A Look at Betting for Super Bowl LV
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won their second Super Bowl in franchise history on February 7, 2021, with a 31–9 victory over the defending champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. More impressively, it was the seventh Super Bowl victory for quarterback Tom Brady, who finished the game with three touchdowns and 201 yards passing on 21 of 29 attempts. The 43-year-old was named the Super Bowl MVP for the fifth time in his career.
While fans of the Buccaneers and Chiefs tuned into the game to cheer on their respective teams, many watched Super Bowl LV from a financial perspective. The annual National Football League (NFL) championship is regarded as an unofficial gambling holiday for avid sports bettors and, in the past, has drawn billions of dollars in combined wagers from millions of people. Some people have even wagered more than $1 million on the game. Here is a closer look at the betting for Super Bowl LV.
Massive Bets
Several wagers of more than $1 million were placed on both teams in the lead up to Super Bowl LV. According to Sports Betting Dime, three people placed wagers of at least $1 million on the Buccaneers. The largest was a $3.46 million bet on the Buccaneers to cover the (+3.5) spread, meaning that all they had to do was lose by fewer than four points for the bettor to be correct. The bettor received a profit of $2.7 million for the correct wager. Another bettor won $2 million on a $2.3 million wager for the Buccaneers to cover the spread, and another person won $1.35 million on a $1 million bet that Tampa Bay would win the game outright.
Not all those who flexed their financial muscle were successful in their wagers. The popular sports book William Hill took a $1.16 million moneyline wager on the Chiefs on the morning of the game. Another person lost $520,000 with a bet on the Chiefs covering the (-3) spread.
Prop Bets
The moneyline and the spread were not the only wagers offered to bettors. The Super Bowl is arguably the most popular sports gambling event of the year and, as such, features several different props and alternative outcomes on which people can bet. For instance, William Hill also took separate $100 long-shot bets on the Chiefs and Buccaneers to score only four points in the entire game. This didn’t happen, but at +999900 odds, the Chiefs scoring only four points would have won someone $999,900 on a $100 bet.
In fact, prop bets begin before the game even starts. In that regard, bettors could have placed wagers on the length of the national anthem, which was performed by Eric Church and Jazmine Sullivan. The average run time of the anthem since 1991 has been 1:56. Betting options for Super Bowl LV included over/under at 1:59. Church and Sullivan’s performance lasted 2:22. From there, bettors could place wagers on the coin toss (heads or tails and whether the winning team will receive or defer), which Anheuser-Busch brand commercial would be first to air (Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, etc.), the number of commercials that would include a dog, whether or not there would be a COVID vaccine commercial, and the color of the Gatorade poured on the coach of the winning team.
Gambling Stocks Soar
The Super Bowl’s popularity as a major sports gambling event is reflected in the stock market. Online sports gambling has become more widely accessible since the Supreme Court’s groundbreaking decision in 2018, and it is now legal in more than 20 states. Super Bowl LV was expected to attract a record number of legal bets and, in the days prior to the game, the shares of many online sports gambling enterprises soared. For example, DraftKings reached a record high share price on February 5 and was up more than 350 percent year-over-year. Penn National Gaming was also up nearly 300 percent, while William Hill’s share price increased by more than 60 percent.
“People [are] stuck at home, looking for new forms of entertainment,” noted Bloomberg Stock of the Hour host Ritika Gupta. “And we can draw a lot of parallels with that and the need for gambling that we’ve seen in this Robinhood frenzy that we’ve been talking about over the last week.”
Betting Odds for Super Bowl LVI
Despite Super Bowl LV just ending and the fact the 2021 NFL season is not expected to begin until September, bettors can already place wagers on which team they think will win Super Bowl LVI. Almost immediately after Super Bowl LV ended, Oddshark listed the Chiefs (+500) as the favorite to win the Super Bowl next season. The Green Bay Packers (+1100) were given the second-best odds to win, while the Buffalo Bills (+1200) and the Buccaneers (+1200) were given equal odds. The Los Angeles Rams (+1300) were listed fifth. A $100 bet on the Buccaneers to repeat, then, carries a potential $1,200 profit.
