The 11 Funniest (and Weirdest) Bets You Can Make on Super Bowl LVII

Sports betting has blown up in the U.S. since the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban in 2018, and most Americans who gamble bet on NFL games. Billions of dollars will likely be riding on Sunday’s Super Bowl game in bets placed through both legit gambling companies, and informal wagers between friends—the American Gaming Association estimates 1 in 5 adult Americans will throw down some cash.

From the ultimate victors to the point spread and beyond, seasoned gamblers take the “real” bets seriously—but once-a-year fans and know-nothings alike can enjoy the thriller of placing serious wagers on unserious aspects of the game, whether it’s bets on the Rhianna’s hair-color or which team Drake will root for. Below are 11 very real, slightly silly prop bets you can place on Super Bowl LVII.

“Will the opening coin toss land or heads or tails?” is the classic Super Bowl prop bet, It distills gambling to its essence: Pure vibes. Unless it’s rigged, a coin toss is a 50/50 chance, and the professional odds reflect that (They’re -105 for both heads and tails on the bookie sites I’ve looked at, meaning that you’d need to put $105 down on either to win $100).

But if you want to dig deeper, in the last 56 Super Bowls, tails has won 29 times to heads’ 27 wins, so if you bet tails every year you’d be ahead, even given the bookie’s take. On the other hand, heads has prevailed in four of the last five Super Bowl flips. Is the coin weighted to favor one side? Does the bounciness of the turf play into the likely result? Is it true that “tails never fails?” Does the fact that people say “tails never fails” make heads a better bet? No. It’s all chance, and it’s 50/50.

You can put money on the color of Super Bowl halftime performer Rihanna’s hair color if you’d like. Brown/Black is the heavy favorite on betting sites. The the teaser video for her performance shows an elaborate black hairdo, but maybe she’ll surprise everyone with something complete different. If you like longer odds and bigger payouts, both blonde and bright red are paying up to 5 to 1 odds at some sites, and the performer has been known to change the color of her tresses throughout her career.

These kinds of broadcast bets makes me nervous because you can’t really tell how many people already know what color hair Rihanna will be sporting at the big show. Rihanna and her hairdresser probably known for sure, but maybe hundreds of people who’ve done a dress rehearsal know too, and that could change the odds significantly.

As a culture, I feel we need to move past Janet Jackson’s 2005 Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction, but the betting community does not agree. Online sports book BetUS has the odds on “no” at -800. That seems like a safe bet to me, but are you really going to risk $800 on something so silly?

Some sports book sites are offering prop bets on the total number of hot dogs that will be consumed at State Farm Stadium during the big game. The over/under for hot dogs consumption at betting site Bovada is 17,000. Under is at -150 odds. For a little context, at Super Bowl LIII, 16,300 hot dogs were consumed in a stadium with a capacity of 71,000. State Farm Stadium seats 63,400 people. Will fewer people result in fewer hot dogs sold? Who can say.

Dumping a bucket of Gatorade on the head of the winning coach has been a Super Bowl tradition since Super Bowl XXI in 1984, when the New York Jets dumped orange drink on the head coach Bill Purcells. Since then, clear has been poured eight times, orange six times, blue four times, yellow three times, and purple twice. Red has never been poured over a coach’s head. DraftKings Sportsbook has orange as the favorite at +350 with “none” an outsider at +1000.

There might be some logic to this one: you could try to figure out which color is the favorite of players to drink and say that that’s the least likely candidate as there will be less of it around at the end of the game, but it’s probably just whichever happens to be nearest the head coach at the end of the game.

Superstar musician Drake is from Toronto, so whether he’ll be wearing Eagles or Chief’s colors is an open question. Bookmakers Bovada have the odds at Chiefs -215, Eagles +245, so they’re expecting Drake to show Kansas City some love. I guess you could do a deep dive on Drake’s lyrics and public statements to tease out who he’ll be most likely to support, but Lil Uzi Vert is cooler anyway, and I’ll bet anyone anything that he’ll be in Eagles colors.

If you’ve been watching sports for a little bit, you’ll remember the unexpected power outage during Super Bowl XLVII that stopped play for more than half an hour as electricians desperately scrambled to turn the lights back on. The question: Will it happen again this year? Online bettors are heavily in the “no” camp—you’d have to put down something like $15,000 to make a $100 on this bet. If there’s anything you can learn from these kinds of prop bets, it’s that the boring option is usually the best bet. But, given the potential profits, who’s to say there won’t be a ne’er-do-well waiting by a huge “off” switch during the game?

Grammy Award-winner Chris Stapleton is scheduled to sing the national anthem at the big game this year, and you can bet on whether he’ll sing every single word or leave some out. “Of course he’ll sing all the words” is the current favorite at some betting sites at +500. Where $100 placed on “no” will net you $900 in return, but only if Stapleton screws up the lyrics.

You can also bet on how long it will take Stapleton to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” in total—the over/under is around 2:05, depending on the bookie—and how long he will hold the word “brave,” with an over/under of five seconds on some gambling sites.

This is a bet strictly for those “I like the commercials better than the game” types. We know that both Doritos and Pringles will have commercials airing during the game, but which one will appear first? Doritos is currently the favorite, but it’s close: Doritos is at -130 on sports site Bovada. This is another wager in which I’m sure tons of people already know the answer, which could seriously skew the odds. Maybe that’s why it’s not 50/50? Or maybe gamblers just think the odds are the result of insider knowledge?

Has-been quarterback Tom Brady has nothing to do with Super Bowl LVII, but odds-makers at at least one gambling site put the “Tom Brady mentions” over/under at 1.5, I think the over is a lock—football broadcasters won’t be able to help mentioning Brady, especially since he’s retiring, is very well known to the general audience, and was the quarterback the Eagles defeated in 2017. If commercials for 80 for Brady counted, the over/under would no doubt be much higher.

At least one offshore gambling site is taking money for bets on “The Puppy Bowl,” the novelty air-filler that that Animal Planet airs every year, but you probably shouldn’t waste your money. It’s not really a contest, and the score is arbitrary. While all Super Bowl prop bets are ridiculous, betting on the Puppy Bowl is just too much and might indicate a gambling problem. But if you must, you can not only bet on the final results of the game, you can bet on whether the “most valuable puppy” will be male or female, how old it will be, and whether Michael Vick will tweet about the Puppy Bowl. (Bet on “no.”)