Betting on Super Bowl 2026 Commercials is the 4th Biggest Market at Prediction Platforms

Folks have long looked forward to commercials airing during the Super Bowl.    With this in mind, sportsbooks now offer a separate category of prop bets tied to Super Bowl advertisements and the prediction markets were seeing upwards of $2.5 million traded on which brands will air during the big game (4th largest prop bet for the Super Bowl thus far). 

Reality check: There hasn't been anything that remotely comes close to that iconic 1980 commercial “Hey Kid, Catch!” featuring NFL star “Mean” Joe Greene no matter how many cute animals these companies try to shove down our throats or what social media influencers might say.

We're still waiting for that National Anthem performer to surpass Whitney Houston's performance in 1991.  Hasn't happened yet.  When Joe Blow declares Beyonce's performance was "better than Whitney", that's "fake news".  Call it subjective, we trust most readers would agree (Marvin Gaye's rendition was NOT during the Super Bowl). 

The 1984 Apple commercial stands out as one of the more crowning achievements in Super Bowl commercial lure.  It still didn't come across quite as organic as the Mean Joe Green ad or something along the lines of a Jake From State Farm or "Hey Mikey, he likes it" Life Cereal (yeah, we're really dating ourselves).  Instead, the commercial felt more engineered and contrived.

History.com ranks the Apple "1984" commercial 2ndd among the Super Bowl "greats". 

By 1984, budgets, concepts and anticipation surrounding Super Bowl ads were all growing. Some brands were partnering with big-budget directors to give their ads a gleam of Hollywood ambition. No such collaboration paid off like the iconic Apple spot produced by Fairbanks Films and directed by Ridley Scott—who, notably, made his name directing commercials before helming sci-fi movie hits like Alien and Blade Runner.

The latter film’s dystopian chill clearly influenced “1984,” a bold and cinematic riff on the George Orwell novel of the same name. In the ad, throngs of gray-clad, emotionless workers sit and listen to a video address by a sinister, droning Big Brother-like figure. A young woman in a white tank top and bright orange shorts, striking against the sea of gray, sprints into the room wielding a sledgehammer, which she hurls at the telescreen, exploding it. Finally, a voiceover announces the launch of the Apple Macintosh personal computer—signifying the tech equivalent, perhaps, of this smashing of conformity.

Sure “Spuds MacKenzie” started the "cute animal" revolution during Super Bowl commercial breaks.  There is even a Puppy Bowl that has since grown in popularity and perhaps can trace its origins to “Spuds MacKenzie”.  Yes, we have odds on the Puppy Bowl. 

Budweiser is certainly the undisputed "King of Memorable Super Bowl Commercials", but more as a collective whole.  Sorry Spuds, you were cute, but so were those damn frogs, not to mention the clydesdales horses.

As far as the 2026 Super Bowl offerings go, BetUS now pits commercials against each other (i.e. first commercial to air: Bosch Home vs. Dove). 

This year, you can even wager on who will be seen in a US Government commercial. 

Below are all your Super Bowl commercial odds. 

• Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher