who has successfully used a fake ID. Third, stores and delivery platforms are running hot on these days, as volume soars, queues can lengthen, and (in some instances) new or temporary staff are pushed into these evaluative roles. Too often, these interactions come down to quick, manual checks that need to be made in seconds, and with little supervisory backup. It’s not a great experience for frontline workers or for customers.

Consider this scenario:  It’s 4 p.m. Kickoff is approaching. A new associate is covering a register, as a line of customers begins to snake down an aisle. A group of college-age customers approach with armfuls of beer and hard seltzer. The first ID looks plausible but unfamiliar. Meanwhile, the next customer in line begins to sigh, and the one behind them begins to mutter. The associate doesn’t want to make a wrong decision, but also wants to keep that long line of customers happy – and in line. Do they risk confrontation, risk that sale, or possibly risk additional sales?

Rising Sophistication of Fake IDs and the Legal, Financial and Human Consequences

Intensifying such scenarios are AI advances that have made fake IDs faster, cheaper, and far more convincing to produce. As the New York Times documented in this story last year, IDs can mimic government-issued IDs with clarity that is difficult to spot during routine checks. Nevermind the fact that manual checks introduce human variability and bias, as different associates make different calls on these snap decisions.

The consequences of an underage sale can be severe. Delivering alcohol to minors is a serious issue. Punishments include revoked licenses and fines as high as $500,000. In New York, for example, licensees charged with underage sales face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, with first‑offense fines often starting in the low thousands of dollars. Repeat violations can lead to suspension or revocation of a liquor license, threatening core revenue streams for convenience, grocery, liquor and delivery businesses. Employees or managers may also face misdemeanor charges in some jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, the human toll on staff shouldn’t be ignored. Frontline workers are being put in a situation where verbal abuse may accompany the enforcement of age-verification. This is especially true among delivery drivers. In April 2020, California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) department began running delivery stings using minor decoys. The results were stark: delivery drivers failed these checks 50–79 percent of the time, compared with historical in-store decoy failure rates of around 14 percent.

The 10‑fold spike in detected fake IDs on Super Bowl Sunday is more than an eye‑catching statistic. It functions as a stress test, revealing how fraud attempts concentrate when demand, distractions and social pressure peak. If a retailer or delivery operator’s controls struggle on that day, when workloads are highest and manual judgment is most strained, those weaknesses will likely manifest in subtler ways throughout the year. In other words, event days expose the fault lines in age‑verification programs.

Standardization and Technology as the Path Forward

Retailers, restaurants, delivery companies and similar can address this increasing challenge though through training and adopting modern technology advancements. Companies can standardize ID-check policies across every store and channel, so associates don’t have to guess. Additionally, training should go beyond basic compliance and focus on real-world situations.

On the technology side, scalable, on-device ID verification can remove much of the subjectivity. Modern software that use AI and machine learning models trained on large sets of authentic and fraudulent IDs detect subtle anomalies that are not visible to the human eye. By flagging clear results, workers can act on objective signals rather than personal judgment calls. When integrated into existing systems, scanning becomes part of the normal workflow, providing consistent and searchable records, while giving frontline workers confidence that decisions are backed by technology, not opinion. Compliance teams also benefit by receiving a clear, auditable trail of IDs scanned. 

AI‑driven fake IDs will only get better, and event‑day demand will only intensify. That may amplify considerably this summer with the World Cup descending on cities across the U.S. Restaurant operators and retailers that treat Super Bowl‑style spikes as a live stress test, responding with standardized policies, better tools and stronger audit trails, will be far better prepared for both the next surge and the everyday grind.