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Super Bowl Betting Money Management


by Chris Vasile - 1/30/2020

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes

The main goal of betting the Super Bowl is to turn a profit. You must not lose track of the fact that the Super Bowl is ultimately just another football game (albeit the last game of the season) to wager on. One team will win, and one team will lose. One team will cover the Super Bowl spread, while the other will not. You've laid down a bunch of wagers before Super Bowl Sunday, and you've trusted and stuck to your methods. Don't deviate now.

The endless number of prop bets are offered by sportsbook to overwhelm you. Sure, some of them have a slightly bigger edge than others, while some of them (read: The Coin Flip ) are a losing proposition before they even take place.

To compare how tempting and utterly useless prop bets are on Super Bowl Sunday, imagine yourself as a 21-year-old hitting the Las Vegas Strip for the first time. You have $500 to spend, and your main goal is to make it to the best casino on The Strip to do a little gambling. You're walking down the strip and got the deer-in-the-headlights look going on. It's all happening so fast. The buzz is electric, and your throwing around cash on a whim. $50 for dinner, $100 for drinks, $50 for a tattoo you'll regret when you sober up, another $50 to get on the guest list at the after-party spot, and so on. By the time you get to the casino, your left with $55, and that doesn't go a very long way in a casino.

That scenario is the same thing as betting on the game itself and prop bets. Losing prop bets before the actual game starts will only piss you off and hamper a potentially big night if you were to win your main Super Bowl bet. Don't do it. And for the love of god, don't bet on the Coin Flip. The only thing that should be flipping is your middle finger to the TV when your team can't get off the field on third-and-seven or when the ref takes eight minutes too long to review a play that we already know the outcome of.

Regardless of if we are talking about the Super Bowl, the World Cup Final, Game 7 of the World Series or any one-off sporting event that the world salivates about, your money management practice should not waver. In case you need reminding of what good money management looks like, we've listed a few tips to keep you from busting your bankroll on this year's Super Bowl.

Set a Unit Amount

This is the most important money management tip you will learn today. Setting a unit amount is critical when it comes to protecting your money because it gives you stability. Deciding how much to bet based on how you are feeling at a certain point in the day is the worst possible way to turn a profit at the end of the season.

Depending on your bankroll, and how comfortable you are betting, a unit can be any number from $1 to $500 to $5,000. Obviously, the smaller your bankroll, the smaller your units should be. However, at the end of the day, it's all about how comfortable you are losing money. If you have a bankroll of $1,000 to start, I would recommend making your units anywhere from $30-$50. If you chose $50, a one-unit play (something you want action on) will cost you $50. If you feel more confident in a certain play and want to up the unit size, you can make it a five- or six-unit play that will cost you $250 or $300.

Set a Maximum Bet

Doc's Sports employs a 8-unit betting system where the minimum bet is 1-unit and the maximum is 8-units. The idea is to move your wagers around based on the strength of each game. Bettors should decide what their 8-unit maximum is, which would also be the most they are comfortable losing in a single game. Of course, this number should coincide with the amount of money in gambler's bankroll and should be around 10 percent of his total bankroll.

Typically speaking, pro handicappers only have one or two 8-unit plays per season. They are sometimes referred to as the "Game of the Year," thus leaving them more exposed than a normal bet would.

Set Limits

Once you have a betting unit set and 8-unit system in place, the next step is to decide how much you want to risk. Sure, this is the last football game you'll be able to wager on for almost six months, but those six months will be a hell of a lot smoother if you don't go bankrupt off of one game. The Super Bowl is already one of the most bet on games in the world, and because of that there is no real line value with either side. Capping your exposure will allow you to still get your action in on the big game, but it'll prevent you from sweating your bets out to the point where you can no longer enjoy the game or the night itself.

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