What prevents someone from betting $1 on every NFL team to win the super bowl, at the beginning of the season where the odds are all pretty good?
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Like others have said, there’s probably nothing preventing a person from making this bet. Like any bet, though, this is not a guaranteed winner. No one would run a bet they were guaranteed to lose, umm, because they’re in the business to make money. (I can think of some weird strategies for long-term futures bets that are guaranteed losers for the house, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.) In fact, bookies would be happy to take this bet because it will lose more than it will win.
I’m looking at a site right now that takes Super Bowl 56 bets and only 14 teams would make this bet a winner. If a person bets on all 18 other teams it is guaranteed to get some money back, but it’s also guaranteed to be less than the $32 put down to start with. The best-case scenario from where I’m looking would have the Texans winning at +30000. This would win you $300 plus the dollar you bet on them. After accounting for the other $31 you lost on the other teams, you come out ahead by $270. You also got six months worth of entertainment out of the bet, don’t forget about that. On the flip side, if the Chiefs win at +450, you collect your $5.50 from that bet and still have to subtract the other $31. This puts you behind by $25.50 even though you picked the Super Bowl winner six months in advance.
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