NFL Super Bowl fever is building once more as the time for LI draws ever nearer, and all eyes with interest in the matter are turned to the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots who are preparing for their February 5 showdown at Houston’s NRG Stadium. With anticipation comes the usual pastime of wagering bets on the eventual outcome of the game. Anywhere from simple handshake bets between buddies to major betting companies, the big question is which team will triumph. At the latest, regular Super Bowl competitors the Patriots are favored over the second-timer Falcons by three points, and several years ago that would be the only wager on the table.
Now however, bettors have multiple alternatives to put money where mouth is, by putting their money on the so-called “proposition wagers”, or prop bets for short.
To be, or not to be?
Unlike regular bets where the choice is between competitors to win a contest, a prop bet focuses on deciding whether a specific event that has no bearing on the final results of the game will happen, or not. This can be expanded to wagering how many times a guaranteed event will repeat. Examples of these are bets on whether one team or the other makes the first score in a match, or a wager on how many strikes or balls a baseball pitcher will throw in the whole game. So for Super Bowl LI there are prop bets being made on certain game aspects like who will be the largest-scoring player among New England and Atlanta, or perhaps who will be named the NFL's MVP at the end of things.
Those are all perfectly ordinary game-related bets that ultimately won’t affect the main wager between Falcons or Patriots winning the Super Bowl. But it’s just like people to go one beyond the ordinary things they do, and the same goes for the scope of the prop bets.
The weird corner
Super Bowl game events and stats being the subjects of prop bets are cool, but there are times when bettors and bet-takers want to go off the wall from the rest of the NFL.
Prepare to see wagers on stuff like how long will Luke Bryan’s rendition of the National Anthem will take (or even how long he’ll hold the note for “brave” at the end of it), the dominant color of Lady Gaga’s hair, or the probability of any of her songs being sung during her halftime show. Speaking of Gaga, there are wagers on whether or not she’ll take a shot at President Donald Trump (and wagers on how many times Trump’s full name and title are mentioned by the commentators before, during and after the game). From here it’s a simple matter of finding some friends willing to make calls on the outcome, or head to a betting center to see if any of these are up for wager.
