BetMaryland.com sports betting analyst Bill Ordine chatted with PressBox about the best ways to bet on NFL playoff games, some fun Super Bowl prop bets and more.
This has been edited for content and clarity.
PressBox: What can football fans in Maryland expect during the playoffs at the retail sportsbooks in the area?
Bill Ordine: From my personal experience, I have been in Las Vegas for three Super Bowls, and the atmosphere is electric. Being in a live sportsbook, surrounded by fans, when that event is going off and all these proposition bets are in play and people are cheering and booing on every play depending on what side of that event they happen to be on, it really is quite a hoot. I recommend it. For a sports fan who is interested in gambling, being in a live venue when playoff games are going off — certainly when the Super Bowl is going off — it’s just great, great fun.
PB: What’s the best way for bettors to have fun while staying within their means?
BO: My advice would be, of course, decide on how much you want to wager overall. Sports gambling is no different than wagering on blackjack or the lottery. You’ve got to first determine what your bankroll is. Now, with the Super Bowl as an example, let’s say your bankroll is $200. That’s just a hypothetical. You decide that you want to spread that $200 over 10 wagers. Take a look at the props that are available. Create categories — ones that you think are for-sure winners. Of course there’s no such thing, but pick three or four you think are for-sure winners, and you might want to use 50 percent or 60 percent of your bankroll on those two, three or four for-sure winners.
Let’s say you’re going to do 10 wagers. Of your remaining five or six or seven wagers, you will use whatever is leftover in your bankroll, spread it among those and probably do it evenly. That’s what my recommendation would be for folks. The advantage to doing that? You’ve got a lot of action. You have capped your losses. Certainly you can lose all 10 of those wagers, but there’s a great likelihood that you’re not [going to lose all 10]. At the end of the day, you won’t lose your entire $200 in all likelihood, but you’ve got action all throughout the game.
PB: Should bettors treat playoff games any different than regular-season games? Is there anything different that comes along for bettors during the playoffs?
BO: I think the best playoff games are always between two good teams. I think that there may be less volatility in those games, and they may be more predictable because you would hope that good teams playing against each other will play according to form. Now, we have seen situations where that hasn’t happened. That’s why they call it gambling. But the likelihood of teams playing to form in a playoff game is greater than in a regular-season game.
Dallas crushed Minnesota [in Week 11]. You would not expect to see that sort of thing happen in a playoff game when the stakes are much higher. I think that it is more reliable to be able to wager on player props within a playoff game as opposed to in a regular-season game. If you’re looking to wager on a running back doing better than 35 yards, that running back will probably be more likely to do his season average in a playoff game as opposed to a regular-season game where the volatility in a player’s performance is much greater.
PB: How careful should bettors be with parlays come playoff time?
BO: My advice on parlays is to consider them a lottery ticket. If you’re going to wager on a parlay, make it a very tiny portion of your bankroll. Do only one or two, if any. They have to be events that you feel quite strong about. For instance, will there be a field goal over 40 yards? Well, there’s hardly an NFL game where there is not a field goal over 40 yards. So you may think, “Well, that’s an event that is a for-sure event.” And you couple that with another event of a similar ilk. But other than that, parlays really are to be avoided by the average bettor. If it’s something that someone is compelled to do, make it a tiny portion of your
bankroll.
PB: What are some of the most popular Super Bowl prop bets? What’s the best way to stay smart with those on Super Bowl Sunday?
BO: The prop bet that everybody just loves is the first score — what player will be the first guy to score in a Super Bowl and what type of score it might be. A few years back in Seattle-Denver, the first score was a safety. The snap went over Peyton Manning’s head. The bookies got crushed on that. They just got crushed because it was such a high payoff. There’s almost no way for the oddsmakers to handicap the real odds on such an event happening. The odds were extremely high. People really love what player is going to score first. That’s one way of doing it. That’s one bet that everyone will be on.
As far as other ones go now, because of the array of bets that are out there, people generally like to bet on, for instance, what the last score of the first half will be — whether it’ll be a field goal or a touchdown — and who will score it, particularly if you have in-play available to you and you are following the game flow. … You can almost calculate who’s going to have the ball last at the end of the first half. I think that’s a bet that a lot of people like to make, the wager on the last score of the first half. You’re talking about good teams. If you can figure out who’s going to have the ball with two minutes left to go, they’re pretty much going to score.
PB: Are there any futures bets you like as the regular season winds down?
BO: With all respect to the Eagles, if there is a super team in the NFL now, it is Kansas City. We thought [before], “Well, maybe Buffalo is one of those kinds of teams.” But Buffalo has shown itself to have some flaws. Their quarterback doesn’t look so much like Superman as he did [early in the season]. But Kansas City is so consistent. Patrick Mahomes is so consistent, really. Andy Reid has been so good at taking whatever pieces he has and winning with them. Like in the olden days when Bum Phillips used to say, “The road to the Super Bowl goes through Pittsburgh,” for the AFC the road to the Super Bowl’s going to go through Kansas City. Are they a good bet? Well, I think everyone sees things the same way, so the odds are not that terrific for them.
Among everybody else, who do [I] like besides Kansas City and Buffalo? My lottery ticket is the Jets to win the AFC. I know it sounds somewhat bizarre, but there they are. … In the other conference, Minnesota was a team right from the very beginning that a lot of people discounted because of both Tampa Bay and Green Bay. Everybody looked at Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and they figured, “Well, those guys are most likely to be in a conference championship game and a Super Bowl.” But for value? Minnesota to win the NFC for sure.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox