Super Bowl 2022 odds: How professionals are betting Rams-Bengals
By Sam Panayotovich
FOX Sports Betting Analyst
Betting Super Bowl props is a hobby for most American sports bettors. For a fella like professional bettor Rufus Peabody, though, it’s a business.
I know plenty of regular people that set aside a little extra cabbage every single February to fire "fun" wagers on the NFL’s biggest game. Joe Burrow to throw an interception. Aaron Donald to win MVP. A kicker to hit a 55-plus-yard field goal. Yellow Gatorade to be poured on the winning coach.
Then, there are the pros.
Every year on the Thursday after NFL Championship Weekend, Peabody heads to Las Vegas to bet on the Westgate SuperBook’s world-famous propositional market. The props are released annually that day around 7 p.m. Pacific, at which point bettors can fire away on whatever they want.
This year, the SuperBook has almost 500 props on Super Bowl LVI between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals.
Check out FOX Bet's full offering of Super Bowl LVI player props and special props here!
"There were a couple I circled immediately," Peabody told me this week. "I bet Tyler Boyd ‘Over’ 14.5 yards for longest reception, and I don’t particularly like Boyd. I also bet ‘Under’ 6.5 Bengals with a pass reception at even money."
Peabody pores through more data in a week than most people do in a year, and he’s built computer programs and fine-tuned statistical models to enhance his edge. But it’s more than just analyzing data; there’s an art to understanding when a sportsbook hangs a bad number so Peabody and his peers can whack it.
"Super Bowl props have gotten a lot more efficient," Peabody opined. "You have these European-style books that are booking individual player props and a lot of these esoteric props every single week of the year.
"It’s not the way it used to be, when the books only priced this stuff once a year. The Wynn used to open a roughing the passer prop at -115 each way, and I would always hammer the ‘no.’ Those types of things don’t exist anymore, because all these Vegas books can look toward the books that are dealing props on a week-to-week basis. There’s a much bigger market now."
Peabody's analytically-driven mind is powered by his early days studying economics and market inefficiencies at Yale University. He eventually got a full-time job working for legendary Vegas oddsmaker Kenny White at Las Vegas Sports Consultants, then eventually branched out on his own.
"I don’t think I knew what a nickel was until I was 22-years-old," Peabody joked. "I did not come from a family of gamblers or anything like that. I just always loved the numbers side of sports. I wound up writing my senior thesis on psychological inefficiencies in the baseball betting market. Two years later, I was betting on sports for a living.
"Life comes at you fast."
Peabody tends to zig when others zag. Rather than bet "Overs" on a player like Rams receiver Cooper Kupp, he’ll often wait the market out and bet "Under" around kickoff when public money drives those player’s prices up.
"Kupp has averaged 117 receiving yards a game this season and his median is 116.5, so based on that, you would think the ‘Over’ is a good bet," Peabody said. "But eventually, there’s some regression to the mean. It’s just so hard to sustain performance at that type of level.
"It’s also a good example of what legalization has done to the market on gameday. You have more and more people betting, and most of them are recreational. Those people love betting on the marquee players to do well.
"They like ‘Overs,’ they like ‘Yes’ this player will score a touchdown, and they like betting on a safety. So there’s a lot of value for me to wait and fire ‘Unders’ when those numbers get inflated closer to kickoff."
Kupp’s Super Bowl yardage prop opened at over/under 104.5, and it’s as high as 108.5 right now. If you wait to bet Kupp’s "Over" on gameday, there’s a realistic possibility that it reaches 110.5. (For what it's worth, Kupp's receiving yardage total is currently 105.5 at FOX Bet, although the over is -120).
A six-yard move might not sound like a lot, but that difference can be enough to dictate the result. If Kupp lands on 107 yards, anybody that’s late to the party will lose.
COOPER KUPP PROP BETS AT FOX BET
Receiving yardage total: Over/under 105.5
Anytime touchdown: -154 (bet $10 to win $16.49 total)
To score first TD: +460 (bet $10 to win $56 total)
To win Super Bowl LVI MVP: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
To score 2 or more TDs: +365 (bet $10 to win $46.50 total)
To score a TD and Rams win: +130 (bet $10 to win $23 total)
Kupp and Ja'Marr Chase 50+ receiving yards each: -250 (bet $10 to win $14 total)
Receiving yardage is only the half of it, though. One American sportsbook is dealing Kupp -190 ($190 to win $100) to score an anytime touchdown. That price is notably higher than it was in the regular season, when he was regularly around -130 or -140 to score.
"That’s an awful bet," Peabody cracked. "It’s not a two-way market either. You can bet on something, but not against it. You don’t have a way of seeing what the actual juice is there. Oftentimes, you’re getting a really, really bad price.
"In Nevada, if a sportsbook offers Cooper Kupp to score a touchdown at -190, they have to offer the ‘no,’ too. You get a fair shake when you can bet a two-way market and you can see both prices.
"No book would be offering -190 if they had to offer the ‘no.’"
Given Peabody's strategy, odds are good that if the Bengals and Rams race up and down the field in a 34-31 shootout, Peabody will not have a successful day at the betting window. One of his worst days came during Super Bowl LII when the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots 41-33.
"Eagles-Patriots is definitely one of the worst," Peabody recalled. "Everything hit. All the ‘Overs’ hit. I got crushed. And go figure, the one ‘Over’ I bet was on Brandin Cooks. He got concussed early in the game and I lost that, too."
Yet there are a couple of lessons to be learned here, no matter how casual of a bettor you are. First: Have a plan. Yours doesn't have to be nearly as sophisticated as Peabody's, especially if you're just doing this for the fun of it.
But the more you can have a reason for the bets you make — "I think Joe Burrow has a big game," "This game is going to be low-scoring," or whatever your logic might be — the better you can feel about the shots you do take.
And second? Always be willing to adapt based on new information from sources you trust, whether it's data or people whose opinions you value.
"Sports are always changing, so you have to change, too," Peabody admitted. "If you’re trying to handicap football games with a model from 20 years ago, you’re going to be left in the dust."
Sam Panayotovich is a sports betting analyst for FOX Sports and NESN. He previously worked for WGN Radio, NBC Sports and VSiN. He'll probably pick against your favorite team. Follow him on Twitter @spshoot.