The smart money's on these Super Bowl commercial bets
While CBS has made it clear that viewers won't be subject to any loose talk about gambling during the network's broadcast of Super Bowl LIII, there are roughly six billion reasons why many of those tuning into the Big Game might welcome the odd comment about the point spread or the over/under.
According to the American Gaming Association, some 22.7 million Americans will place a bet on Sunday's Patriots-Rams showdown, laying down an estimated $6 billion on the contest. A good deal of those dollars will land on prop bets, Vegas argot for the list of novelty propositions centered around highly specific and often trivial outcomes. And as much as you won't hear Jim Nantz or Tony Romo make a peep about the game within the game, many of the props on offer have to do with the particulars of the CBS broadcast itself.
One BetDSI prop that bettors would be wise to ignore asks whether play-by-play announcer Nantz will say, "hello, friends" when he and color commentator Romo first appear on your TV screen. That two-word salutation has been Nantz's signature line going back to 2002; the prospect of him skipping the phrase is so unlikely that anyone who bets that he will indeed fall back on his trademark utterance will have to risk $10,000 in order to win $100.