NFL Week 18: Examining Super Bowl Longshot Odds with Math

• Super Bowl longshots include the Detroit Lions, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks.
• The longest odds are on the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are technically playoff-eligible, with +30000 odds to win the Super Bowl.
• Comparisons to FiveThirtyEight’s projections suggest these longshots are bad bets.

LAS VEGAS - There are still some longshots that can be wagered on when it comes to Super Bowl betting, so let’s look at the bottom five!

Super Bowl 57 (2023) - Odds to Win

• Detroit Lions +12500
• New England Patriots +20000
• Seattle Seahawks +20000
• Tennessee Titans +20000
• Pittsburgh Steelers +30000

The first type of analysis that a Super Bowl betting fan hunting for value can do is to convert those odds into percentage chances to win the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl 57 (2023) - Odds to Win In Percent

• Detroit Lions 0.8%
• New England Patriots 0.5%
• Seattle Seahawks 0.5%
• Tennessee Titans 0.5%
• Pittsburgh Steelers 0.33%

Next, one can look at what a reputable projection site such as FiveThirtyEight gives these teams in terms of odds to win the Super Bowl

Super Bowl 57 (2023) - FiveThirtyEight Percentage Chances

• Detroit Lions 0.1%
• New England Patriots 0.1%
• Seattle Seahawks <0.1%
• Tennessee Titans <0.1%
• Pittsburgh Steelers <0.1%

Incredibly, all five of these teams have longer odds to win the Super Bowl than even their incredibly long odds can show.

All of them have a lower shot at winning it according to FiveThirtyEight than they do according to the sportsbooks.

The biggest bump any of them could see according to FiveThirtyEight’s outcome projections is the Patriots beating the Bills in Week 18. This would bring the Patriots up to a 0.6% chance to win the Super Bowl, which would mean that their futures odds of +20000 would be slight value.

Of course, if a given NFL odds had faith in the Patriots to beat the Bills, they could simply take the moneyline – currently unavailable due to the tragedy involving Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin during Monday Night Football, but almost certain to favor the Bills significantly.