Early Super Bowl 58 betting action and interesting nuggets

Early money coming in on the Chiefs and a legal Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce proposal prop bet? Now I've seen it all

The first Super Bowl 58 line I saw posted in Las Vegas on Sunday night was from Caesars Sportsbook, opening the game on Feb. 11 between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers at 49ers -2 with a total of 48.5. FanDuel was the only book I saw that had the 49ers as a full field-goal favorite, but that lasted very briefly. Several other books opened 49ers -2, including the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook. We saw the total generally settle at 47.5 at sportsbooks and the line at 49ers -1 on Monday morning.

John Murray, executive director of the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, told me, “We opened it -2, which at the time was at the low end, mostly because we saw [Christian] McCaffrey dinged up at the end of the game and we weren’t impressed with the 49ers defense. Jared Goff played a phenomenal game. Ben Johnson called a great game. The Lions wide receivers really let them down.”

Along with that reasoning, Murray said his shop wasn’t as impressed with the Chiefs’ win, noting that Kansas City could’ve easily lost if Zay Flowers scored a TD to make it 17-14 rather than fumbling into the end zone.

Multiple oddsmakers told me that the early wagers were on the Chiefs, and that was reflected in the betting splits at big, national books as well. As of Tuesday morning, 71% of the Super Bowl 58 spread bets at BetMGM and 78% of the handle was on the Chiefs to cover. At DraftKings, 70% of the bets and 68% of the total dollars wagered was on the Chiefs to cover.

“All Chiefs,” Christian Cipollini, a trader at BetMGM, told me via text. “It’s working out so far, since all of our futures liability is on 49ers.”

However, we have seen the line tick back up in the 49ers’ favor, moving back to a consensus -2 in the market. The first reported six-figure wager on the Super Bowl also came in at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, as Jimmy Vaccaro posted on X that one bettor wagered $105,000 on the 49ers -1 at -105 odds. There was also a $57,000 wager on the San Francisco ML at -114 odds to win $50K. Westgate also took a $110,000 bet on 49ers -1 and another six-figure bet on 49ers -1.5 to get them back to -2 on Tuesday.

Where will the line end up?