Game props and novelty markets
These settle on the game as an object rather than on either team — first scoring play type, whether there is overtime, exact margin bands — or on events attached to the occasion rather than the sport at all. Some are genuine coin flips; some are modelled events dressed in coin-flip presentation. All of them settle on a written rule that is usually longer than the market name.
They exist for occasion volume. A small number of events attract a very large amount of casual money, and a menu of yes/no questions converts far better than a handicap. Because most of these markets are rare, thinly modelled and thinly bet, there is no liquid market correcting the price, so the margin sits wider than on a main line.
Not all of these are the same animal. An overtime yes/no is a real modelled event with a defensible price; a coin toss has a known probability and the only variable is the margin. Lumping them together as 'novelties' hides the fact that one is priceable by anybody and the other is not.
And that is the trap. Settlement disputes cluster here. 'First scoring play' has to define what happens on a safety or a defensive score; 'first team to score' has to define an own goal. The rule exists and is specific, and it is read almost exclusively after the event by somebody who has already lost.
What to do with it. Read the settlement rule in full and add up the implied probabilities before betting any novelty market.
The archive
What the published price did in US sports
11,262 games in US sports that are over and carried a price when we wrote them up, between November 24, 2025 and November 6, 2026. Each count sits beside what it is out of, and the share is the one divided by the other.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shorter price won | 7,058 | 10,936 | 64.5% |
| The favourite covered the handicap | 3,373 | 7,003 | 48.2% |
| The total went over | 5,518 | 11,236 | 49.1% |
| The home side won | 6,361 | 11,262 | 56.5% |
How they ended
Over 16,021 finished games in US sports whose result line says how it ended — the feed's own one-line verdict, not a reading of the play.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went past regulation | 1,212 | 16,021 | 7.6% |
| Settled on a shootout | 161 | 16,021 | 1.0% |
| Called before the end | 9 | 16,021 | 0.1% |
286 games landed exactly on the number — the handicap or the total — so they are in the counts they are out of and in neither result.
The prices counted here are DraftKings', as they stood when we last wrote each game up — one snapshot per game, near kick-off for almost all of them, and never a closing line. So this says what the published line did, not how it moved on the way there.
A season that happened. Nothing here predicts the next game, and none of it is advice.
Counted November 6, 2026.
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