Philadelphia Eagles’ Nick Foles and New England Patriots’ Tom Brady answer questions during NFL football Super Bowl 52 Opening Night Monday, Jan. 29, 2018, at the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
We’re days away from the biggest football game of the year. Since the dust settled on Championship Sunday over a week ago, every media outlet has been breaking down the Patriots-Eagles matchup from every angle. I’m not here to regurgitate the X’s and O’s.
I’m here to talk about how you, the reader, can win big on Sunday as well. Let’s talk prop bets.
The first thing we need to remember about prop bets is that with all the insider information and luck in the world, these things are really difficult to predict. But we all have to pay for late night D.P. Dough some how, so we’ll try our best. The popular online sportsbook Bovada offers a crazy number of prop bets every year, but we’ll be sticking to the popular ones.
National Anthem
One of the most debated prop bets every year is the length of the national anthem. This year, P!nk is singing the national anthem, and the line for the over/under is set at a flat two minutes. Bovada has the odds of the over at -140, and the under is even.
There is a little hesitation on my end because the last twelve national anthems have had an average length of 1:58.6 minutes. I haven’t been able to find any past videos of P!nk singing the anthem, so we’re going into this one blind. Two minutes is one of the shortest lines I’ve seen in a long time, and betting unders is no fun. She better hold that high note. I’ll also be taking P!nk’s hair being white/blonde at +175 if you’re into that sort of thing.
Decision: Over 2:00 (-140)
Coin Flip
As for the coin flip, the odds for both heads and tails are set at -105. I’ve always subscribed to tails never fails, and statistically speaking that has worked in the Super Bowl more often than not. Tails has been the result in 27 of 51 Super Bowl coin tosses (53 percent).
Decision: Tails (-105)
How many times will Carson Wentz be mentioned during the broadcast?
This will ultimately depend on the play of Nick Foles and the Eagles, which will hopefully be bad. If Foles is struggling, they will certainly cut to Wentz a good amount, with Cris Collinsworth making some bonehead comment like, “Man I bet they wish they had this guy right now.” Yes, Cris, I bet Philadelphia wishes they had their MVP-caliber quarterback playing in the Super Bowl.
Decision: Over 3.5 times (-150)
What color will Justin Timberlake’s shoes be when he begins his halftime show performance?
I’ve been tossing and turning with this one, JT is at a weird point in his career. This is a long shot, but I have a feeling he’ll start out with the old hits in some flashy red shoes. If you want to play it safe, I’d go black shoes at +175.
Decision: Red shoes (+1600)
What color will the Gatorade be that is dumped on the winning coach?
This has happened 15 times in the Super Bowl. There’s a three-way tie at the top between orange, clear and purple, which has each happened four times. Yellow Gatorade has been poured twice and blue once. Last year the Patriots didn’t dump anything on Bill Belichick due to the late nature of the game-winning touchdown. The year New England beat Philadelphia in Super Bowl XXXIX, the Gatorade dumped on Belichick was clear. This Super Bowl is eerily similar to that one, so why stop now?
Decision: Clear (+375)
So there you have it, I hope we’re all a little richer come Monday morning. There’s a BUNCH more prop bets that are easy to find if you’re serious about it. Gamble responsibly, have fun on Super Bowl Sunday and most importantly…Go Patriots.
Connor Donahue is the digital editor for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at connor.f.donahue@uconn.edu. He tweets @conn_donahue.