Betting on NCAA March Madness: 5 Things You Need to Know
The NCAA Tournament, also known as March Madness, is one of the premier events on the sporting calendar, particularly among those with an interest in sports betting. First played with eight teams in 1939, the tournament has had a field of 64 teams since 1985.
It is also the source of billions of dollars in single-game bets and office bracket pools. Below is an in-depth look at the tournament and its popularity as a vehicle for sports betting.
Potential Record-Breaking Year in 2021
Thanks in part to the fact that online gambling is now legal in more than two dozen states, the 2021 NCAA Tournament is expected to break the March Madness betting record of $8.5 billion. States were granted the ability to legalize sports betting through a 2018 case involving the State of New Jersey, but only 12 states had done so by the start of the 2019 NCAA Tournament. The 2020 event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its return in 2021, coupled with increased access to legal sports betting, was a welcome sight for sportsbooks.
“It will be the biggest ever,” noted DraftKings’ head of race and sportsbook Johnny Avello prior to the 2021 tournament. “We sorely missed the tournament last year. We saw intense action when we put the lines up on Sunday. But forget the fact that we missed the tournament last year, the growth from 2019 to 2021 in sports betting across the U.S. has increased dramatically. There are more users, more states on board, and more offerings.”
Around 47 million Americans were projected to bet on 2021 March Madness. While this is similar to 2019, bettors are spending more money given the vast array of available options. According to the American Gaming Association (AGA), 31 million Americans planned to place traditional bets on March Madness in 2021, up from less than 18 million in 2019. Avello went as far as to suggest the tournament is more profitable to sportsbooks than the Super Bowl.
Filling Out Brackets
Prior to the boom in legal online sports betting, bracket pools were the source of most wagers in the US. Participants could fill out the bracket with the teams they expected to win to receive a share of the collective pot.
At DraftKings, roughly 20,000 people paid the $100 entry fee for the bracket pool with the winner earning $1 million. The company expected to bring in about $2 million from brackets, which is substantially less than what it will make from traditional bets.
This represents a shift in money allocation among bettors. The AGA noted more than 36 million people filled out a bracket for the 2021 NCAA Tournament, which is down 8 percent from the 2019 tournament.
Sports Coverage Shifting Focus
It’s not just bettors who have shifted their focus. Sports networks have increasingly been incorporating betting lines and other wagering information in their coverage. Some have even created shows catering specifically to avid sports bettors.
ESPN and Fox Sports 1 produce Daily Wager and Lock It In, respectively. The Vegas Stats and Information Network paved the way for mainstream coverage of sports betting in 2017 and is striving to position itself as the CNBC of sports gambling. The network broadcasts 24/7 from a casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Favorites and Past Winners
Part of the appeal of the tournament is its unpredictability. Top seeds and betting favorites Illinois and Ohio State were eliminated by lower seeds in the first two rounds of the seven-round tournament. Gonzaga entered the tournament with the best betting odds (+200) to win the 2021 NCAA Tournament, while Baylor (+600), Michigan (+600), Illinois (+700), and Iowa (+1600) rounded out the top five.
Virginia won the 2019 NCAA Tournament with a 85–77 overtime victory over Texas Tech. Villanova won its second national title in three years in 2018 with a 79–62 victory over Michigan and North Carolina defeated Gonzaga to win the 2017 NCAA Tournament. UCLA has won the most championships (11), while four other schools — Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, and Indiana — have won at least five titles.
Where to Place Legal Bets
Most of the states with legalized sports betting have retail sportsbooks in addition to allowing access to mobile betting apps. These states include New Jersey, New Hampshire, Michigan, Tennessee, Colorado, and Indiana. Six other states including Arkansas, New Mexico, and New York only allow individuals to place wagers at brick-and-mortar locations. Mobile sports betting is legal in Oregon, but restrictions prohibit bettors from wagering on collegiate sports.
DraftKings is among the most popular mobile apps for sports betting. It went public in April 2020 and reported $322 million in revenue that year, which was up 146 percent from the previous year. It now has more than 1.5 million registered users. Other popular online sportsbooks include FanDuel, Unibet, BetMGM, and PointsBet.
