How Often Does Vegas Predict the Super Bowl Winner? – Gallery

Visualization

Data Notes

I was interested in seeing if there was a good source for predicting the Super Bowl winner. I figured that the Vegas line would be a good source. While the spread is used to make betting more interesting, I thought all the work that goes into it would make it a good source for determining a projected winner. As you can see, it isn’t always right, but it doesn’t do a bad job.

There is some good news for Falcons’ fans though. Even though the Patriots are the current favorite by 3.5, when the spread is that small, the favorite has only won 8 out of 15 times. That goes down to 7 and 14 if you take away the toss up game between Seattle and New England that we gave to Vegas as a gimme.

To create this visualization, I gathered information on who the favorite was to win the Super Bowl from Wikipedia. I used Excel to enter the data and Tableau to create the visualization.