A Guide to Prop Betting on the Super Bowl
James Asimes
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Sports
As television's greatest annual spectacle descends upon us this Sunday, the New Orleans Saints take on the favored Indianapolis Colts in a match-up of the best teams from their respective conferences. Unfortunately, assuming you're a fan of an NFL team, you only have about a six percent chance of having a rooting interest in the Super Bowl. Those fans without a team to root for can only hope for a close, competitive game, and even this is not always guaranteed. What are fans, especially those perennially rooting for Cleveland and Buffalo, to do to add more excitement to the Super Bowl?
Theoretically speaking, if gambling were legal in most states, a fan could place a wager on the outcome of Super Bowl. This would surely increase the stakes of the game, and hopefully would add a little more excitement, but why stop at only one bet on the final outcome?
Proposition, or "prop", betting lines are available on everything from scoring events, penalties, time outs, coaches' challenges, defensive plays and even the coin toss. The most common prop bet concerns which team will score first. New Orleans has about seven to four odds to score first, while Indianapolis is favored to score first at only ten to six odds. The highly efficient Colts offense is even more favored to score last, at seven to four odds, while the odds of the Saints scoring last are a tidy two to one. While many of the available prop bets are relevant to performance in the game, some border on the absurd, such as the outcome of the coin toss. (If you were wondering, both teams have even odds of winning the coin toss at just below two to one, the same odds that are available on the coin toss coming up heads or tails.
While betting lines are also available on the MVP of the Super Bowl XLIV - Colts quarterback and commercial actor extraordinaire Peyton Manning is the favorite by a wide margin at seven to five odds, and the second favorite is Saints quarterback Drew Brees at 28 to one odds.
Here are a betting lines that are mildly absurd:
The Gatorade dump on the winning head coach is an age-old tradition, possibly even older than Gatorade itself. For Super Bowl XLIV, let's put the odds of there being a successful Gatorade dump at seven to five.
No Super Bowl broadcast would be complete without a myriad of cuts to celebrities in the crowd. Kim Kardashian, fiancé of Reggie Bush, is not only sure to be in attendance, but also to receive at least a few minutes of camera coverage. Eli Manning, former Super Bowl champion quarterback and brother of Peyton Manning, is likely to receive the same treatment, even though he is harsher on the eyes than Kardashian. The odds that the cameras will find Kardashian before the younger Manning brother are slightly in favor of the reality-show star, with odds around three to two.
Looking for more on sports from James Asimes? Go to www.tweaksports.blogspot.com
Theoretically speaking, if gambling were legal in most states, a fan could place a wager on the outcome of Super Bowl. This would surely increase the stakes of the game, and hopefully would add a little more excitement, but why stop at only one bet on the final outcome?
Proposition, or "prop", betting lines are available on everything from scoring events, penalties, time outs, coaches' challenges, defensive plays and even the coin toss. The most common prop bet concerns which team will score first. New Orleans has about seven to four odds to score first, while Indianapolis is favored to score first at only ten to six odds. The highly efficient Colts offense is even more favored to score last, at seven to four odds, while the odds of the Saints scoring last are a tidy two to one. While many of the available prop bets are relevant to performance in the game, some border on the absurd, such as the outcome of the coin toss. (If you were wondering, both teams have even odds of winning the coin toss at just below two to one, the same odds that are available on the coin toss coming up heads or tails.
While betting lines are also available on the MVP of the Super Bowl XLIV - Colts quarterback and commercial actor extraordinaire Peyton Manning is the favorite by a wide margin at seven to five odds, and the second favorite is Saints quarterback Drew Brees at 28 to one odds.
Here are a betting lines that are mildly absurd:
The Gatorade dump on the winning head coach is an age-old tradition, possibly even older than Gatorade itself. For Super Bowl XLIV, let's put the odds of there being a successful Gatorade dump at seven to five.
No Super Bowl broadcast would be complete without a myriad of cuts to celebrities in the crowd. Kim Kardashian, fiancé of Reggie Bush, is not only sure to be in attendance, but also to receive at least a few minutes of camera coverage. Eli Manning, former Super Bowl champion quarterback and brother of Peyton Manning, is likely to receive the same treatment, even though he is harsher on the eyes than Kardashian. The odds that the cameras will find Kardashian before the younger Manning brother are slightly in favor of the reality-show star, with odds around three to two.
Looking for more on sports from James Asimes? Go to www.tweaksports.blogspot.com
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