NFL 2011 Super Bowl XLV Picks
The Super Bowl line-up was locked into place yesterday as the Green Bay Packers conquered the Chicago Bears, and the Pittsburgh Steelers routed the New York Jets. The AFC Champion Steelers will take on the NFC Champion Packers in the ultimate Super Bowl XLV showdown on February 6, 2011.
This leaves online sports bettors a full two weeks to assess the situation, studying each competitor to determine the best team to lay their money on.
There is no way of knowing how much money is wagered on the Super Bowl each year. We know that about $100 million USD is wagered in Super Bowl bets via legal sports books. But when you consider the number of local bookies taking bets, the office pools, the friendly wagers among acquaintances, the number could easily stretch into the billions.
The Super Bowl is historically the most wagered upon football game in the United Stated, possibly rivaling wagers on the entire regular season, all games combined.
Before you single out a specific team to cover the spread, be sure to consider all types of wagers that can be made. NFL betting picks don’t just cover odds and spreads, but a number of proposition bets as well.
If you examine the odds coming out of Las Vegas, you’ll find that oddsmakers encompass much more than the winning team. Odds are set on things as simple as who will win the coin toss for the opening kickoff and whether it will land on heads or tails, to the number of punts to take place throughout the game, across both teams. Individual performance bets can be placed on most players, like the quarterbacks, running backs and receivers. Sacks, interceptions and fumbles are also included.
There are even multi-sport propositions to be considered. Did you know you can bet on whether a quarterback will have more completions in the Super Bowl than an NBA player will score in a specific basketball game?
With all of these possible Super Bowl bets to be evaluated, it’s a good thing sports bettors are allotted a full two weeks between the AFC and NFC Championship games and the Super Bowl.
On a related note, I’ve done quite a bit of research on the subject myself, and I’ve seen other writers claiming that the purpose of the extra weekend off between the biggest weeks of the post-season is for the sole purpose of benefiting gamblers. They claim that the NFL won’t admit it, but the only reason there are two weeks between these games is so gamblers have sufficient time to study their wagers, thereby increasing the popularity of the sport.