Super Bowl LIII Pointspread and Total Update And Analysis

We are just over a week out from the Super Bowl LIII matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots. At this point, it’s not surprising to see that the Super Bowl pointspread has settled in to a narrow band of movement. Historically, the majority of line movement for the Super Bowl has come ‘early and late’. There’s always a lot of excitement immediately after the Conference Championship game ends and sportsbooks around the world post the opening number on the big game. At this stage, some line movement is to be expected as the number posted by bookmakers gets exposed to the actual betting marketplace for the first time. Likewise, its obvious that money will come as gametime draws near as recreational players get excited for the game to start and ‘sharp’ money takes a position on the outcome while they still have time to do so.

For the most part, the Super Bowl pointspread has behaved as expected since our early line movement update posted on Monday morning. The opening Super Bowl betting line had the Los Angeles Rams installed as a -1 point favorite. That price couldn’t hold against the flurry of betting on arguably the most ‘public’ team in the National Football League and the Pats quickly became favored in the game. The line shot up to Pats -1.5 and after a bit of initial resistance at that point went all the way up to as high as New England -3.5. By morning, the line had settled in with a consensus at New England -2 or -2.5. There were prices as high as Pats -3 or as low as Pats -1.5 but these were outliers in the market. Although there has been little of the anticipated movement between 1 and 3 the outcome is the same—New England is a solid -2.5 favorite all across the board. There’s less line disparity now with fewer books differing from the -2.5 consensus though there is a -2 or -3 here and there.

The total has also seen very little movement though there has been a distinct downward drift. As is the case with the pointspread on the game, there’s less variety in the number from book to book with 57 clearly the consensus. In our early week update, most books were showing at 58 or 57.5 so there’s been some movement toward the ‘Under’. Since this remains one of the highest totals in Super Bowl history and given the track record of high totals in the game additional movement toward the ‘Under’ appears almost inevitable. In fact, it’s somewhat surprising that we haven’t seen it already. Since it appears unlikely that the total will go any higher there’s less of an incentive for the ‘sharp money’ looking to go ‘Under’ the total to stay on the sidelines hoping for an extra point or two to work with.

Barring something out of the ordinary, the price on both side or total should move very little for the next 5 or 6 days. As Super Bowl weekend approaches you can expect more ‘public’ money coming in on the game which might create some short term price opportunities to go against them. With the side price up against the key number of 3 and very little enthusiasm for the ‘Over’ its difficult see any extreme movement. Obviously, any move to or off of three will be quickly met with money for the other side which is essentially how sports betting is supposed to work ‘in theory’. There may be more movement on the Friday or Saturday before the game but given the dynamic around the key number you can expect a kickoff line of Patriots -2 or -2.5.

The total will almost certainly continue to go lower as gametime approaches. It’s just a ‘tough sell’ for most bettors to play the highest total in Super Bowl history ‘Over’ and any move in this direction will be met with more money coming in on the ‘Under’ as ‘wise guys’ take their position against the public. Keep in mind that with the game at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta there are no weather issues that could pop up on game day so any ‘wait and see’ on betting is strictly tactical in nature.