Super Bowl props are packed with traps and opportunity. Use these three practical rules to compare prices, avoid bad markets, and make sharper prop bets.
Back to VideosCruising in Superbowl 20, already up 37 to 3, the Chicago Bears handed the ball to 335 lb defensive lineman William "The Refrigerator" Perry to punch it in from the one. And that's how modern Superbowl betting was born. So, how did we get from the fridge to prop menus that roll on like a CVS receipt? And more importantly, how should you approach those deep prop menus every year? Today, I'm going to show you three tips for going big on big game props and why there's one key thing that The Fridge taught us about Superbowl betting.
But, how did we get here? Well, part of the answer is just because the Superbowl is the biggest spectacle in American sports and even the most casual fans who never bet all year want a little action on it. The other side of the equation is it's a little bit of Las Vegas history.
See, coach Mike Ditka had used The Fridge as a fullback a handful of times during the year. He ran for two touchdowns during the regular season and that's what gave Caesar's Palace Sportsbook director Art Manteris the idea to offer 20 to 1 that Perry would score against the Patriots in the Superbowl. The public couldn't get enough. They bet the line all the way down to 2 to 1. When Perry slammed his way into the end zone in the third quarter, Caesar's was on the hook for a reported $250,000. The genie was out of the bottle. Prop bets blew up to the point where today they make up about 80% of the Superbowl betting market.
And when there's that much surface area that the sports books have to defend, there are openings for sports bettors. Especially if you understand what makes the Superbowl different from any other event on the betting calendar, which is the massive influx of public money. Typically, the market is shaped by sharp bettors moving lines at sportsbooks. But, in the Super Bowl, sportsbooks sometimes need to protect their liability with so much public money out there. That's why my first tip is to know if the prop you like is betting with or against public sentiment.
There's a simple way to figure this out, too. In the Super Bowl, people love to see something happen. That impacts their betting. The public will be all over the overs and betting on yes on things to happen. Think anytime touchdown scores or the first pass to be a completion. But, if you're fine betting on things not to happen or betting on unders as a lot of sharps are, you'll probably find the best bets on the day of the game. As always, line shopping is the single sharpest thing that you can do.
Line shopping Super Bowl prop lines can be tough, but we've got a free prop odd screen that you can use at Unabated to compare the lines on over 200 prop markets. Once you have them lined up in front of you on your screen, you should study up on this next tip. How many different ways can you bet Super Bowl props? That's not a trick question. You don't have to go through FanDuel and count every line. Once you start to group together each type of prop, there are five basic categories they all fall into, and each of them has their own strategy for the best way to attack them.
That's why my second tip is simply know your prop types. First up are game props. These are props based on something happening in the field of play during the game.
Will there be a safety? Will there be a two-point conversion? Will there be a score in the first 5 minutes? These props are largely already solved algorithmically. There's not as much value in these as there once was now that books offer these bets every week. We know, for example, about how often a safety happens. It's typically once every 20 games over the last five seasons, but the yes safety price is around 10 to 1.
Now, for years the public was always on the yes at any price because they love to see things happen. So, betting the no safety became a popular play for sharp bettors. Then, there were three safeties in four years about a decade ago.
And now it's tough to find a fair number on either side. If you're going to find a weakness in game prop lines, it would be in analyzing these two teams individually and then finding where they might operate outside the established norms for an NFL game. And look for spots where you're betting against things to happen. The next prop type is player props. There's an expanded amount of player prop angles for the Super Bowl. You can bet on a player's performance for the game or maybe just for their first carry or reception. Line shopping for the best line is still key, but it can also help you spot inefficiencies. You want to avoid one-way bets, though.
These are the bets where you can only bet on the over, never the under. They can be attractive due to their longer odds. However, more often than not, you're not getting anywhere near the value you should on one-way props. Next comes a favorite of casual bettors, the novelty prop.
Some states have laws which restrict props to events that happen on the field of play. So, some of the more esoteric and wacky novelty props exist only in faraway sportsbooks outside the US. Length of national anthem, color of the Gatorade, the first song played by the halftime act. You'll find limits are low on these type of props because inevitably, someone knows the outcome before it happens. The national anthem gets practiced, the color of the Gatorade leaks, halftime acts are carefully scripted. Maybe you have a way of finding out this information and maybe you have a way of getting down serious money on novelty props. Otherwise, just use these for fun conversations at your Super Bowl party.
And then we get to index props. Now, these are multi-way props where you make a wager based on a range of outcomes.
For instance, a quarterback yards passing. Can you pick the correct 20-yard bucket? These can be harder to line shop, and you do need to be careful about increased house edge being baked into a multi-way market like this. Finally, are cross-sport props.
Now, these are props where you're betting on something in the Super Bowl and betting it against something to happen in an entirely different sport from games of Saturday night or earlier on Super Bowl Sunday. Here's why I think these can be sneaky good. The casual better doesn't want to try to figure out the answer to two questions rather than one. The sharp bettor also sees this as more work and saves their analysis until late in the weekend when all their low-hanging fruit has already been harvested. I've got a shortcut for you when it comes to cross-sport props. Look for fragile versus anti-fragile outcomes.
So, what does that mean? Well, look for things where the bet won't get derailed due to injury or rare events. For instance, Nikola Jokic free throws made in a game versus the number of points scored by one of the teams in the first quarter. Now, Jokic might have a slight edge in expected points, but Jokic could also get injured or get into foul trouble or have an off night. The football team is still going to get a couple of first quarter possessions, and the effect of injury derailing their effort is far less. Cross-sport props aren't able to be line shop too easily, but they're a great example of how sports book spelunking can be a very profitable pursuit.
But first, I promised I'd tell you about how the refrigerator fits into all of this.
Remember when I said that the fridge had two rushing touchdowns on the year back in the 1985 season? Well, he only had seven rushing yards. Perry was a situational gimmick for coach Ditka to break out every so often. And that's what happens in the playoffs, but in the Super Bowl especially, coaches love to use every last inch of their playbook in order to find plays the opposing team might not have seen on tape. Just ask Tom Brady. When you pair up that knowledge with an understanding of public money, like I mentioned in my first tip, this is where you can find excellent value, sometimes at great plus money prices.
That's because one of the other mistakes the public makes is to handicap games based on what they've seen in the preceding two or three playoff games that a team has played. A player with a standout performance in conference playoffs always gets bet up on their prop market. They're letting recency bias fool them into thinking they know the game plan based on watching a couple of playoff games. But, if you can figure out the third-string running back or wideout who might get a carry or make an unexpected catch, you can start to assign a probability by looking at things like projected plays, target shares, and snap counts.
If you can identify a player who's underrepresented in the market just because the market thinks a team won't change up its game plan from the regular season to the Super Bowl, you can be the one cashing at 20 to 1 and shuffling into the sunset with your money.
