The odds are in and it's time to place your bets. Bodog.com has come out with the odds for the Bengals and other, lesser teams to win Super Bowl XLV. They say the Bengals have a 30-1 chance to win it all.
It could be worse. The Bills have 100-1 odds, the Browns have 80-1 odds and the Chiefs have a 90-1 shot and there are plenty of other teams that have much worse odds than the Bengals do. Obviously there are some teams that have a better chance to win the big game; the Ravens have a 16-1 chance, the Cowboys have 12-1 odds and the Colts have a 9-1 shot according to the "experts". Taking the Bengals tough schedule into consideration, I don't really see 30-1 as too bad.
Odds can be kind of hard to put into context sometimes. So here are some random odds of random events to help you out. Unfortunately for all of us armchair quarterbacks, we have a better chance at developing hemorrhoids (25-1) than the Bengals do of winning the Super Bowl, according to Bodog. At least we can rest assured that we will all party in the streets after a Bengals Super Bowl victory before one of use gets his/her house turned into a crater by a meteorite (ridiculously high number-1).
Even though I lose the contents of my wallet and the pants that they were in almost every time I take the short trip to Lawrenceburg (I can't wait for the Cincinnati casino... losing my money will be so much more convenient!), I feel pretty good about placing a bet on the Bengals to bring home the Vince Lombardi Trophy at 30-1 odds. I may not be the best guy to tell you where to put your money, in fact, I'm probably the last guy to give anybody any sort of financial advice. However, tough defense plus powerful running game plus revitalized passing game equals winnings in my book.