All Bets Are On

When It Comes to Super Bowl Wagers, Guys Know the Score

Guys are supposed to know things. Nobody really knows how, or even why half the time, but you're supposed to know.

Like, guys know how to change a tire. Guys know how to use a ratchet and what you do with a fungo. Guys know that a good bridge in pool involves your index finger looped over the cue. Guys know you never need to ask for directions, because if you just keep driving up a block, you'll find it, and if you'd just pipe down, honey, we'd be there by now.

And the one thing that guys are supposed to know, above all: the Super Bowl, and how to bet on it.

This is nonnegotiable. This is the core element of guydom. It is the most bet-upon single sporting event on the planet, and any sports book will tell you that about 90, 95 percent of sports bettors are men. More than $94 million was bet legally in Las Vegas on the Super Bowl last year, and everyone agrees that the total amount bet on the Internet, on offshore gambling sites based in Costa Rica or the Caribbean, and among friends, neighbors and fans goes into the billions.

This year, the Indianapolis Colts and quarterback Peyton Manning take on the Chicago Bears and quarterback Rex Grossman. The New Orleans Saints are not playing because they managed to fumble four times in one game two weeks ago and because the referees were all but wearing skirts and waving pompoms for Chicago. Not that we're sore about it or anything.

"It's almost an American thing, not just a guy thing, putting a little something on the Super Bowl," says Michael Konik, a guy who wrote a book called "The Smart Money: How the World's Best Sports Bettors Beat the Bookies Out of Millions."

You know guys came up with this football betting thing, because it involves something called the point spre ad, which is a completely made-up way your team can win the game but you lose the bet. Isn't that great? So to win the bet, not just the game, requires intricate, completely artificial knowledge about a totally meaningless event, and guys can't get enough of that kind of action. Billions? Did we mention the billions?

So of course you have to know how to talk intelligently about placing a wager on the nation's premier sporting event, except that a Real Guy would never say it that way. Not that we'd encourage any sort of gambling, legal or not, but a Real Guy, he comes into the men's, one urinal down from you, and, looking straight ahead, this guy says:

"So you figure Grossman'll cover the spread?"

"Grossman? Nah. Peyton's year. Early line was what, 6 1/2 , 7? Peyton'll blow that out by recess."

"Yeah, they got Vinatieri, and they not even gonna need 'im."

"I got a dime on it, the Colts to cover."