Vegas Odds For March Madness Guide
With the rise of sports betting since May 2018, we can safely say that Las Vegas March Madness odds are more or less similar to odds you’ll find at your favorite online sportsbooks. Before online sports betting became legal, if you were to check “Vegas odds to win March Madness,” for instance, you’d be getting the most reliable betting odds in the world.
Nowadays, though, these odds and legal sites around the country are the same. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the different betting lines and odds to know, explaining various Las Vegas odds for March Madness happening right now, how to get started, and more.
Vegas Odds For March Madness Explained
With March Madness in full swing here in 2023, it only makes sense you want to learn everything there is to know about NCAA March Madness odds from Vegas and your favorite online sportsbook.
There are numerous ways to wager on the sport, including on a per-game basis and from a more long-term perspective. In the next section, we’ll highlight all the Las Vegas odds for March Madness and what they mean for each betting market.
March Madness Vegas Lines/Odds To Know
Below, we have listed 7 of the most popular Vegas lines you need to know along with examples and explanations of how each works.
1. Moneyline
With a moneyline wager, you’re betting on who you think will win the game outright. This betting style bases its odds on the strengths and weaknesses of each team without any handicaps.
So, if you were looking for Vegas odds for the first round of March Madness, you’ll likely find a massive discrepancy between a No. 1 and No. 16 seed.
Let’s look at an example.
- Texas: -1150
- Colgate: +750
In this example, Texas is the favored team. We know this because of the “-” in the odds. Here’s what these odds mean regarding money, looking at it through the lens of $100.
- At -1150 odds, you’d need to wager $1,150 to win $100. With “-” odds, the associated number indicates how much you need to wager to win $100.
- At +750, you’d win $750 if you bet $100 and won the bet. The “+” odds are how much you’d win with a $100 bet.
2. Point Spread
A point spread wager is the most popular way to wager on sports, or at the very least, the most well-known.
While the moneyline assigns odds based on strengths and weaknesses, the same sportsbooks will identify a point spread that illustrates the gap and power between each team. The odds will be reflected as if both teams are equal.
For example, if Texas is -1150 on the moneyline, they could be something like -13.5 on the point spread. As the favored team here, they’d need to win the game by 14 points or more to cover that -13.5. If they won 80-70, yes, they win the game, but after you “deduct” the point spread, they’d lose 70-66.5.
Conversely, if Colgate wins outright, then, of course, they cover. However, they can still cover even if they lose—they can’t lose by more than 13.
With point spread wagers, the odds are consistently at or around -110, the standard betting line for an even stake like a point spread bet.
3. Totals
You may have heard of betting “the over/under.” If you have, that’s the same thing as totals betting.
With this wager, you’ll bet on whether or not a game will exceed or fall short of a combined point total line the sportsbook sets.
Like point spread wagers, the odds are always at or around -110.
For example, if Texas won 80-70, you’d have 150 total points. If the over/under line was 140.5 and you bet the over, you’d win. If you bet the under, you’d lose.
Below is an example of how this wager looks at a sportsbook:
| O 146.5 -110 |
| U 146.5 -110 |
4. Futures
The futures betting for NCAA March Madness odds from Vegas and your favorite online sportsbook are vast. Since the championship is based around what starts as a 68-seed tournament, you can bet on how far each team will get, the championship, who wins their region (there are four regions in the tournament), and more.
These are like moneyline wagers; all you need to concern yourself with are the straight-up Vegas odds for March Madness.
5. Parlays
In the modern sports betting landscape, there are two types of parlays—traditional and Same Game.
The way this betting market works is you’ll take two or more contests you want to wager on, put them on a single betslip, and make a wager.
However, with a parlay, you’ll need each contest—also known as legs—to win for a parlay to succeed.
Example:
| Duke (Oral Roberts vs Duke) | - 115 |
| Texas (Colgate vs Texas) | + 100 |
As you can see, these games, separately have odds of -115 and +100. However, when combined, they become +273 because parlays not only combine and consider the odds of each leg, but they also factor in the risk of needing multiple legs to succeed in order to win.
A Same Game Parlay is the same concept, only here you’ll focus on one game. There’s usually a menu you can go to or toggle to explore your options there.
6. Props
Prop bets are micro-events within a more significant event, such as a game. There are three types of prop bets: Game, player, and team:
The most common are player props, which allow you to wager on the individual statistical performance of a player, such as their points, rebounds, and assists.
Team props focus on a specific team, looking at total points.
Lastly, game props will be for something like guessing the correct score or betting on whether a game goes overtime or not.
7. Live Betting
Now that you’ve learned about the betting markets above, you can bet on all these if you wish to participate in live NCAAB betting.
The Las Vegas March Madness odds will change with live betting as the game unfolds.
For example, suppose a team commits a foul, makes a shot, misses a shot, a player fouls out, or gets injured. In that case, the odds will reflect that in real time and will almost certainly be different from the odds you saw before the game started.
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March Madness Vegas Lines Today Explained
With March Madness being the term used to describe the NCAA Tournament, we’ll use this section to focus on the various futures betting options.
As mentioned, this tournament starts with 68 teams and whittles down to a single winner over multiple weeks.
As you’ll see from the screenshots below from DraftKings Sportsbook, there are multiple futures betting markets you can partake in, including the following:
- NCAA Tournament winner
- Team to make the Sweet Sixteen
- Team to make the Elite Eight
- Team to win their region
- Team to make the championship game
Each team will be assigned betting odds with futures wagers, and your winnings are based on what you wager.
You may find that all teams have “+” odds depending on where you are in the tournament. This may not last long, however. It’s only like this at the beginning because there are so many teams still involved that, realistically, there’s a chance that even the best teams could win.
That said, since 1985, the top two seeds have won the tournament north of 65% of the time.
Getting Started Betting On March Madness Vegas Lines
- Please browse our online sportsbook reviews to determine which site you want to play at. Check out the welcome bonus to see if it makes sense for you.
- After deicing where to play, head over to the desktop site or download the mobile app.
- Create an account.
- Make your first deposit (remember your welcome bonus!)
- Go to the NCAAB page.
- Pick what you want to bet on, add it to your betslip, and wait for the results.
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Conclusion on March Madness Vegas Lines
Thanks to legal online sports betting, we can experience what it’s like to have Vegas odds for March Madness from our home.
With that, it’s essential to learn about these odds, what they mean, and how to respond to what March Madness offers.
March Madness is in full swing, and many ways exist to wager. Be sure to return to this page before you complete your first bets to ensure you’re fully up to speed.
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