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Super Bowl Sports Betting History

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(American) football fans hear all the time how much more the World Cup is watched and bet on, but let’s remember: The American football market is almost exclusively held within the confines of the U. S. of A. Also, according to Lineups, the final match of the World Cup ($7.2 B) essentially equals the Super Bowl betting ($7.0 B). What this means: If you are asking what’s the most bet on game in the world, you COULD say the World Cup, BUT given the bet volume relative to viewership, I would venture to say the Super Bowl still takes the cake as “the biggest bet on game” in the world.

With that said, this piece will look into the Super Bowl Betting History, its overall trends, notable results, and a deep dive into its history. 

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Overall Trends

Outside of 3 occasions, the Super Bowl’s early years were dominated by Favorites, not only covering but winning outright (XII Steelers v Cowboys being the only Favorite win without a cover early on). You could probably extend that proclamation all the way up until XXIX when the 49ers, a 19-point favorite, trounced the Chargers. That is, in the first 29 Super Bowls, the favorite went 21-8 ATS. The 49ers and their 19 point ATS, a spread only seen in the NFL 15 other times total since 1978, seemed to mark a tipping point for the market. After that Super Bowl, the favorites have gone 8-25-2 ATS, a major but long-awaited correction, leaving us with an overall ATS split of 29-23-2 for the Favorites during the game’s history.

The Under/Over outcomes have had a far less interesting but equally balanced history with the Over hitting 27-26, with Super Bowl, I refraining from listing a total at all. The earliest days of the Super Bowl did have an interesting string of 7 straight “unders” hitting a row from Super Bowl III to X. You can see a full breakdown below:

Notable Results

In the previous article, The 10 Biggest Upsets in Super Bowl History, we noted some interesting unexpected outcomes, but we also included a section on a rare Super Bowl occurrence: the Underdog Covering, yet still losing. It’s quite a rarity in the Super Bowl, only occurring 6 times ever (1976, 1989, 1996, 2004, 2005, and 2009)!

Possibly the most infamous Super Bowl outcome from a betting standpoint was the first great “Middling” opportunity. Middling happens when you bet on one team at price A, then over a period of time (usually within the game week), the spread changes enough that you can reasonably bet on BOTH teams (betting at Price B), guaranteeing you won’t lose, with the chance of winning BOTH bets in the middle. This happened in Super Bowl XIII when the Steelers beat the Cowboys 35-31. The opening spread of the game was Steelers -4.5 but closed at -3.5. This means if you took Dallas at +4.5 early in the week, THEN Pittsburgh late in the week at -3.5, you won BOTH bets. Many in the industry called the game “Black Sunday.”
 For the Sportsbooks.

Some quick hits:

  • XLIX between the Patriots and Seahawks was the first (and only) time the Super Bowl spread was a pick’em (the market saw the opponents perfectly matched in the game)
  • There have only been 2 pushes (Favorite’s margin of victory was exactly the same number as the pregame ATS): XXXI (Packers over Patriots) and XXXV (Rams over Titans)
  • The NFC South (Tampa Bay’s conference) has gone 5-0 All-Time OVER the U/O.

Betting History

Like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, this section is my opportunity to complain about how easily the young generation of NFL fans has it. Anyone that watched Super Bowls in the 80s and 90s knows the games used to be “Super Bores.” Just look at the split below of the average margin of victory for each game, split between two distinctive time periods:

  • From 1980-2003 (XIV-XXXVII): 18.18 points
  • From 2004-present (XXXVIII-present): 8.88 points

Almost a full 10 points difference. The Super Bowl has gotten MUCH more entertaining since the turn of the century, and sportsbooks and sharp bettors have noticed. 

Although the inflection points in outcome/margin of victory above seem to be 2003 /2004, the average betting line (ATS) for the Super Bowl has a similar trajectory, with a different timeline. Below is a graph of the spreads for all Super Bowls in Chronological order:

Or a better way to look at how the point spread has moved in the Super Bowl’s History:

As you can see above, when clustered by decade (a couple of 60s paired with 70s), you can see a clear trendline towards a smaller betting line.

The totals line for the Super Bowl has shown equal balance going 27-26 in its history (Super Bowl I did not have a totals line). Not surprisingly, the O/U trended upwards during the history of the game, given the NFL’s move towards a more offensive game: Below, you can see a chronological chart of the O/U since the first Super Bowl.

Taking a deeper dive and batching O/Us, you can see the following outcomes:

O/U Over W/L
> 52 4-6
49-51 4-2
42-48 10-8
35-41 8-6
<35 1-4

The Super Bowl has a long and storied history, with plenty of interesting trends and results that continue to make the game the most bet on event in the country. 

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Whether you’re new to sports betting or a betting pro, our Sports Betting Strategy and Advice page is for you. You can get started with our 101 section — including 10 Sports Betting Tips for Beginners â€” or head to more advanced strategy — like Key Numbers When Betting Against the Spread â€” to learn more.

Ryan Newman is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Ryan, check out his archive.