Live betting the Super Bowl was as much fun as non-stick aluminum foil.
That’s what I have learned about my experiment betting on the Super Bowl with a number of Ontario online sportsbooks.
On Friday, I placed $80 worth of Super Bowl bets through four Ontario online sportsbooks and documented the experience. I promised at the time to also try some live betting during the game. In the end, I placed three $5 bets through BetMGM (since I had used DraftKings, PointsBet, BetRivers and Proline for the pre-game bets).
It’s important to describe the scene.
It was madness… madness I tell you
I watched the Super Bowl with my wife and her parents.
To my left was my father-in-law, who clearly didn’t have his hearing aid turned up enough. All night, he seemed preoccupied with how much money Canadian golfer Nick Taylor earned for finishing second in the WM Phoenix Open (answer: $2.18 million) that ended just before the Super Bowl kicked off.
To the right of my wife was her mother, who was rooting for the commercials and against Rihanna while trying to convince me of the musical brilliance of Jason Aldean and the magic of non-stick aluminum foal for baking.
Dead centre was the big game on a big screen with my mother-in-law repeatedly yelling to her husband: “Tom, turn it down!”
Tom, he’s going to lose their house!
Meanwhile, I was trying to keep my betting on the down low. I wasn’t about to tell them I was betting during the game lest they worry that I was some kind of degenerate destined to lose the house I own with their only child.
Before we go any further, here’s something you should know about me: When either reading or writing, I need to “hear” the words in my head for best results. In my brain, outside distractions are the enemy of comprehension.
So, while surreptitiously trying to pick from a glut of live Super Bowl betting options, I was also tasked with trying to follow:
- The game itself.
- The commercials I was supposed to be absorbing so I can be hip in the zeitgeist.
- My wife showing me funny memes and responding to text messages.
- Two seniors starting different conversations on either side of me at exactly the same time, completely oblivious to the fact the other was speaking.
- Whether we were running low on chip dip.
- Hold up, why did an unknown Canadian golfer earn over $2 million for finishing second?
I wasn’t worried about the in-laws being suspicious of me being on my phone while they were trying to talk to me. Those damn kids are always on their phones.
Welcome to my mental nightmare
Let me take you now to a 30-second replay of the audio overload:
It looks like Mahomes was injured on that play. Look at him hobble off the field. Let’s go to commercial.
Millions of dollars of cocaine fell from the sky this morning in Knoxville, Tennesse… The bear, it f—ing did cocaine!
I’ve been using non-stick foil for baking for years and I tell you it’s worth the extra money. Here, let me give you some.
Can you believe he made two million bucks and missed that last putt?
Tom, turn it down!
This one is hilarious: It’s not fair… to deny me of the crossed-eyed bear that you gave to me. See, it’s a cross-eyed bear and Alanis Morrissette.
You’re not eating the guacamole. You should eat some guacamole. I bought cilantro especially for it.
Who is this Rihanna? I must be getting old.
All the while, I’m searching BetMGM for anything that might approximate a reasonable bet. I settled on next touchdown scorer and quickly scanned a list of options. Since the Eagles had the ball I picked Devonta Smith. Fail.
Later, I also tried AJ Brown to score the next touchdown and also Travis Kelce to do the same. All failed and I gave up.
Hopefully, this kind of torture will be banned along with water boarding.
In truth, despite the super distractions, I didn’t think I would enjoy live betting anyway. I don’t need it to enjoy the game — any game.
Thankfully, my pre-game bets were more fun.
I eked out a profit of $16.86
As for the $80 worth Super Bowl bets I made on Friday, I ended up with $111.85, a profit of $31.85 (not counting the $15 in money — $5 for casino, $5 for lottery and $5 for the sportsbook — that OLG gave me for betting $25 on the Super Bowl). Add in the $15 worth of live bets and my profit dipped to $16.86.
Here’s how my Friday bets ended up:
- Playing squares with both DraftKings and BetRivers was a bust.
- I did successfully score a $40 return from DK for betting $5 on Jalen Hurts scoring the first touchdown.
- My $5 bet through PointsBet that both Travis Kelce and Hurts would each score a TD scored me $16.50.
- I also won $13.25 from PB on my $5 wager that Patrick Mahomes would throw over 2.5 touchdowns.
- Over at BetRivers, I won $37 for a $10 same-game parlay (I played to boost the squares’ maximum payout from $100 to $10,000). The parlay was the Chiefs winning and the over on total points of 51. That qualified me for a $5 fee bet which I used to bet on the moneyline for the Chiefs to win at +102 for a huge payout of $5.10.
- I lost $5 on DK’s “Either team to kick a game winning walk off field goal at end of normal time” because Harrison Butker’s winning field goal sailed through the uprights with eight seconds left.
- My mostly novelty bets with Proline were all a bust: I bet $5 on “over 2:05” for the length of Chris Stapleton’s national anthem and whether Rihanna would wear sunglasses during her set.
- Over at DK, I also lost my $5 novelty bet on Rihanna’s last song being Don’t Stop The Music.
- Finally, my $15 Proline bet made in haste to finish the betting process and get to writing about it failed. I bet on Mahomes and Hurts each throwing over 2.5 touchdowns in the game (potential return $165). In hindsight, it was kind of a dumb bet. Which is why you should never bet in a hurry, kids.
What I learned
As for the Ontario sportsbook apps themselves, a few observations:
All, except Proline, worked well. Though, there are so many betting options for the Super Bowl, it was a little tricky finding what I wanted to bet on from the wide array of options.
As for Proline, their app needs work. I repeatedly logged on with them through the night and the next morning. Every time I went to check my bet slip the app said I needed to login to do that, even though I was clearly already logged in. So, it took multiple logins each and every time just to see what I had bet. Also, it defaults to show you what you bet based on when you placed the bets, not when the game was being played. So, I was constantly greeted with no current bets since I had placed the bets on Friday and it was now Sunday. That’s annoying.
Overall, since this is the second year in a row I’ve profited, slightly, from betting on the Super Bowl, it was an okay experience. But, I don’t particularly need gambling in my life and that’s probably a good thing.
And, clearly, live betting is not for me. Though, I will try it one time while watching a game at home solo. It’s likely a little better without distractions.
Now, excuse me while I fire up the Jason Aldean, clean my golf clubs and figure out the first thing I’m going to make with my new foil.
