Consider this a public service announcement from a lifelong football fan: Do not misinterpret this story as gambling advice.
With that said, it appears that sports media “experts” — and to some extent, the betting public — strongly favor the defending-champion Kansas City Chiefs to defeat the favored San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.
That should make pop-music megastar Taylor Swift smile.
After all, Swift’s much-publicized relationship with Chiefs tight end and Pfizer spokesman Travis Kelce has given the NFL a season-long storyline. And one suspects that nearly everyone involved would love to see a fairy-tale ending.
With 10 days to go before kickoff, most people expect that ending to materialize.
The Chiefs and 49ers will square off Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Long before that, however — in fact, from the moment they knew the match-up — many sports fans had already turned their eyes to the gambling capital of the United States.
For sports-betting neophytes, it is important to keep in mind that gamblers and prognosticators have two basic ways to predict the outcome of a game.
First, they may predict (and/or bet on) the team they expect to win the game. In gambling, this would involve betting the moneyline.
Do you want Taylor Swift’s Chiefs to lose?
Or, second, they may bet the point spread.
According to ESPN, the 49ers opened late Sunday as a 2.5-point favorite. For gambling purposes, this meant that San Francisco would have to win the Super Bowl by at least three points for bettors to win money on them in this fashion.
This surprised me to a certain extent. After all, the Chiefs had looked far more impressive in their three playoff victories than the 49ers had in their two narrow wins.
On the other hand, San Francisco only had to play two playoff games, because of its dominant regular season. With an NFC-best 12-5 record and a gargantuan point-differential (+193), the 49ers earned the conference’s top seed and a first-round playoff bye.
Meanwhile, Kansas City struggled at times in the regular season and hardly resembled a defending NFL champion. A point differential of only plus-77 over 17 weeks meant that the Chiefs found themselves in many more close games than did the 49ers.
On balance, therefore, San Francisco’s season-long body of work strongly suggests a superior team.
Nonetheless, the “experts” have lined up behind Swift’s Chiefs.
On ESPN, for instance, eight of 11 “gut reaction predictions” from reporters and analysts favored Kansas City.
But ESPN hardly stood alone.
On CBS, handicapper Larry Hartstein predicted a 24-23 Chiefs victory.
Andrew Peters of Bleacher Report forecast a 27-21 win for Kansas City.
And Sporting News’ Bill Bender had it 30-24, Chiefs.
Then we have the betting public, though here we must add one important caveat.
On the gambling website Covers, Jason Logan picked the Chiefs moneyline (+110).
And Logan had company. According to Yahoo, in fact, by Wednesday the Chiefs moneyline had received five times as many bets as had the 49ers.
Betting the moneyline does mean, of course, that the gambler expects that team to win. The caveat, however, is that in this case, the moneyline pays more for betting the Chiefs. Thus, it contains a built-in incentive to back Kansas City.
Indeed, the moneyline always pays more for betting on the underdog. Las Vegas oddsmakers, after all, did not build palatial casinos by losing money to the public.
Nonetheless, all the caveats in the world could not conceal the fact that most people expect the Chiefs to win.
Swifties, however, should not get too comfortable. If bettors and prognosticators like the Chiefs, that might mean that Vegas knows something they do not.
On that point, we will give the final word to Sean Treppedi of the New York Post.
“Ignore the storylines and take the early edge with San Francisco,” Treppedi wrote.
Take that non-advice, free of charge.
