Like a safety in the Super Bowl? Stand in line in Vegas

FILE - In this photo taken Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady throws a pass during the first half of the AFC championship NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts in Foxborough, Mass. The NFL said Friday, Jan. 3, 2015, that evidence shows the Patriots used underinflated footballs during the first half of the AFC championship game. The investigation is still ongoing they added, and with no conclusions and no timetable for resolving the cheating accusations with the Super Bowl nine days away. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) FILE - In this photo taken Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady throws a pass during the first half of the AFC championship NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts in Foxborough, Mass. The NFL said Friday, Jan. 3, 2015, that evidence shows the Patriots used underinflated footballs during the first half of the AFC championship game. The investigation is still ongoing they added, and with no conclusions and no timetable for resolving the cheating accusations with the Super Bowl nine days away. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

By Associated Press January 23, 2015 4 min read

LAS VEGAS (AP) – For some bettors, there’s just not much value picking either the New England Patriots or Seattle Seahawks in a Super Bowl that is a tossup almost everywhere in this gambling city.

But betting on whether the Patriots run more plays than the number of shots Tiger Woods takes in the final round of the Phoenix Open? Now that’s something both golf and football fans can enjoy putting a little action on.

Proposition bets will be huge once again in Nevada’s legal sports books, where bettors can wager on anything from the jersey number of the player who scores the first touchdown to how far the longest kickoff return will be (over/under is 28.5 yards).

And, of course, the ever-popular bet on whether the first score of the game will be a safety. That one exploded on the bookies last year when the Seahawks scored a safety on Denver’s first offensive play of the game.

“The game was five minutes old and we were already down $130,000,” said Nick Bogdanovich, the oddsmaker for the William Hill US chain of sports books. “That was a disaster.”