March Madness Betting

Added on Jul 21, 2009 by sbworld in

The NCAA March Madness tournament has over 30 million people competing in office pools and betting according to a recent NCAA study and FBI reports have suggested that the total amount bet on the brackets comes to nearly $2.5 billion dollars every year with less than 4% of that total coming in Vegas sportsbooks. With pools everywhere from corporate offices to schools, March Madness is a big deal and one of the most fun betting activities of the entire year for many people in the world.

Best March Madness Betting Sportsbook -BookMaker.com

UCLA holds the record for most college basketball championships with 11, followed by Kentucky with 7, Indiana with 5, and in-state rivals Duke and North Carolina coming in at 3 while Austin Carr stills hold the single game tournament scoring record with 61 points back in 1970 in a game between Notre Dame and Ohio.

BracketScience.com has some interesting tournament statistics up based on their PASE ratings which are, according to the website, “calculated by comparing a team’s actual number of wins to the number it should’ve notched based on its seed position for each appearance. The positive or negative difference is then divided by the number of appearances to arrive at an average number of games the team either over-performs or under-performs per tournament.”

Auburn has exceeded expectations the most with a 12-6 record with an average seed of 7.6 while Rhode Island, Florida, and George Mason are not far behind at sneaking up on people and coming away with improbable wins. The Nebraska Cornhuskers rank dead last with a 0-6 record despite their average seed being 7.8.

They also have a PASE number for coaches which are “calculated by comparing a coach’s actual number of wins to the number he should’ve notched based on his seed position for each appearance.”

John Beilein (currently of Michigan) leads the coaches category with a 6-4 record despite averaging a 10-seed in his tournament games with former Michigan coach (and current San Diego State coach) Steve Fisher not far behind with a 20-8 record despite an average seed of 6.22. If these two coaches have teams in the tournament, keep an eye out for upsets because they’ve proven in the past they are capable of lifting their teams. Oliver Purnell of Clemson ranks last in the coaches’ rankings with a 0-5 record despite an average seed of 9.

Those thinking they are going to enter a March Madness betting pool and come away with a perfect bracket really need to rethink their theory; the odds of anyone coming away with a perfect bracket in this format are 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 1 (if you ever want to repeat that to someone, just say they are “over 9 quintillion to 1”). You’d have better odds of winning the lottery jackpot and that number is actually what you’d get if you multiplied 9 billion by another billion! Some like to fill out multiple brackets in hopes of getting a perfect March Madness bracket but the reality of the situation is that we may never see a perfect bracket in our lifetimes. Here are some tips to help you realize your dreams of the nearly-impossible perfect bracket sheet when March rolls around.

A #16 seed has never defeated a #1 seed but the #15 has had some success over #2 with the latest victory coming in 2001 when Hampton managed to upend the highly-favored Iowa State Cyclones by a final score of 58-57. The #13 and #14 seeded teams have only done moderately better and it’s not until you get to the #12 seed that you see where most upsets happen. The #12 has beaten the #5 team in this tournament 11 of 24 times over the last 6 years. #10 and #11 don’t have any significant statistics but the #9 has a winning record against the #8 teams.

Although upsets do happen, a team seeded #4 or higher has won the tournament every single time over the last 18 years so be careful over-advancing your big surprise teams. If history tells us anything, it’s that they eventually meet their maker and don’t go all the way. Go with an established team with a higher seed as your eventual winner.

The legality of office pools is not entirely clear but since the amount of people participating in them is so massive, it’s rare to see anyone punished for throwing in $5 or $10 with some of your buddies at work. With all the games going on at once, just make sure you manage to get some work done. Not doing so may result in an infraction that is much more likely to get you punished by your boss at work