Super Bowl Betting is the ultimate challenge of signal vs. noise.
Public money and sharp money often end up on opposite sides of the Super Bowl. No surprise. It starts way back in the preseason, where the public betting trends chase hype and the sharps focus on the real goods. Over time, the market rewards the bettors who care more about price and facts than the logo on the helmet.
Public Cash and Sharp Bets: What the Splits Really Show
The last 5 years have seen an average total betting handle of roughly $11 billion in the US when it comes to Super Bowl action.
That huge amount of money comes from every type of bettor, but here we’re talking two types: public money vs. sharp money.
To clear up the terms, “public money” means a high percentage of small tickets clustered on one side. Your weekend warriors and office pool pickers have been choosing the brand names that have stood out for decades – Montana, Favre, Brady and their teams, and more recently Mahomes and the Chiefs. Makes sense if you’re a casual fan. The headlines and the media noise around these names just dominate overall public awareness. And all these names do have a serious track record of success.
The sharp money means fewer but much larger bets that show up in the overall handle. A simple rule of thumb that the books use: if a team has way more tickets than money in terms of betting handle, that team is attracting casual action/public money. But if a side has less of the ticket count but a bigger share of the money, that’s often where sharper bettors have landed.
You’ll see the most obvious gap between the two every Super Bowl week. Super Bowl betting splits are the easiest to pick out, since it’s literally the only game in town. For example, take split reports that show something like 75% of bets on the favorite but only around half of the money. This implies that larger wagers are coming in on the underdog plus the points. The sharps have done their homework.
Historically, NFL games with very lopsided splits (say 70%+ of tickets on one side) have produced higher cover rates for the less popular side. This is why many sharps and more seasoned NFL bettors still like the idea of fading very crowded public positions, and there’s no more crowded position than in the only NFL game that comes every February.
Super Bowl betting trends are the result of sheer volume and eyeballs. It’s a tidal wave of recreational bets, from the main Super Bowl odds and lines to every prop and parlay possible. The sportsbooks sometimes have to shade numbers a half‑point or more early toward the popular side just because they know that volume is coming.
That shading can create the kind of mispriced Super Bowl lines that sharps love – especially on big favorites and Overs that casual bettors are chasing.
Historical Examples: When Public and Sharps Split
The Super Bowl has produced some famous spots where public money and sharp money showed a big split. The results helped show why looking at real value beats chasing the crowd.
- Super Bowl III (Jets vs Colts): Baltimore was a -18 favorite, one of the largest Super Bowl point spreads ever (the Niners were -18.5 against the Chargers in ’95). It got up to 19.5 in some spots. That number should be a red flag for any NFL game, much less the Super Bowl, where teams naturally tighten up. Even before doing any matchup work, you can bet the sharps were skeptical of such a big number.
The public loaded up on the Colts anyway. The smart money looked at things like the Jets’ season-long point differential, which was the best in the AFL (the game still had the two leagues separated back then). That alone shows they weren’t a fluke – they had a track record of big wins coming into the game. They also looked at the 1-2 punch of a strong ground game to help keep the ball out of Baltimore’s hands. And they had the coaching edge, something the public rarely looks at. New York’s Weeb Ewbank knew Baltimore’s system and players inside and out from his time with the team. Huge competitive edge – and enough to close an 18-point gap.
New York’s outright 16–7 win ended up being the biggest upset in Super Bowl history; it was also a lesson for the casual bettors that assumed the superior team on paper would just roll.
- Super Bowl XLII (Giants vs Patriots): New England closed as a 12‑point favorite, riding an 18–0 record into the game and massive public support on everything – spread, moneyline, and futures markets. The Brady Factor alone. But the Giants scored the
17–14 upset, featuring David Tyree’s helmet catch and a suffocating defense that kept the Patriots to 45 rushing yards. It became one of the toughest results ever casual bettors, and especially for books that were loaded with Patriots-leaning public money. But sharps who looked more closely at the Giants’ D and were spooked by a 12-point spread had a great day. - Super Bowl LIX (Chiefs vs Eagles): Even close spreads can produce big splits that the sharps can feast on. Going into LIX, the Chiefs were tight 1.5-point favorites. They lost 40-22. More small and medium tickets were on the Chiefs’ side, while bigger Super Bowl bets were on the Eagles’ side. You know the Mahomes magic (and maybe even some Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift hype) took over the headlines in the two weeks leading up to the game, and that’s where those smaller tickets were coming from. Meanwhile, Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, and the Eagles’ dominant defense were busy cooking.
Totals tell a similar story. Recreational bettors consistently prefer Overs in the Super Bowl. They’re chasing points and fireworks. The pros aren’t into chasing and have avoided it ever since Week 1 and all the preseason hype. They’re more willing to play Unders when the number gets inflated because they know how defense and ball possession matter as teams tighten up, while some coaches even shrink the playbook. Five of the last seven Super Bowls have gone Under.
So Who Wins?
Overall, the real picture is more nuanced than just saying that the public always loses in Super Bowl betting. It’s not just dumb money vs. smart money every time.
There are years when the popular side covers comfortably and public bets hit. Like we said above, those legends become legends for a reason.
Check the splits, be cautious when the spread hits double digits, review your Super Bowl history, and remember to stick to the homework, not the headlines.