Super Bowl Line
Super Bowl Betting Line
The Super Bowl is the biggest betting day in the year. Millions of people do it every year, illegally, but never face prosecution. In a large part, law enforcement turns a blind eye unless they receive a complaint or the stakes involved are millions of dollars. The Macomb Daily newspaper in Warren, Michigan conducted an interview with the city’s police chief. Concerning issues of small office pools, Police Chief Danny Clark stated, "We would investigate based on a complaint. But we're not looking for office pools. We look more at people with serious gambling problems, when a spouse calls and says there's no food in the refrigerator because the money has been gambled away."
Super Bowl Lines
The term “line” is very important to understand when betting on the Super Bowl or any other sporting event. Say the Detroit Lions and the Jacksonville Jaguars will play each other in this year’s Super Bowl. If the line is Detroit –7, then people who place their money on Detroit will win the bet as long as Detroit “beats the spread” and wins the game by over seven points. –7 is referred to as the spread, the point differential necessary to gain winnings. Inversely, Jacksonville bettors win if the Jaguars win the game or lose by less than 7 points. So if you are betting for a heavily favored team and they win but do not cover the spread, your bet is a loser since you must also meet the point differential qualification. Sometimes, it is much easier to put money on who is going to lose than it is to pick the winner.
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Super Bowl XLI Line
The most heavily favored team in history, the 1995 San Francisco 49’ers, were favored to beat the underdog San Diego Chargers by 18.5 points. They succeeding in their task at winning the championship and at the same time pleased everyone who put money on them beating the Chargers by more than 18.5 points. The most unlikely of Super Bowl champions according to this numbers game was the New York Jets in 1969 when they took down the powerhouse Baltimore Colts by the score of 16 to 7. Going into the game, the Colts were predicted to win the game by 18 points over the underdog Jets, but numbers were merely numbers on this day. The defense of New York shined that day, but Joe Namath played a stellar game at quarterback for the Jets, leading his team to victory in this unforeseen upset.