The beauty of the Super Bowl isn't just the game itself. No, with the Super Bowl, we get a million wager opportunities in one, four hour extravaganza. It's an orgy of oddsmaking and chance-taking. We're talking about prop bets, of course. Who wants to bet on the coin toss?
- Heads (-101)
- Tails (-101)
The prop bet is the sports equivalent to playing roulette. Red or black? Will he or won't he? Heads or tails? Will the Green Bay Packers or Pittsburgh Steelers win the coin toss?
- Steelers (-105)
- Packers (-105)
And sure, the coin toss seems like a toss-up. But did you know the NFC's won 12-straight Super Bowl coin tosses? Hmmm. Will the Packers continue the winning streak? And whatever happens, will either team score in the first six-and-a-half minutes of Super Bowl 45?
- Yes (-120)
- No (-110)
So there we see "yes" as a slight favorite. By contrast, a second prop asks whether either team will score in the final two minutes of the first half. The odds there are a lot less favorable, with "YES" coming in at -260. And then there are the player props...
We'll break down more of these in the coming days, but until then, we go to the experts at Odds Shark for one of the most enticing bets on the market:
James Harrison and Lamar Woodley are both listed with sack props totals of one half for Pittsburgh, and so are Clay Matthews and B.J. Raji for Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers has been sacked at least twice 12 times this season, while Roethlisberger has been sacked eight times in the Steelers' two playoff games. Take the OVER on all four players.
Of course, you could just as easily argue that both offenses will have spent two weeks game-planning for those defenders, making it less likely than any of them would get more than one sack. So, you never know... Isn't that the beauty of prop bets?