The betting public has had a week and a half to consider their wagering opportunities on Super Bowl LIV, and plenty has been wagered so far. While the odds of the biggest lines haven’t changed much, some of the deeper cuts have seen plenty of movement, and we got some insight from our Bodog insider on where the action is.
When we first looked at the moneyline, spread and total, Kansas City was a 1.5 point favorite. That hasn’t changed much at all. The line has stayed steady at KC -1-.5 since we opened after the NFC Championship game,” our insider said. “Betting is split 50/50 so far on the point spread and ML (KC -120/SF EVEN). The O/U has moved from 53 to 54.5 with 82% of bets so far on the over.”
Where the real line movements are happening is on prop bets and specials, and the Chiefs star player is a big part of it. “Mahomes is the most popular player with the most money bet on to win MVP (+115) and the largest bet disparities between passing and rushing yards O/Us,” our insider revealed. “80% of all money is on o305.5 Passing Yards and 90% of all money is on o31.5 Rushing Yards. The liabilities on various Mahomes player props mirrors the liabilities we would have for college basketball and even some NBA game lines.”
But the fun lines, and the ones seeing the biggest shifts, are in the special props, and the one that almost always results in nail-biting is the national anthem. “The national anthem by Demi Lovato opened at 1m58s but with 90% on the over on that, 75% on the over of new price, 2m0s, we finally settled on the current price of 2m4s which has received balanced betting action,” he told us.
Another tricky prop is the color of the winning Gatorade, which is sometimes hard to determine. “As is tradition bettors tend to correlate the color of the teams playing with the color Gatorade they think is kept on the sidelines,” he said. “As such for the prop ‘Which color liquid will be dumped on the winning coach?’ Red has dropped from +750 to a +135 favorite.”
But to get away from tradition, Super Bowl LIV has a few sexy ladies set to perform at half-time, and it set up the opportunity for a new prop. “One of the more interesting props we’ve added is whether Shakira and J-Lo will ‘twerk’ during their halftime set – a prop that’s required a lot of further clarification from players on Twitter and during radio interviews this week,” he told us. “I’ve decided to go with Potter Stewart’s wise words when he was asked to define hardcore pornography struggled to do so but added ‘I know it when I see it.’”
So what is our Bodog insider hoping for as we go into the big game? “The big hope as always (and if the point spread is an accurate indicator of this, we may have such luck) is that the game remains close going into half time to keep players engaged with all the in-game betting options that we’ll have until the final whistle,” he said. “Last year’s in-game betting represented 20% of all betting handle on the game itself and a closer game will help to drive those numbers.”
