AS VEGAS – I’ve lived here since 1998 and I can honestly say that the city has never approached March Madness with more enthusiasm.
We’ve seen an increase in casinos advertising their big viewing parties to draw in the crowds. If you’re coming to town for the festivities next weekend, just pick up the daily newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, to see where all the public parties will be, or just check out the billboards in the short drive from the airport. Part of the excitement is fueled by the fact the Super Bowl had a record handle of $94.5 million (see my SB recap piece here). As the books broke the previous record from pre-recession 2006 and they’re hopeful that continues with the second-biggest annual betting weekend.
But, wait, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The excitement is already under way here with the conference tournaments. In case you haven’t noticed, there are four – count em, four – conferences holding their NCAA-qualifying tournaments here in Vegas this year. On Monday night, the West Coast Conference wrapped up its tourney at the Orleans Arena as No. 1 ranked Gonzaga beat St. Mary’s 65-51 as a 6.5-point favorite. This week, in addition to UNLV hosting the Mountain West Conference tournament on its home court at the Thomas & Mack Center, the Western Athletic Conference is holding its tourney at the Orleans Arena and the Pac 12 is having its tourney at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
This has really added to the b-ball fever here in town. And we’re hearing from more and more sports book directors here in town how this weekend is gaining in popularity and handle on the NCAA tournaments opening round not only because of all the basketball fans in town, but also because of the volume of overall games. For instance, this Thursday there will be 51 games on the college betting boards, while next Thursday there are just 16. Anecdotally, I have some friends and members of my ViewFromVegas.com website that always come into town for the opening round of the NCAA tournament, but I now have as many that make a habit of coming out for the conference tournaments (some to go to the live games while others prefer just to watch and wager on all the games in the sports books). One last anecdote: I live on the far north end of town – a solid 30-minute drive from the Orleans/MGM/Thomas & Mack corridor –and I drove past a local tavern with a sign outside proclaiming “Welcome NCAA teams and fans” so clearly some teams and their fans had to find lodging far from the Strip.
A lot of these visitors will obviously be betting for their favorite team, but all these added betting opportunities also make it appealing for professional bettors. A lot of pros do very well with the conference tournaments; in fact, the Prediction Machine has a 116-73 (61% ATS) record in the games, which makes sense with so much data available as most of these teams have already played each other twice, or at least once in leagues with unbalanced schedules, and a lot of common opponents.
I’ve also had a lot of success in this Week Before the Official Madness. To keep from fully repeating myself, I’ll just direct you to the link of my column here at this time last year in which I suggest looking for teams that are fighting for an NCAA berth and getting points against teams that are already in the field and who aren’t as motivated. Those are usually very live underdogs.
There’s a lot of discussion about who the No. 1 seeds are going to be when the brackets are announced on Selection Sunday. As of this Monday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi was projecting Duke, Indiana, Gonzaga and Louisville. That might be spot-on, but if you were basing it on the current odds to win the title at the LVH SuperBook, it would be Indiana, which is the 9-2 favorite; Duke, which is 5-1; Louisville at 6-1; and Florida at 7-1. Now, the Gators have lost three of their last six games (note: for gamblers, they’re an even worse 1-5 ATS in that stretch) to fall from a possible No. 1 seed to a No. 3 according to Lunardi, but they’re still among the favorites here in Vegas.
Outside the top four, Michigan is next at 10-1 and then you finally have No. 1 ranked Gonzaga in a group at 12-1 that also includes Michigan St., Georgetown and Miami-Fla. Lunardi has those last two teams as two of the No. 2 seeds. The other two, Kansas and Ohio St., don’t show up in the LVH futures until 15-1 and 20-1, respectively. We’ll see how this shapes up next week.
We’ve seen an increase in casinos advertising their big viewing parties to draw in the crowds. If you’re coming to town for the festivities next weekend, just pick up the daily newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, to see where all the public parties will be, or just check out the billboards in the short drive from the airport. Part of the excitement is fueled by the fact the Super Bowl had a record handle of $94.5 million (see my SB recap piece here). As the books broke the previous record from pre-recession 2006 and they’re hopeful that continues with the second-biggest annual betting weekend.
But, wait, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The excitement is already under way here with the conference tournaments. In case you haven’t noticed, there are four – count em, four – conferences holding their NCAA-qualifying tournaments here in Vegas this year. On Monday night, the West Coast Conference wrapped up its tourney at the Orleans Arena as No. 1 ranked Gonzaga beat St. Mary’s 65-51 as a 6.5-point favorite. This week, in addition to UNLV hosting the Mountain West Conference tournament on its home court at the Thomas & Mack Center, the Western Athletic Conference is holding its tourney at the Orleans Arena and the Pac 12 is having its tourney at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
This has really added to the b-ball fever here in town. And we’re hearing from more and more sports book directors here in town how this weekend is gaining in popularity and handle on the NCAA tournaments opening round not only because of all the basketball fans in town, but also because of the volume of overall games. For instance, this Thursday there will be 51 games on the college betting boards, while next Thursday there are just 16. Anecdotally, I have some friends and members of my ViewFromVegas.com website that always come into town for the opening round of the NCAA tournament, but I now have as many that make a habit of coming out for the conference tournaments (some to go to the live games while others prefer just to watch and wager on all the games in the sports books). One last anecdote: I live on the far north end of town – a solid 30-minute drive from the Orleans/MGM/Thomas & Mack corridor –and I drove past a local tavern with a sign outside proclaiming “Welcome NCAA teams and fans” so clearly some teams and their fans had to find lodging far from the Strip.
A lot of these visitors will obviously be betting for their favorite team, but all these added betting opportunities also make it appealing for professional bettors. A lot of pros do very well with the conference tournaments; in fact, the Prediction Machine has a 116-73 (61% ATS) record in the games, which makes sense with so much data available as most of these teams have already played each other twice, or at least once in leagues with unbalanced schedules, and a lot of common opponents.
I’ve also had a lot of success in this Week Before the Official Madness. To keep from fully repeating myself, I’ll just direct you to the link of my column here at this time last year in which I suggest looking for teams that are fighting for an NCAA berth and getting points against teams that are already in the field and who aren’t as motivated. Those are usually very live underdogs.
There’s a lot of discussion about who the No. 1 seeds are going to be when the brackets are announced on Selection Sunday. As of this Monday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi was projecting Duke, Indiana, Gonzaga and Louisville. That might be spot-on, but if you were basing it on the current odds to win the title at the LVH SuperBook, it would be Indiana, which is the 9-2 favorite; Duke, which is 5-1; Louisville at 6-1; and Florida at 7-1. Now, the Gators have lost three of their last six games (note: for gamblers, they’re an even worse 1-5 ATS in that stretch) to fall from a possible No. 1 seed to a No. 3 according to Lunardi, but they’re still among the favorites here in Vegas.
Outside the top four, Michigan is next at 10-1 and then you finally have No. 1 ranked Gonzaga in a group at 12-1 that also includes Michigan St., Georgetown and Miami-Fla. Lunardi has those last two teams as two of the No. 2 seeds. The other two, Kansas and Ohio St., don’t show up in the LVH futures until 15-1 and 20-1, respectively. We’ll see how this shapes up next week.