By Richard Gardner, Bodog Sportsbook Manager

So with all of the two-week hype leading up to the Super Bowl, casual bettors probably believe that we at Bodog Sportsbook are inundated with action on the game for the entirety of the lead-up period.

That’s not necessarily true.

Around here people still tend to wait to make those Super Bowl bets until a day or two before the big game. In fact, our busiest period usually is the Sunday morning of the game.

Surprisingly our call center and website are fairly quiet in the hour or so leading up to kickoff, which is a departure from a normal Sunday NFL game. People tend to want to settle in at those Super Bowl parties (and watch the commercials) and get that bet down well beforehand for the big game.

By the way, we will be offering live Super Bowl betting at Bodog Sportsbook.

It has been pretty rare for a key player to be so questionable leading up to the Super Bowl in recent years, but that’s what we have in XLIV with Colts All-Pro defensive end Dwight Freeney.

I think it’s fair to call him probably the most important player (and best) on the field not named Brees or Manning, but he is iffy after reportedly tearing ligaments in his ankle in the AFC title game win over the Jets.

It’s hard to imagine Freeney not playing, but it’s almost assured he will be very limited. Of course he led the Colts in sacks this year with 13.5 and will be vital for Indy to disrupt Drew Brees. When the Saints’ star has been under pressure this year, New Orleans has lost (look at the Dallas game, for one).

If the Saints don’t have to account for Freeney by keeping a tight end or extra running back in to help block him, that’s a huge advantage.

Despite Freeney’s injury, players at Bodog still are leaning toward the Colts. Some books opened the line at Indianapolis -4.5, but we felt the money would come on the Colts and opened the line at Indy -6 while some other books were still at -5, which is now the line nearly everywhere.

Obviously if Freeney is ruled out later this week, we could see heavy action on the Saints bring that line down although there’s little chance it falls to a field goal.

The one area where Freeney’s injury could help bettors is on the over, which is being played heavily thus far – it’s currently at 56.5. Some believe this could be the highest-scoring Super Bowl ever, with the record standing at 75 points when the 49ers beat the Chargers in XXIX.

Only two of the past 10 Super Bowls have exceeded that current 56.5 total, for what that’s worth. And the weather in Miami is supposed to be perfect come kickoff, so that should be beneficial to a lot of points being scored (last time the Super Bowl was in Miami it poured).

Meanwhile, I’d like to hit on prop bets for the Super Bowl as well. Obviously, Bodog offers more prop bets for this game than any other football game.

On a typical Sunday NFL game, props would be maybe 10 percent of the handle of the game lines, whereas for the Super Bowl they are almost 100 percent of the handle for the game lines.

And people would be shocked how much action we get on the coin toss despite the seeming randomness of that bet. Perhaps it’s not random considering the NFC has won the past 12 coin tosses in a row.

Heads has come up in eight of the past 13 Super Bowls, but the loser of the toss has won 10 of the past 13 games. It will be interesting to see if Sunday’s winner defers and dares put the opposing offense on the field first (doubtful).

The other most popular prop bets we are seeing so far are the player to score the first touchdown, passing yards for both quarterbacks, MVP (Peyton Manning the huge favorite at 2/3), total rushing yards for Saints RB Pierre Thomas (currently the over/under is 60.5) and total rushing yards for Saints RB Reggie Bush (currently at 30.5).

Enjoy the big game, and we’ll have a recap from the book’s perspective next Monday.