The first official Super Bowl line that I saw was from5Dimes, through the Covers.com feed on Twitter. It was listed at New England minus-3.5.

But, to be honest, it was pretty anti-climactic. During the NFC Championship Game on Sunday I spoke with Jimmy Vaccaro, the bookmaker at Lucky's. He was kicking back in a comfy chair with a bowl of pretzels, waiting for the action to come to a head; I was at my office in Bristol, waiting for the games to end so we could close the magazine.

Jimmy had actually posted lines on all the potential Super Bowl matchups earlier in the week. At this point, it doesn't matter what any of them were, except for the Pats-Giants. He opened that at New England minus-4, and not a soul had touched it prior to the game. "I had a pretty good idea that would be the case," Jimmy told me. "We had been offering the AFC minus-4 over the NFC prior to that and none of the sharps were really taking that either. Usually that line is a good indication."