As the biggest sports betting day of the year, the Super Bowl is full of markets available. From the standard bets on the spread to the Super Bowl squares to the national anthem, you’ve got no shortage of ways to take a few dollars and have some fun with the big game.

And for most people, one of the preferred ways to make a fun prop bet is by guessing what color the Gatorade that gets dumped on the winning coach will be.

Believe it or not, there’s actually some science to betting on the Gatorade shower. It seems like it’s completely random, but you have to remember that football players and coaches are creatures of habit and superstition. If there’s anything they can do that they think will give them an edge, they’ll do it. And more often than not, that extends all the way down to the team Gatorade colors on the sidelines.

So which colors are most likely to land you a win on Super Sunday? Here’s a look at the recent trends.

Red: Color of Strength, But Not on Gameday

Red has long been seen as a color of strength and power. It’s one reason why the NFL features nine different teams that use red as either a primary or secondary color, and it’s played out this year, as both the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers wear red jerseys as their primary choice.

But if you’re looking for a bet on the Gatorade color, red’s probably not the way to go. Since this bet started getting regularly tracked in 2001, no Super Bowl winning coach has gotten a red Gatorade shower after the game.

A few reasons exist for that. First, the possibility for illness during the game can never be ruled out. In 2004, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb infamously vomited before his team’s final drive, as the pressure and stress affected him. Should that happen with an athlete drinking red Gatorade, it’s easy for a training staff to panic and think he’s losing blood.

Second, red dye 40 remains present in red Gatorade. Red dye 40 has been known to cause allergies and migraines in some people, and those are among the last things a team wants to risk on game day. Given how easily obtainable other flavors and colors of Gatorade are, there’s little reason to put players at risk of reacting to red dye.

Finally, and less important, red dye is not easy to remove from clothes as other dyes. The coach will likely get drenched with whatever beverage is available, but if the team uses red, it creates a heck of a job for the equipment manager the next day. With everyone at the facility celebrating a Lombardi Trophy, nobody’s going to want to focus on getting rid of laundry stains that were totally avoidable.

Because of those reasons, red remains a longshot to be the winning team’s choice, even as red teams dominate this game. Over the past four years, a red team (the Chiefs twice and the Buccaneers) has won the title three times, and red was never their choice for the sidelines.

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Team Colors: Usually, But Not Always, A Strong Option

While NFL teams notably avoid red Gatorade, they aren’t as aversive to other colors. When a non-red team makes the Super Bowl and one of their team colors is a Gatorade color, they’re apt to choose that for the sidelines.

The history bears this out: Of the past nine Super Bowl winners, the only teams that didn’t use a team color for their Gatorade were red teams. The Rams and Patriots both used blue and the Broncos opted for orange. The Eagles were an interesting case in 2018, as they chose yellow, which isn’t a team color. However, Philadelphia still counted because for the purpose of Gatorade betting, green, the Eagles’ main color, gets grouped with yellow and counted the same. You’ve got to go back to 2014 to find a non-red team that didn’t use a team color and won the title, that being the Seahawks in 2014.

What about red teams, or teams that don’t have a Gatorade color as a team color? The best bet in those cases is to choose a popular color and flavor. When the Saints, who don’t have a Gatorade color as one of their team colors, won the Super Bowl in 2010, they opted for orange, just like the Seahawks did in 2014. In fact, orange is the most common winner, having been used five times since 2010. When in doubt, orange is often the way to go.

Repeat Winners: Is There a Correlation?

With the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, purple is drawing a lot of attention this year as the betting favorite to be their color of choice. That’s because a year ago, the Chiefs used purple and ended up winning, which caught most bettors and the sportsbook by complete surprise. Purple went off at +1000, so if you had that as your color, you won back 10 times your bet.

This year, some books offered purple as low as +175. So isn’t that the way to play this year, given football players’ tendencies for superstitions?

Surprisingly, no. Here’s another superstition that could come into play: except for the Patriots, who showed an affinity for team color blue, no team has won a second Super Bowl with the same Gatorade color as the first. When the Chiefs beat the 49ers in 2020, they used orange for Andy Reid’s shower. The Steelers switched from clear in 2006 to yellow in 2009, the Giants went from clear in 2008 to purple in 2012 and the Buccaneers went from purple in 2003 to blue in 2021.

Final Verdict?

According to the science and history, orange or blue are probably the best way to go. The 49ers, as a red team, are most likely to go with orange, and the Chiefs’ history says they probably won’t go with purple again.

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