Look, I’ll be real with you; this article started off as a love letter to sports betting, detailing how much analysis and data recall was necessary to try and find even the slightest edge before you place your bets. It was going to be a lead in to how to win your Super Bowl prop bets pool, but the more I looked at available prop bets the more I realised something:

Prop bets are out of control.

It seems like every year the amount of things you can bet on grows at an exponential rate, and every prop bet form I’ve ever seen only highlights that. They all start with the classics of which team will win, how many points will be scored, and then 20 questions later you’re researching whether or not any of the snack vendors at Mercedes-Benz stadium are likely to call in sick to work that day.

Betting on the Super Bowl no longer has anything to do with knowing even a little bit about sports. Someone who has never even seen a football before could win their pool just by having a complete knowledge of Maroon 5’s wardrobe. The singularity has been reached, we are at the point of no return for prop betting and there’s no going back now.

So with that, we present to you our complete guide to Super Bowl prop bets. A collection of the nine circles of Super Bowl prop bet hell, and what you can expect to find there.

First Circle: Football

Here you’ll find nothing but pure sports gambling. The kinds of bets you could find on any game, for any sport, at any casino. Essentially who will win and by how much? Simple. Easy. Classic.

Examples:

Winning Team

• Patriots
• Rams

Total Points Scored

• Over 56.5
• Under 56.5

Second Circle: Stats

This is maybe the trickiest circle of all. Stats like touchdowns or yards seem like something that is very much part of the game of football, and well… it is. However betting on them is silly because sample sizes exist. The Super Bowl isn’t a season-long venture with a lot of data to draw from. It’s not even a best of seven series like other sports have for their championship. It’s one game, where any unlikely scenario could possibly happen with no opportunity for self correction and reversion to the mean. According to Super Bowl 52 Nick Foles is a better quarterback than Tom Brady. According to a random Cleveland Browns game in 2009, Jerome Harrison is an elite running back because he rushed for 286 yards in that single game Except that number is more than ten times greater than his career average, a career in which he only had ten starts over seven seasons.

One game means anything can happen. So individual counting stats already show the signs of danger as we dive deeper into prop bet hell.

Examples:

Which QB will have more passing yards

• Tom Brady
• Jared Goff

Who will have more combined rushing yards

• Michel & Burkhead
• Gurley & Anderson

Third Circle: Single Events

Every circle of hell is just a bit eviler than the last, isn’t it? Here we find things that happen during the game, but maybe only once or twice, making them harder to sustainably measure than stats. It’s a real case of “sometimes this happens in football, and will it happen this time?” This is like betting on double zero while playing roulette. We’re only on the third circle of hell and already into degenerate gambler territory.

Examples

Will a defensive or special teams touchdown be scored

• Yes
• No

Will someone other than Tom Brady or Jared Goff attempt a pass

• Yes
• No

Fourth Circle: Talking Points

In the fourth circle of prop bet hell, we have officially moved off the field. From this point on, the outcome of the actual game has virtually nothing to do with the bets being placed. We’re not even halfway through all the layers of the underworld and we’ve already abandoned all hope of coherent sports talk. Turn back now.

This circle covers the announcers of the game, and more specifically, the things they’ll say. With so much downtime between plays in the NFL, these bets can be all over the place and anything can be said any number of times. It’s unpredictable mayhem and no amount of analysis or study can give you an edge outside of bribing Tony Romo to take a dive with his predictions.

Examples

How many plays will Tony Romo correctly predict

• Over 7.5
• Under 7.5

Will CBS mention the point spread at any time

• Yes
• No

Fifth Circle: Half Time

The halftime show. Only the most degenerate gamblers find themselves betting on the halftime show, and yet it’s only the fifth circle of prop bet hell. As unpredictable and absurd it is to bet on the halftime show, there’s still the tiniest fraction of logic involved, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with football. You’ll almost certainly lose money here unless you personally manage Maroon 5, but doesn’t mean you can’t study their go-to songs to hold onto what last fragments of analysis still exist in your gambling adventures.

Examples

What song will Maroon 5 play first

• Makes Me Wonder
• One More Night
• Animals
• Sugar
• Girls Like You
• Other

Will Adam Levine be wearing a hat at the start of the halftime show

• Yes
• No

Sixth Circle: Broadcast

Have you ever been inside the director’s booth during a live sporting event? If you haven’t, it’s mayhem, it’s absolute insanity and even the camera operators and director themselves don’t know what’s about to happen next, so how could you possibly? Here lies the true randomness of broadcasting a live event, and you poor fools in the sixth circle of hell think you can make sense of it all.

Examples

Will Ted Rath be shown holding back Sean McVay during the broadcast

• Yes
• No

How many times will Gisele Bundchen be shown during the broadcast

• Over 1.5
• Under 1.5

Seventh Circle: The Sidelines

We have hit the circle of hell where we’re betting on emotional moments. What are the players doing on the sidelines and can we make any sense of it?

Spoiler alert: No.

If you’re betting on what will happen on the sidelines, you are either a complete degenerate gambler or you’re on the team yourself and can manufacture it into happening.

Examples

What colour will the liquid poured on the winning coach be

• Clear/Water
• Yellow/Green
• Red/Orange
• Blue/Purple

Will a player propose to their partner on the field after the game

• Yes
• No

Eighth Circle: Against The World

In the eighth circle of hell, the betting officially has nothing to do with the Super Bowl. While everything before this point was at least very loosely collected to the game, here we find people betting on things that aren’t even in the same city and then shoe-horning that bet into something that resembles a Super Bowl bet but absolutely isn’t. If you’re in a prop bet pool and you see one of these bets on it, it’s because the organizer is trying to use their knowledge of some other thing to give them an edge in WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A SUPER BOWL RELATED ACTIVITY.

Examples

What will be higher on February 3rd

• Total shots on goal by Connor McDavid
• Total successful field goals in the Super Bowl

What will be higher on February 3rd

• Total points scored by the Toronto Raptors
• Total rushing yards by the Rams in the Super Bowl

Ninth Circle: Treachery

The final circle of hell. Treachery. Here lies absolute chaos, betrayal, and events so unpredictable they will be talked about for years. If you find yourself in this, the lowest circle of hell, then you are hoping for absolute mayhem to occur. You don’t even want the Super Bowl to resemble a football game. Those in treachery are betting that on Monday morning no one will even have anything to say about the game itself because something much more insane happened.

The treacherous seek to ruin take what should be a night of sports and turn it into something sinister, and then they hope to profit from it.

Examples

Will the power go out in Mercedes-Benz stadium during the game

• Yes
• No

Will a halftime performer wearing a SpongeBob costume take a knee in protest

• Yes
• No

There they are – the nine circles of Super Bowl Prop Hell. Enjoy your drinks and salty snacks of choice on Sunday and be careful with how far you fall. Though if you’re the type of person that saw this list as inspiration as opposed to forewarning, we’re here to support your vices too. You can print off our official Get Up Ball prop bet sheet below, featuring every question in this list. Good luck you deviants, we know you’ll need it.

Print this nightmare.