There are different ways to attack the Super Bowl prop market. I'll touch on some of the ways to do that along with giving out a few of my favorite prop bets. The place I would recommend starting is by making your own lines for these props and then comparing them to the market. You can do this with predictive models, previous Super Bowl lines, averages, or research. Also make sure you look at multiple books so you can find the best odds on any given bet. I do both of those things and also have three key points that I focus on when looking for Super Bowl props.

The first point of emphasis is on general over/under player and team props. The rule of thumb that I go by is bet overs early and unders late. The bulk of my bets will be unders, especially when it comes to popular players. There is going to be a lot of novice money in these markets, people who haven't bet props all year will be diving in head first this week. Generally this leads to a lot of money coming in on the overs and therefore over inflated numbers that are often too high. I will be looking at a number of players to bet unders on, but I will wait till late Saturday or even Sunday to lock them in as they will most likely rise as the game gets closer. Contrasted to that if you want to bet players over, bet them when these numbers first come out because they will most likely get bet up as well.

I included one over in my listed plays which is Jerick McKinnon recieving yards and receptions, that is one that you should bet right now if you like it. I think with the injuries that the Chiefs have in their WR core they will turn to McKinnon a bit more. He is an explosive player, especially in the passing game, and I think they will look to include him fairly significantly in the gameplan.

The second theme of my SB prop handicapping is boring bets, aka betting on things not to happen. No roughing the passer, under one and a half times they use the chains, no TD overturned by replay, and the like. There are a number of bets out there that are inherently mispriced, books don't generally want to list bets at -500 or -750 because they won't get much action on those numbers and they don't want to give out huge plus money on the other side. Plus there is a huge subset of bettors that are going to only be looking at the plus money side of these things anyway and don't want to lay -250 or -300. But if there is a bet that should be priced much higher then it is, it presents an opportunity even at those high minus money prices. I've included a number of those below, I understand that not everyone likes betting these things but if you want to make money it is a good idea to include a number of those bets in your portfolio.

The last subset of bets is the most fun, this is where I'm looking for long shots with high odds. A few years ago I hit 100/1 on the first play of the Rams/Pats Super Bowl when Tom Brady threw a pick on his first pass attempt. There are a number of good categories that you can go down the board to find good value and long odds. A few that I like are first and last TD, first and last INT, exact score, exact margin of victory, and other similar categories. These are bets that aren't usually going to hit but when they do it can make your day. With these I'm focusing on bets that are semi likely to hit. I'm not going to bet that the power will go out at the Super Bowl or on a long shot first Rihanna song, unless I have some sort of insight. Things like who will score a TD or get an INT however, are reasonable bets to make and something that I feel like I can actually hit at a profitable rate.

That's the basics of my approach to betting Super Bowl props, I encourage you to make you own lines and price these things out yourself too. Below are a few of my favorite Super Bowl prop bets, check out the newsletter to see more and other picks from our other contributors.

Written by James Gordon