Superbowl XLV

I know nothing about American Football.  I've never watched a game of American Football.  However, with all the hype and the struggle to find anything to put into a cross-sport treble for Monday, has left me wanting a bet on this.

I've decided to approach the game from a "value" perspective, using a combination of statistics, which have some rather interesting results.

If you pool all of the games played in the regular (17 week) season together, Green Bay Packers' total score would be 388-240 and Pittsburgh Steelers would be 375-224.  The Steelers score 13 less points, but concede 16 less.  Pretty well matched.  When you delve deeper into the stats, it reveals that GBP score 63.3% of the points in each game in which they are involved - Steelers 61.9%.

Obviously if the two sides met, they couldn't both take over 50% of the points, so the adjustment would mean that if GBP and PS played each other, GBP would take 49.7% of the points and PS 50.3%.  Pretty tight.  From this limited data set, we can imply that Packers have a 49.7% chance of winning the game and PS 50.3%.  The implied "fair" odds would be GBP @ 2.01 and PS @ 1.99.  If anyone offers odds greater than this, then it should be considered a value bet.  At time of writing, the following prices were available at Paddy Power - GBP @ 1.66 and PS @ 2.25.

Green Bay Packers are much shorter than expected, Pittsburgh Steelers are available at a few ticks bigger than I believe they should be.  If I was looking for a single bet, I would probably lay GBP - as the return is greater than the risk.  As it's going to form part of a multiple, I'll be backing, not laying.

Conclusion: Pittsburgh Steelers @ 2.25 to win the Superbowl.  Will I be watching?  No.