Puppy Bowl XV Prop Bet: What Will Be the First Letter of the MVP’s Name?

Disclaimer: The Puppy Bowl is prerecorded, so there's a chance that this props' odds are being affected by a secretly known outcome. That's no fun, though, so I'm analyzing it as if the game outcome is unknown.

Not sure if you've heard, but there's a pretty big game taking place on Sunday. For the fifth straight year, Team Fluff and Team Ruff will duke it out in the Puppy Bowl (does the PFL have a Fluff-Ruff problem?).

Marky Gallant already broke the game down in detail, so I won't be spending any time on the actual matchup.

Instead, I'm looking at a prop that might in fact have betting value (I'm actually being serious, I think).

What will be the first letter of the MVP's name?

• A-N -120
• O-Z -120

Generally, a bet with -120 juice per side is one that I scroll right past. In fact, I almost did that with this one … but I'm glad I didn't.

I figured it was worthwhile to at least check how many pups fell into each category. It felt to me that more generic dog names started with letters closer to the beginning of the alphabet, and that turned out to be the case.

Would ya look at all those As and Bs!

Of the 36 dogs in PBXV, 24 have names starting with letters A through N. That 66.7% probability would equate to odds of -200, and we can get it at -120! It's almost like they just split the alphabet in half (if this is what they were doing they should double check their letter counting), slapped the same juice on both sides and called it a day.

Now I know what you're thinking (because obviously this is what you're thinking). Team Ruff is a sizable favorite in the game (-7.5). Maybe the odds are set this way because Ruff has more O-Z's than Fluff.

Well, you're kinda right (Ruff has eight O-Z's to Fluff's four), but Ruff still has 10 dogs in the A-N range. Even if we grant Ruff the win, we still have a 10/18 = 55.55% chance to win the bet when we only need a 54.55% chance to make a profit. An edge is an edge.

All of this goes without mentioning that there's a dog named "Shy Boy" in the O-Z range. That name doesn't exactly scream MVP, so let's nudge our chances up a tad more.

Give me Brady and the rest of the A-N's and let me believe that I'm not being sucked into a predetermined losing bet.

The pick: A-N (-120)