From the coin toss to the Gatorade shower, there are so many prop bets to be made for Super Bowl 54.
While the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs will be trying to win the Lombardi Trophy, bettors will be looking to have a different kind of success during Sunday’s game.
That means placing bets they hope will lead to them cashing in some big winnings.
“I think it’s a great matchup," said Nick Bogdanovich, the U.S. director of trading for William Hill U.S., "I think it's a matchup that all the bookmakers wanted just because Patrick Mahomes is super special and San Francisco is a West Coast team so you got people of people from California rolling into town. It’s good matchup but right now I would say it is slightly behind pace of last year.”
Bogdanovich is hoping that some of the bigger bets start rolling in over the next few days and the handle does make it to record numbers. But given a choice, he hopes his book wins.
“If I had my choice with a smaller handle and a win as opposed to a record handle and loss, I would definitely take the smaller handle and the win,” he said.
One of the problems for the sports books is that the teams are too evenly matched. Bogdanovich explained that people like to bet the moneyline at four or six or seven but that's not the case this time around.
“The public likes to bet the moneyline because they can bet $100 to win $200 or $100 to win $240. In this case, the moneyline is like 1. So the moneyline is even money,” he said.
Bogdanovich said some bookmakers are high on San Francisco and some are high on Kansas City, but overall, they all need an under to have a good outcome.
The same is true for bets specifically on Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“People are going to bet yes on Patrick Mahomes because they actually think he walks on water and you know what – he just might,” Bogdanovich said.
He said the books will need unders on all of the Mahomes bets.
The people who are looking very smart right now are those who took the 20 to 1 odds on San Francisco reaching the Super Bowl at the beginning of the season.
“They’ve been down for a little while but they have a new front office up there headed by the future hall of famer Mr. [John] Lynch, the hard-hitting safety, and he’s done a great job,” Bogdanovich said.
While that bet will take money from the books, Bogdanovich said the books will balance out because they'll be getting money from those who bet the other teams.
As for the bet that he would make, Bogdanovich said he would take the over on the total number of field goals kicked. He noted that both teams have some of the best kickers in the game.
For the win, Bogdanovich thinks the Niners defense and running game will ultimately take the day.
Nick Bogdanovich, U.S. director of trading, William Hill US