This March Madness hasn’t exactly lived up to the latter part of its name. The latest chalk parade occurred last week in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, with favorites winning all 12 of those contests.
Now we find ourselves with all four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four for the second time ever. From a betting perspective, these were also the teams with the shortest odds to win the national title at BetMGM before the tournament tipped off — Duke and Florida were the +350 co-favorites, with Auburn following at +425 and Houston at +625.
While favorites have been winning left and right, they weren’t as dominant against the spread over the past two rounds, with a 7-5 record on that front.
But was that enough for sportsbooks to scrape together a profit on those four days?
“I don’t think this tournament has been the worst for us; last year’s tournament felt worse,” said Seamus Magee, trading manager at BetMGM. “We lost a chunk on moneyline parlays this week. But something that helped was some favorites didn’t cover, so we got some back there. More importantly, there wasn’t really a Cinderella team like NC State last year where their moneyline liability really piled up.”
Speaking of liabilities, several sportsbooks relayed to The Athletic that Duke has easily been the most popular wager for the NCAA tournament, whether it’s game action or title futures. Johnny Avello, the race and sports operations director at DraftKings, compared the Duke action to UConn’s last year for March Madness and added that “bettors don’t even really care where the number is at this point; they’re just going to continue to bet Duke.”
Before the tournament started, Hard Rock Bet told The Athletic that over 36 percent of all championship bets were on Florida, which makes sense, considering Hard Rock is the only legal sportsbook operating in Florida. Since the tournament tipped off, however, Duke has edged out Florida for most title bets over that span, including the Blue Devils racking up 60 percent more bets than the Gators since Saturday night’s Elite Eight slate.
The biggest reported championship wager from any sportsbook is also on Duke, as BetMGM took a $500,000 bet on the Blue Devils back when they were priced at +350. That bettor would win $1.75 million if Duke wins its sixth national title in program history.
“Duke is for sure the king right now,” said Nick Bogdanovich, manager at Circa Sportsbook. “They’re just playing so well, and the public keeps betting them up. My number calls for them to be a 2.5-point favorite against Houston, and they’re -5. I thought when we opened that game at Duke -4.5 that that was high, but I could tell early on that our next number was going to be -5 instead of -4. I have a feeling we’ll be going to -5.5 before going back to -4.5. There’s just been no shortage of Duke money.”
ESPN Bet was one of the first sportsbooks to move to Duke -5.5 and has shared that 73 percent of moneyline tickets and 78 percent of spread money are on the favorite. Over at BetMGM, Duke to cover the spread (still -4.5) against Houston has received the most bets at the sportsbook among all Final Four wagers. When just looking at all spread bets placed for that clash at BetMGM, the Blue Devils have captured 70 percent of the tickets as well as 72 percent of the money.
“The public isn’t really sold on Houston for whatever reason,” said Patrick Berbert, college basketball trader at Caesars Sportsbook. “I don’t know whether it’s because in the past few years they’ve had really good teams but haven’t lived up to expectations with a couple of Sweet 16 exits. In the Elite Eight, we were rooting for Houston because a lot of the public came in on Tennessee for that game. We’re looking at it the same way here, that they’re going to be on Duke.”
In the other Final Four matchup, Florida opened as the 2.5-point favorite over Auburn at several sportsbooks, and most of them have not budged off that number so far this week. BetMGM reported that 62 percent of the tickets and 55 percent of the money among all spread bets for Florida-Auburn have been on the Gators.
Leading up to that all-SEC showdown, the big question is what version of Johni Broome we’ll see after he suffered a hyperextended elbow in the Elite Eight against Michigan State. While multiple sportsbooks told me that spread betting has been balanced so far for Florida-Auburn despite Broome missing a couple of practices this week, bettors have zeroed in on a different angle for this clash — the under.
At BetMGM, 72 percent of the money on the Florida-Auburn total has been wagered on the under and has led to the total moving from 161.5 to 159.5. It’s been an even bigger swing at DraftKings, where the total has cratered from 164.5 to 159.5.
“We didn’t make an adjustment to that Florida-Auburn line for Broome’s health,” Avello said. “We saw him come back in the game after he got hurt, and he has a whole week to recover. For the move on the total, I think unders are hitting at about a 57 percent or 58 percent clip so far this tournament, and people will bet on what they’ve been seeing. I think the handicap has also been that these two are familiar with one another since they’ve already played this season, and there’s a little more tightness in a game like this since they’re so close to the championship.”
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