The setting

Las Vegas is internet hosting its first Tremendous Bowl in the present day. The town has a fraught historical past with skilled sports activities due to its affiliation with playing, and leagues have stored groups away to take care of their sports activities’ look of integrity. That modified in 2018, when the Supreme Court docket cleared the best way for legalized sports activities betting. Vegas officers, keen to spice up tourism, lured skilled baseball and soccer groups to town. Internet hosting the Tremendous Bowl is a crowning achievement.

Not everyone seems to be completely satisfied concerning the transformation, although. Officers offered $750 million in subsidies to assist construct Allegiant Stadium, the place the Tremendous Bowl will happen, whilst town’s public colleges have languished. “It just represents that we don’t care,” LaTasha Olsen, who works at a neighborhood elementary college, told my colleagues Ken Belson and Jenny Vrentas.

The halftime present

Usher, the headline act at halftime, is a showman made for the Tremendous Bowl. He sings, he dances, he boasts a three-decade-long catalog that makes for recognizable medley fodder. However tonight’s efficiency is greater than a nostalgia journey. Usher has experienced a recent renaissance, prompted by a Las Vegas residency. (Final yr, movies of him serenading celebrities, together with Keke Palmer and Issa Rae, unfold extensively on social media.)

Usher has framed his efficiency as a celebration of his profession. It’s additionally a second within the highlight for his style: “This night was specifically curated in my mind to have R&B take the main stage,” he told Vogue.

The bets

Trade specialists count on this yr’s Tremendous Bowl to be the biggest sports activities betting day in American historical past, with more than 67 million people wagering on the occasion. Probably the most conventional sort of guess is predicting the victor, with the underdog — on this case, the Chiefs — noticed just a few factors. However a rising pattern in recent times has been making so-called prop bets, which let you gamble on absolutely anything, together with:

Whether or not the sport’s shortest landing play might be underneath 1.5 yards.
Whether or not it’s going to take Reba McEntire underneath 90.5 seconds to sing the nationwide anthem.
Any variety of Swift-related uncertainties: Will her lipstick be purple? How lengthy will or not it’s earlier than she seems onscreen? And which of her songs will the announcers check with first? The favourite is “Bad Blood.”

The Athletic put collectively its personal prop bets, which you’ll be able to play along with here with out risking your cash.