Super Bowl LV Action Mixed and Anthemgate
The betting action was heavy on the Chiefs spread and the Bucs moneyline at BetOnline.
Chiefs vs. Bucs (+3, 55.5)
Chiefs, 65.4% of spread handle
Bucs, 66.5% of ML handle
Over, 66.4% of total handle
Chiefs vs. Bucs (+3, 55.5)
Chiefs, 64.2% of spread bets
Bucs, 67.3% of ML bets
Over, 72.4% of total bets
Anthemgate? Not Really
The first rush of money on the over on the length of the national anthem came in hours before a Florida reporter posted a video timing the rehearsal. https://t.co/sZOSm1Crzd
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) February 7, 2021
There was good reason for betting sites to pull the length of the National Anthem prop bet - one of the most popular - it seems.
A sudden surge of action came in hours before a local Florida reporter posted a video timing the rehearsal at over the 2 minute mark.
Zach Maskavich, a multimedia journalist for Orlando's WESH Channel 2, was working out of his car in the parking lot of Hillsborough Community College across from Tampa Bay's Raymond James Stadium, when he pulled out his smart phone and began recording one of the performances.
Maskavich probably wasn't the only one present and perhaps not the first to post a video.
BetOnline was one of the first to pull the prop.
"Just about every year there is a leak on the national anthem, and we see a wave of one-sided action a few days before the game," Dave Mason, Betonline's brand manager, told ESPN on Saturday. "Yesterday that wave of action was more suspicious than previous years. Within a few seconds we took about two dozen max bets from sharper accounts. They kept betting over from 2:00 up to 2:10. At that point we knew there was some very strong intel out there somewhere, so we decided to take the odds down."
- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
