How to Bet on NCAA: March Madness Betting Guide 2022

With the NCAA basketball 2021/22 regular having finished, and March Madness just around the corner, it’s time to take a look at the pre-tournament odds, as well as the best markets and betting strategies for the competition.  This betting guide will provide all the necessary information about March Madness, along with the most important strategies for becoming a profitable bettor during those four weeks. Without further delay, let’s dive in.

In this article:

• What is March Madness?
• What History Has Taught Us
• Popular Betting Markets
• Brackets
• Strategy
• Where to Find Tips

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What is March Madness?

The NCAA tournament or more popularly known as NCAA March Madness is a basketball tournament that decides the Division I champion in college basketball in the United States. It is held almost every year since 1939, apart from the 2020/21 season, and the competition sparks a ton of excitement around the country.

Last season, Baylor crowned themselves champions for the 5th time by defeating Gonzaga in the final by a 86-70 result. This year, the Gonzaga Bulldogs are the favourites to go all the way and win their first NCAA championship in school history. But basketball is an unpredictable sport, which is why it’s important to know all the ins and outs before starting your March madness betting journey.

The competition includes 68 teams from Division I of the college basketball pool and hosts a single-game elimination tournament that takes place largely in March – hence the name. This year, the tournament will be held starting on Sunday, March 13th and will finish on Monday, April 4th.

Getting into the tournament is a very simple but difficult task. The 32 winners of each division get a direct ticket to the tournament, whilst the other 36 teams are awarded wild-card tickets, which are awarded by the NCAA committee. This event is televised and it’s called Selection Sunday.

Now that we know all the participants of the tournament, it’s time to see how the tournament is organized and how each team can potentially win. The 68 teams are divided into four regions and organized into a single-elimination bracket that determines who a team will face next after winning their game. Each team gets seeded in their region from 1 to 16. After the First Four rounds, the tournament goes on during the course of three weekends, at neutral sites across the country. Teams go through a single-game elimination bracket beginning with the First Four round, a first round that consists of 64 teams playing in 32 games over the course of one week, the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight round the following week and weekend, and the Final Four. This is played during the first weekend of April. The last 4 teams, one from each region, compete in a preselected location for the national championship.

With the basics out of the way, it’s time to take a look at the betting side of the tournament and see exactly how one may hope to make a profit during this 4-week period.

What History Has Taught Us

As with every other tournament, bettors can find the outright winner odds way before the tournament even starts, so let’s take a look at this year’s favourites, along with the winners in the last few years and their pre-tournament odds.

At the moment, Gonzaga are the favourites to go all the way with 4.25 odds to their name, and with a record of 23 wins and just 2 losses this season it’s easy to see why. Kentucky, Arizona, Purdue and Auburn are close behind with equally impressive records, but which teams have historically provided the most betting value in this market? Here is the list of March Madness winners in the last 20 years along with their pre-tournament odds.

Year	Team	Odds before Round 1
2020-2021	Baylor	6.00
2018-2019	Virginia	7.75
2017-2018	Villanova	6.70
2016-2017	North Carolina	6.35
2015-2016	Villanova	16.00
2014-2015	Duke	11.00
2013-2014	Connecticut	96.00
2012-2013	Louisville	5.50
2011-2012	Kentucky	2.85
2010-2011	Connecticut	26.00
2009-2010	Duke	7.50
2008-2009	North Carolina	5.00
2007-2008	Kansas	8.00
2006-2007	Florida	5.00
2005-2006	Florida	21.00
2004-2005	North Carolina	4.50
2003-2004	Connecticut	5.50
2002-2003	Syracuse	19.00
2001-2002	Maryland	4.50
2000-2001	Duke	3.50

 

In the last 30 years, only 2 teams have won the championship that had pre-Round 1 odds of 3.00 or lower. This was Kentucky in the 1995/96 season, and then again in 2011/12.

The rest of the winners were fairly unexpected with some very heavy underdogs in the mix. In the 2010/11 season, Connecticut won the title at 26.00 odds before Round 1, and in 2013/14 they did it again at 96.00 odds. In fact, Connecticut were the biggest underdogs in Round 1 to go all the way in the tournament since the 1974/75 season.

So what can we take away from the recent history of the competition? Unlike the NBA, which can often see up to 7 games in a particular match-up, the NCAA is a single-game elimination, leaving plenty of room for mistakes, and making upsets much more likely.

This means we can find a lot of betting value, especially in the early rounds where the underdogs are coming in severely underrated. But for the outright winner market, your best opportunity for finding value is recognizing one of the underrated teams in the top 6 and grabbing the juicy pre-tournament odds whilst they’re still an underdog.

1st Round Upsets

Betting value is the name of the game, and upsets are a bettor’s best friend. So where can we expect to find the most value, and just how often can we expect to see a nice upset?

Well, it depends on the seeding. As we know, teams are seeded based on performance, and the higher the seed, the less likely it will be that they lose. A lot of bettors get carried away with backing underdogs almost every round, but exactly how often do underdogs manage to pull off upsets, and how often should you back them? Below is the number of times upsets occur based on seeding and their percentage.

• 16 vs 1

Only one time has it happened that a 16 seed defeated a 1 seed out of 144 games played. This happened in 2018 when UMBC beat Virginia by 74-54.

• 15 vs 2

Nine 15 seeds have pulled off upsets over 2 seeds in the first round. This accounts for 6.25% of games, and the most recent one happened last year when Oral Roberts beat Ohio State in overtime by 75-72.

• 14 vs 3

14 seeds have beat 3 seeds 22 times so far, accounting for 15.28% of games, with the most recent one coming in 2021. Abilene Christian beat texas by 53-52.

• 13 vs 4

31 times have 13 seeds taken down 4 seeds so far, which accounts for 21.53% of games. Last year this happened twice, with Ohio and North Texas taking down Virginia and Purdue respectively.

• 12 vs 5

A total of fifty-one 12 seeds have defeated 5 seeds so far, 35,42%. Last year it was Oregon State who took down Tennesee by 70-56.

• 11 vs 6

Fifty-four 11 seeds have upset 6 seeds so far, accounting for 37.50% of games. Last year, UCLA and Syracuse took down BYU and San Diego State respectively.

• 10 vs 7

Fifty-seven 10 seeds have defeated 5 seeds so far, which is 39.6% of games. However, the NCAA doesn’t consider these games as upsets since the teams are only separated by a 3-seed line.

So there you have it. These are the situations in which an upset is the most likely, so make sure to pick your dogs carefully, and don’t get carried away with picking too many.

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Popular Betting Markets

Just like in other basketball leagues like the NBA and Euroleague, there are a lot of available betting markets that one can exploit, but for those who haven’t exactly been following the NCAAB season from game to game, it’s best to stick to the top 3: 1×2, Over/Under, ATS. Of course, if you consider yourself an expert on college basketball, you’re free to specialize in whichever market you please, which means you won’t really need this betting guide. Finally, we have the tournament brackets, which we will talk about a bit later.

Head to Head

This market allows you to bet on who will win the game and it doesn’t matter if it’s a 20-point blowout or if it’s by a single point.

Over/Under

This market allows you to bet on the combined amount of points for both teams for the entire game or at halftime. You can also bet on the Over/Under for individual teams.

Handicap

This market allows you to bet on teams against the spread, and it can often be the best way to find betting value in the early rounds.

First to 15

This is one of the most popular prop markets which allows bettors to pick which team will score 15 points first. Whilst it is a lot of fun, I don’t advise betting in this market as there is simply no reliable way of making this prediction.

Player Props

Player props are very popular in basketball, especially as accumulators. This market allows you to place a bet on a certain player’s stat line. You can choose from points, rebounds, assists, turnovers, steals, blocks and more.

Brackets

This bet type is by far the most popular of the entire tournament, as millions of people, most of whom do not even follow college basketball, make their picks for every single game of the tournament, and whoever gets every pick right can earn more money than they can spend in a lifetime. But how likely is this and has anyone actually done it so far? The odds of getting a perfect bracket are approximately 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, and no one has ever got them all so far.

The best recorder bracket in NCAA history was filled by Gregg Nigl in 2019 with an incredible 50 correct picks. Although getting a perfect bracket is next to impossible, you can still earn some nice side money if you know your stats and play your cards right. You’ll probably hear about people picking a lot of upsets, especially in the opening round, and although underdogs can provide a lot of value, it’s not always the case. Upsets don’t just happen

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Strategy

Obviously, if you want to be a serious and profitable bettor, you’ll need a betting strategy, especially if you don’t already know all of the teams by heart. You need a safety line you can rely on to prevent you from getting lost in the madness that sets in when the games start to roll. You can always visit the bettingexpert academy for strategies for all of the most popular sports, including basketball.

But if you are already a graduate of the academy, here are the most important things you need to remember when betting on the NCAA basketball tournament,

Pick a Champion

You see, it’s all about the champion. That’s where it all starts and ends. You need to pick your champion and milk them for all they’re worth. You can also start forming your bracket in this way, as it will make the rest of your selections a lot easier to pick. But with so many teams, a lot of them good, it’s can be very difficult to make up your mind, so let’s take a look at some of the previous champions and the characteristics they all share.

Balance is Key

In the last 18 years, only 1 champion has ranked outside the top 20 in offensive rating, and none have ranked outside in defensive rating. Not surprising at all. Therefore, your champion has to be a stifling defensive side that also has a nice free-flowing offence. Make sure it’s not a team that lives and dies by the 3-point shot, as many teams do, because it often happens that a team gets either cold or clamped down by a tough defence, and in a single-elimination game – this means death.

Champions Cover the Spread

Now that you’ve done your research and are happy with your selection, it’s time to milk them for all the value they’ve got. How? Well, history tells us that champions are very good at exceeding expectations, meaning they very often end up covering the spread, and by the time the public catches on – it’s already too late. 8 of the last 9 NCAA champs have covered the spread in 55% or more of their games. Now that you have an advantage over the rest of the betting public, it’s time to put your research to the test.

Geography Matters

Don’t forget to do your homework. Home advantage means a lot in college basketball and can sometimes account for a 5-point difference in performance. It has also been proven that crowds have a much heavier impact in college than in the NBA.

Remember, these are 18/19-year old kids and not full-grown professionals. It’s also important to note where a team is from and how long they had to travel. Teams that are on high altitudes have a clear advantage when hosting down-low coastal teams due to the reduced amounts of oxygen in the air. This might seem like a trivial fact, but it’s a proven factor and it provides a huge advantage. The Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz take full advantage of it in the NBA, and you can see it in their advanced stats.

Don’t get carried away

A lot of bettors only start betting on the NCAA once March Madness rolls around, and even more only start betting at this time. The public will go crazy during these 4 weeks, so make sure you keep a cool head and navigate the waters. Remember, they’re all swimming against the current, and you’re surfing the waves with a beer in hand. If you don’t want the sharps to eat you alive, make sure to cherry-pick your bets and only put down money on games you are certain to have betting value. Don’t get carried away with too many underdogs, and keep the hype out of your ears if you want to see your bankroll grow. You’ve done your homework, so don’t let the squares sway you off your course. The public is almost certainly always wrong, and most of them are casual bettors who only tune in for this competition.

Where to find tips?

Finally, a good way to improve your March Madness betting experience is finding the right tips to help you out along the way. The bettingexpert community provides thousands of sports betting tips on a daily basis, including college basketball, so make sure to give us a visit if you’re ever in need of some betting advice, tips and analysis.

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