Wager And Win Your Way On Super Bowl XLIX At Bet365

The amazing range of betting opportunities on American football is never more evident than during the build up to the Super Bowl 

I shouldn’t, I now realize, have admitted I watched the playoffs. It was a foolish thing to do for which I have been duly and aptly punished. Being from the UK I find American football to be both utterly ridiculous and a superbly watchable spectacle all at the same time. Sort of like the wranglings over US gambling laws if I think about it. The fervor of the fans and commentators, the blizzard of statistics, the razzmatazz of cheerleaders, and the insanity of a game that stops every few seconds for TV adverts, makes it, for me, fascinating.

Patriots Vs Seahawks on Bet365
• Vast range of options

• Up to the minute odds

• Mobile betting available

Not growing up in the States I had to learn what little I know about the game from television and I suppose I should tip my hat in the direction of Channel 4 in the UK for showing games back in the eighties when I were but a lad, and giving us in limey-land a grip on the basic concepts of a wholly alien game. Their lead gained the game enough popularity to bring actual NFL teams to the UK to play games at the famed Wembley stadium.

This popularity waned a bit for a few decades but has, recently, begun to return to the levels of popularity first seen in those heady days of the 1980s. Media coverage has improved and those of us not in the US, nor even in the UK, can now find ample opportunity to watch and wager on this most American of sports. Sites like Bet365 provide all the markets at the click of a mouse and live tv coverage is no more tricky to achieve.

This coverage usually matches up live commentary on the game and a selection of studio bound pundits who in times not long gone, at least in the UK, often took proceedings less than seriously knowing the ONLY people up at that time of night watching were hardcore fans. The relaxed atmosphere then providing even more entertainment as their token US guest tried to deal with the British sense of humor AND being an expert on TV.

Play Offs Provide Plenty For Pundits

The pundits in the studio might have computer aided illustrators, touch screen technology and a wealth of experience in the game (former players and coaches no less) but that didn’t stop some producer gamely goading the Brit amongst them (there to provide cultural subtitles) to throw a football around the studio in chaotic and silly scenes. Then again, given some of what went on during the games on the field perhaps that was entirely apt.

Let’s clear this up straight away, Green Bay’s defeat at the hands of Seattle was the greatest fourth quarter anyone’s seen in a good long while. That it went into extra time at all was a bit of a shame with Seattle so obviously in the ascendency despite their manifest failings on the night. It was hardly the tightest performance by the Seahawks ever, but boy was it gutsy, even off their game they can win them, and did just that against a demoralized Green Bay that eventually ran out of time and then sense.

The second of the two games was a completely different beast, a progressively more and more convincing domination of play by one team that time and time again made the plays that obliterated the chances and hopes the other were clinging to. Of course since the game we’ve had allegations of what amounts to ball tampering with claims some game balls were underinflated (and thereby made easier to throw and catch) in what the media have begun to call Deflategate.

Will gambling news of this stop the Patriots meeting the Seahawks on February 1st in Phoenix? No of course not. This is hardly the worst scandal the NFL has had to deal with in the last few years and, given their ability to move on after the other accusations made against them and their players, a whole week before a super bowl will be more than ample. A few deflated balls derail the Super Bowl line up with a week to go? I really wouldn’t bet on it, but it would be the only part of the game I couldn’t bet on.

Massive Market Selection Available

Turning to Bet365, as I usually do when I want to bet on sports in the US, to give me a few Super Bowl XLIX markets to talk about I sort of expected a relatively sparse choice of the variety one gets on matches in the English Premier league, who’ll win, by what score and who’ll do the ball-in-net trick first, that sort of thing, and thus was not entirely ready for the literal deluge of different bets one can select from. Americans always like to think they do things bigger and better. Well went it comes to betting markets, I have to admit they do.

Not that this helps me understand all of them. Divided up into Lines and Props the former is relatively simple with you wagering on score above or below at various points during the game, but the Props betting is divided up yet again into Main, Score, Team, 1st Half and Game Props and to be quite frank some completely escape my comprehension. Thankfully that leaves enough left over to keep even the most ardent fan happy for hours and hours.

There’s a neat 4/5 on a score a touch down within the first 8 minutes, 5/6 on a field goal within the first 14 minutes and a delightful 19/4 on the teams sharing the highest scoring quarter record of the game. You can get 4/11 on either team to score 3 times in a row unanswered and 4/5 on there being more than 4.5 sacks in total which seems fair based on how the teams fared last time out. But of course the big market is the winner and losers market.

Right now Bet365 is offering 20/23 on the Patriots and 20/21 on the Seahawks which perhaps reflects the keen match up this is likely to be. The Seahawks spirit against the technical method and precision of the Patriots will be a damn good game and with audience figures likely to break records (especially after the deflategate hype) this will be game you don’t want to miss watching or wagering upon wherever you happen to be.