Handicapping the NCAA Tournament is also a popular endeavor among sports bettors, and quite a few of them have developed certain betting systems that can be used to get the edge on the odds in their favor. Some of these betting systems will work better for you than others, but if you’re looking for one that will help you win more than you lose, then you can consider the following:
Last year, we wrote about the concept of Sweet Panen138, in which bettors bet on which NCAA team would win the national championship. While the teams that won the tournament did not necessarily provide a higher payout than the ones that lost, it can be difficult to pick the ultimate winner and correctly predict its fate after all is said and done. Therefore, many bettors don’t bet on the team they think will win the NCAA Tournament overall. Instead, they bet on the #2 seed meaning that the team will not win the title, but rather secure a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and Avoid the #1 seed.
National Champions are also a popular bet as the odds favor them by large margins. Many books will put them at 15 to 1, while others offer them at 19, or even 22! It all depends on the book you bet on. But the odds are wrong to think that the champion nearly always comes out ahead.
If you want to bet NCAA Basketball tournament games, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting the best odds at your favorite sports book. If you want to successfully handicap the NCAA Tournament, I recommend betting NCAA basketball tournament games using a 3 to 2 ratio of the odds of the favorite to the odds of the underdog. The reason is that the favorite normally has a larger payout than the underdog, so a 2 to 1 bet the favorite is equivalent to a 10 to 1 payout, whereas a 3-1 bet against the favorite will come out to be a 3-2 payout. In addition, the fewer the number of teams that win the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the better your chance of winning the bet. There are usually a maximum of 8 national champions in each tournament.
National Champions aren’t always the most likely group to win the NCAA Basketball Tournament. In fact, since the first NCAA basketball tournament in 1996, only one national champion has won the whole thing. In the 2005 season, the final four had all of the top four seeds so it came as no surprise when national champion Florida won the national championship with a 48-11 victory over number #3 seeded Oklahoma. In 2001, national champion Ohio State got an at-idge edge over #6 seeded Michigan by defeating #2 seed Georgetown. Always underdogs, right?
The NCAA Basketball Tournament has a rich history. When the tournament was first played, the tournament adopted the field of 64 teams that had been drawn into a 64 team, eight tournament, single elimination tournament. The last time the tournament was played exactly as we saw in 2005 was in 1999. That year, the field consisted of seeding used to determine the four teams that would be included in the tournament. The 1999 tournament had a $2,000 ante money tournament, the buy-in for which was $1,000.00.
The NCAA Basketball Tournament has been much improved over the years. First, the tournament began using 32 teams and now the tournament has filled up with 64 teams. Secondly, the teams that win their conferences are now better than ever in The NCAA Basketball Tournament. Thirdly, the field of teams has been deep cut following in the basketball tradition. Almost every conference has had at least one team in the tournament in every year since 1990.