Super Bowl and Taylor Swift: Ontario sports bettors can wager

She won’t be in uniform or on the field, but pop superstar Taylor Swift will certainly be a part of Ontario sports betting’s Super Bowl landscape.

Swift is expected to be in Las Vegas on Sunday when Kansas City chases a second straight Super Bowl title versus the San Francisco 49ers. Swift’s boyfriend is Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ star tight end.

San Francisco is a two-point favourite with the over-under total points scored being 47.5 points.

Swift has attended many Chiefs games this season, creating a stir each time both on television and social media. She’s supposed to perform in Japan on Sunday, then fly to Nevada in time for the opening kickoff.

Predictably, a number of Ontario’s sports-betting operators will feature Swift prop bets for Sunday’s game.

The Score is offering bettors the chance to wager on:

• the predominant colour of Swift’s top as of the opening kickoff (excluding jacket).
• Swift being shown more than 5.5 times during CTV’s broadcast of the game (excluding Pre- and post-game)
• Swift being mentioned during he MVP speech
• Swift being shown during the American national anthem
• Swift being shown during the Super Bowl halftime show

Among BetMGM’s novelty bets offered only in Ontario for Sunday’s game will be whether the MVP mentions Swift (Yes +650. No -1200).

NorthStar Bets has two Swift markets up. They are:

DraftKings has Super Bowl prop wagers based upon the name of Swift songs or albums while Proline is also offering novelty bets involving Swift.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. said almost 10 per cent of Super Bowl bets last year on Proline had nothing to do with football, ranging from the colour of the Gatorade shower and coin toss to the length of the American anthem and halftime show.

The Super Bowl is big business for the Ontario sports betting industry. A new survey from the Responsible Gambling Council (RGC) finds four of 10 Ontarians who bet on sports (41 per cent) plan to wager on Sunday’s game and 80 per cent will do so online.

Meanwhile, 68 million American adults — about one in four — plan to bet on the game. According to the American Gaming Association, that includes wagers placed with legal outlets, as well as with illegal bookies and online operations abroad.

The volume of betting participation is projected to be 35 per cent higher than last year, which was the previous record. Bettors plan to wager an estimated $23.1 billion, up from $16 billion last year, the group predicted.

The RGC survey found most online bettors use multiple platforms when placing bets. Eighty-five per cent incorporate up to three platforms while 15 per cent will have four or more.

Over half (58 per cent) will check to see if a sportsbook website is regulated. Fifty-four per cent of those betting on the Super Bowl say their main reason or doing so is to add to the excitement of the game.

Twenty-eight per cent bet because family/friends are also doing so while more than half (56 per cent) say they tend to bet more than usual when watching with these relations. This increases to two-thirds of younger bettors (69 per cent of those aged 18-34) and is highest among those who wager on sports regularly (81 per cent).

In order to protect themselves, the RGC says Ontario Super Bowl bettors need a gameplan before placing their bets. It adds knowing and understanding the risks and having strategies to manage gambling pitfalls are essential.

Popular picks on The Score include 66.6 per cent of bets being on the spread are on Kansas City while 71 per cent of wagers on the total are on the over. And some other popular prop bets feature Kelce to score a touchdown, San Francisco running back Christian McCaffrey finding the endzone, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy over 0.5 interceptions, receiver Deebo Samuel scoring a touchdown and Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes throwing over 1.5 TD strikes.

DraftKings also has many of the same sort of novelty bets, but will offer bettors to wager on which team will win the coin toss and what one will be the first to use a coach’s challenge.

And among NorthStar Bets’ other Super Bowl novelty prop bets are the player that will correctly call the opening kickoff toss as well as the length of the national anthem and coin toss outcome. NorthStar Bets is also offering various prop bets regarding which player will do what in the game.

Last year almost half of Proline Plus’s novelty bets were on the coin toss (47 per cent correctly picked tails). Also, 65 per cent had the team that won the toss also being the Super Bowl champion while 52 per cent successfully had the over regarding the length of the American national anthem.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2024.