March Madness — the tournament that warrants an entire month of craziness devoted to its name — draws attention from sports fans of all ranks and causes number crunchers to over-analyze every stat they can scrounge up.
Yet, every year, millions of people (5.9 million participated in ESPN.com’s Tournament Challenge) flock to the Internet on Selection Sunday, printing, filling out and re-editing brackets over and over again. Fans weigh every possible logical combination of wins and losses until they compile what they believe to be the “perfect bracket.”
Taking a step back and looking at the real possibilities that one bracket will stand out among the rest is pretty slim. But that doesn’t stop some LSU students from putting their money where their mouth is and gambling on one of the most popular tournaments in sports.
“My favorite sport to bet on is March Madness, absolutely,” said Aric Dunaway, accounting junior. “It’s all in the name — March Madness. Where else can we have VCU and Butler duking it out for a chance in the championship game?”
Dunaway isn’t alone, either. According to NSAwins.com, a national betting website, the 2011 NCAA Tournament betting handle (the total amount of money wagered for the establishment accepting bets) averages more than $12 billion worldwide and ranks near the top of the list of sports on which the most people wager.
Dunaway said the idea of gambling on sporting events was presented to him at an early age and stuck with him for years.
“I grew up with my dad and my grandfather both betting on sports, so I’ve been exposed to it since I was born,” he said. “I got really interested in it with lines and spreads and trends probably around 13 and 14 or so.”
The categories on which a gambler can bet include everything from picking winners and losers, to choosing which team will score the first basket, to guessing who will win the tipoff.
Dunaway said he won $8,000 betting on last year’s tournament alone.
Lance Neyland, sports administration junior, who began wagering on games in his high school days, said he enjoys betting on other sports but called the chaos of March Madness his “definite” favorite.
“There’s games going on all the time, so you can bet on it a lot of different ways,” Neyland said. “You can bet the spreads, and you also have your bracket that you bet on. With all the upsets and stuff and since there’s so much condensed in such a short period of time, it’s just that much more fun.”
With the many upsets in this year’s tournament, which features both an 8- and 11-seed in the Final Four, “fun” may not be the best word to describe the tournament on the gambling front.
“I haven’t done as well this year as I did last year,” Neyland said. “Unfortunately, all my teams are out of it. In my bracket [last year] I got second place, so I made about $50 off that, and then betting online I probably made $200 or $300.”
The tournament isn’t over yet. Three games remain on the slate, and bets are still to be made.
Dunaway said despite the potential for a Cinderella champion, he’s putting his money with his allegiance to the Southeastern Conference.
“I really want Kentucky to win it just to keep it in the SEC so the SEC can have the trifecta of sports reigning champs,” Dunaway said. “But it would also be really cool to see VCU come out of nowhere with an 11-seed and take the cake.”
 
_____
Contact Mark Clements at [email protected]