Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00All right, we got the results in from the NCAA tournament.
00:02Basically, Sam, no matter what happens the rest of the way,
00:05as we would say that this is a chalky NCAA tournament,
00:07we have all four number one seeds playing in the final four.
00:11Fair to say throughout the NCAA tournament,
00:13especially through basically the first weekend,
00:16not a lot of upsets and the favorites more or less winning.
00:19We know how that goes in the National Football League
00:21and in college football as well.
00:23When the favorites win, the public wins.
00:25Was that the case in this NCAA tournament as well?
00:29Yeah, well, first of all, I remember we talked off camera,
00:31Craig, before the tournament started
00:33and you recommended betting all underdogs.
00:35That'd be a good strategy.
00:36And normally you'd be right, that normally that works.
00:39But this year, to your point, it has not.
00:42This is the first, only the second ever time
00:45we've had a final four comprised of all number one seeds.
00:48Going into the tournament, the odds for Duke,
00:51Auburn, Houston, Florida combined,
00:54were all the shortest they've ever been for any final four.
00:57So it's been another historic run of favorites.
00:59They went 21 and 0 leading up to the tournament.
01:04So it's been curious for the books to handle,
01:07different than football where typically
01:09eventually favorites will lose.
01:11In March Madness, typically the public likes
01:13to back a Cinderella, but this year there has not
01:16been a Cinderella that's really formed.
01:17So the public has just been betting on the favorites
01:19and the favorites have been winning.
01:21It's the same case right now where Duke and Florida
01:23are drawing heavy action.
01:24They represent almost 50% of all the futures bets
01:28on the NCAA title at the sports book.
01:30So they're definitely still rooting
01:32against the favorites here.
01:34But it's been difficult, especially when you're talking
01:36about coming off of an NFL season,
01:38which was historically bad.
01:40You had 10 weeks of at least 75% or more favorites winning,
01:45which in some cases, it cost FanDuel about $650 million.
01:48It was felt by the entire industry.
01:50So they were hoping probably
01:52for a much better March Madness,
01:54college basketball is one of the biggest,
01:56it's one of the biggest times of the year
01:58to bet for the sports books.
01:59So they're gonna hope for a much better final four,
02:02but so far it's been very difficult for them,
02:04kind of just weathering the storm.
02:06But this kind of thing happens in sports betting,
02:07but it is very unusual to have such the bad NFL season
02:12followed up by what's so far shaping up to be
02:14a really bad March Madness for them as well.
02:17But when betters win more, they tend to bet more.
02:20So the books are hoping it all eventually will shake out
02:23in their favor.
02:24If not, we could be talking about something else
02:26in a few months when we have the NBA playoffs
02:28and the NHL playoffs to reap a lot more money there.