Sports bettors aren’t going to mistake the Grey Cup for the Super Bowl anytime soon — the latter remains the preeminent gambling event among all North American leagues — but some bookmakers are still trying to give the CFL’s championship more of that “Big Game” feel.
The Canadian Football League will wrap up its season Sunday in Vancouver with the 111th edition of the Grey Cup, which will be contested by the Toronto Argonauts and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
There’s already been some movement in the Grey Cup odds, as the spread has shifted from Winnipeg as a 10.5-point favourite as of Monday to 9.5-point chalk as of Friday afternoon at several sportsbooks.
The total, meanwhile, has been creeping up, and now sits at 50.5 or 51, after opening closer to 50.
Prop 'til you drop
Player props are plentiful for the Grey Cup, perhaps even more so than they would be during the CFL’s regular season.
Yet the big difference between the Grey Cup and a typical CFL matchup can be found at only a few shops trying to give the game Super Bowl-like (or maybe Super Bowl-lite) treatment.
There are indeed sportsbooks offering the kind of props for Argos-Blue Bombers that you’d expect to see in February for the NFL’s Big Game, such as the colour of Gatorade that could be splashed on Sunday’s winning coach.
In Ontario, FanDuel has a Gatorade market, as well as odds for the length of the Canadian national anthem before the Grey Cup, who will first get handed the championship trophy, and whether the game's MVP will be Canadian (-310 "no," +200 "yes," as of Friday afternoon).
FanDuel also has odds for the first song of the Jonas Brothers' halftime show set and markets for a celebrity appearance during the concert and the number of songs that will be played.
As of Thursday afternoon, the bookmaker's Canadian trading team said its three most bet player props were Argos running back Ka'Deem Carey to score a touchdown at any time in the first half, Blue Bombers running back Brady Oliveira to go Over his rushing yards total, and Argos receiver DaVaris Daniels to go Under his receiving yards total.
FanDuel’s Canadian trading team also said “Burnin’ Up” was the most-bet choice for the Jonas Brothers first song and that Carly Rae Jepsen was the most-bet option for a celebrity.
A double-edged sword
The added attention to the Grey Cup by FanDuel is unsurprising. The U.S.-based bookmaker is one of the CFL’s "authorized gaming operators" (AGO) and has a marketing deal with broadcaster TSN, which will broadcast the Grey Cup.
CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie, who is expected to depart sometime next year, has viewed sports betting as a way to boost interest in and ratings for the league. That strategy included lobbying the federal government to decriminalize single-game sports wagering in Canada and setting up the AGO program.
Yet the CFL's embrace of sports betting has put it in some awkward positions.
The league's first official partner was BetRegal, which was never authorized or licensed by Canadian regulators before it shut down earlier this year.
The league also had to deal with a sports betting-related controversy this year after it learned standout defensive end Shawn Lemon had placed an approximately €73 parlay on two CFL games back in 2021.
Ambrosie said ahead of last year's Grey Cup that the CFL would remain "vigilant" for any such issues.
Lemon was indefinitely suspended by the league in April, but the Canadian Football League Players’ Association (CFLPA) filed a grievance that allowed him to play until July, when the penalty was reimposed.
Ambrosie was asked about the Lemon suspension and that of Argos quarterback Chad Kelly during his annual Grey Cup press conference earlier this week.
"I think that's going to be, for me, one of the things that I'll probably carry with me for many, many years to come is looking back on those two situations and asking myself whether I got it right," Ambrosie said. "I can say this: To the best of my ability, I think I did what I thought was right at the time."
So the CFL's sports betting experiment continues. Bookmakers continue to experiment as well in trying to increase interest among bettors, work that has ramped up since the decriminalization of single-game betting in 2021.
The most Canadian bet of all
Offering bettors some novel markets for the Grey Cup is part of that work.
PlayNow, the official online sportsbook for British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan (and another official CFL operator), has odds for the result of the Grey Cup's coin toss and which team will win the flip.
Users can also wager on whether the first play from scrimmage will be a run or a pass and if there will be a rouge during the game.
For the uninitiated, a rouge is a single point scored when a kicked ball is downed or goes through the end zone on a punt or field goal. That's something you'll never see on Super Bowl Sunday.
At Ontario Lottery Gaming and Corp.’s PROLINE sportsbook — another official CFL gaming operator — roughly 58% of players were backing the Blue Bombers to win the Grey Cup as of Friday afternoon. That was despite the presence of an Ontario team in the game, Toronto.
Nevertheless, 68% of PROLINE bettors were on the Argos plus the points and 67% were on the Over for the game.
