Super Bowl XLV Odds: Bettors In Love With Packers
by Richard Gardner | Bodog Sportsbook Manager - 1/26/2011
The Green Bay Packers are making our players a lot of money at Bodog. On Sunday in the NFC conference championship game in Chicago, the Pack beat the Bears, 21-14. Green Bay’s 7-point victory also beat the 4-point spread, much I must admit to our dismay.
Earlier in the week, Green Bay opened as a 3-point favorite and was almost immediately bet up to -3.5. At that number we still weren’t writing any action on the Bears and by the weekend we made the decision to move to Packers -4. Finally at -4 we started to get some love for the Bears. As kickoff approached, the players were betting both sides of the game, but the book was still exposed from the early betting on Packers -3 and -3.5.
At the end of the day, almost 60 percent of the action we booked was on the Pack, giving the players a huge win and serving us up a tough loss. (Let’s just say we weren’t too impressed with Mike Martz’s end-around call on third down with the Bears driving late in the fourth quarter, but there’s not much we can do about that now.)
A number of players also made good money on a prop when they picked Aaron Rodgers to score the first touchdown at 16/1 odds.
Rodgers has been the main driving force for all this Packer love. His superb performance in the divisional playoff game in Atlanta had the whole football world talking, and all of a sudden the No. 6 seed in the NFC was the favorite to win the Super Bowl.
Rodgers wasn’t fantastic against the Bears, completing 17 of 30 passes for 244 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. However, he got the job done, and that’s all that mattered.
We’ve got the Packers as 3-point favorites against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV. A slight majority of the early action has been on Green Bay, but there’s still healthy support for Pittsburgh, which held off the New York Jets, 24-19, in the AFC conference championship game. The Steelers beat the 4-point spread with their victory, serving up players another win, although it wasn’t as decisive as the Packer victory.
As for the Super Bowl total, currently set at 45, the majority of the recent betting has been on the over. However, some sharp early action forced us to move the number from 46 to 45.
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