As a former managing editor at Forbes Betting, I have the experience to explain how Super Bowl halftime show betting odds work and why you should approach them with caution.
Many people search online—Google, TikTok, YouTube, ChatGPT, etc.—for details on the halftime show, which Bad Bunny will perform at Super Bowl LX.
Humans naturally seek to know the future, so many people want the scoop on what songs he will play and who else might be part of the performance. Nothing wrong with this. However, the news sources that give you this information usually want to sell you an addictive product.
Marketing Ploy: Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Show Odds
The Super Bowl is a major opportunity for online betting sites to generate revenue and acquire new users. In the eyes of a betting app, you are nothing but a CLV (customer lifetime value).
Because sportsbooks will keep wagering limits relatively low for the Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny’s performance is a novelty bet to get you in the door, so to speak. Parlays, loaded with player props, are the revenue engine for the Super Bowl. Even before these money-printer betting apps, Las Vegas sportsbooks almost never lost money on the game.
OK, so you get information on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show performance from betting odds content. What’s the problem?
The main issue is that you’ll see writers and content creators claim to be experts at predicting what’s going to happen. Let’s take a graph from the New York Times’ sister publication, The Athletic, as an example:
“Here at The Athletic, we have a strong contingency of Bad Bunny lovers, so we rounded up a few expert-level fans and asked them to give us their picks, predictions, and biggest hopes for what should be a smash of a halftime show.”
The article continued with a long analysis of Bad Bunny Super Bowl best bets.
The problem here: It doesn’t matter how big an expert you are on Bad Bunny or the Super Bowl halftime show. Your level of fandom does not give you an edge betting on this. And you’re most likely not going to get an edge from someone giving away their picks for free. Furthermore, if you’re using a prediction market, there is a good chance you’ll be trading against people with inside information. There are virtually no guardrails on this type of insider betting.
The NFL is already plagued by rigging conspiracies, so prediction markets are not doing the league any favors. In fact, the NFL opposes these federally certified betting products, and it will not allow them to advertise at the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl LX Betting Motivation?
I’ve been around the online gambling space since 2011. I highly recommend not betting on Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show with the expectation of winning money. I know, this is a contradiction. Who gambles without the intention of winning money?
It’s true that gambling on sports for “entertainment” is, in large part, industry jargon to deflect blame and responsibility for an addictive product. It’s a similar “responsible gaming” message to setting an NFL betting budget. Academic research shows that online gambling budget setting is ineffective at reducing population-level harm.
For these reasons, I don’t recommend sports betting on an app for pure entertainment, and I really don’t recommend doing it to make money or acquire wealth.
If you’re spending the Super Bowl with friends or family, make a Bad Bunny halftime show bet with someone you know. Don’t risk downloading an addictive betting app that will bombard you with relentless parlay promo offers during and after the game. Avoid gambling platform fees and risks to your personal information by keeping betting among friends.
Around half of online sports bettors experience the harms of chasing losses, strongly suggesting that betting platforms are unethical businesses. Consider boycotting products that harm society. One study found that a typical person with problem gambling harms six others.
There’s nothing wrong with gambling for fun with friends or family. And I’m not saying that you can’t use a betting app harmlessly. But you should always look to bet socially, and gambling apps can be inherently antisocial, predatory products. Look for alternatives if you have an itch to bet some money on the Big Game.
If you’ve bet a lot and want to quit, there are plenty of gambling replacements.
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