Casino Revenue from March Madness Jumps
Casinos were helped by March Madness as the betting on the NCAA basketball tournament rose to new highs providing sportsbooks with a record take.
North Carolina gave its fans a National Championship to celebrate in early April, but now sportsbooks everywhere are doing the celebration with the numbers just released on how much money was wagered on the tournament.
In March, casinos across Nevada took in over $991 million in gaming, of which close to half was wagered on just basketball both professional and college.
The NCAA Tournament attracted bettors from around the world with many of the arriving in Las Vegas to watch the games in the different sportsbooks and at the same time each other gaming from NBA games to Champions League soccer and horse racing.
In just March, over $439.5 million was wagered in Nevada on both college basketball and the NBA, according to what the Nevada Gaming Control Board released this week.
Of that wagered amount, books kept $41.2 million setting a new record for winnings, which shattered the previous mark of $13 million in March of 2015.
Bets are not separated by the gaming board on the different sports but are rather lumped together under just basketball. However, most of what was wagered was thought to be on the NCAA Tournament held in late March.
Bookmakers have estimated that the tournament represented between 60% and 80% of the total amount bet in March on basketball, which included a large number of conference tournaments leading up to March Madness.
This good news for books came following a poor January for books as they suffered a loss in January of $8.25 million which was the worst in months for the books.
However, March was an overall win of $31.4 million, which was more than a 225% increase over March of 2016.
The money wagered at casinos or sportsbooks across Nevada was only a fraction of the overall money wagered on the NCAA basketball tournament.
Analysts estimated that more than $10.4 billion was bet on the tournament worldwide. That betting includes online sportsbooks that have become more and more popular as the books are offering apps for mobile phones allowing sports bettors to make their choices on the go.
