The Super Bowl is nine days away, which means it's time for the annual tradition of looking at prop bets and convincing yourself that betting on the length of the national anthem is somehow a reasonable financial decision. Spoiler alert: it's not. But you're going to do it anyway, because you're here, reading a website called Balls Deep International, and self-control clearly isn't your strong suit.
The Props That Will Make You a Menace
First coin toss: You can bet on whether the coin lands heads or tails. This is a 50/50 proposition with juice built in, which means the books are taking money from you to bet on randomness. This is the purest form of degeneracy. There is no edge. There is no analysis. You are paying money to guess which side of a metal disc faces upward. If you bet this, you need to call someone who loves you and have a conversation.
Color of Gatorade dumped on winning coach: This prop requires you to predict the outcome of a game, the hydration preferences of an equipment manager, and the marketing deals that a cooler company has made. You're essentially betting on a supply chain. Last year 47% of people took orange and it was purple. Everyone was furious. Nobody learned anything.
Will any player propose on the field after the game: This prop exists because someone did this once and now we have to deal with it every year. You're betting on whether a professional athlete has a romantic plan that he's willing to execute on national television. You're handicapping love. You're trying to find value in human emotion. This is what rock bottom looks like.
The Props That Will Get You Uninvited
If you bet the over on the national anthem length, you will spend the national anthem staring at your phone with a stopwatch while everyone around you stands respectfully. You will be the person who shushes someone during America the Beautiful because they're adding extra runs. You will become the problem. Your friends will notice. They will remember this about you for years.
If you bet on "how many times will the broadcast mention [specific player's injury]," you will become obsessed with counting. Every camera cut to the sideline will feel personal. You will start yelling "MENTION IT" at a television that cannot hear you. The people you're watching with will exchange concerned glances. You will not notice these glances because you're too busy counting.
If you bet the same game parlay involving first touchdown scorer, exact halftime score, and total passing yards for both quarterbacks, you have created a bet that requires approximately 847 things to go right. You will spend the entire game doing math in your head. You will be impossible to talk to. By the third quarter you will be calculating permutations of failure scenarios. By the fourth quarter you will have lost and also missed the entire game.
A Warning From Experience
I once bet the under on Taylor Swift camera appearances at a Super Bowl she wasn't even attending. I was so deep in the prop bet mines that I forgot to check if she was going to be there. She was not there. The camera showed her zero times. The under hit. I won money betting on a celebrity's absence from an event she never planned to attend. This is what happens to you. This is where the road leads. The road leads to accidentally profitable bets on nonsense and an inability to explain your winnings to normal people.
Bet responsibly. Or don't. I'm a website called Balls Deep International, not your financial advisor.