Los Angeles vs. Cincinnati

Will either team jump out early and score? Me thinks not. As I've discussed, players and coaches are nervous to start this game. They don't want to take big risks or make big mistakes to put them behind the eight-ball. They generally play conservatively. The data backs this up. In 55 prior Super Bowls, there has been a score in the first four minutes of the game just seven times. That's 13% of the time, meaning the NO has come in 87% of the time. Fair odds on a NO bet on that are -671. And, as always, I like to look at recent history to see if things have changed. And indeed they have. Through the first 30 Super Bowls, there were five occurrences. But in the last 25, it has happened only twice. And those two times were flukes! In Super Bowl XLI you may recall Chicago's Devin Hester taking the opening kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown against the Colts. And, in Super Bowl XLVII, you probably recall the ball floating over Peyton Manning's head on the opening offensive snap for the Broncos vs. the Seahawks. And yes guys, these 25 Super Bowls included some of the most prolific offenses of all time. Fair odds on a NO bet when we look at 23 out of 25, comes to -1150. Yet here guys we get amazing odds of -280. Those odds imply that we have only a 74% chance of winning this bet. In fact, history says we have somewhere between 87% and 92%. So definitely take the NO on this prop bet for a Max Play.