The American Gaming Association expects more than $1.7 billion to be bet on Super Bowl LX, more than any other single sporting event in history. The vast majority of that will not be wagered on who wins the game.
If necessity is, indeed, the mother of invention, then the Super Bowl created the proposition bet.
From 1985 to 1997, the NFC won 13 straight Super Bowls by an average score of 37–17. The games simply weren’t that interesting, and betting on the biggest event of the year declined.
“By the second half, the crowd is just sitting there like there’s nothing going on here,” says John Murray, V.P. of Sports Operations for The SuperBook at Westgate Las Vegas. “We need to keep the audience engaged through the game.”
Some folks at the now defunct Imperial Palace tried something radical to keep people from abandoning the betting windows for the blackjack tables.
“They decided to do more props and that’s really how this all started. Of course, it blew up over the years,” says Murray, who learned from the Imperial Palace prop masters when they moved to the Westgate.
The first well-known instance came in Super Bowl XX. The Bears were crushing the Patriots so casinos took action on whether or not Chicago defensive tackle William “Refrigerator” Perry would score a touchdown. He did, and in the process let the prop bet genie out of the bottle.
Now, they have more prop bets than ever, with more than 500 at SuperBook alone, and they are immensely popular. Murray says about 60% of the money bet at SuperBook will be on props.
“It’s about 60% of the handle but it’s way more than 60% of the tickets we write. It’s probably closer to 80% or 90% (of total bets),” says Murray. “But, the limits are a little lower. Whereas we’re going to be having guys bet 100,000, 200,000, and 300,000 on New England or Seattle, we wouldn’t let you bet than much on a player prop.”
SuperBook started with a cap of $2,000 per prop bet because they can carry much higher odds than traditional game wagers, which really is part of their allure.
“Everybody wants to bet on something where they can risk a small amount of money and make a lot of money,” says Murray. “Now, there is a reason why the odds are high.”
That reason is some of them deal with extremely rare occurrences. For Super Bowl LX there are two props that bettors have gravitated towards.
“They like the Scorigami. That’s a score that’s never happened in NFL history. Not Super Bowl history, there’s only been 59 Super Bowls, so it’s got to be a score that’s never happened in an NFL game,” says Murray.
Interestingly, assuming a winning team scores no more than the current NFL record of 73 points, we’ve only seen about 41% of potential NFL score outcomes, so it’s easy to see why someone would want to take a flier on the Scorigami. At +1500, a $100 bet would pay out $1500.
“The Octopus has gotten really popular. That’s when the same player scores a touchdown and converts the subsequent two-point conversion,” says Murray.
That’s only happened once in Super Bowl history, when Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts pulled it off three years ago. The Octopus odds are +1600.
This year the longshot to end all longshots is trying to predict the precise final score. If someone puts down $100 on the Patriots to beat the Seahawks 27-25, and that indeed happens, they’ll walk away with $50,000.
Of course, being in California is not too conducive to sports betting. So, if anyone would like to go to Vegas to try out some prop bets on Super Sunday, click here.
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