Don't know Football but still want bet on the Superb Owl?

(Superb Owl is not a typo. I've heard (and it could be wrong) that the  NFL guards their copyright so you can't even say `Buy Beer here for the YOU KNOW WHATl' but instead `Buy Beer here for the big game''. Stephen Colbert a long time ago go around this by calling the game Superb Owl.)

If I knew more about football  I might place a bet related to the Superb Owl. What kind of bets can I place?

1) Bet the point spread: Last time I looked the Patriots were a 2.5 point favorite. So either bet that Patriots will win by more than  2.5 or the Rams will lose by less than 2.5 or just win.

2) Over-Under: bet that either the total score will be over 56.5 or under it.

 There are prop-bets-- bets that are ABOUT the game but not related to the final score.

I've seen the following

1) Tom Brady will retire after the game. I wonder if Tom Brady (or a friend of his) could bet on this one knowing some inside information. Not i any state in America, but off-shore...

2) Jamie White will score the first touchdown.

3) Will Gladys Knight's   National Anthem go longer than 1 minute, 50 seconds (it was 1:47 seconds a few days ago but it shifted to 1:50).

Amazingly, this last one is what Josh Hermsmeyer (on Nate Silver's Webpage)  chose to focus on: here. Note that:

1) The people who picked 1 minute 50 seconds as the over-under probably didn't do much research. They might have set it to get the same number of people on both sides, which may explain the shift; however, I can't imagine this bet got that much action. Then again, I'm not that imaginative.

2) Josh DID. He did an  analysis of what is likely (he thinks it will go longer)

3) So- can Josh bet on this an clean up? Can you bet on this and clean up?

4) There is an issue: Some kinds of bets are legal in some places (betting who will WIN or beat a point-spread is legal in Las Vegas-- the Supreme court struck down a federal anti-betting rule). Some prop bets are legal. The Gladys Knight one is not.  Why not? Someone could have inside information! Gladys Knight would!

So you CAN bet  Rams+2.5 beats the Patriots LEGALLY

but to bet Gladys Knight's National Anthem will take more than 1 minute 50 seconds you might need to use  BITCOIN, and go to some offshore account. Too much sugar for a satoshi.

5) There is another issue- there is no such thing as a sure thing (I blogged on that here). People who bet on sports for a living (I know one such person and will blog about that later) play THE LONG GAME. So to say

           I will withdraw X dollars (for large X)  from my investments and bet it on 

          Gladys Knight's  Star Spangled Banner to go more than 1 minute 50 seconds

          because its a sure thing

Would be... a very bad idea.

The above was all written the day before Superb Owl. Now its the next day and Gladys Knight has sung the National Anthem. So who won the Gladys Knight Bowl? The answer is not as straightforward as it could be, see here.