The Super Bowl is arguably the biggest single event in the sporting calendar. It attracts the biggest TV audiences and is a huge day for the bookies, with an estimated $6 billion placed in wagers. There's also all the accompanying fanfare with people throwing Super Bowl parties across the globe, regardless of time zone. Add to that the overblown spectacle of the half time show, and there is usually only one thing lacking – the game itself can often be something of an anticlimax.

Let's be honest, the scoreline for Super Bowl LVI makes it look closer than it was, and the previous year, Tampa basically won it in the second quarter. Too often, the sheer scale and spectacle of being in the Super Bowl gets the better of the players and results in a game that fails to deliver. But in between, there have been a few that have truly put the cherry on top of a magical season. Here, we look back on three of the best Super Bowls in recent history.

Super Bowl XXXII – Elway's last hurrah

Reigning Super Bowl champions Green Bay had dominated the 1996/97 regular season and Brett Favre was in his pomp. Denver had squeaked into the playoffs as a wild card and the talk was that John Elway was going to hang up his boots after 15 years with the Broncos. This was his fourth Super Bowl appearance, the first since 1990, and he'd not been on the winning side yet. Could the old gunslinger pull off a fairytale win against the young hot shot? It wasn't pretty, but he used his wiles and combined with running back Terrell Davis, who ran 157 yards and scored three touchdowns despite battling a migraine, to pull off one of the biggest Super Bowl shocks in years.

Super Bowl XXXVI – Tom who?

It seems hard to imagine now, but at the turn of the millennium, the Patriots were emerging from a decade of being the whipping boys of the NFL. The new partnership of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, in his first season as starting quarterback, showed promise, but would surely be swept aside by the Greatest Show on Turf. The Patriots defense did well to restrict the Rams to one field goal in the first three quarters, but things looked to have slipped away as Kurt Warner staged a fourth quarter recovery, scoring twice to tie the game at 17-17. With 1:30 left in regulation and no time outs, Tom Brady did what we subsequently know that Tom Brady does, and the rest was history.

Super Bowl XLII – Raining on the Pats' parade

Fast forward to 2008 and the Patriots' and Brady's position atop the NFL was beyond contention. They went into Super Bowl XLII unbeaten in well over a year. For the first three quarters, all went to script. It was defense-led and a little turgid with only 10 points scored in the first three quarters, but as previously mentioned that's not unusual for a Super Bowl. In the 4th quarter, all hell broke loose, and in the thick of the action was David Tyree's helmet catch, surely one of the classic Super Bowl moments. When it came to the crunch, the Giants were just too good and even Brady had no reply.

Super Bowl LVII – The best is yet to come

Will this year's Super Bowl be a classic? We are due one, and Gamble Online provides some guidance to bet online Super Bowl, including the latest odds on the winning team and a range of intriguing prop bets.