Tag: BetFTW

Americans plan to bet $15 billion on the NCAA tournament, and they’ll waste much of it on Kentucky

There are better ways to blow your money.

Americans will bet a whole lot of money on the NCAA tournament this year. That’s not a surprise.

To be exact, 68 million American adults (26 percent) plan to wager $15.5 billion on the men’s tournament, according to a survey from the American Gaming Association.

More surprising is the team is receiving the majority of those bets.

According to the AGA, Kentucky leads the way with a 9 percent share of bets to win the national title. If you ever needed evidence of people blindly betting on name brands, here you go.

Yes, Kentucky is a blueblood program, but it isn’t national title good anymore. The Wildcats aren’t even ranked. They’re a 6-seed in the tournament, and only one of those has ever won the whole thing.

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This isn’t driven by homers either. Sports betting isn’t even legal in Kentucky. Nor is it legal in Texas, where the second most bet-on team resides.

Texas A&M — a 7-seed — is expected to receive 8% of bets, followed by Gonzaga, UCLA and Alabama at 6 percent each. Smells like a lot of wasted money on all but the last two to me.

According to the survey, 18 million more American adults plan to wager on March Madness compared to the Super Bowl, but they’re expected to spend about half a billion dollars less.

THE BRACKETS ARE BACK! The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back! $1 MILLION grand prize for a perfect bracket, $25,000 prize for top bracket. Free to enter, 21+. Terms apply, void where prohibited by law. See Official Rules. Play now! https://brackets.usatoday.com/

[mm-video type=video id=01gvdq8eqdb03x5mg83v playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvdq8eqdb03x5mg83v/01gvdq8eqdb03x5mg83v-ce81f56192edd4f52d0b1f3b0a471855.jpg]

5 bets to avoid during the 2023 NCAA men’s basketball tournament

A few pitfalls for bettors to avoid over the next few weeks.

Welcome to the Winner’s Circle, a weekly column by Bet For The Win senior writer Prince J. Grimes.

It’s the day after Selection Sunday, a wonderful time of year for bettors. So many games and teams to choose from.

We only have a day to figure out our favorite tournament bets before the First Four begins, but don’t be in such a rush that you fall into avoidable traps. There’s action that simply isn’t worth your time or attention.

To narrow down your betting options, I browsed the worldwide web for some trends to take heed to while betting on the NCAA tournament. These are the bets I would avoid:

Chalk throughout

This is self-explanatory and really doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway. Don’t just bet on all higher seeds to win. Upsets will happen, and that actually starts with the First Four teams.

In all but one year of the First Four, at least one of the at-large teams has advanced to the second round. So expect one of Pittsburgh, Mississippi State, Nevada or Arizona State to come through on the moneyline against a 6-seed.

A top-4 seed will also lose in the first round if past years are an indication, but picking which of the 13- to 16-seed moneylines to tail is a little trickier.

THE BRACKETS ARE BACK: The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back. $1 MILLION grand prize for a perfect bracket.

A 15 over a 2

This is one upset you might be inclined to take because it’s happened once each of the past two years. But it’s actually not all that common. Before Saint Peter’s rode a win over Kentucky to a deep 2022 run and Oral Roberts beat Ohio State in 2021, a 15-seed hadn’t beat a 2 since 2016.

Before that, it had only happened seven other times in tournament history. This year, I’m expecting Arizona, Texas, Marquette and UCLA to all safely advance to at least the second round.

Public bets against the spread

According to Action Network, tournament teams that receive 60 percent or more bets against the spread have a 41.2 percent winning percentage ATS since 2016.

Simply put, when the public is incredibly convinced a team is going to cover, that team probably isn’t going to cover.

Longshot futures

Since tournament seeding began in 1978, only four teams with odds longer than 20-1 have won the title, with UConn in 2014 being the longest at 100-1.

That narrow’s this year’s field considerably if the trend holds. Only 10 teams have odds shorter than 20-1 at BetMGM: Houston (+550), Kansas (+800), Alabama (+800), Purdue (+1100), UCLA (+1200), Arizona (+1200), Texas (+1600), UConn (+1600), Gonzaga (+1800) and Baylor (+1800).

This stat also makes sense when you consider no team seeded higher than No. 8 has ever won the tournament.

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1-seed upsets

The teams that end up as 1 seeds got there for a reason. This year, that’s Alabama, Houston, Purdue and Kansas. Let’s not go betting on upsets over No. 1s just for the sake of it.

These teams will always be your safest bets to not only win each round, but also win the entire tournament. Since 1985, 24 of the 37 national champions have been 1 seeds — including 12 of the past 15 winners.

That’s not to say every 1 seed will advance to the Final Four; 2008 is the only year where each Final Four team was a 1-seed — like I said, avoid chalk. But there’s a pretty good chance one of the four top-line teams will end up as the last standing.

And that’s it from me. Happy March!

[mm-video type=video id=01gvdq8eqdb03x5mg83v playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvdq8eqdb03x5mg83v/01gvdq8eqdb03x5mg83v-ce81f56192edd4f52d0b1f3b0a471855.jpg]

5 Cinderella candidates (College of Charleston!) in the men’s NCAA tournament

Shine off those glass slippers, folks. Let’s head to the Big Dance.

The bracket for the 2023 NCAA men’s tournament is now live, so it’s time to dig into the matchups. Cinderella stories are always one of the best parts of postseason college basketball. Last season, Saint Peter’s charmed the nation on a dream run that took the small Jersey City school to the Elite Eight with wins over powerhouses like Kentucky and Purdue.

This year, the field of 68 feels more balanced than ever before, meaning we could be ripe for another double-digit seed making its way through the bracket.

Let’s take a look at some of the most likely candidates to become Cinderellas in 2023.

CAN YOU SURVIVE? USA TODAY Sports’ Men and Women’s Basketball Tournament Survivor Pools are here with a $5,000 prize for each contest! Free to enter, 21+. Terms apply, void where prohibited by law. See Official Rules. Play now!

5 bracket alternatives to try during March Madness

From Calcuttas to box pools.

NOTE: We published this back in 2019!

Filling out a bracket for typical March Madness pools is an all-time classic activity and makes the NCAA men’s tournament infinitely more fun and interesting.

But it’s not the only game you can play involving the tournament.

As you’ll see from this list compiled below, there are a whole bunch of other ways to make your tourney experience more fun (and, if you play for money, potentially more lucrative) that involve picking games or the players involved in it. Some of them are bracket-based, but these will get you to think differently about how to strategize.

Here are a few I highly recommend:

1. Calcutta

This one isn’t for the faint of heart: You and a group of friends get together and bid on the teams involved in the tournament in an auction with real dollars. Every time one of your teams win, you get back a percentage of the pot that increases in each round. The hope is you make back more than you invested.

Let’s say you won the bid on an underdog who becomes a Cinderella year for only $50. You would have made some serious return on investment with that pick because they made it to the Final Four. On the flip side, if you bid a lot more to, say, get a No. 1 seed like Virginia and watch them lose to 16 seed UMBC, you lose a lot.

2. A 1 to 64 confidence pool

This was run by a friend of mine for years and it was mind-bending: Instead of picking the winners, you rank the teams involved 1 to 64. Every time a team wins, you get the amount of points in the ranking added to your total. So if Duke is your no. 10 ranked squad, you get 10 points every time they win. The wrinkle? You want the LOWEST score possible. So if there’s a sleeper 12 seed you think can win a couple of times, you’ll want to rank them in the middle of the pack. Think there’s a vulnerable No. 1? Send them down.

3. Survivor pool

Similar to its NFL equivalent, you pick on team to win per day of the tournament, but you can’t use them again once you’ve picked a winning team. Win, and you move on, which can get tricky as the tourney gets tighter.

4. Fantasy leagues

You draft a team based on the players involved, which obviously can be tricky: Do you take a player who is talented but who might lose early?

5. Squares or Box pool

Just like the Super Bowl, you set up a 10 x 10 grid and numbers are randomly assigned to each column. You win money based on the final score of each game in the tournament if your box matches the final digits in each of the scores of a game. That means you could win multiple times throughout the entire tourney and payments can increase with each round.

[mm-video type=video id=01gvcf927a2bznn4m027 playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027-9bde47dbdccacfadbdb3af94826005a4.jpg]

March Madness: 5 bracket alternatives you need to try, from Calcuttas to confidence pools

From Calcuttas to box pools.

NOTE: We published this back in 2019!

Filling out a bracket for typical March Madness pools is an all-time classic activity and makes the NCAA men’s tournament infinitely more fun and interesting.

But it’s not the only game you can play involving the tournament.

As you’ll see from this list compiled below, there are a whole bunch of other ways to make your tourney experience more fun (and, if you play for money, potentially more lucrative) that involve picking games or the players involved in it. Some of them are bracket-based, but these will get you to think differently about how to strategize.

Here are a few I highly recommend:

1. Calcutta

This one isn’t for the faint of heart: You and a group of friends get together and bid on the teams involved in the tournament in an auction with real dollars. Every time one of your teams win, you get back a percentage of the pot that increases in each round. The hope is you make back more than you invested.

Let’s say you won the bid on an underdog who becomes a Cinderella year for only $50. You would have made some serious return on investment with that pick because they made it to the Final Four. On the flip side, if you bid a lot more to, say, get a No. 1 seed like Virginia and watch them lose to 16 seed UMBC, you lose a lot.

2. A 1 to 64 confidence pool

This was run by a friend of mine for years and it was mind-bending: Instead of picking the winners, you rank the teams involved 1 to 64. Every time a team wins, you get the amount of points in the ranking added to your total. So if Duke is your no. 10 ranked squad, you get 10 points every time they win. The wrinkle? You want the LOWEST score possible. So if there’s a sleeper 12 seed you think can win a couple of times, you’ll want to rank them in the middle of the pack. Think there’s a vulnerable No. 1? Send them down.

3. Survivor pool

Similar to its NFL equivalent, you pick on team to win per day of the tournament, but you can’t use them again once you’ve picked a winning team. Win, and you move on, which can get tricky as the tourney gets tighter.

4. Fantasy leagues

You draft a team based on the players involved, which obviously can be tricky: Do you take a player who is talented but who might lose early?

5. Squares or Box pool

Just like the Super Bowl, you set up a 10 x 10 grid and numbers are randomly assigned to each column. You win money based on the final score of each game in the tournament if your box matches the final digits in each of the scores of a game. That means you could win multiple times throughout the entire tourney and payments can increase with each round.

[mm-video type=video id=01gvcf927a2bznn4m027 playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027-9bde47dbdccacfadbdb3af94826005a4.jpg]

March Madness: 5 bracket alternatives you need to try, from Calcuttas to confidence pools

From Calcuttas to box pools.

NOTE: We published this back in 2019!

Filling out a bracket for typical March Madness pools is an all-time classic activity and makes the NCAA men’s tournament infinitely more fun and interesting.

But it’s not the only game you can play involving the tournament.

As you’ll see from this list compiled below, there are a whole bunch of other ways to make your tourney experience more fun (and, if you play for money, potentially more lucrative) that involve picking games or the players involved in it. Some of them are bracket-based, but these will get you to think differently about how to strategize.

Here are a few I highly recommend:

1. Calcutta

This one isn’t for the faint of heart: You and a group of friends get together and bid on the teams involved in the tournament in an auction with real dollars. Every time one of your teams win, you get back a percentage of the pot that increases in each round. The hope is you make back more than you invested.

Let’s say you won the bid on an underdog who becomes a Cinderella year for only $50. You would have made some serious return on investment with that pick because they made it to the Final Four. On the flip side, if you bid a lot more to, say, get a No. 1 seed like Virginia and watch them lose to 16 seed UMBC, you lose a lot.

2. A 1 to 64 confidence pool

This was run by a friend of mine for years and it was mind-bending: Instead of picking the winners, you rank the teams involved 1 to 64. Every time a team wins, you get the amount of points in the ranking added to your total. So if Duke is your no. 10 ranked squad, you get 10 points every time they win. The wrinkle? You want the LOWEST score possible. So if there’s a sleeper 12 seed you think can win a couple of times, you’ll want to rank them in the middle of the pack. Think there’s a vulnerable No. 1? Send them down.

3. Survivor pool

Similar to its NFL equivalent, you pick on team to win per day of the tournament, but you can’t use them again once you’ve picked a winning team. Win, and you move on, which can get tricky as the tourney gets tighter.

4. Fantasy leagues

You draft a team based on the players involved, which obviously can be tricky: Do you take a player who is talented but who might lose early?

5. Squares or Box pool

Just like the Super Bowl, you set up a 10 x 10 grid and numbers are randomly assigned to each column. You win money based on the final score of each game in the tournament if your box matches the final digits in each of the scores of a game. That means you could win multiple times throughout the entire tourney and payments can increase with each round.

[mm-video type=video id=01gvcf927a2bznn4m027 playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027-9bde47dbdccacfadbdb3af94826005a4.jpg]

March Madness: 5 bracket alternatives you need to try, from Calcuttas to confidence pools

From Calcuttas to box pools.

NOTE: We published this back in 2019!

Filling out a bracket for typical March Madness pools is an all-time classic activity and makes the NCAA men’s tournament infinitely more fun and interesting.

But it’s not the only game you can play involving the tournament.

As you’ll see from this list compiled below, there are a whole bunch of other ways to make your tourney experience more fun (and, if you play for money, potentially more lucrative) that involve picking games or the players involved in it. Some of them are bracket-based, but these will get you to think differently about how to strategize.

Here are a few I highly recommend:

1. Calcutta

This one isn’t for the faint of heart: You and a group of friends get together and bid on the teams involved in the tournament in an auction with real dollars. Every time one of your teams win, you get back a percentage of the pot that increases in each round. The hope is you make back more than you invested.

Let’s say you won the bid on an underdog who becomes a Cinderella year for only $50. You would have made some serious return on investment with that pick because they made it to the Final Four. On the flip side, if you bid a lot more to, say, get a No. 1 seed like Virginia and watch them lose to 16 seed UMBC, you lose a lot.

2. A 1 to 64 confidence pool

This was run by a friend of mine for years and it was mind-bending: Instead of picking the winners, you rank the teams involved 1 to 64. Every time a team wins, you get the amount of points in the ranking added to your total. So if Duke is your no. 10 ranked squad, you get 10 points every time they win. The wrinkle? You want the LOWEST score possible. So if there’s a sleeper 12 seed you think can win a couple of times, you’ll want to rank them in the middle of the pack. Think there’s a vulnerable No. 1? Send them down.

THE BRACKETS ARE BACK: The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back. $1 MILLION grand prize for a perfect bracket.

3. Survivor pool

Similar to its NFL equivalent, you pick on team to win per day of the tournament, but you can’t use them again once you’ve picked a winning team. Win, and you move on, which can get tricky as the tourney gets tighter.

4. Fantasy leagues

You draft a team based on the players involved, which obviously can be tricky: Do you take a player who is talented but who might lose early?

5. Squares or Box pool

Just like the Super Bowl, you set up a 10 x 10 grid and numbers are randomly assigned to each column. You win money based on the final score of each game in the tournament if your box matches the final digits in each of the scores of a game. That means you could win multiple times throughout the entire tourney and payments can increase with each round.

[mm-video type=video id=01gvcf927a2bznn4m027 playlist_id=none player_id=01gp1x90emjt3n6txc image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027/01gvcf927a2bznn4m027-9bde47dbdccacfadbdb3af94826005a4.jpg]

1 bettor won $3.3 million as Scottie Scheffler cruised to Players Championship title

This bettor nearly won as much as Scottie Scheffler did at THE PLAYERS

Scottie Scheffler cruised to a first place finish at The Players Championship on Sunday, winning by five strokes over Tyrrell Hatton at 17-under par on the infamous TPC Sawgrass course.

Scheffler barely broke a sweat while carding a fourth round 69 to close out his tournament. Not only did that reclaim the title of No. 1 golfer in the world for Scheffler — dethroning Jon Rahm —it earned him a cool $4.5 million and a shiny trophy as the richest event on the PGA Tour came to a close.

Which means that one savvy bettor barely saw their blood pressure rise despite $300,000 riding on Scheffler to win outright at +1000. And that also means the bettor walked away with $3.3 million after Scheffler finished his round on Sunday.

Let’s put this in some context.

The $25 million purse at The Players makes it the largest of any event this year. This bettor earned more than every single player in the field besides Scheffler.

THE BRACKETS ARE BACK: The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back. $1 MILLION grand prize for a perfect bracket.

Hatton earned $2.725 million in second. Tom Hoge and Viktor Hovland each won $1.475 million for a T3 finish. Hideki Matsuyama earned $1.025 million for coming in fifth.

Maybe next time those guys will want to put a little side action on Scheffler, too. It’s proving to be an immensely profitable strategy this season.

4 teams with the hardest path to 2023 Men’s Final Four (including Duke)

Which top teams have their work cut out for them this March?

The bracket is set, the ball will soon tip and the madness is just about here.

But when the dust settles, which of the 68 teams will make it to the 2023 men’s Final Four in Houston? Kansas, Houston, Purdue and Alabama remain the favorites after Selection Sunday, though they’ll each have their own tests ahead of them.

Still, the top-seeded teams tend to have easier paths to the first weekend in April than anyone else.

So who has the toughest road to the Final Four?

Let’s break it down by region using KenPom projections to see which of the elite teams in each has their work cut out for them.

THE BRACKETS ARE BACK! The USA TODAY Sports Bracket Challenge is back! $1 MILLION grand prize for a perfect bracket, $25,000 prize for top bracket. Free to enter, 21+. Terms apply, void where prohibited by law. See Official Rules. Play now!

Betting guide for the 2023 NCAA men’s tournament First Four games

Best bets for the NCAA men’s tournament First Four games.

The NCAA men’s field of 68 is finally set, which means it’s time to start filling out brackets beginning with the First Four games.

In the South Region, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is playing Southeast Missouri St. for a chance to play 1-seed Alabama in the first round. The other 16-seed First Four game is between Texas Southern and Fairleigh Dickinson in the East, where Purdue is the 1 seed.

The 11-seed First Four games are between Mississippi State and Pittsburgh in the Midwest and Arizona State and Nevada in the West.

Bettors don’t just want to know who’s moving on, they want to know the best ways to make money. So below is my best bet for each matchup, and I also included my best guess for who will move on.