How to Cash In on March Madness

By Chris Sharp, Certified 11-Time Veteran of Las Vegas March Madness

No wonder they call it March Madness.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament has become one of America’s most widely wagered sporting events, but neither confidence in one’s predictions nor self-assessed knowledge of basketball translated into success.

One University of Michigan researcher was able to beat the average participant’s picks last year by using coin tosses. Dae Hee Kwak, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, says that the findings exemplify a well-known phenomenon in gaming: the illusion of control. The classic example is choosing your “lucky” lottery number for a random drawing.

Brackets are fun and of course you should fill a few out, enter a pool or two, but do not expect anything as far as return on your investment. Let the amateur’s waste their time on the brackets, read on to learn how to cash in during the month of March like a professional.

Betting on the NCAA Basketball Championship Tournament

Value in the First Weekend

College basketball betting success in general hinges on your ability to find value where amateur bettors can’t, and the NCAA Tournament is no exception. The first and second round of the NCAA tourney, or the first four days of the tournament, is the perfect place to discover soft or high value lines for professional gamblers. This is because you’ll find a lot of no name conference vs. big name conference pairings. Since amateur bettors, and even some oddsmakers, haven’t seen a lot of the smaller schools in action throughout the season, lines will usually provide a lot of value with the under-informed public hammering the team with the bigger name and/or conference.

There are two things to look for when seeking these soft lines.

The first goes against what you may think a professional would look for, high-profile favorites are often actually undervalued when they play low seeds that came out of nowhere to win their conference tourneys. These games usually turn out to be 25 or 30-point blowouts, which is much worse than the line could indicate when they are usually set at 18 to 20 points. Look for one and two seeds versus a conference tournament winner with a losing record, who has just recently played well, or has gotten a lot of press as “a possible Cinderella team” leading up to the tournament.

Secondly, look at the small schools who can shoot the three well. Think Golden State Warriors. Most big name and big conference schools go after the big men and can tend to overlook great shooting small players which are then scooped up by unheralded schools. These teams can be a good bet to cover the spread against their more well known opponents. So if you can get a good number on a great shooting underdog on the first weekend of the tournament, take the points.

Defense and Rebounding

We have all heard that defense wins championships, which holds true in the NCAA tournament, but we need to amend it slightly to include rebounding. Taking a look at teams and how they perform in both rebounding and defense is a great way to spot teams which may be undervalued and are destined for March Madness success.

Field-goal percentage against is very important, constantly forcing teams to take bad shots is a winning recipe. Scoring defense is important, though it can be misleading. When looking into this stat, keep in mind that it can be artificially inflated due to a team’s slow playing style, for example Virginia.

Rebounding margin is an excellent indication of a team’s ability to prevent cheap second chance baskets against them and to get them for themselves. Compare how each team matches up with their opponent, when the spotlight is brightest as it is for March Madness teams can go cold offensively, find me a yourself a team with a solid rebounding margin and all around defense edge on their opponent to lay your money down on.

Strength of Schedule

Often overlooked is the competition that a team has faced. A team with a “just OK” record who played in a tough conference as well as some non-conference games is a dangerous team come tournament time. Looking at the 2013 tournament as an example, the Big Ten basketball conference was largely regarded as the nation’s toughest league, and several top 25 teams faced off against each other on any given night. When it came tournament time, they placed four out of seven teams in the Sweet 16, three teams in the Elite Eight, and Michigan in the Final Four. So those making money-line wagers on the Big Ten collectively came out pretty good that year. That said, always take a look at teams from the toughest conferences when you’re betting and see if they challenged themselves with good non-conference competition as well. Especially good for money-line wagers, these are teams that often cover the spread with ease as well, setting up a good chance to double dip if you can find one as an underdog.

Go With What You Know

In the first strategy, I discussed how it’s always nice to look at first round match-ups to find value. But you should also consider how important it is to direct the bulk of your betting action towards the teams you know. If your entire season was spent on one or two conferences, keep your focus there come tournament time. You will have an edge on “Joe Public” when trying to handicap how well a team from your conference will handle a certain type of team over another. Of course, if you have a large bankroll, it never hurts to bet a small percentage of your roll on soft first and second round lines you find with the strategies mentioned here, regardless of the conference. Anything can happen, it’s madness, MAN.

Throw Location to the Wind

One final point, don’t be one of the people who think they have an edge because they know that Team A’s fans only had to travel one hundred miles while Team B’s fans would have to travel much further, creating some type of home court advantage in the NCAA Tournament.

Every year March Madness bettors can’t get to the sports books fast enough when they see a high seed that’s playing close to home. As a smart bettor, you should understand that bookmakers have already factored this advantage into the line. After all, bookmakers only create lines that they think will balance out action on both sides; so they’re going to consider what the public thinks of the close-to-home team before offering a line. More often than not there is value on the “road team”, the smart money goes there.

There is only one time to not throw location to the wind, and that is when you are going to consider a viewing party in Las Vegas. Take a look here to find out the best spots in Sin City to view all of the tournament action as it’s adding coin to your pocket.