As March rolls around, the NCAA College Basketball Tournament gets closer and closer. With that excitement, comes Selection Sunday when the March Madness bracket is set and excited fans can then go about filling out their brackets with who they think the eventual National Champion will be. Once the teams are set, let the betting begin, if it hasn’t already.
March Madness has turned the month of March into one of the biggest sport betting months of the year. Through all the games, March Madness will see twice as much money wagered on games as the entire Super Bowl. This is quite impressive for an amateur even like NCAA College Basketball.
But getting ramped up for March Madness is more than just filling out a bracket. From casual bettors to veterans, there are things that everyone can do to prepare for March Madness to help make your bets as lucrative as possible.
Prepare The Bracket
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Over half of all sports bets placed on March Madness are dedicated to brackets or to bracket contests that many platforms run. Nearly 50 million Americans gamble on their NCAA College Basketball bracket. Some of these competitions have big buy-ins and others have smaller buy-ins. Usually, the payout determines the entry fee. There are also free to enter competitions on various websites for a lump sum of money to the person who accurately predicts the bracket.
There are various methods out there to filling out brackets. Do some extensive research into every possible matchup that they choose. Others go a more casual fan approach and if they don’t know much about the teams, just pick the team with the better mascot. But whichever way you go, make sure to get those brackets filled out and turned in.
Wagering Winners
The other most popular form of betting on March Madness is game-by-game bets where you wager on the winner with a money-line bet or you wager on a spread. The spread will offer better odds, but you need to make sure that you do your homework on the matchups. This can be looking into a wide variety of statistics and rankings or using professionally written previews that are done before the game by writers who know both the sport and the betting side of the game.
When betting the spread, this is also a great opportunity to choose a possible Cinderella team that might not necessarily win, but if they cover the spread as the underdog, they could definitely net you a decent win, putting some money in your bankroll.
Seed Betting
Take a chance on seed betting. It isn’t necessarily the most popular bet, but it might increase your odds of hitting a winner. Seed betting is when you bet on a certain seed to win at least one game during the tournament. For instance, if you pick a No. 4 seed to win at least one game and they do, then you get paid. But for a No. 4 seed, the odds are favored towards that team winning and the payout will be much smaller.
On the flip side, this is also another great chance to pick an upset. Picking a lower seed will give you odds with a higher return if they manage to win. But the nice thing about seed bets is that you get four chances with each bet. There are four teams that get each seed number, giving you four chances to win your bet, at least in the round of 64 to start the tournament.
And possibly a helpful tip with seed betting is that No. 10-12 seeds seem to have the highest track record of upsetting their opponents in the Round of 64. Just something to think about if you are considering seed betting.
Upset Considerations
When placing bets, don’t always just go with the team that is seeded higher in the tournament. A good thing to do is to take a look at how teams are or were performing coming into the tournament. Some higher seeds might have struggled late or in their conference tournament, hurting their confidence. And some lower seeds who started the season slow might be red hot entering the tournament. When those two types of teams meet, that’s usually a recipe for a juicy upset.
