2012 Major Sporting Events

There are a lot of major sporting events that are just around the corner. I’m going to quickly go through these and I will give you my thoughts and picks for some of these games that I will bet money on.

First and foremost, the Superbowl is only a couple of days away. This is quite possibly the largest sports event of the year. This year the game features a rematch of the 2008 Superbowl as the New York Giants look to beat the New England Patriots for a second time in 5 years.

Currently, the Patriots are a 3 point favorite according to most sportsbooks that I have seen. Of course, this is just one of the many bets that can be placed on the Superbowl. Let me quickly go through some of these bets that you can make:

Game Line – You can either bet the spread by betting on New England to win by more than 3 points/betting on New York to lose or win by 2 points or less or you can bet on the Money Line which is $100 to win $120 for picking the Giants to win or $140 to win $100 if you pick the Patriots to win.

Sports betting sites like Bet365 and Bovada will also offer options like 1st Half Lines (New England 1 point favorite), 2nd Half Lines and Quarterly Lines. Then, there is the Over/Under which is based on the number of total points scored by both teams in the game. The Total is currently set at 53.5 points.

Prop Bets– Then, there are the prop bets for Super Bowl XLVI. Since this is the sports event that is gambled on the most, there are literally hundreds of prop bets that you can wager on. A Prop bet is a proposition bet, meaning that you are betting on whether something will or won’t happen.

Let’s give you some examples of the prop bets offered for the Super Bowl:

Player Match-Ups – You can bet that Tom Brady will have more passing yards that Eli Manning (Brady currently favored by 4.5 yards). There are a dozen or so bets like this that match up individual players from the two teams.

Player Performance – You can bet the Over/Under on how many passing yards that Eli Manning gets. There is also Pass Completions, Longest Pass Completion, Rush Attempts, Rush Yards, Longest Rush, Receiving Yards, Number of Receptions, Longest Reception, Tackles & Assists Made and Kicking Points for players on both teams.

Additional Point Spread and Additional Game Totals – If you would like to bet on a different spread, the odds will go up or down from the $110 to win $100 on the normal spread bets.

I can’t go through this with all of the betting options, so I am going to quickly highlight some others: Team to Score First, Time of First Score, First Scoring Play, First Score of game, Touchdown Scorers, Shortest Touchdown Scored, Longest Touchdown Scored, Game and Team Total Odd or Even, Highest Scoring Half or Quarter, Number of Touchdowns, First Offensive Play of game, Last Team to Score and on and on.

I personally like the New York Giants to win Super Bowl XLVI by the final score of 34-30. The reason that I like the New York Giants is because of their overall lack of weakness in any particular part of the game. All of the teams that have lost in the playoffs had some weakness in their team exploited, whether this was Detroit’s secondary, Green Bay’s Tackling or Houston’s Quarterback.

I see weakness in the New England defense that the Denver and Baltimore offenses were not good enough to exploit. It will not matter if that defense can get to Eli Manning because he will still be able to get the ball out to the trio of wide receivers. It was pretty easy to key in on the passing when New England was up by 3 touchdowns against Denver; I don’t think the same will be true for that secondary against New York.

Other Upcoming Events

Since the Super Bowl dominates the majority of this post, I will quickly go through some of the other major sporting events that will take place in the next couple of months.

Baseball – Spring Training for the MLB is less than a month away. This is when Pitchers and Catchers show up and start to warm up for games. The first spring training games begin in early March and the regular season begins at the end of March.

Basketball – The NBA is in full swing and there will not be much except for regular season games until the playoffs start in May. NCAA college basketball is midway through the conference schedule. The post season will start with Championship Week which begins the first full week of March. Then comes selection Sunday on March 11th and the March Madness tournament will begin the following Thursday, March 15th.

Hockey – The NHL is past the half-way mark of the season. The regular season is much more competitive then most other sports throughout the whole schedule. The playoffs for the NHL will begin in early April.

Horse Racing – Horses are currently trying to qualify for the major horse races that will take place later on in the year. The big races in the United States and the United Kingdom begin in early May when both countries start the own Triple Crown races. One of the unique events that will take place before that is the Cheltenham Festival which is a 4 day horse racing event that will begin on Tuesday, March 13th. The main event at this Festival is the Gold Cup and you can find out more about Cheltenham Betting.

Soccer – The European Football leagues are near the midway of their schedules as well. Teams will finish up in May and the top teams for each league will compete in the UEFA Championship League starting in June.

Golf – The golf season may start in January, but most people will not be paying any attention until the first of the four majors comes up in the schedule. That would be the Masters golf tournament in Augusta National and that tournament begins in early April.

Olympics – Of course, we cannot forget about the big event happening in London. The 2012 Summer Olympics are going to begin in late July and last for two weeks. There will be more to come on this topic.