Pennsylvanians might not be able to legally bet on what color the Gatorade will be dumped on the winning team’s coach or the length of the National Anthem, but many people likely will make other proposition bets offered during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Prop bets, or side wagers, allow people to wager on things such as the outcome of the coin toss or which team will score the first points of the game. The wagers, permitted since Pennsylvania legalized sports betting in 2018, offer different avenues of betting during a game instead of simply who will win or how many points will be scored.
“Prop bets, I think, are popular,” said Sean Sullivan, general manager of Hempfield’s Live! Casino Pittsburgh, which opened in November at the Westmoreland Mall. “For me, it’s the way to go because I don’t want to wager a ton, but I want to have some longshot odds that I can win a lot.”
The bets are a way to engage casual sports fans who might be less inclined to study the game, checking to see which players are injured and other statistics that might impact the outcome.
At Live! Casino, prop bets include the coin toss, if both teams will score each quarter and which team will score first or last.
Through a partnership with FanDuel, unique bets offered in an online sportsbook include whether or not the game will end in a scorigami, or a final score that has never happened in NFL history, which team’s coach will challenge a ruling, if a player will be ejected and scoring by jersey number.
“For the Super Bowl, prop bets are probably where a lot of the fun lies with our guests,” said Andre Barnabei, vice president of gaming at Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore. “You can literally bet on some silly stuff, fun stuff.”
For Barnabei, one of the more unique options is betting on whether a field goal will hit the crossbar or uprights when it’s kicked. Like Live! Casino, the online sportsbook BetRivers offers more prop bet options, including whether a player other than the quarterback will win the MVP award and ones centered around the ages of quarterbacks Tom Brady, 43, and Patrick Mahomes, 25.
While there are several ways to place prop bets, Pennsylvanians are resigned to finding other avenues for guessing what color the Gatorade will be — the Chiefs coach Andy Reid got orange last year — and the length of the National Anthem, which came in at one minute and 49 seconds in 2020, sung by Demi Lovato, according to Play Pennsylvania.
Those bets are not permitted in the state because “all wagers must be based upon the outcome of an event or the statistical performance of an athlete within an event,” said Doug Harbach, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.
Still, Sullivan said prop bets are a way for everyone to take part in sports betting.
“The interesting thing about sports betting, everybody can have fun with it. Everybody can be entertained with it at different level,” Sullivan said.
