<
>

Oddsmaker: Patriots vs. Cowboys most likely Super Bowl LII matchup

With the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final wrapping up, there's no better time to look ahead to the NFL season. One Las Vegas sportsbook has taken that to an extreme.

The Golden Nugget has released odds on all 256 potential Super Bowl LII matchups available for betting at its sportsbook in downtown Vegas. The most likely Super Bowl matchup is the defending champion New England Patriots facing the Dallas Cowboys at 7-1, followed by the Patriots taking on the Green Bay Packers at 8-1.

Looking forward to a Super Bowl LI rematch? The Golden Nugget has an Atlanta Falcons-Patriots matchup at 10-1 odds.

ESPN's Football Power Index agrees that New England will be the AFC's best team, giving them a 50.7 percent chance to reach the Super Bowl, but it sees Seattle-New England as the most likely matchup, happening 11.63 percent of the time in 10,000 season simulations.

The Patriots are coming off an incredibly successful season in the eyes of bettors, tying the all-time-best against-the-spread mark at 16-3 ATS and going 17-2 straight-up. New England is the favorite across Las Vegas sportsbooks to win Super Bowl LII, with 3-1 odds at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook.

The Golden Nugget believes the least likely matchup is a New York Jets-San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl, putting the odds at 5,000-1. That is roughly equivalent to what some sportsbooks set the odds that Leicester City would win the Champions League in 2015-2016. In 10,000 simulations of ESPN's FPI, a 49ers-Jets Super Bowl didn't happen once.