LAS VEGAS - Never let it be said that Penn & Teller can't come up with new magic tricks.

This year they learned how to transform a wild guess into a shiny gold football trophy.

Penn & Teller's prognostication skills - and more than a little luck - earned them the Scripps Howard Super Sage Award, given annually to the celebrity in Scripps Howard's Celebrity Super Bowl Poll who picks the winning team and whose guess comes closest to the actual final score. The pair received their trophy before their show Monday night in Las Vegas.

Penn & Teller became the first magicians and the first duo to win the Super Sage Award. But Teller prefers another description.

"We're the first cheaters," said Teller, the normally speechless member of the duo.

Penn & Teller guessed that the Indianapolis Colts would beat the Chicago Bears, 28-17, just one point off the Colts' actual winning score of 29-17.

Among the 100 celebrities from entertainment, sports, politics and pop culture who participated in the Celebrity Super Bowl Poll, Penn & Teller, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin each guessed the same result. But after a coin flip, the Penn & Teller team was declared the winner.

Previous Super Sage recipients were big football fans, like golfer Arnold Palmer and actor Dennis Farina, or played football like Grateful Dead guitarist and flag-footballer Bob Weir, and last year's winner, Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., who played football at Washington and Jefferson College.

But neither Penn nor Teller pays any attention to football. Were they ever interested in playing the game? "Not in the slightest," said Teller. "I always wanted my injuries to be simulated." Penn Jillette never played, either, but says he has been mistaken for a former football player before.

"A washed-up football player. That's a very important thing to remember," said Jillette, who pokes fun at his hulking physique during their Vegas show. "I look like a football player gone to seed. "

Football isn't the only sport Penn & Teller ignore. Teller says he swims. Jillette has watched lawnmower racing and bass fishing on TV.

But that's about it.

"I don't even play games, never mind sports," said Jillette. "I don't really play sports. I'm not a real follower." Finding time to follow sports is a long shot for the two, given their nightly gigs at the Rio Hotel and Casino, their show on the Showtime cable network and Jillette's hosting the NBC game show, Identity.

"I think that trophy proves that it doesn't matter what the sport is - if you're cheating, you can still win," said Jillette.

Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service