When these two teams met in the Super Bowl four years ago, the New York Giants stunned the New England Patriots to win the game. Both teams squared off during the regular season in 2011, with the Giants again staging a comeback to take down the Patriots, in New England, by a final score of 24-20. That didn't stop the odds makers (specifically at Bovada) from listing the Patriots as three point favorites for Super Bowl XLVI:
New York Giants +3
New England Patriots -3
Total Points Over/Under 55"We could not have asked for a better Super Bowl matchup from a betting and a fans perspective. Considering this is the rematch from the great upset of 2008 I would expect this to be the highest bet Super Bowl this century and well surpassing what was already a heavily bet 2008 Super Bowl which was a disaster for bookmakers, losing 7 figures easily. It is no secret that we are not in the best position on futures with the Giants being our biggest loss and the Patriots being the biggest winner, but with the line only set at New England -3 I am very curious to see if the public will finally back off the Giants considering they have been killing us every week for the last 2 months."
-Kevin Bradley, Bovada.lv Sportsbook Manager
Given the Patriots' better record during the regular season, I'm not the least bit surprised to see them favored here. The Giants have won five consecutive "must-win games" (two of which closed out the regular season), all of which came against some pretty tough competition. Meanwhile, the Patriots had a cakewalk against Denver and a victory over Baltimore.