Every year I hear about people who bet on a team to win the Super Bowl before the NFL regular season even starts. How do you do this? Just walk up to a sports book in a Las Vegas casino and say you’d like to bet $100 that the Detroit Lions will win the Super Bowl that year?
Yep, that’s pretty much it. 
OK, a couple of follow ups then. Do all major casinos offer that type of betting? Does your payback fluctuate or is it locked in at the time you place your bet? For example, I’m sure the odds of the Jets winning the Super Bowl probably increased when they signed Favre during the preseason. If someone had bet on the Jets to win the SB, would they still get the same odds at the time they bought their ticket? Or, is it like a horse race where the odds can change up until the race begins and if the favorite scratches, the odds on your longshot bet drop quickly and you’re stuck with your bet.
Are you kidding? You could walk into any sports book in Las Vegas in August and bet on whether it’ll be heads or tails on the Superbowl coin flip.
Heads.
Your odds are locked in at whatever they were at the time of your bet.
Also note that there are dozens of online sports books, usually with tons of different prop bets on the football season (who wins each division, who wins the rushing title, etc.).
Pretty much right when the Super Bowl ends… you get odds on any given team making next years Super Bowl. As you said, the odds would change at any point during the year. Before the season the odds on, say, my Chargers were probably pretty low… say 2:1 or even 3:2… When we were 4-8… probably pretty long… like 200:1… now, it’s probably high but at least a possibility… 10:1 maybe?
(Quick note- those numbers were simply made up… I have no idea what the actual odds were at any time. Just making an example.) Your particular bet though- is locked in when you made it. So if you picked the Chargers before the season- despite their odds being 100-1 at one point, you’re still only getting 2:1
I believe most major casino’s have Sports Book’s (Here is a list of Vegas casino’s with sports books. The biggie seems to be Caesars. I have heard the Mandalay Bay has a good one. <shrug> I’m really not much of a sports gambler; so I don’t know what really makes a “good” sports book.
I’m in for some of that action.
I got a buck on tails.
Double or nothing if it goes to overtime and there’s another coin flip.
You’re on.
IMO, you wouldn’t get very good odds in a August Superbowl bet. There is not a whole lot of data for the oddsmakers to massage in August to make a fair line for the superbowl.
To extapolate that logic, you would not expect the Lions to competing for the SB next season (08 Dolphins being an obvious exception) so you would expect long odds. But you wouldn’t be able to get long odds on any team (including the Lions) for the SuperBowl in 2015. An oddsmaker might give you odds but it probably would be something about 10 to 1.
I don’t get your point.
In August 2008 you would’ve gotten long odds on the Dolphins to win the February 2009 Super Bowl. The odds on the Giants were much shorter. If you place your bet on Miami in August, and come next month if, and that’s still a big if, they win the big game, you get a huge payoff. That’s just the nature of gambling, isn’t it?
You can’t bet on the 2015 SB anywhere I’m aware of.
The Lions will open at 200-1 or 250-1 for next year if you’re daring* enough to make that bet.
*Dumb
I’d give you 5 to 1 on any team that you want for the 2015 Superbowl.
Anecdottally, after the 1995 British Open Golf Championship, a Brit went into his local oddsmaker and ask for odds on Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods for the 2000 British Open at St Andrews. This was 13 months before Tiger turned profesional. The guy got a 100-1 odds and booked a bet. Tiger Woods won the 2000 British Open.
Correct, but the Aug-2008 Dolphins were only a few months removed from the 1-15 team of last year. The August odds would have been long, perhaps 100 to 1 or so.
But there would be no oddsmakers dumb enough to give a 100 to 1 odds on the Detroit Lions for the Feb 2015 Superbowl. There is simply no way to determine if the Lions (or any team) will be any good 5 years from now.
[/SNARK]40 yrs of Lion mediocrity, not withstanding.[SNARK]