2016’s Wackiest Super Bowl Prop Bets

Every year millions of Americans make bets on the Super Bowl. Usually it has something to do with the score or which team will score the first touchdown.

Then, there are the more unusual options. These are called "prop bets." You've probably even heard of some of them: over/under on the length of the National Anthem, if the coin toss will be heads or tails ... stuff like that.

I'm going to focus on only the prop bets I've never heard of before.

• Odds the goal posts fall down: 75/1

75/1 may seem like tempting odds but has a goal post ever fallen down in a Super Bowl? I'm guessing this is included because the game is in Santa Clara, CA and there might be an earthquake. I guess?

• Odds the power goes out in the stadium: 20/1

This happened three years ago in New Orleans so maybe it could happen again.  I'd need better than 20 to 1 on this one, though.

There's a whole classification of bets called Broadcast Props that all have to do with the way Jim Nantz and Phil Simms are going to call the game for TV:

• O/U on the number of times the phrase “greatest of all-time” is said during the broadcast: 3.5
• Odds the term “born winner” is used to describe Peyton Manning or Cam Newton during the broadcast: 1/1
• Odds the term “natural leader” is used to describe Peyton Manning or Cam Newton during the broadcast: 2/1
• Odds Jim Nantz and Phil Simms get in an argument during the broadcast: 4/1
• Odds Phil Simms laughs during an interaction with sideline reporter Jay Feely: 2/1

You know what I've always wondered about these kinds of bets? What's to stop Jim Nantz or Phil Simms from getting someone with no connection to them, agreeing to split the proceeds with them and then just go on TV and make it happen?? It would be the perfect way to beat the odds-makers.

• Odds Coldplay bets booed during the halftime show: 6/1

Wherever I end up watching the game, those odds are going to be a lot higher.

Odds on Coldplay’s opening halftime show song:

• “Viva La Vida”: 7/3
• “Yellow”: 4/1
• “Paradise”: 17/3
• “Princess of China”: 6/1
• “Fix You”: 10/1

 The only two acceptable answers to this proposition are "Who cares?" and "This band is horrible" and I don't see either one of those on the list.

Odds a player in the game is featured in a commercial:

• Peyton Manning: 1/1
• Cam Newton: 4/1
• Luke Kuechly: 10/1
• Demaryius Thomas: 15/1
• Von Miller: 25/1

Put a dollar on Manning on this one and start planning what you're going to do with that sweet $2 windfall.

• Odds there is a halftime show wardrobe malfunction: 25/1

This is another one where somebody could really stick it to the odds-makers.  Some underpaid back-up dancer could get someone to proxy for him, put up as much as he can and then rig his pants to fall down when the camera is on him. Easy money.