By Micah Roberts
VegasInsider.com
Super Bowl XLIV betting has been steady at the Las Vegas Sportsbooks with ticket counts showing up at a little higher than 5 to 2 in favor of the Colts. Just about every sportsbook in town has the Colts as 5.5-point favorites with a few variations on the total from 56 to 57.
We haven’t seen anything yet though. Over 95% of all wagers on the game will be made Saturday and Sunday of this week and that will be where the telling sign is to where this game will go. So far on a small sample ratio, the Colts appear to be that team.
And why not? They have been the most consistent team all season seemingly unfazed where they play, what surface the game is on, and don’t even blink if they find themselves in a deficit.
Saints on the hand have many in the general public asking themselves if they are in the Super Bowl merely because of the home field advantage they had in the Superdome for the NFC title game where they looked to have been outplayed.
Had this game been in early November, the Saints would likely be the team with a 5 to 2 ticket count ratio. They were peaking at that juncture and looked to be unstoppable but then came the stretch run and they ran out of gas in the final furlong losing three straight as the playoffs began.
Fortunately for the Saints, they do have a little recent history on their side. Remember the dreadful 80’s and early 90’s Super Bowls that saw blowouts every year with NFC teams dominating?
Ever since Denver knocked off the Packers as an 11-point underdog, the Super Bowls have been pretty entertaining for the most part.
Just in the last two years alone we’ve seen the underdog side cover with the Cardinals almost winning and the Giants beating the undefeated Patriots. However, the underdog winning is still pretty scarce.
Since that Denver win, where many had the money line giving the Sportsbooks one of their lowest Super Bowl wins ever, the public has been chasing for that upset win. They hit big time with the Giants two years ago, and back to back with the Buccaneers in 2003 and Patriots in 2002, but that’s it. Despite those four wins, the favorites have still won eight of the last 12 finales.
Props offer Great Value
Whenever a Sportsbook extends itself with over 200 betting options that they have to monitor and baby sit while keeping the limits in the College Basketball range, it’s a good sign that the books aren’t as confident as they would like to be. Because of so many different numbers and opinions regarding the same props around town, bettors can even find themselves a nice middle on some of the player stat based props. It’s worth putting on some comfortable shoes and taking a walk down the strip visiting a few of the books like they did in the old days.
History of the Prop
The one that got the most attention was William “Refrigerator” Perry for the 1986 Super Bowl between the Bears and Patriots. Caesar’s Palace gave odds on Perry to score a touchdown. They opened it at 20 to 1 and closed it at 2 to 1. It found lots of takers and late in the third quarter of the blowout, Perry and Mike Ditka made them all winners.
“There was a lot of buzz around town for that prop with many around the city offering it,” said Lucky’s Sports Book Director Jimmy Vaccaro, “but it wasn’t until the reports came in from everywhere how much the books lost on the prop with stories published nationally by the wire services that made it so big.” Bears fans to this day still hold somewhat of a grudge against Ditka for having Perry score instead of future hall of Famer Walter Payton, and so do the books who lost on the prop. Since then, everyone has taken it to another level mixing in all other types of sports stats to go against the anything that happens in the Super Bowl.

Great write up...Someones getting hammered...Just hope its not my side..