March doesn’t only mean the melting of snow and the emergence of spring, it also means March Madness College Basketball betting! The most potentially lucrative tournament in sports betting is famous for brackets and Cinderellas, but more importantly, it’s a chance for Canadian sports betting fans to reap some serious rewards. Every professional bettor has a March Madness story, either good or bad, and it’s easy to see why a sound strategy can help you seriously pad that account until football season comes back in August.

March Madness Betting Lines

The NCAA Tournament in March is the most widely bet on event, aside from the Super Bowl, in North America as even general sports fans find some way to get in on the action. Whether it be in various March Madness bracket pools/contests, or bettors playing the point spreads on games, sportsbooks take an absurd amount of action at their books during this time.

March Madness Betting Trends

Betting on March Madness can require a bit of a strategy as favorites can enter heavily backed. Check out the odds on our list of recommended sportsbooks for Canadian bettors for some of the best lines and betting options for each round. All of our recommendations features Live Betting for most (if not all) games, so you can change betting strategy in real time.

    How To Bet On March Madness

    One of the biggest mistakes recreational bettors make with NCAA March Madness online betting is to make plays on nearly every game. Overextending your bankroll like that typically leads to long term failure, especially against the extremely sharp lines oddsmakers put out for the tournament.

    Sticking to teams/conferences you have strong background knowledge from regular season play is a good place to start. Secondly, don’t get too caught up in the seeds as you would with the Top 25 rankings throughout the year. Upsets happen all the time, every year in the NCAA Tournament and have to be considered. For example, from 2008-14, a #12 seed won 15 of 28 games (53.5%) against a #5 seed in the early round of the tournament. Don’t be afraid to take a shot or two at a bigger pay day by backing your underdogs on the moneyline as well as the point spread.

    Along those same lines, you can use the oddsmakers opening point spreads as a bit of a guideline when considering wagers or filling out a bracket. It’s quite common to see a #10 seed as a small favourite over a #7 seed every year. Sportsbooks are expecting a tight game in that scenario but grade the #10 team as a little bit better – neutral courts eliminate the need to include home court advantage in point spreads. Just another reason to not get caught up in the seeding. Finally, as the tournament goes on, look for lower scoring games when considering totals wagers, especially when a berth to the Final Four is on the line or the National Championship. These are still 18-20 year-old kids out there playing and they can get swallowed up by the pressure like anyone would.