After spending days poring over 100+ stories on Super Bowl prop bets, we hoped to come to some definitive conclusion on the subject which would justify a thousand-word, posthumous (stale) write-up.

Nope. No such luck.

So instead, here are two thoughts to keep in storage until the SB XLIV hype machine revs its engine in early 2010.

One: Prop bets are generally priced for suckers. The money-line gaps are 40¢, 60¢, 75¢ or more. (Witness the TV ratings prop: Which market yields greater ratings Arizona +300 or Pennsylvania -500. Is that $2 of vig?)

But around Groundhog’s Day, demand for money-backed NFL prognostications runs high, and supply dwindles quickly.  It’s a sellers’ market, and buyers who want to bet the over-under on the number of Anheuser-Busch beer commercials can’t afford to be choosy.

Maybe it’s a good lesson in accepting when it’s inevitable that you will force action, and to be prepared to minimize it. (Personally, we hit on one prop, and we proceeded to go out and squander it on another. And we’d be quick to take credit for calling the under on that wacky 1st-to-score-jersey-number prop at 38½. But we can’t claim to have spotted a guy demoted to the practice squad back in week 3 as likely first to break the plane. Frankly, not even Mrs. Russell had money on that one.)

Sidebar: Somebody knew something about someone. Early in the week, Gary Russell was listed at Pinnacle as +1916 to score the game’s first TD. By Saturday, Russell’s number had dropped to +1384. That’s more than all other players (moving down) combined. If this kind of move is indicative of the amount of money being wagered on a player, then Russell took in more money (or “sharper” money) then the all of the other listed players (20).  At some books, Russell wasn’t even listed individually.

Two: Tried to find where most of the crazy prop lines originate. Near as we can figure, the “normal” lines comes from the LVSC. Normal in this case refers to the common statistical breakdown bets:  Odds to score a TD; whether Tim Halfback gains more than 33.5 yards rushing from scrimmage; first quarter sides (ARZ +½), and so on…

Then there’s the more “exotic” lines: Madden’s food fetish, Michaels’ gambling innuendos, fade Matt Millen’s pick, TV ratings, commercials, cheerleaders, Jay Leno, thanking God —

Wait a minute:

Which team’s cheerleaders will be shown more often on camera?

Steelers: -175

Cardinals: +135

Who in hell issued these odds? (BoDog gets the initial credit for this one by our estimate.) Whoever set that cheerleader line should be fired because a) they set the cheerleaderless team¹ as 60% favorites, and b) they made it a 20¢ line — that’s like the cheapest on the board!

As the first week of Bowl Hype began, gimmick props were in short supply. Degenerates tapped their feet waiting for something other than the over-under for field goals, or whether the shortest touchdown would be longer than 1½ yards.

By Friday of that week, the BoDog press release began making the rounds. Blogs jumped on wholeheartedly. But the odds weren’t posted on BoDog that Friday. Or Saturday. Or Sunday. Or — well, we’re not actually sure when BoDog actually went live with these numbers, but we did see them by about the middle of the following week at certain questionable offshores.

Speaking of questionable offshores, this is a trend we’ve seen before. Books publicize odds well in advance of posting. In effect, their opening lines get vetted by the public before mistakes like the one above get offered to anyone sharper than a butter knife. And if a few blogs can quickly point out the gaping holes in your card, well imagine what the attention of Esquire can do.  BetUS bent the ear of Esquire to tout props that bordered on downright embarrassing. (Santonio Holmes was a +1500 to be MVP, but only +200 to be arrested leading up to or after the Super Bowl.)

Springsteen’s set list prognostication was laid to rest as early as Thursday when some paper mag called Rolling Stone advertised a line being offered by Sportsbook.com. That caused thousands to apparently sign up to the on-line sports book and begin pounding the crap out of one specific list.²

And finally, did anybody really cash on the Brenda Warner 3½ appearances during the game coverage? Really? You took the over?

·

·

BetUS is at it again.

They craft up some eye-catching exotic odds and pass them off in a press release.  These numbers get perpetuated on sports betting sites and blogs.  And BetUS gets free pub.

Yet, they don’t actually offer the odds.

They make for great water-cooler fodder.

Which food product will next be linked to a salmonella outbreak? That is a perfectly legitimate event to make a bet with a co-worker over coffee and, say, potentially tainted office birthday cake. Thanks to BetUS, you and your betting partner can more fairly handicap your taking sides over mushrooms (+1000) or eggs (+150).¹

Or how about Obama betting? Surely his inaugural speech will mention “God” more than the 2½ (o -140) BetUS has advertised as the line. Hell, everyone loves to bet the over, right? Put down five bills on 3+ “Gods” and shout Hallelujah at the TV every time he says it! What could be more engaging than that?²

Well, despite publicizing these odds on a number of different outlets we have yet to see anything at BetUS other than very stable and conservative exotics like the Oscars, or the Booker prize, or (if memory accurately serves) the next Pope.  Very unsexy stuff.

Please, do make up fluff odds — they’re funny.  Just preface it as such.  And while the press release doesn’t explicitly say the odds are available for betting, well, they are a sports book. And accepting actual wagers on future events is (to the best of our knowledge) their chief source of revenue.

In fairness, we don’t camp the BetUS site. But we have checked it repeatedly every time one of these stories pops up, and it is clear that if they are actually offering these odds, they only do so impractically short periods of time. If these were real bets, we would have seen them by now.

·

·

Once You Get Four Streakers, You Can Build a Hotel

A popular sports book (whose name we’ll conveniently forget) posted World Series props. Among the more traditional bets were these two:

• Will a fan streak the World Series? (Yes +600)
• Will at any time during the World Series a person parachute onto the field? (Yes +2500)

Naked. Not Nude

Mathematically speaking, the best case scenario is for a parachuter to touch down on second base, simultaneously causing four people to run onto the field nude. We’re still a little puzzled as to why it’s only 4.2 times more likely someone would ditch their clothes and head for the mound over chartering an illegal flight and performing a high-risk stunt.

Either way, the jokes on them. We’ve bought the max on both props and will base jump naked during game four.

[Toke: Gaylon Crizak, Express-News]

If You’re Going to Make Shit Up, Could You at Least Make it Funny?

That aforementioned sports book is also publicizing odds on the next Treasury Secretary. First problem, it’s not funny. Bill Gates at +10000 is as close as you get to humor. (Unless you’re a politics junkie — then maybe Chris Dodd at +2500 will cause you to split a stitch.)

Second (and bigger) problem is that the odds aren’t really posted. (At least to the best that we could see.) It’s not found under political futures. And this is not the first time we’ve seen this pattern: the book sends out prop odds via a PR email, often with a humorous slant bet which will get disseminated via all the intertubes. But at the site, no such odds exist. Is this a cheap way to generate publicity? ‘Cuz if you’re gonna screw around like this, at least throw us humorous odds for Conrad Black.

Ok, That’s Funny — But Really, Stop Making Shit Up

Same book, same M.O. Make up odds, have a media outlet/blog report them. And, if they are posted in the first place, they are closed in short order. In this case though, they are offering odds on what object will next be named for President George W. Bush. We’re particularly fond of re-christening Iraq as “Bush” (+1500). And that play has more favorable odds than the “George W. Bush Memorial Building for the Department of Infectious Disease” (+2000). At any rate, if they’re going to promote dumb-ass lines next to real ones, they should really allow bettors to make plays. Some of the serious options are seriously overvalued: Highway (+1200); School (+600); Airport (+500), etc.