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The Super Bowl LVI matchup is set and the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams will face off on Feb. 13, 2022.
This year’s Super Bowl is expected to reach a record $1 billion in total legal bets, as more states, including New York and Arizona, enter the sports betting market.
For first-time bettors or those unfamiliar with the intricacies of oddsmaking, here’s how to legally bet on this year’s Super Bowl:
See if sports betting is legal in your state
When the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018, it gave individual states legislative power to legalize sports betting.
Each state has its own set of rules. Some allow only in-person betting, while others also accept online and mobile wagers.
For example, both in-person and online sports betting is legal in New York, but in Virginia, there’s a bill that restricts bets on hometown college teams, and in Mississippi you can bet online, but only when inside a physical casino.
Sports betting is legal in some form in 30 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C., according to the American Gaming Association.
Interested bettors can verify if sports betting is legal in their state here.
Find a legal provider in your state
If sports betting is legal in your state, bettors can then travel to an in-person retail casino where bets are permitted, or find an online casino.
Some of the biggest sports betting operators in the U.S. are Caesars
CZR,
DraftKings
DKNG,
Fanduel, Penn National Gaming
PENN,
BetMGM
MGM,
and Wynn
WYNN,
In states where betting is most popular, more bets are usually placed online than in person — for example, in New Jersey online bets make up roughly 90% of all wagers placed in the state, according to publicly available data. Over the past 12 months, states like Arizona and New York began accepting online bets.
Additionally, living in the state where the bet is placed is not a requirement. You just have to be at least 21 years old and be within state lines when placing an online bet. Location is determined by GPS tracking from the electronic device that is placing the bet.
Understand the odds
The current odds for a player to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl is as follows:
Cooper Kupp -190
Joe Mixon -105
Cam Akers -110
Ja’Marr Chase +100
Odell Beckham +120
Tyler Boyd +275
A “-” symbol indicates a favorite and a “+” symbol indicates an underdog. For example, a $100 bet placed on a +275 choice would net a $275 profit, in addition to getting back the original $100. For favorites, it would take a $190 bet to win $100 on something with the odds of -190, such as Cooper Kupp’s odds to score a touchdown.
Another popular wager is betting on the spread of the game. As of Wednesday, the spread, also referred to as the line of the Super Bowl, is as follows:
Los Angeles Rams (-4.5)
Cincinnati Bengals (+4.5)
The Rams are 4.5 point favorites over the Bengals, and if a bettor wanted to bet on the Rams, he/she would win the bet if the Chiefs won the game by more than 4.5 points, which would cover the spread. Conversely, a winning bet on Cincinnati would mean the Bengals could win the game or lose by less than 4.5 points.
There are dozens of other kinds of bets that can be detailed here.
Betting tips
There are a few things you can do to maximize your Super Bowl betting experience.
The first is to do some research. Read and listen to experts about the game and see if you can spot a trend that nobody else can to give yourself a betting edge.
Second, bettors should monitor odds at several sportsbooks at once. If you did research and believe Matthew Stafford is going to win Super Bowl MVP and are willing to bet money on it, check a few different sportsbooks for Stafford MVP odds. If DraftKings has more favorable odds for your bet than FanDuel, bet there instead.
Third, and perhaps most important: only bet what you are willing to lose.
