March Madness Betting

March Madness Upset Picks - March Madness Brackets

Betting March Madness is maybe the most fun you can have betting on basketball.  From printing out the March Madness brackets for your office pools, to figuring out the picks and predictions that will give you the edge—this is a great time of year!

If you’re scouring the web for information on NCAA tournament odds, March Madness odds, or looking for those miracle NCAA Tournament Upsets and predictions, here’s some advice that 90% of bracket obsessive bettors will ignore, and shouldn’t!

We all want to pick the upsets.  Everyone knows to pick the #1 seeds in round one because as of yet they’ve never lost.  That’s not going to give the edge to anyone, but if you can pick the right 3-4 upsets from the middle brackets, that can give you a huge advantage in your picks beating out everyone else in the office pool.

When you’re looking to make your March Madness Picks, it is important to look at each team, but when in doubt, look at the math.  Past numbers don’t lie and knowing that can give you an edge.

For the first round, here’s the approximate math on how first round seeds match up:

1 vs. 16 – 100%, this is a slam dunk, it is NEVER worth betting on a #16 upset
2 vs. 15 – 95%, it’s popular to pick a 15 seed upset, but it only happens ONCE every 5 YEARS!  This means it’s not a smart upset bet.
3 vs. 14 & 4 vs. 13 – 85%, strangely enough, the odds on these are almost identical.  So an upset like this happens about once every two to three years.  More often than not, there’s one close game that isn’t pulled off.
5 vs. 12 – 70%, this is where to look for your first upsets, even though the 5 seed still usually does well.  That being said, in the last few years the 12 seeds are almost 50%, so if you see two upsets you like, go ahead and take them here.  6 vs. 11 is about the same.
7 vs. 10 – 62%, 7 seeds don’t get upset as often as people think. 
8 vs. 9 – The 9 seed is actually BETTER than the eight.  So in a toss up, take the nine. 

Adding to that, if the 9 seed advances to round two, ALWAYS bet the #1 team to beat them (around 90%) while if the 8 seed advances, consider an upset only if there is an overrated #1 team.

Look around online for the stats, and in a tie breaker, let them decide.  Fighting the numbers only makes it harder betting on your March Madness bracket, but follow the numbers with good research and your NCAA Tournament Predictions will own the office pool.