Prior to GRF Shiv’s event before the game on Super Bowl Sunday, I knew nothing about the game that was about to happen. Despite the sport’s popularity in the United States, I have never found football to be interesting to watch. As a result, I did not know which teams were playing, nor did I know who was performing in the halftime show. While I had heard about the Patriots, and I knew that they had been in the Super Bowl before, I did not realize just how frequently they have not only been in the Super Bowl, but also won it. I also learned about how much it costs to show a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl, as well as other facts about the game.

What I found to be most interesting was the lesson on how sports betting works. I had previously thought that it would be a simple bet on which team would win, with maybe some sort of way to equalize the two teams if one had an obvious advantage over the other, but apparently it is much more complicated than that. There are actually multiple types of betting such as moneyline, point spread, and over/under. I think the way that I was initially considering is most like moneyline, or perhaps point spread. I never even considered that people might want to bet on the total number of points gained from both teams, as is the case for over/under betting. However, what I found to be most surprising is the variety of different things that people can bet on during the Super Bowl. It was far from just which team scored the most points. Instead people can bet on things that could potentially happen during the game. While it is unlikely that I will be betting on sports any time soon, I am glad to now understand the mechanisms behind how it works.