What a season.
When I started this project, I did not have a job and needed a place to keep writing and take gambling too seriously so as to not go insane. The goal was to take $5,000 of my savings after getting laid off and commit them to sports betting, turning those $5,000 into $10,000 or $0 in the process. Double or nothing, get it?
Anyways then I got a job. Blogging and editing at Sports Illustrated. Pretty sweet! And thus, the blogging here declined. But I kept betting with the money I had entered into my accounts, because of course I did.
So now we’re back here, on the verge of the Super Bowl. I went back to the books I was keeping at the start of the year. As it turns out, I only committed $2,200 to the sports books ahead of Week 1, and thanks to some fortuitous finishes in daily fantasy recently, I have just about two-thirds of that still remaining in my accounts despite my insistence on making the dumbest bets possible most weeks of the football season.
With one game left to bet before the dreadful offseason, I have devised five extremely silly bets with the goal of winning it all back.
Bet 1: $5 Chiefs Dominate Parlay
Chiefs ML
Over 47.5
Christian McCaffrey TD
Isiah Pacheco TD
Travis Kelce TD
Patrick Mahomes TD
Mahomes 300+ Passing
Kelce 9+ Receptions
Mahomes 40+ Rushing
Purdy 25+ Rushing
Turning $5 into $2,200 is not easy but hey you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. This bet is made up of several smaller things I believe in.
First, for better or worse, I am riding the Chiefs here. Brock Purdy is better than we all gave him credit for, and I am willing to admit he’s silenced my biggest gripe about him (he and the 49ers are front-runners) with two massively impressive comeback wins already in the playoffs. But I still kinda think he stinks. And I just would feel very stupid losing a bet where I picked Purdy over Patrick Mahomes.
Over 47.5 is because it’s just too dang hard to bet the under in the Super Bowl. Dumb guy logic, but come on we want to make a game of it.
Christian McCaffrey and Travis Kelce touchdowns are pegs that you will see are attached to basically every bet here. Kelce might be a bit dangerous to use so consistently—between the Swiftie hype around him and the 49ers’ awareness that he is the one man on the Chiefs that needs to be stopped, his numbers are probably juiced quite a bit over their true value. Still, Andy Reid has proven time and time again he’s able to get Kelce the ball in a lot of different ways.
Isiah Pacheco touchdown is just from the fact that in this scenario, the Chiefs are running up the score. Mahomes touchdown is faith in his ability to improvise around the goal line.
Mahomes passing and Kelce receptions are related. It’s a love story, baby just say yes.
Mahomes rushing is just a thing I believe in. When a defense drops too many back in coverage, he only needs a pump fake to pick up 10 yards pretty easy. Purdy rushing yards stems from a belief that the Chiefs will try to bait him into a mistake throwing, he won’t take the bait, and he’ll make two big plays with his legs.
Final score in this scenario? I dunno man like 34-30 Chiefs or something.
Bet 2: $10 The 49ers Are Really Doing This Huh? Parlay
49ers ML
George Kittle TD
Travis Kelce TD
Christian McCaffrey 2TD
Purdy O12.5 Rushing
McCaffrey 120+ Rushing
Kittle 60+ Receiving
Rashee Rice 50+ Receiving
Alright so, we must acknowledge the fact that the 49ers are in the Super Bowl and are the better team at most skill positions and really might and maybe even should win this game. They are the favorites after all.
So, 49ers moneyline. Kelce and McCaffrey TDs again, but this time it’s 2TDs for McCaffrey, because a San Francisco win means he has the ball a lot. George Kittle also finds the end zone because it’s a tight end party baby.
Purdy rushing again, but just a little bit this time. One first down and one quick run should do the trick. McCaffrey +120 rushing is a lot—he’s eclipsed the mark just twice this season—but really he only needs to break one big touchdown run and from there, if the 49ers are playing to hold a lead, he should have plenty of carries to get him over the line.
Kittle receiving is a play on his first down ability, and Rashee Rice receiving yards is a bet that feels really good if the Chiefs are pressing.
Final score, uhhh, like, 29-22.
Bet 3: $20 Sure Why Not Touchdown Parlay
Christian McCaffrey TD
Travis Kelce TD
Marquez Valdes-Scantling TD
Jauan Jennings TD
Who doesn’t love a good touchdown parlay? This was how I wasted most of my money during the NFL season, and it would be a pity not to give it one last ride.
Basically my goal was to find a bet that was 1) 100/1 or longer odds and 2) at least like, sorta conceivable. So we start with our two touchdown anchor plays in CMC and Kelce. Add in MVS because someone needs to break a big play for the Chiefs, and Jauan Jennings because he’s the most likely 49er to be completely forgotten about while worrying about other 49ers, and voila.
Bet 4: $20 Thought About It And Had to Bet It MVP Bet
Chris Jones MVP 110/1
So I don’t actually think this bet has a real chance of hitting, but I thought about it long enough that I would feel like an asshole if it did hit and I wasn’t on it.
While looking for ways to turn a small amount of money into $2,200, I was drawn to potential one-shot bets. Sure parlays are nice, but what if you could win it all with just one thing happening.
There’s a lot of impact defenders on the field on Sunday, but Chris Jones could be a real disruptor. The 49ers offensive line is one of the best in the business, but if he can get through and cause some chaos—two sacks, a forced fumble, some other shenanigans—in a game with no clear hero elsewhere, I mean it could happen.
Bet 5: $100 First Touchdown Ride or Die Bet
Patrick Mahomes First TD 22/1
So I had $100 left in an account with Caesars Sportsbook, and I simply do not like their product. I use Caesars so little I forgot this money was in there, meaning it really felt like a $100 free bet to me.
“It’s always the quarterback,” is a mantra I’ve repeated the past two years as QB rushing touchdowns have become more and more common, and it just feels like this could happen.
For what it’s worth, you can get this bet for 25/1 at DraftKings, but I care about my money in DraftKings, and at Caesars, it was 22/1, which was precisely what I needed it to be to win $2,200. If it hits, I will technically be missing out on $300, but if it hits, that means it wouldn’t have hit had I placed it at DK, because that’s how gambling works.
So there we go. If Mahomes scores the first touchdown of the game, we can enjoy the rest of the night in peace.
Other notes:
If you are interested in a simpler bet and are less concerned with making $2,200 than I am (as you should be), just betting a TD parlay of Kelce/McCaffrey should get you to about +150 odds. The price should be better, but I still think it’s a pretty fun way to get action on the game and have a rooting interest when both teams have the ball to start out.
I am making a few other teeny bets on exact scores because everyone loves a lottery ticket. If you know what the exact score of the game is going to be, please let me know.
Super Bowl Prop Bets used to be a really big deal. Back in the day, you couldn’t bet on an individual player’s over/under yardage total in any given game. Now, you can do that on the worst AFC South matchup you can imagine on a Sunday afternoon. It feels like some of the magic is gone. I love that gambling is more widely available, but the pervasiveness of props is a bit weird. I might have more to say about this at some point I still don’t know how I really feel about it other than “huh this certainly is different than what it used to be” but I’m surprised it’s not brought up more. Things changed a lot real fast!
Thanks for reading. Hope you win all your bets.