Sportsbooks will take in plenty of money on who will win Super Bowl LII, but there’s nearly as much interest in the myriad of unusual prop bets offered on the game. Prop bets have started to show up at Las Vegas sportsbooks and online betting sites, and this year’s batch covers everything from Twitter to what songs will be played during the halftime show.
Several Las Vegas casino sportsbooks posted their first round of available prop bets on Monday. At the Westgate, bettors could pick from 26 different options, including who will score the first touchdown or who will be named Super Bowl MVP.
Vegas Offering Hundreds of Prop Bets
Jay Kornegay, director of the Westgate’s sportsbook, said that those are just a small sampling of the 400 or more prop bets that will be available by the end of the week.
“We’re getting geared up for it,” Kornegay told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “We always add to the menu. We’ve actually been working on the props for the last couple of weeks.”
Other Vegas casinos have already set up some more unusual bets for gamblers to consider. For instance, over at Caesars Palace, you can choose who will be taller: the first player to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl (+120), or the first player to score a goal in the game between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Washington Capitals that afternoon (-150).
Even More Options at Online Sportsbooks
It’s online betting sites that have truly taken the lead in prop betting so far, though. A number of different sites have listed some very creative wagers for gamblers to consider on virtually every aspect of the game and the spectacle that surrounds it.
Tom Brady’s hand injury was an ongoing storyline heading into the AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and the Jacksonville Jaguars. If you’d like to bet on whether Brady still has a bandage on his hand as of the Super Bowl, BetDSI is offering odds on that question, with yes (-130) being a slight favorite over no (+100).
Another popular topic for bettors is the halftime show, which stars Justin Timberlake. If you want to bet on what song he’ll perform first, Can’t Stop the Feeling! (+150) and Sexyback (+175) are the clear favorites, though Timberlake’s large repertoire means that even with nearly a dozen songs listed individually, the field is still only a +200 bet.
And what will Donald Trump do on Twitter during the game? The over/under on the number of tweets the president will make during the Super Bowl has been set at 2.5. That result may be highly correlated with whether any players take a knee during the national anthem (+275 for yes, -350 for no).
While all the prop bets are fun to analyze, the real action will ultimately be on the game itself. The Patriots are currently favored by 5.5 points over the Philadelphia Eagles, making the Eagles the largest Super Bowl underdog since 2009.
