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Proposition bets, also known as the side bet, are a time-honored tradition among friends and family, and they’re an easy (and often low-stakes) way of putting a little more skin in the game. Football Tossing Contest. Challenge your guests to a football tossing contest. If you can play.
Looking for the easiest Super Bowl 55 bets? You’ve come to the right place.
Betting on the Super Bowl is one of the best places to begin betting on football. There are many different types of wagers available, making it a great opportunity to get the lay of the full betting landscape with a single event.
We won’t let you wander into the football betting wilderness alone, of course. We’ve developed this handy Super Bowl betting guide to help you get acquainted with NFL betting odds, generally, and lay some simple wagers on Super Bowl 55.
Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs will take on Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay on February 7, 2021. Now that the match-up is set, we can use some concrete examples to make things clearer.
But first things first. Let’s start with some classification.
Types of Bets
Every football bet can be classified in one of three categories: moneyline, against the spread, and over/under.
1. Moneyline Betting
Betting on the moneyline is the easiest Super Bowl bet you can make. Quite simply, you bet on which team will win the game “straight up.” You don’t have to worry about margin of victory. If the team you bet on wins, you win your bet!
Current Super Bowl 55 Moneyline Odds
| Kansas City Chiefs | Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
|---|---|
| -180 | +152 |
| -171 | +145 |
| -165 | +145 |
You might be saying to yourself: “That’s very simple. Why doesn’t everyone bet on the moneyline?”
Because the payout is lower if you bet on the favorite, and you don’t get the advantage of the spread if you bet on the underdog. Sportsbooks aren’t going to reward you the same way for picking a massive favorite to win. They will, however, reward you handsomely if you correctly pick an underdog.
Let’s use this year’s Super Bowl as an example again.
The Chiefs’ moneyline is -180 at the moment. (Hey, that style of number looks familiar!) That -180 number indicates that, if you bet Kansas City to win, you have to wager $180 to win $100 for a total payout of $280. The Buccaneers’ moneyline, on the other hand, is +152.
The plus-sign changes everything! When preceded by a plus-sign, the moneyline indicates how much you’ll get back if you bet $100.
So, if you wager $100 on Tampa Bay at +152 and they upset the Chiefs (by whatever score), you’ll walk away with $252 — your original $100 bet plus $152. (For all intents and purposes, the favorite is always listed at a negative number and the underdog at a positive number.)
You don’t have to wager $100, of course. You can wager any amount (though sportsbooks do have upper and lower limits). If you cut your bet in half and put $50 on the Bucs +152, you’d go home with $126 if they win — your original $50 bet plus $76 (i.e. half of $152).
2. Against the Spread
Against the spread betting (commonly abbreviated as ATS) is probably the most common type of football betting. In Super Bowl 55, the Chiefs are three point favorites over the Buccaneers. On paper, this is written out as “Chiefs (-3)” or “Buccaneers (+3)”. The three point spread means that, if you bet on the Chiefs (-3), you only win your bet if the Chiefs win by four points or more. If the Chiefs win 25-23, for example, you’re outta luck.
The flip side is that if you bet on the Buccaneers (+3), you’ll still win your bet even if the game is a tie.
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If the Chiefs win by exactly three points, it’s called a “push,” and both sides get their money back.
Simple enough, right?
Bettors are often confused to see the spread change a couple of days after they’ve placed a bet. If a lot of money is being wagered on one team compared to the other, sportsbooks will shift the spread to encourage equal betting on both sides and reduce their potential for loss.
This happened just before Super Bowl 53 in 2019. When the betting lines first opened, the LA Rams were a small favorite. But so much money was immediately bet on the New England Patriots that the spread shifted all the way to Patriots (-3).
These changes do not impact any bets that have already been placed.
The payout on spread betting is typically $1 for every $1.10 you wager, but can vary within a range. You’ll often see the payout listed as “-110,” which indicates that you must bet $110 to win $100.
Use the same approach outlined above for moneyline bets to calculate your payout when betting against the spread.
3. Over/Under Betting
Over/under betting (O/U) differs considerably from spread and moneyline betting in that it doesn’t involve picking the winner. The most common over/under bet is the game total, which involves predicting the total number of points that will be scored in the game.
As of January 25, 2021, the total for Super Bowl 55 is 56.5. Bettors can opt that the game will feature more than 56.5 points (taking the over) or fewer than 56.5 points (taking the under).
If you bet the over and the Chiefs win 33-25, you win your bet since the teams combined for 58 points. (That’s more than 56.5.) If the Chiefs win 30-22, you lose everything, since the total score of 52 is less than the total set beforehand by the sportsbooks.
Like with ATS betting, the game total can and will shift over time, depending on which side is receiving the majority of the money wagered. Pushes are also possible when betting the game total. Obviously, a push can only occur when the total is not a half number.
Just like the spread, O/Us have odds specific to each side of the line, meaning the payout isn’t always equal between the over and the under. As long as the action coming in on each side is roughly even, you’re likely to see odds of -110 on the Super Bowl totals line (bet $1.10 to win $1).
Super Bowl Props
Football Wager Ideas
The wager types discussed so far focus on the outcome of the game itself. The Super Bowl, however, is just as famous for its litany of prop bets. Some of these Super Bowl props can be downright bizarre, and many have nothing to do with football.
Prop bets feature any interesting propositions the sportsbooks can think of.
Prop bets touch on almost every aspect of the Super Bowl, from which team will win the opening coin toss to which player will score the first touchdown. Many of them focus on the performance of individual players. For example, who will have the most receiving yards? And how many yards will Patrick Mahomes throw for? Will Mahomes have more touchdowns than Brady?
The really fun ones have almost nothing to do with the game. Here are a few favorites from this year’s props:
- Will Bill Belichick be mentioned at least once?
- Will Blinding Lights be the first song played by The Weeknd at halftime?
- Will Tom Brady’s wife, Gisele Bundchen, be shown on TV more than 1.5 times?
- The color of the Gatorade poured on the winning head coach (orange is the favorite). Historical reference here.
Props can be constructed as moneyline or over under-style bets. Let’s look at a couple of examples to clarify.
Good Wager Ideas
“Who will score the first touchdown?” is a moneyline-style prop bet. Travis Kelce is currently the favorite at +600. (Remember what that plus-sign means? If you bet $100 on Kelce and he does score the first TD in the game, you’ll win $600.)
“How many songs will be played during the halftime show?” is an over/under style prop. The O/U is at 8. If seven songs are performed in total, the under will cash in. If nine lovely tunes are sung, the over wins. For a full guide on Super Bowl prop bets, be sure to check out this comprehensive guide.
Where Can I Bet on the Super Bowl?
Go look at your finances and see if you have some disposable income. If things are looking good, it’s time to explore this list for the best places to bet on NFL games online , and get in on the action!