Learn how to bet on the Super Bowl and get your action on the most important football game of the season!
The spread, moneyline, and total are the most common ways to bet on the Super Bowl. When you click on “NFL” or “Super Bowl” at most sportsbooks in the days before the Big Game, these will be the main options.
Futures betting is the best way to bet on the Super Bowl when it’s not late January or early February. All year long, sportsbooks have odds on who will win the Super Bowl. In fact, by the end of January or beginning of February, most books have odds for both this year’s Super Bowl and next year’s Big Game.
How to Bet on The Super Bowl: Futures Bets
Futures bets are a great way for sports fans who really care about their favorite teams and/or players to have a little more of a stake in how well they do in the future. They can also be a good way for a fan of a bad home team to change his or her focus a bit and worry more about how well rival teams do (or don’t do).
Fans can bet on things like who will win Super Bowl LVII, which division and conference, how many wins each team will have, and which players will win individual awards like MVP and NFL Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year.
Also, many books offer over/under lines on certain yardage or touchdown numbers for certain players or head-to-head options between two stars at the same position. Most of the time, these are called “specials.”
During the offseason, odds on certain futures are often changed as players switch teams or get hurt. Once the season starts, the odds can change a lot depending on injuries and how fast or slow a team starts. Bettors need to know which teams are pretenders and which ones are contenders.
There’s nothing better than betting on a long shot in the offseason and then seeing the year turn out well for them and you. When there is so much time between seasons, it might not be a good idea to bet on a favorite.
The layout of each online sportsbook is a little bit different, but the futures section is usually in the same general area.
Just click on the “NFL” or “Pro Football” tab on the book you want to look at. The default screen is usually the Week 1 schedule with all 16 games, but there should be several other options, such as futures and specials, in a dropdown menu or on a separate menu bar.
You can look through these sections at your own pace to find the teams, players, or odds that are most important to you. For a bet like “Super Bowl Champion” or “MVP,” you can choose to bet on all 32 teams or 30–50 of the league’s best players. There will be a list of odds next to each choice.
If you bet $100 on the Buffalo Bills and the Super Bowl odds are +550, you get back $550 plus your original $100. The odds for a safer bet, like the Bills winning the AFC East, are lower, at -240.
Win totals and player specials are usually given by the sportsbook as over/unders on a number. For any result above or below the line, each side of the bet will have odds.
How to Bet on The Super Bowl: Best Bets
Now in this article on how to bet on the Super Bowl, we will talk about the best bets you can make:
Super Bowl Point Spread
One of the most common ways to bet on Super Bowl 58 will be on the Super Bowl spread. The point spread is how much the oddsmakers think the favorite team will win by. If a bettor bets on the favorite to “cover” the point spread, the favorite must win and win by more than the point spread for the bet to be a winner. If the favorite wins, but not by more than the spread, or if it loses the game, the bettor loses the money he or she put in the game.
Super Bowl Moneyline
Moneyline bets are made on which team will win the game outright, no matter by how much. A moneyline bet is pretty much the same kind of bet that family and friends have been making for decades. Moneyline bets are placed with a sportsbook, and winning bets are paid out based on the odds of the bet.
For instance, a moneyline bet on the favorite might have odds of “-110,” which means that a bettor wins $100 for every $110 they put down. On the other hand, a moneyline bet on the underdog may have odds of “+112,” which means that for every $100 bet, the bettor wins $112.
Super Bowl Total (Over/Under)
An over/under bet depends on whether the bettor correctly predicted that the total score of the game would be over or under the number that the sportsbook predicted at the time of the bet. For example, let’s say that the Super Bowl odds show a total of 49 points. If someone bets the “under” on that number and the game ends with a score of 30-21, they lose their bet because the total of those scores is 51. But if the game ends with a score of 24-21, for a total of 45, that bet would be a winner.
Super Bowl Player Prop Bets
Player prop bets are bets that depend on whether or not the player in question falls short of or beats certain statistical benchmarks. For a big event like the Super Bowl, sportsbooks usually have a large number of these kinds of bets. Player prop bets are based on the stats that players at different positions usually rack up.
For example, a prop bet on a quarterback could be whether or not the player throws for less than 250 yards or more than 250 yards in the game. One example for a running back would be whether the player gets less than 20 carries or more than 20 carries. For a receiver, a prop bet could be based on whether or not the player gets less than a certain number of receptions or more than a certain number of receptions during the game.
Prop bets can be made on players with no special skills, like kickers, or on an entire defensive unit. A typical prop bet for a kicker could be on whether the player will make more or less than a certain number of field goals or whether they will miss an extra point. For a defense, prop bets could be based on whether that unit will give up a certain number of points or whether it will score a touchdown on an interception or fumble return.
Most player prop bets are graded based on statistics from the whole game, but there are also prop bets that are graded based on statistics from a certain quarter or half of a game.
Exotic Super Bowl Prop Bets
Prop bets for big events like the Super Bowl can also be based on outcomes that aren’t determined by the usual statistics of the game. For example, you can place a prop bet on whether the first coin toss of the game comes up heads or tails or on which team wins the toss. You can also bet on the color of the Gatorade that gets dumped on the coach of the winning team and on the jersey number of a player who scores during the game.
There are even prop bets on the National Anthem and the halftime show, which are not sports events but are big parts of the game. Bettors can bet on things like how long the National Anthem will last, whether the performer will leave out a word, whether a certain celebrity will make a surprise appearance during halftime, or how many songs the halftime act will play.
Betting on Super Bowl MVP
The Super Bowl MVP award is the most prestigious award for a single player in the Super Bowl. Technically, any player can win the award, but the quarterback position has by far the best chance. In Super Bowl history, 31 of the 56 MVP awards have gone to quarterbacks. Five quarterbacks have won the Most Valuable Player award more than once. Tom Brady of the Patriots has the most, with five. Joe Montana of the 49ers is next with three. On the other hand, Bart Starr of the Packers, Terry Bradshaw of the Steelers, and Eli Manning of the Giants all got two.
Even if a future Hall of Fame player like Brady is on the winning team, there is no such thing as a sure bet. In February 2019, when the Patriots beat the Rams, Julian Edelman was named MVP because he caught 10 passes for 141 yards. One of the big favorites to win was Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Alternate Lines for the Super Bowl
Alternate lines are those that sportsbooks offer as an alternative to the official point spread. There are a lot of different point spreads on these lines for both the favorite and the underdog. Most of the time, these lines start well above the official game line number for each team and go all the way to the other side of the bet. This means that a heavy favorite can be bet as a heavy underdog and vice versa.
In a recent NFL championship game between the Chiefs and the Bucs, Kansas City was a 3-point favorite at many sportsbooks. You could have bet on the Chiefs as a seven-point favorite instead, according to an alternative line.
Also, the “price” of that bet, which is the ratio at which it would pay out, would have been very good because it was much less likely that the Chiefs would not only win, but win by more than a touchdown.
How to Bet on The Super Bowl: Tips & Strategies
Now in our guide on how to bet on the Super Bowl, we have some useful tips and strategies that can come quite handy when getting your action:
Line Shopping and Getting the Best Number
Whenever you buy something, it’s best to look around for the best price. Bets on sports are the same. The odds attached to each bet determine the payout if the bet wins. These odds are called the “price” of the bet. Other things that can be different from one sportsbook to the next that a bettor should be aware of are the point spread and the projected total for a game.
When a game’s odds are first posted, the first lines set by oddsmakers are often the “sharpest,” or hardest to beat over time. Because of this, the best way to get an edge is often to wait and see how the public’s bets affect a point spread as a game gets closer. Things like wrong “groupthink” can sometimes change a team’s predicted advantage enough to give a smart bettor a clear edge.
One thing to keep in mind about the Super Bowl is that its line is affected by “sharp money” more than any other NFL game. So, line movement for this game is often caused by the fact that more bets are placed on it based on a good method than on any other game during the season.
Fading the Public
Sometimes, it’s a good idea to bet against the most popular side of a bet. It’s not a strategy that should be used too often, though. People’s love for a team’s reputation or, in some cases, for a superstar player like Patrick Mahomes, can lead to a lot of money being bet on that team. The line could then move to a point where one team is favored by a growing number of points that seem impossible.
In this case, a bettor could take advantage of the situation by “fading the public” and placing a winning bet on the underdog to finish under the spread. The same could be said for a projected total that gets bet up to a certain level because one or both teams have a good reputation for scoring.
Using Advanced Metrics
Even though most bettors probably only do a small amount of what could be called “research” before placing a bet, there are plenty of metrics available for those who want to use them. For team-based bets like moneylines, point spreads, and projected totals, bettors can look back at how each team did in each category in the past.
But advanced metrics can be very helpful when making prop bets on an individual player or a team. Statistical trends can help a bettor decide, for example, if a certain receiver is likely to catch more than a certain number of passes against a certain opponent’s defense. The same could be said for a huge number of other prop bets, like a quarterback going over 300 yards or a running back going over 100 yards, to name just two examples.
In a recent Super Bowl, the Chiefs and 49ers played, and George Kittle, the star tight end for the 49ers, was a big part of that game. Say a sportsbook let you bet on whether Kittle would make more or less than five catches. A person looking at this bet might have gone with the Over because Kansas City gave up the second-most tight end targets (141) and tied for the third-most catches (96) to the position last season. Kittle ended the game with four catches, which was just a little bit less than the number, so those who bet “Under” won.
Middling
When a bettor puts money on both sides of a game, this is called “middling.” Most people think of football as the sport that uses this strategy the most. Middling is a strategy that most new bettors don’t use because it means putting more than one bet on a game. In a strange way, though, it reduces the risk by making it much more likely that one of the two bets will be a winner.
Most of the time, middling is possible when the odds on a game move a lot in a week. Using the Chiefs-Bucs game from Super Bowl LV as an example, let’s say that Kansas City was a 3-point favorite at the start. A bet is made on this line at first, but over the next two weeks, the line is bet up even more, giving KC a projected seven-point advantage. The same bettor then puts money on the Bucs +7, which means that San Francisco must lose by six points or less or win outright.
In this case, the bettor wins both bets if any of the following happens:
The Chiefs win by at least four points.
The Bucs either lose by less than six points or win by themselves.
Thank you for reading our article on how to bet on the Super Bowl, best luck with your action on this unique game!
