
March Madness college gambling is an experience unlike any other in sports. It comes after the NFL Super Bowl, and it’s not a one-day or week-long event—it lasts for nearly a month!
We will attempt to make your journey to find the best March Madness betting sites easier. We'll also explain the types of bonuses/promotions offered during this time, the bet types you can make on the sport, and more.
March Madness college gambling is one of the most exciting times of the year. It’s the first major sporting event post-NFL Super Bowl, lasting close to an entire month.
This tournament features the top 64 NCAA Division 1 basketball teams as they all strive for a championship. There are four divisions, each having No. 1 to No. 16 seeds from all over the country.
So, picking the right March Madness betting sites is essential as you’ll find the best odds, great betting options, stellar bonuses and promotions. You'll also discover a mobile app that’ll work great and not cause you any headaches.
Below, we’ll look at the top four sites you can use to engage in March Madness college gambling.
Check out the last 10 years winners in the tournament, followed by the MOP that year. If you want to read more about the MOPs, you can click on the player name and head over to each player's profile to see deeper stats.
Year | Team | MOP |
---|---|---|
2024 | UConn | Tristen Newton |
2023 | UConn | Adama Sanogo |
2022 | Kansas | Ochai Agbaji |
2021 | Baylor | Jared Butler |
2020 | CANCELED | N/A |
2019 | Virginia | Kyle Guy |
2018 | Villanova | Donte DiVincenzo |
2017 | North Carolina | Joel Berry |
2016 | Villanova | Ryan Arcidiacono |
2015 | Duke | Tyus Jones |
There will be a plethora of options and players to choose from, and the odds on props are released here before most other March Madness betting sites.
Whenever events like March Madness happen, DraftKings Sportsbook shows up with a variety of tempting offers and promotions. It’s been known to have March Madness sports gambling offers, such as betting $5 and receiving $150in bonus bets if your team wins. Typically, these bonus bets are broken up into six parts, so you’d receive eight $25 bonus bets.
Another offer we’ve seen is players getting their first wager back if it loses up to $100.
That said, DrafKings offers can change from year to year and depending on where you’re playing from, so check with DraftKings in your state to see what’s available.
Additionally, DraftKings will have odds boosts available, providing more line value on a wager you may have already considered.
When you open the DraftKings Sportsbook mobile app, you’ll see an account icon in the upper left-hand corner. This is a collapsible menu with links to rewards, the help center, and resources to learn about how to bet.
Back on the homepage, there are four menus stacked on one another:
Along the bottom of the app is a static menu, meaning you’ll see it no matter what page you’re on. This has links to the homepage, live betting, your bets, a list of sports, and rewards/promotions.
FanDuel Sportsbook succeeds in offering players great line value on moneyline, point spreads, and totals. You’ll also have access to single-player prop bets here. Still, the timeline in which the odds are released and the number of available bets tend to be slower and fewer than some competitors.
On top of this, FanDuel has a history of offering some kind of bracket challenge that's free to players.
FanDuel Sportsbook offers new players a welcome bonus known as a “bet & get” promotion. It’s simple—after creating an account, if you wager $5, you’ll get back $200 in bonus bets if your bet wins. You must deposit at least $5.
Additionally, FanDuel offers profit boosts, including 30% on underdogs or any team with odds of +100 or longer.
When you open the FanDuel Sportsbook mobile app, you’ll see a menu across the top with icons for the available sports, live betting, promos, odds boosts, and more. Just under this is another menu showcasing the available promotions, followed by a menu listing the available sports again, but in the order of the most anticipated upcoming games. Along the bottom of the app are links to the homepage, a list of sports, your bet history, and your account. Under your account, you’ll find links to deposit, withdraw, the help center, and more, but you must be logged in to see this menu.
This is a directory that you can use to view all college basketball games and quickly pick which moneyline, point spread, and total wagers you want to make.
There’s also the One Game Parlay, where you can create a parlay inside of one game, adding things like the point spread and prop bets.
The current welcome offer at BetMGM Sportsbook is a first bet offer where, if your first wager loses, you’ll receive bonus bets paid back to the same offer, up to $1,500.
If the wager is under $50, you get a single bonus bet.
If it’s more than $50, you get five bonus bets equal to 20% of the wager.
However, BetMGM has had offers in the past where if you bet $10 or so on a March Madness game, you’ll get $200 in site credit if a three-pointer is made. This is a given, so it’s a quick way to add bonus funds to your virtual wallet.
That said, always check with BetMGM in your state to see what’s available.
The BetMGM Sportsbook mobile app opens with a page to log in, register, or check out the platform as a guest. When you get to the homepage, you’ll see a search bar atop the page where you can search for teams or games.
To the left is a collapsible menu with a list of the available sports.
Continuing down the page, you’ll have a menu for the available promotions, with the most anticipated upcoming games below that. There will also be bet recommendations for these games.
Along the bottom of the app is a static menu, regardless of where you venture on the site. This has links to the sportsbook, promotions, and your account.
When you click on “Account,” you’ll have links to BetMGM Rewards, Responsible Gaming, and the Help Center, as well as an option to change your state if you’re somewhere else.
If you’re a fan of profit boosts, Caesars Sportsbook offers many, and it starts with the welcome bonus, which you’ll get 10 100% profit boosts after wagering just $1.
Additionally, Caesars offers dozens of daily odds boosts, which will almost certainly be available throughout March Madness.
The Caesars Sportsbook app offers a similar experience to the desktop platform.
Upon loading the app, you’ll pick your state and be brought to the homepage.
Atop the app, you’ll find a menu for live betting, boosted bets, and Caesars patented FireBets. FireBets are like Flash Bets—you can wager on immediate events in a game, such as who will make the next basket.
There’s a menu along the bottom where you can quickly get back to the homepage, examine promotions, see your bet history, or, in some states, check out the online casino.
The upper left has a collapsible menu that displays all of the sports betting markets in an easy-to-view list.
Of the five sportsbooks, Fliff is the first and only sweepstakes on this list.
With a sweepstakes sportsbook, you can wager on March Madness without ever spending any real money.
How? Well, with sweepstakes sportsbooks, you’re not exactly wagering real money. Instead, you’ll get Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins (or the site equivalent, which are Fliff Coins and Fliff Cash at Fliff) and play for fun or, if you earn enough Fliff Cash, redeem them for cash prizes or gift cards.
Here’s how it’ll start: You’ll create an account and gain access to our exclusive welcome bonus, which includes $100 in Fliff Coins and up to $5 in Fliff Coins per day after you spend $50.
Again, this isn’t necessary to play, but it is available.
Upon creating an account, we also immediately received 10,000 Fliff Coins.
This is a great way to enjoy March Madness in a unique way without betting real cash.
Not many social/sweepstakes sportsbooks have a mobile app, but Fliff does. The mobile app is intuitive and easy to use.
Along the bottom of the app is a menu where you can see the sportsbook. You can also see your bet history/popular sports betting markets, your account page, the shop to purchase Fliff Coins and Fliff Cash, or the online casino if you’re into it.
In the upper right corner, you can toggle between Fliff Cash and Fliff Coins.
Below is a menu to see the sports betting markets, leaderboards for those who’ve earned the most currency, and challenges to earn XP points.
Earn enough XP points and unlock additional exclusive bonuses that could be used for March Madness.
Any time an event like March Madness happens, online sportsbooks throughout the United States will concoct bonuses and promotions to appeal to those bettors.
As mentioned with BetMGM above, it’s not uncommon to find wagers where you bet a small amount and win large bonus cash prizes if a team hits a three-pointer or something that’s almost guaranteed to happen.
Some sportsbooks, like BetMGM, will provide you with your first wager back if it loses up to a certain amount.
FanDuel’s current offer of betting $5 to get $200 in bonus bets is another common welcome bonus type that enhances the way you bet on this massive tournament.
These won’t be as grand monetarily, but it could be something as small as “bet $25 on this game and get a $5 bonus bet.” It’s all about finding that value day in, day out throughout this 63-game tournament.
On top of the standard March Madness wagers, bonuses, and promotions, some online sportsbooks will offer their players a free-to-play bracket challenge.
For those unaware, before online sports betting was legal in the United States, people would print out tournament brackets and make bets with friends about how many picks they got right.
Some sites would offer prizes for perfect brackets. Even Warren Buffett would offer players money for a perfect bracket. Well, online sportsbooks adapted to that.
DraftKings had a Second Chance Bracket starting in the Sweet 16, where each game you got right had points allocated toward it. This was like a leaderboard: the points would be added up, and the winners would receive prizes.
You can expect to see things like this return each year for the tournament.
Sweet 16 - $10,000 second-chance bracket challenge
A moneyline wager means betting on the team you think will win the game outright. This removes the point spread (more on that soon), so the odds will reflect the strengths and weaknesses of each team.
Depending on that gap, the odds here could be quite different from one another, especially if you’re trying to bet on a No. 1 seed against a No. 16 seed. The No. 1 seed could be -1500 and the No. 16 seed +1200.
These odds mean that to win $100 on the favorite, you’d need to wager $1500, and if you bet $100 on the No. 16 seed and they won, you’d get $1200.
The point spread illustrates the gap in power between two teams. The odds on both teams here will be at -110 since the point spread is supposed to make teams “equal.”
When betting on totals, also known as the over/under, you’re wagering on what you think the combined point total between both teams will be.
Like the point spread, the line odds will be at or around -110. The point total will be the same for both the over and under wager.
Here’s an example of over/under lines:
With parlays, you’re wagering on multiple games on one betslip. These contests are known as “legs,” and for a parlay to win, you need all “legs” to win.
For example:
March Madness betting sites also offer Same Game Parlays, meaning you could take events from a single game and bet on them together, such as the point spread, total, and a player prop.
The best way to describe prop bets is that they’re micro-events within a game. You’ll find game, team, and player props. Examples of this include a player's total points, rebounds, or assists.
An example would be something like this:
Duke Blue Devils F Cooper Flagg Total Points of 19.5: Over (-110); Under (-120)
If you forgot to wager on a game before it began, then no worries—you can take up live betting.
With live betting, you’ll be able to wager on the game as it’s happening, but as you’d expect, with the fast-paced nature of March Madness, the game changes constantly.
This is the case with live betting as well—expect the odds to shift rapidly and be ready to make quick decisions.
Players can bet on March Madness in all legal sports betting states. However, there are certain states where wagering on in-state college teams or prop bets is prohibited. We’ll discuss that more below:
State | March Madness Sports Betting Laws |
---|---|
New Jersey | March Madness sports betting is allowed, but not on teams from the state or games taking place in the state. |
New York | You cannot wager on any game involving a New York-based team. |
Pennsylvania | You can bet on March Madness. |
Michigan | You can bet on March Madness |
Maryland | You can bet on March Madness |
Colorado | You can bet on March Madness, but prop bets are prohibited. |
Arizona | You can bet on March Madness, but prop bets are not permitted. |
Kansas | You can bet on March Madness |
Indiana | You can bet on March Madness |
West Virginia | You can bet on March Madness |
Connecticut | Legal, but in-state colleges cannot be wagered on unless it’s a tournament like March Madness. |
Florida | You can bet on March Madness |
Illinois | Cannot bet on in-state college teams. |
Indiana | Cannot bet on live betting player props. |
Iowa | Cannot bet on player props. |
Kentucky | You can bet on March Madness |
Louisiana | Cannot bet on player props. |
Maine | You can bet on March Madness |
Maryland | Cannot bet on player props. |
Massachusetts | Legal, but in-state colleges cannot be wagered on unless it’s a tournament like March Madness. |
Nevada | You can bet on March Madness |
New Hampshire | Cannot bet on in-state teams. |
North Carolina | You can bet on March Madness |
Ohio | Cannot bet on player props. |
Rhode Island | You can bet on March Madness |
Tennessee | Cannot bet on live props. |
Vermont | Legal, but in-state colleges cannot be wagered on unless it’s a tournament like March Madness. |
Virginia | Cannot bet on in-state or player props. |
Wyoming | You can bet on March Madness |
Washington D.C. | Cannot bet on games in D.C. or teams from D.C. |
March Madness is a term used to describe the excitement of the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament. This tournament features 63 games across the main six rounds consisting of brackets, involving four regions with No. 1 to No. 16 seeds.
With March Madness bracket betting, there are some tips and tricks that you can use to maximize your chances of beating the books.
When this time of year rolls around, there are going to be bonuses and promotions available for everything from March Madness Sweet 16 on gambling to March Madness Final Four online gambling.
You may find enhanced welcome offers, parlay boosts, odds boosts, profit boosts, and other offers.
Live betting is vital because you can use it in multiple ways to beat the books. You can see that the pregame point spread on something is six points, but maybe you’re more comfortable with 7.5 points.
With live betting, you can monitor the game and wait for that to appear as the odds and lines update as the game progresses.
Also, if you do wager before the game starts and it goes in a different direction, you can live bet to try and hedge your initial wager and minimize your losses.
We see it all the time—there are lower-seeded teams that not only cover the point spread but win outright.
A lot of this comes down to the research process, but don’t always assume that the higher-ranked team will pull off the win—there are Cinderella stories every year.
March Madness college gambling is a long stretch, but there’s so much happening this time of year at online sportsbooks. From the odds for each game, the player props, live betting, bonuses, and promotions for new players.
For each round of the tournament, there’s so much upside here for players to enjoy great returns.
Of course, it starts with making the right bets, but depending on the state you reside in, there could be multiple platforms for you to pick from that could be even more valuable to you.
This resource here should make your search for March Madness betting sites easier and show you what to look for.
Good luck padding your virtual wallet come March!
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