How prop bets changed Super Bowl wagering forever

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When William "The Refrigerator" Perry broke the plane in Super Bowl XX, he changed sports betting forever.

Perry, a 340-pound rookie defensive lineman, was a fan favorite for the Chicago Bears during the 1985 season. He was also a scarcely-used fullback, logging six touches for 11 yards and three touchdowns for the Bears (-10) ahead of their Super Bowl matchup with the New England Patriots.

At the time, most books offered standard side action and a handful of team-related props for the championship game, but a stretch of lousy Super Bowls had eroded public interest in the game. Art Manteris, who then ran the Caesars sportsbook in Las Vegas, devised a plan to bring bettors through the doors for a game many expected to be a snoozer.

Manteris offered bettors 20-1 odds that Perry, who hadn't logged a carry in Chicago's previous six games, would score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Other books followed suit, and heavy action on the bet forced the price all the way to 2-1 by kickoff.

Sure enough, with 3:48 left in the third quarter, "The Fridge" had his shining moment. Instead of giving the ball to Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton at the 1-yard line, Bears coach Mike Ditka trusted the man who had become a marketing gimmick across the strip.

"He scored a touchdown, and my boss was going nuts," said Tony Miller, who worked at Caesars at the time. "Everybody was going nuts because we'd just lost a ton of money on a prop bet - and nobody even knew what prop bets were."

Perry's 1-yard touchdown was of little consequence for the Bears, who took a 44-3 lead in an eventual 46-10 win, but a handful of bettors cashed big on the zany prop. Sportsbooks footed costly bills, with some suffering six-figure losses.

It ended up being the greatest Super Bowl win they could have imagined.

Nowadays, books offer hundreds of props for Super Bowl Sunday, and such bets draw the majority of money wagered on the big game. Miller, now the sportsbook director at the Golden Nugget, estimates that 60% of the betting handle for this year's Super Bowl will come from prop betting alone.

"The prop bets are just as popular as the game itself," Miller said. "They're just part of the culture now of Super Bowl wagering, and it's only going to continue."

'Always in action'

The Perry touchdown prop was originally intended as nothing more than a clever stunt to attract more customers for the Super Bowl. But it's no coincidence Manteris turned to such a risky prop bet to boost his book's biggest day.

The two Super Bowls prior to the 1986 edition were decided by 22 and 29 points - then two of the three biggest blowouts in the game's 19-year history. The Bears' 36-point win in '86 became the biggest blowout to that point. Over the next decade, the NFL's marquee game would more frequently be decided by 30 or more points (three times) than by single digits (twice).

"The Super Bowl, up until a little more recently, has been pretty much the worst game of the year," said Jay Rood, Bet.Works' chief risk officer and theScore Bet's head trader. "It's been Blowout City."

Unfortunately for books, the worst game of the year is also the most important. They needed a way to attract more customers - and keep those customers entertained during even the most lopsided of contests.

Despite their massive losses, the Perry prop had given bet shops precisely the attention they craved. Books started offering dozens of Super Bowl props to satiate the public's interest, and bettors ate it up. Prop bets were no longer a novelty for sportsbooks - they became a necessity.

"We thought we were doing a lot then," said oddsmaker Ed Salmons, "and it was nothing compared to now."

Salmons, now the VP of risk management and oddsmaking at Westgate, remembers working his first Super Bowl as a teller at Las Vegas' Imperial Palace, since renamed The Linq. It was 1993, and Dallas (-6.5) was a decent favorite over Buffalo. With another potential blowout on the horizon, Salmons asked higher-ups if he could create his own prop for the game: Will Cowboys fullback Daryl "Moose" Johnston have a rushing attempt?

The Cowboys led 28-10 at halftime and eventually won by 35 points, but bettors stayed glued to the TV to see if Johnson would run the ball. Finally, with 3:16 left in the game, he earned one carry for zero yards. It was a worthwhile loss to keep paying customers in the casino.

"It's because of all of the uniqueness, the juicy prices," Miller said of the success of prop bets. "It's something they can watch and maintain throughout the entire football game. You are always in action, and that's what the customer wants."

It's a perfect storm for public bettors, whose wagers constitute a large portion of the money laid on prop bets. Some sharp players will target the occasional prop, too, though most books have limits between $500 and $2,000.

With such low limits, how do prop bets form a majority of the Super Bowl handle? It's simple: tons and tons of options.

'They'll literally bet anything'

While betting on a touchdown from "The Fridge" seemed outlandish in 1986, such opportunities are commonplace now. There are hundreds of bizarre offerings at sportsbooks each year - from whether little-known players like Perry will find the end zone to how many penalties or kickoff returns will occur in the game.

Miller says his book is offering over 450 props for the big game, including a few seemingly impossible wagers at long-shot odds. If Super Bowl XX taught us anything, it's that no bet is too absurd.

"People love shooting at the moon," Miller said.

Sportsbooks have endured some brutal losses since that classic '86 prop, like when then-Eagles quarterback Nick Foles caught a touchdown pass on the famed "Philly Special" to cash tickets as high as 10-1 in 2018. Nearly every prop bet for that Super Bowl was graded "yes" or "over," typically a nightmare scenario for books.

"People always make the case," Salmons said. "They can see it, and then they bet what they can see. They always try to think positive with their bets."

Most prop bettors love big numbers at plus-money, a tendency that can prove costly for shops. Salmons said his book was down $200,000 after the first play of Super Bowl 50 in 2016 when the Seahawks recorded a safety for the game's first score. Miller remembers losing $80,000 on it.

Last year's Super Bowl nearly spelled disaster for books offering a "no touchdowns scored" prop, a bet that would have paid out at 1,000-1 at Westgate if not for Sony Michel's score with seven minutes left.

"If that happened, we were going to lose a ridiculous number," Salmons said. "That was probably the craziest thing I've seen."

Even the most unlikely - and sometimes accidental - props can draw interest from bettors.

Last year, Westgate offered a prop on whether Rams punter Johnny Hekker - who'd attempted 20 career passes to that point - would have a passing attempt (he didn't). Salmons hadn't considered dealing that prop again. But when he started working on an early draft of this year's prop sheet, he saw Kansas City punter Dustin Colquitt's name filling the space previously occupied by Hekker's.

Salmons looked up the Chiefs punter's career stats and saw he'd attempted two passes before. So he decided to hang the prop for Colquitt, with "yes" at 30-1 and "no" at 1-150.

Surprise, surprise: A few days before kickoff, "yes" has already received close to $2,000, pushing the price down to 20-1.

"That wasn't even meant to be a prop," Salmons said, laughing. "That's one I never would have thought of to use in this game. They'll literally bet anything."

'Growing each year'

Despite the wide offering of prop bets at U.S. books, some of the most popular ones originate offshore, where books can get creative without adhering to the regulations of local gaming commissions.

Those props are seemingly endless, with odds for halftime show attire, broadcast shoutouts, player misconduct, Twitter fights, and more. In a true meta twist, you can even bet on how much money will be bet on the game in the U.S. (most of it is coming from prop bets).

"In the future, as we get more and more educated and governed by these state bodies, we'll be able to do things like that," Miller said. "You see wagering on the presidential election. You see wagering on the Academy Awards.

"That's coming down the road, and you can bet some of it right now ... It's just more money and more handle and more revenue for sportsbooks."

Salmons remembers when the gaming commission didn't allow the coin toss prop, now the most popular such bet by far. He doesn't remember being able to offer odds on the Super Bowl MVP - another beloved prop - until 2016, when Von Miller won it for the Broncos.

Last year, a prop on the color of the Gatorade dumped on the winning coach made its way to New Jersey. Salmons thinks some other fan favorites, such as the length of the national anthem, could soon be on their way. If you can calculate it, you might soon be able to bet it.

"They're definitely trying to loosen the strings up for us," he said.

More props means more fun for bettors, but also more work for bookmakers. Miller said his crew takes between two and three hours to grade prop bets after the game, a stark contrast from the days before Perry's touchdown opened the floodgates.

The real work comes in the weeks before the Super Bowl. Following the conference championship games, Salmons' team spends 16 hours over two full days manually setting the numbers for each prop. After all, if a book hangs a bad line, it could come back to bite them.

"At some point, computers will generate numbers that are as good as what these wiseguys bet," Salmons said. "When that happens, you probably can make 10 times the amount of props that we have right now. That's a day that's in the not-too-distant future."

Technological advancements also create more in-game opportunities for books. Rood says he plans to offer about a dozen unique props for the second half of Sunday's game, with prices dictated by first-half action. In the future, that may include live updates for props on, say, Patrick Mahomes' passing yards or the likelihood of overtime or a two-point conversion.

"That's where prop betting will expand," Rood said, "because that's where betting in general has the opportunity to expand."

The legalization of sports betting could play a key role in the growth of prop wagers, too. With the introduction of more casual bettors into the market over the past 20 months, prop bets are primed to attract an even greater share of the handle from the general public.

"It's been growing each year," Salmons said, "and I don't expect it to slow down."

This year's Super Bowl handle is expected to surpass $300 million. That figure would shatter 2018's record of $158.6 million, and a lion's share of that money will come from prop bets inspired by Perry's plunge. And if Colquitt decides to sling it for the third time in his career, some bettors will be partying like it's 1986.

C Jackson Cowart is a betting writer for theScore. He's an award-winning journalist with stops at The Charlotte Observer, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Times Herald-Record, and BetChicago. He's also a proud graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, and his love of sweet tea is rivaled only by that of a juicy prop bet. Find him on Twitter @CJacksonCowart.

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