Break the bracket habit with this NCAA Tournament strategy during March Madness
My definition of March Madness is filling out a NCAA Tournament bracket year after year and expecting to win.
Don't get me wrong. I still love the banter that often accompanies bracket competitions at work or just among some family or friends. But when it comes down to the best investment of my March Madness dollars, betting online is my latest go-to. The main advantage: You're not locked in to all your picks after Thursday at noon.
How I split up my $10 March Madness budget
Among the many bracket groups I've joined, $10 has usually the minimum. So let's assume you're willing to lose the same amount online. And, odds are you'll probably lose most if not all the $10, but it's going last you longer if you set up a budget like the one below.
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Admittedly, a dollar per round for the first five rounds isn't much, but if you're betting on several games like you do in a bracket, you can get a decent return. It's up to you to decide how much risk you want to take on. So what does $1 get you in the first round based on BetMGM odds for available games on Monday afternoon?
Say you picked only the favorites (6 seeds and higher). Then you combined those picks into a single bet, your $1 could win you about $20. If you're curious, that's a +1973 parlay, which means your odds aren't good, or a $100 bet with those same odds would return $1,973.
To be successful, you'll need to pick a few upsets, too – like you do for your brackets. That would push your potential winnings higher as well as your odds of losing.
Where upsets occur in the first round of the NCAA Tournament
Why bet rather than NCAA Tournament brackets
To me, two of the three biggest benefits of this betting strategy kick in as the tournament progresses:
◾ Keeps you in the tournament longer: I can't tell you how many times I've lost nearly all interest in the NCAA Tournament within the first weekend because my bracket was fatally busted. Thank you Purdue, Virginia and many others.
◾ Actually enjoy a Cinderella run: These first-round, low-seed victories are great stories, but it's hard to root for a team that's at odds with your investment. If you're just betting from one round to the next, you can get on board with the Cinderella story of your choice.
◾ Pick the games you want to pick: Do you really want to guess all four of the 8-9 seeded games? They're all coin flips in the estimation of the eyes of the NCAA selection committee, so you're just guessing with everyone else.
Upsets settle down as the tournament plays out
After the first weekend, just a quarter of the field is left, and upsets become less common. You get a clearer sense of which teams and players are on a roll and which might be sneaking by. The average number of upsets in each round since 1985:
Why go 'big' on the March Madness final bet?
So why $5 for the championship game after all these $1 bets? A couple reasons:
◾ It's nice to have a little extra riding on the championship game while knowing you're one of the few very casual gamblers still in the game.
◾ Presumably you've been betting in the March Madness spirit. So in the previous rounds, you will have tried betting on at least a couple games. With only one game left between two equally talented teams, you'll need $5 to get any kind of return.
But if you're not convinced an you're still game to fill out a bracket this year, click here to learn five simple tips to get your bracket started. Also, Paste BN will also give you $1 million if you create the a perfect bracket, picking all 63 games correctly.