One Super Bowl Bet You Need to Lock in Now

What if you could make a Super Bowl bet that was essentially free money? You’d be all over it, right? Well, there are no guarantees in sports betting, but there is one Super Bowl bet that you should consider locking in right now. It involves the opening coin toss.

Now, the coin toss itself is a simple 50-50 proposition. It’s either head or tails and bettors can wager on the coin toss outcome. The odds are -105 on either side of the bet. The Rams, who will call the coin flip since they are the visiting team, might want to lose the toss…but that’s another story.*

The bet to lock in isn’t the outcome of the coin toss. It’s what the coin toss winner will do. Here are the odds:

• Coin toss winner elects to receive +375
• Coin toss winner elects to defer -500

Beginning in 2008, the NFL changed the rules to allow the winner of the pregame coin toss to defer their choice until the second half. Since then, NFL teams elect to defer at an incredibly high rate. In the 2018 season for example, 92 percent of coin toss winners chose to defer. 

That trend has carried over to the Super Bowl. Since 2008, 12 of the 13 Super Bowl coin toss winners have elected to defer.  That includes the last 11 straight. The only team that did not was New Orleans in 2010 and, if you recall, they opened the second half with an onside kick.

Now, Sean McVay took over as head coach of the Los Angeles Rams in 2017. He has coached 90 games and in those 90 games his Rams have won the coin toss 48 times. Guess how many times the Rams elected to defer? Yep…48!

McVay has never elected to receive the opening kickoff in five seasons as an NFL head coach. McVay’s Rams won the toss in the 2019 Super Bowl and in three other playoff games. Not once did he choose to receive.

The Rams will call the coin toss, but they could lose meaning Cincinnati and head coach Zac Taylor would win the toss. Now, if you’re not aware, Taylor was an assistant under McVay in Los Angeles in 2017 and 2018 before taking the Bengals job in 2019. Taylor’s Bengals have won 27 coin flips and Taylor has deferred all but one. Cincy has won the coin toss in two of their three playoff games so far this season. They deferred both times.

While -500 odds are in no way enticing, there are a number of reasons why locking in this bet makes sense. First, -500 odds implies that this wager has an 83.3 percent chance of occurring. Let’s look at the numbers. McVay has deferred on 100 percent of his coin toss wins. Taylor has deferred on 96.3 percent of his. Since the 2008 rule change, 92.3 percent of Super Bowl coin toss winners have deferred. Those numbers are all higher than 83.3 percent.

Imagine asking a friend for $50. Assuming you can still get this bet at -500 on game day, you tell the friend you’ll give him $60 around 7 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday. I would think most friends would offer up the $50. That’s why bettors should lock this bet in now. You can peruse our list of over 100+ sportsbooks if you are looking for a place to lay down some action on the Super Bowl. 

*On a side note: The Super Bowl coin toss winner has lost every game since Super Bowl XLIX (2014).