Super Bowl Line Movement: Bet The Point Spread Early or Wait?

Super Bowl line movement shows a trend for how the point spread tends to move from open to close, and a favorable move may be meaningful.

January 31, 2024 - by Jason Lisk

Brock Purdy and San Francisco are heading to Las Vegas (Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire)

Is it better to pull the trigger early on a Super Bowl point spread bet, or wait until closer to kickoff time to see where the point spread line moves?

To help inform a decision, we’ll explore opening and closing Super Bowl point spread lines and line movements going back to the 2008-09 Super Bowl.

Analysis of Super Bowl Point Spread Line Movement

In this post, we discuss the following:

• How often closing Super Bowl point spread lines are different than the opening line.
• How much line movement we see in Super Bowl betting on the point spread.
• Which direction the point spread line tends to move as Super Bowl kickoff nears.

Super Bowl Point Spread Line Movement: Opening vs. Closing Spreads

We have opening and closing line movement data, as well as the maximum and minimum numbers the spread hit up until closing, for all Super Bowls back to the 2008-09 season. That gives us betting data from the last 15 Super Bowls to analyze.

The chart below shows the opening and closing point spreads, the change from open to close, and the highest and lowest point spread at any time between opening and closing (all from the perspective of the Super Bowl favorite). Some observations follow below.