Betus Superbowl Betting

There will be more money wagered on this year’s Super Bowl than the entire 2005 GNP of 37 countries on our planet. Countries like Kiribati, Marshall, Vanuatu and Micronesia can’t produce in an entire year the monetary action we will toss around betting on football in one day in February, just for fun. Last year, over $600-million was wagered on Super Bowl XL, and this year the numbers will rise even more, as two teams who are very popular in the national press are playing for the Lombardi Trophy.

Don’t worry about those countries though. They’re not going to need money. All four of them will be gone soon. They will have sunken under the rising oceans we are causing through global warming, so that we can continue to drive our big cars on cheap fuel stolen from underdeveloped countries. By Super Bowl V, they should all be finished as places on Earth.

Back to the important thing here, though: due to the media-driven love affair with Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts, bookmakers expect the money to come pouring in on the Colts to the point that most books have set the early line at seven points in favor of Indy.

If it were not for the recent, regular season poor performances by Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, this line would certainly be much closer than it stands now. While everyone from the league office to the smalltime state newspapers loves pumping anything Manning - as if he were the everyman we can all relate to, instead of the pampered son of a former NFL quarterback, who has been trained for his job from the time he could see – everyone has, at the same time, been clamoring to gawk at Rex Grossman as he tries to keep his head up through a hail of hate mail and bad press.

Even in his team’s city – the team he has led to a 15-3 record en route to Miami – the papers have been calling for him to be benched for months. To be fair, he has played horribly in some games, but he has played like a true Pro Bowler in a few as well, recording eight games with a 98.6 passer rating or better.

But this is not about which quarterback deserves more love, it is about which quarterback the public is going to throw down hundreds of millions of dollars on, because he is the one they see on all the commercials and on all the glossy magazine covers at the supermarket. It is about the quarterback the public will avoid putting money on, because all they have read about him for weeks is how he is the worst quarterback in the NFL history; a pointy-eye-browed freak with no business on a football field. The public has been very well-trained to suckle the Manning teat and bookmakers are required to take this feeding frenzy into account.

When setting the seven-point line, bookmakers are not making the statement that they think the Colts are seven points better than these Bears. Many would even tell you that they personally think the Colts are no more than field goal favorites. Anything can happen in a game, however - especially with a Manning playing against a Grossman; a beauty and the beast matchup, if you will – and, if the books were to set the Super Bowl odds at Indianapolis -3 or -4, they would be so far offside on the Colts that many would go broke if Indy covered. This is because almost everyone on the planet, the part still above water, would have jumped on the Colts as favorites.

To account for the public adoration of Manning and the general popularity of the Colts, books have inflated the line in an attempt to force some of the public into taking the Bears instead of the Colts. An early indicator of how this attempt to even out the betting action is working is to look at the moneylines attached to the spread.

When all is even on both sides, that moneyline is standard, set at -110 ($110 to win $100) for both teams. As the money starts to pour in, the team that is getting more of the action will become more expensive in an attempt to persuade bettors to take the other team. You’ll see the line on the heavier bet team go to -115, -120 or higher, while the team getting less love gets cheaper, down to -105, then EVEN. If the money gets too far offside, that is when you will see books change the actual spread.

Right now, the attached moneyline for the Colts is at -120 and EVEN for the Bears, meaning, as expected, the public is, at least early on, betting far more on the Colts than on the Bears. If this trend continues, books will have little choice and will have to raise the spread from -7 for the Colts to -7.5 points, hoping that move will entice more people to bet on the Bears with the better line.

If you like the Colts, now is the time to bet on Indianapolis, before the line moves up. If you are going to bet on the Bears, you may want to wait a bit and see if the line becomes more favorable for you. A half point may not seem like much, but, in the gambling world - as in the world of small, disappearing island countries - every little bit helps you stay above water.

Get the latest NFL football odds and props on this and every NFL playoff game in the BetUS.com Sportsbook. Join BetUS.com for free today!

Blake Butterfield is a writer who hates to swim.

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