Super Bowl Props
You’ve probably heard about Super Bowl props, but what exactly does someone mean when they refer to prop betting? In terms of Super Bowl betting, props are one of the most popular wagers reported by sportsbooks on Super Bowl Sunday. Prop is short for proposition betting. What this means is that a book will present you with a situation or event and the odds for that situation or event to occur. An example proposition would be, How many yards will [running back] rush for in the Super Bowl? In this case you would be presented with an over/under type of bet, but with slightly different odds. We’ll use 100 yards as our base. Odds for the back to rush for over 100 yards might be +200 (or 2 to 1), while the odds for the back to rush for under 100 yards might be -230. So you would be betting on over or under 100 yards for a particular player. In this example we’ve either got a so-so running back, a great defense, or both, since you’d get good odds for him going over 100 yards, but terrible odds for him to stay under that number, although your risk would be much less taking the under, since that is obviously the most likely outcome of the situation. A proposition bet like the example just provided is pretty common and isn’t really exclusive to the Super Bowl. Because it is such a popular event, Super Bowl odds makers stretch their props to the absolute limit. From entertaining to down-right silly, you can bet that you’ll be able to bet on a wide variety of strange propositions on this year’s Super Bowl.
Over the past several years, proposition betting has stretched past aspects of the game itself into the half-time show, commercials, even across sports. For example, in the 2008 Super Bowl you could have bet on who would score more total points, Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, or Kobe Bryant against the Washington Wizards on the same night (note: Kobe hung 30 on the Wizards while Brady tossed just 1 TD for 6 points against the NY Giants). I’ve seen proposition bets on how long the national anthem will be, odds of Brittney Spears streaking the field, and props on the half-time act smoking weed on stage, just to name a select few. The odds on these outlandish props are astronomical because they are so obviously unlikely to happen. But the fact of the matter is that sportsbooks to get action on these wagers, so why not keep putting them out? My advice to you is to pick your Super Bowl props wisely this year. Don’t get so caught up in the action that you are betting on every single aspect of the game, including the coin-flip, stick to what you know and I’m sure that your Super Bowl picks will do just fine.