Patriots Still Futures Betting Favorites To Win Super Bowl

Added on Jan 15, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

They won’t play their first playoff game until Sunday afternoon, but the New England Patriots are still the favorite to win Super Bowl XLV in Dallas on February 6. The current Super Bowl betting futures odds from 5 Dimes have the Pats installed as a +160 favorite to win the Vince Lombardi trophy. Every other team remaining in playoff contention is priced at +500 or higher.

The Atlanta Falcons are +585 and the #2 choice to win the Super Bowl followed by their opponent on Saturday, the Green Bay Packers who are priced at +650. Also at +650 are the Pittsburgh Steelers who face the Baltimore Ravens in Saturday’s early NFL playoff game. The Chicago Bears are +800, likely helped by what should be an easy victory over the Seattle Seahawks at Solider Field on Sunday. The Baltimore Ravens are +1050, with the New York Jets installed at +1850 to take the NFL Championship. Not surprisingly, the biggest longshot in the field is the Seattle Seahawks–the first team with a losing record to ever make the NFL playoffs is +7000 to complete an improbable postseason run.

From a handicapping standpoint, the most obvious point to make is that if you want to back any of these teams in futures betting you should head over to your favorite sportsbook and do it now. Most books will take these lines down at kickoff of Saturday’s game and not post them again until all of this weekend’s action has been completed. When they go back up, the remaining teams will be available at much shorter odds. So if you already have a strong opinion about which team will ultimately prevail in the Super Bowl you need to get down now.

Other than that, I’m still not seeing much value with the favored New England Patriots. Not that they don’t have a good shot of winning the Super Bowl but the price just doesn’t offer much value. By contrast, any team other than the Patriots all look to offer a good overlay relative to their ‘true odds’ of winning. For example, the Atlanta Falcons are priced at +585 which implies a theoretical breakeven percentage of 14.60%. In other words, if you think Atlanta has a better than 15% chance of winning the Super Bowl–which I do–they’re a good value.

In terms of specifics, I’d suggest these plays:

Atlanta Falcons +585
Pittsburgh Steelers +650
Chicago Bears +800

We like all three teams to advance this weekend, meaning that we want to lock in the best possible price. Even if only two advance we’ll have a good position to hedge off of.