Just How Much Will Be Spent on March Madness?

According to a report released Thursday by the American Gaming Association, March Madness is scheduled to provide a major boon for U.S.-based sportsbooks, including our best sports betting sites.

Having surpassed betting activity on the Super Bowl, March Madness projections reveal a widening of the gap between the two most wagered-on sports events on American soil. March Madness betting is expected to nearly double the legal wagering activity during this year's Super Bowl. 

The NCAA basketball tournament, unlike the 2-team, 1-day Super Bowl festivities, will have 64 teams tipped off and 12 days of action.

This week, the launch of basketball-crazed North Carolina sports betting apps figures to take the March Madness handle for legal sports betting outlets in the U.S. into the stratosphere with little reason to think that interest in the tournament will slow down anytime soon.

The AGA study focused on the legal sports betting market in the U.S., excluding wagering activity from pools and illegal sports betting outlets.

"March Madness is the biggest and most mainstream betting event of the year, especially with the brackets," said Dave Forman, head of research for the American Gaming Association (AGA), in an interview Thursday. "But with legal sports betting having been around now for five years and available in almost 40 states, we wanted to turn our focus to the legal market."

The staggering numbers

The AGA expects a staggering $2.72 billion in wagers to be placed with U.S legal sports betting providers on this year's NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. That figure does not consider bracket pools and wagers with unlicensed sportsbooks.

Last year, a total of $15.5 billion was reportedly wagered on the annual basketball event. That number includes the rash of informal wagering opportunities through pools conducted at workplaces, among friends and with unlicensed, unregulated sportsbooks around the country and through offshore books.

For comparison's sake, legal sports betting providers in America took in an estimated $1.4 billion in wagers on this year’s Super Bowl. The NCAA Basketball tournament is slated to double that total with $2.72 billion nearly.

AGA piggybacks Optimove report released earlier this week

Optimove released a report earlier this week showing the intense spike in wagering activity associated with the start of March Madness.

The study focussed on the importance of drawing new bettors in at the beginning of the tournament and revealed strategies for keeping the wagering public engaged with sports betting providers in the American market. 

Optimove findings showed that: 

• The 1st/2nd Round (+87%) had the largest increase in bettors. We believe this could be directly connected to more teams in the hunt, whose fans bet, and there are more games (48 in total).
• The Sweet 16 (+61%), Elite 8 (+71%), and Final Four (+68%) showed a significant increase in the number of overall bettors.
• The Championship game day revealed a +27% increase over the benchmark.
• The First Four had a +18% bettor engagement over the benchmark on two games days.

How about another study?

Research firm Eilers and Krejcik Gaming is also out with a study that shows the scope of NCAA Basketball tournament betting. Its study concentrated on the markets that will likely be the most popular for competing sports betting providers in the American market.

The study found that:

• 35-40% of the amount of wagers on the tournament will be in-game wagers, by far the most popular bet-type in the market
• 5% of the betting activity will come from same game parlays

The bulk of the rest will come from traditional moneyline wagers and prop betting, a market that has curiously been banned in a few key markets across America. Other markets will see their share of activity as well.