It’s that time of year again when sports fans gather for the annual extravaganza that is the Super Bowl. This year, there’s an added element to the entertainment thanks to the widespread legalization of sports betting, which means that more NFL fans than ever will be looking for the best Super Bowl 2020 betting sites as well as following the action on TV and social media.
The NFL and betting are a natural fit as football has plenty of action, regular pauses to get your bets on, and plenty of stats to get your teeth into. So, where do you start?
The moneyline
This is the market that sees most of the Super Bowl betting action. The appeal of the moneyline bet is its simplicity. You simply have to pick a straight-up winner from the two teams at the available odds. At the time of writing, the moneyline bet with some sportsbooks reads like this:
Kansas City Chiefs -125
San Francisco 49ers +105
This means that the Chiefs are the favorites. If you placed a $100 wager on them to win the game, you would earn a return of $180, which includes your $100 stake. Betting the same amount on the 49ers on the other hand could earn you a return of $205 as they are considered the outsiders.
Covering the spread
Another popular way to bet on the Super Bowl is the point spread. In this case, you aren’t betting on a team to win – you are betting to ‘cover the spread’. If you find a point spread market on the Super Bowl, you might see odds that look something like this:
Kansas City Chiefs -1.5
San Francisco 49ers +1.5
In this case, the favorite has a small handicap and the outsider has a small advantage. If you bet on the Chiefs, they would need to win by two points or more to land the bet, but betting on the 49ers means that your bet is a winner if they win the game or only lose by one point.
Combining the scores
This is another score-based market, and some committed NFL fans swear by it. In this market, you are trying to estimate whether the game will be high scoring or low scoring. A sportsbook will give you an estimate on the combined final score of both teams and you then choose whether you think the real combined score will be higher or lower. If the sportsbook is quoting a score of 49.5 in the combined score market, you can back over or under, according to your opinion.
Are you entertained!
The Super Bowl is about more than just sport – it’s about entertainment, and in the betting world, the most entertaining bets are the prop bets. These are bets based on specific events or statistical categories, and their variety is only limited by the imagination of the sportsbook!
You can bet on a bewildering range of statistical markers, such as the team or player with the most receptions, touchdowns, rushing yards or successful field goals, as well the MVP.
However, where prop bets really come into their own is in the non-sporting bets. For a typical Super Bowl, you can bet on events such as the length of the National Anthem singing, which way up the coin will land in the pre-game coin toss, what song will be played first at the half-time show, and so on. Many of these bets are purely for entertainment, but they can add a little extra fun to the proceedings.
Parlay betting
Parlay betting involves adding multiple bets to make up one bet. For example, you might bet on the Chiefs to cover the point spread, Patrick Mahomes to be the MVP, and Tyreek Hill to finish the game with the most receptions. With a parlay bet, you can combine all of those betting options into one bigger bet, with the combined odds making a potentially bigger reward.
Of course, the downside of the parlay bet is that if only one of the selections fails, the whole bet is a loser, so this represents a high-risk, high-reward approach to Super Bowl betting.
This year’s Super Bowl promises to be a thrilling clash between the two best football teams in the country. If you’re planning a bet to add to the excitement, there are a lot of options to choose from, but remember that betting is supposed to be fun. Never bet more than you can afford to lose.