Choose your own numbers in Circa Super Bowl squares pool
You don’t have to worry about drawing bad numbers in Circa Sports’ version of football squares.
The sportsbook has opened up odds for each quarter of Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. Bettors can select what they think will be the last digit of each team’s score at the end of each quarter. For example, if the Chiefs lead 17-13 at halftime, then second-quarter bettors win on “49ers 3, Chiefs 7” (current odds 16-1).
The square odds work like any other sportsbook offering. Bettors lock in their wager at the listed price, and they receive that price whether the line moves or not.
In regular squares pools, numbers are assigned randomly, and players vie for a set prize. (If you draw 2 and 2, you can generally forget about your chances.)
“We came up with the idea, what if you weren’t just stuck with the randomness of the traditional game?” Circa sportsbook manager Chris Bennett said.
Bennett said it took 12-plus hours to review the past two years of NFL results to set appropriate odds for each number combination, while adjusting for the close spread and high total for this Super Bowl.
“We did it and thought, ‘It’s cool. It’s different.’ Then we posted it and got a few responses from people immediately,” Bennett said. “Then it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is going to be really popular.’ Fans who don’t understand regular prop betting will understand this.”
Circa lowered its normal bet limit from $5 to $1 for the squares, and Bennett said the sportsbook has seen bettors spreading amounts over several combinations over each quarter, giving themselves anywhere from $20 to $100 of action for the game.
Circa will take up to $100 on a single combination, but all of the bets have been for less than that as of Thursday afternoon, Bennett said.
For the final score, the favorites are combinations of 1-4 and 4-7 on each side at 18-1. The long shots are 2-2 and 9-9 at 300-1.
Contact Jim Barnes at jbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0277. Follow @JimBarnesLV on Twitter.
