Super Bowl Props and Content Recap

As a sports bettor, arriving at the annual gap before Super Bowl week means three things:

1. A major season of betting (Football!) is coming to an end.

2. Your aunt that “watches” one football game per year is downloading her first sportsbook to make a big game bet.

3. A seemingly endless slew of prop bets are available to browse and bet, creating fun for casual bettors and major bankroll opportunities for sharps.

My process for Super Bowl betting typically involves a lot of time identifying appealing angles and props, and then betting at the best lines I can find.

Last year this paid off, to the tune of a 63% ROI on the big game, as per my Juice Report:

As the Robin hood of sports betting, taking from the books and giving to the bettors, I’m excited to share tips to make your Super Bowl Sunday fun and profitable.

Today we’ll review past content that I’d recommend reading (or re-reading) to build a strong foundation for winning Super Bowl betting.

Then I’ll share some prop betting tactics and strategies to capitalize on the highly public nature of this game.

Finally, as always, we’ll conclude with our bets of the week, including early Super Bowl props as well as college basketball happening tonight.

Let’s get after it.

Build Your Betting Foundation

Whether you’re an infrequent bettor who loads up just for the Super Bowl, or a daily bettor who wants to get sharper, here is the most useful content I’ve written since September to get ready for Super Bowl Sunday.

The Basics:

1. Understand “house edge” on different bet types and how to calculate it

2. Why betting at multiple sportsbooks and shopping for the best line reduces house edge and makes you more money

3. How to tell if a betting trend is worth your attention

Specific Tactics Relevant to the Super Bowl:

4. Maximizing new player bonuses when you open a new sportsbook

5. Betting over/unders skillfully and key numbers

6. Everything you need to know about parlays

7. What is “ladder betting” and how to do it well

I recommend using this no football week to at least skim the content above – it should pay dividends on your Super Bowl Sunday betting outcomes!

Now let’s talk about unique aspects of the big game and how to bet props more skillfully.

The King of Betting Events

Causal bettors treat the Super Bowl differently than any other event, by a lot.

• $25 billion (!!) is expected to be bet on this year’s Super Bowl, up from $16 billion in 2023.

• 70 million Americans will bet on the Super Bowl, more than 26% of the adult population.

• 2.5 times as many people bet on the Super Bowl as compared to a typical NFL week.

• 50% of the Super Bowl betting handle (dollars bet) will come on prop bets.

Due to this massive influx of public money, sportsbooks protect themselves by shifting odds to capitalize on predictable human tendencies.

Laying Long Odds, or Betting the ‘No’

Public bettors gravitate toward certain types of wagers.

The same bias that makes parlays so popular shows up heavily in the Super Bowl: casual bettors prefer to risk a small amount of money for a chance to win big.

This manifests in outsized betting on long shot props.

Bettors figure it’s not a big deal risking $20 and hoping to see a game that has a safety, or a defensive touchdown, or the legendary octopus.

It’s also more fun to root for an unusual event rather than hope it never happens.

To illustrate this, let’s use Juice Reel to review current lines on whether or not the Super Bowl goes to overtime:

Besides a professional bettor (or some sort of hard core misanthrope), who would risk $2000 to win $100 that the Super Bowl ends in regulation?

“Yes” bets on these long-odds props outnumber “No” bets by quite a bit, and the odds drift away from fairness because Super Bowl bettors are not at all price sensitive.

I have found a lot of value historically betting against the masses on the “No” side of these props. You’ll find yourself rooting for a boring vanilla game, but it beats cheering for chaos and taking the bus home.

Let’s look at another common Super Bowl props opportunity.

Middles and Arbitrage

Due to the number of props being offered, and the extra money coming in from public bettors, the Super Bowl sees an usually wide spread of lines, odds and vig between sportsbooks.

This means more opportunities to bet against a minimal house edge, play both sides of the same wager at different books, or even start with the advantage in your favor.

An example of 0 house edge shows up in this Jalen Hurts Touchdowns Prop:

Betting $180 on under 1.5 passing TDs with DraftKings wins you $100. You could break even betting the exact opposites, $100 on over 1.5 passing TDs at FanDuel.

Opportunities for a “middle” bet occur when two books offer different lines for the same prop, and you’ve got a reasonably likely chance of winning both.

Let’s look at the lines for Travis Kelce’s Super Bowl receptions:

DraftKings lets you bet under 6.5 catches, while Fanatics offers an over bet at 5.5 catches and similar vig.

Were you to bet $100 on each of those options, you’d create the following range of outcomes:

• If the total receptions is 5 or less you lose $27.54

• If the total receptions is exactly 6 you win $143.89

• If the total receptions is 7 or more, you lose $28.57

You’d synthetically create a +510 bet on Kelce catching exactly 6 balls, so if you believe that’ll happen more than 17% of the time, your bet has a positive expectation. This middle calculator is a great easy tool to expedite the math above if you’re exploring middle betting opportunities.

To be clear, I’m not endorsing any specific bets amongst these examples, but it’s important to shop lines, get creative, and take advantage of the chance to get paid to have fun in this unique annual opportunity.

Bet(s) of the Week $$

Our NFL analysis continues to pay off as we went undefeated again last week, with a 2-0 record winning 2 full units (!!).

Despite rushing for 60 yards on his first carry, Saquon Barkley finished at 118 rushing yards for the game, under the record setting total of 128.5 we wagered on. In the late game, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs lived up to their billing, doing just enough to win a closely contested game and return to the Super Bowl.

Since starting the newsletter, bets given out in this section are ahead 13.3 units, at a positive 32% ROI. A $100 bettor would be ahead $1,330 if they made all of these bets!

We’ll continue to update this regularly.

Based on my research, I am making the following bets this week:

• University of Illinois -3.5 on FanDuel @-115 for 1 unit

I follow Big Ten basketball closely as a University of Wisconsin graduate. This year’s Illini have been mercurial, losing some surprising games at home and blowing teams out on the road. I like them to overwhelm a struggling Nebraska team behind their superstar freshman and likely lottery pick. I also like betting at a point spread where any two possession game delivers a win.

• Under 49.5 in the Super Bowl on BetMGM @-110 for 1 unit

Much more on the Super Bowl next week, but a bet I’ve already made is under the total of 49.5, at a line that I do not anticipate climbing to 50.

5 of the past 6 Super Bowls have gone under the total, and the public “yes” betting we detailed above also applies to “overs”, so I’m going the other way.

Next week we’ll finalize our Super Bowl bets in a deep dive extravaganza!

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