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Super Bowl XLIII: Public Bets

Who is the general public supporting in the Super Bowl?  If early bets are any indication (and they usually are) it appears that the Arizona Cardinals are garnering the majority of the support in this year’s big game.  So far the percentage of public bets on the Super Bowl on the Arizona Cardinals +7, according to multiple online books, is somewhere between 55% and 58%.  This obviously isn’t an overwhelming number, but what I do find interesting is the percentage of public bets (I use public bets as a general term, “public bets” simply means all bets placed.  There really isn’t data available on what percentage of bets are casual bettors and what percentage of bets are by professionals) on the Arizona Cardinals +200 money line.  This shouldn’t be surprising, since rarely does the favorite in the Super Bowl win and not cover the spread, but I was a little shocked to see 89% of the money line action on the Cards.

There are many schools of thought on who exactly “the public” is, and how exactly to use any information about them.  First of all, it’s important to remember that sportsbooks aren’t stupid.  They are providing percentage of total bets placed, not the percentage of money on one side or the other.  For example, you might have 5 people on the Steelers betting $20 a piece and 5 people betting on the Cardinals at $200 a piece.  The % of bets on the Cardinals is 50%, but the % of money is 90.1%.  See how this can be misleading?  Books aren’t going to provide that information, because that would ultimately be a more valuable tool for bettors.

Sportsbooks, and believe me I’ve heard this debated for years, are trying to get 50% of the total money bet on each side of the game to collect their fee (vig, juice, whatever you want to call it) with minimal risk.  Now, there are people that will swear on their mothers that this is not true, and while I cannot prove my assumptions with any hard facts, it doesn’t make much business sense for a sportsbook to be betting on games themselves.  It’s a common myth that Vegas or books have some kind of insider information that sets them up to get paid off huge while you’re left wondering how in the world you could have lost.  The game looked so easy!  Books do not really have any idea who is going to win or lose the game, but they do predict the score up to a point, then set a line that seems reasonable as far as public perception goes.  The trick is setting the line so an equal number of people say, “Pittsburgh -7 is a winner!” and “Arizona +7 is a winner!”.  Apparently, the books have done a pretty good job this year as their hasn’t been much of a line movement.  Several books have moved to Arizona +6.5, which means they probably received some heavy early action on the Cardinals, but whether or not that is smart money or people were just taking advantage of the key number remains to be seen.

We have Super Bowl picks on the big game this year!  Beat the Super Bowl odds this season with Locksmith Sports Picks.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Super Bowl XLIII Picks & Predictions
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• Super Bowl Betting Recap
• Arizona Cardinals Super Bowl Predictions

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