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March Madness Betting Preview!

ProfessionalRakeback.com Logo It’s NCAA tournament time and that means time to take advantage of some great odds from the best sports betting websites around. Your writers here at ProfessionalRakeback.com want to give you the best shot to make a lot of money on March Madness!

Trusted Spotsbooks!

Bovada Sportsbook $250 free bet
Carbon Sports up to $100 free bet
SportsBetting up to $1000 bonus
BetOnline $50 free mobile bet
Intertops up to $100 bonus
SportBet up to $520 bonus
5Dimes up to $520 bonus

Is Kentucky Really that Good?

Yes. I could just end the analysis there and leave you to your betting ways, but there is a little more to the story than just that. Kentucky has 3 likely lottery picks in the NBA draft this summer and numerous other great players. Even missing one of those lottery picks still gives them the most picks projected in the top 30 by most scouts. This is huge, because in the NCAA tournament, talent can take you a very long way. With the exception of Maryland in 2002, which produced more than one NBA player from that team, and Florida, which was stacked with good NBA players, no non-perennial powerhouse team has won the NCAA championship since UNLV in 1989. (Arizona Connecticut, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Syracuse and UCLA have dominated.) All that is a long-winded way to say that talent is very important in the NCAA tournament and even though we might get enamored with the Cinderella team, they do not win championships and don’t even make that many Final Fours. (24 of the 40 Final Four teams in the past 10 years have been one of the above mentioned perennial contenders and that doesn’t include Florida which as another 3 trips.)

Betting on Kentucky is a bit trickier though, because you are not going to get great odds to do such. Intertops Sportsbook has by far the best odds for Kentucky at 2.1/1 to win the National Championship, most other sites have the odds at significantly less than 2/1 and closer to 1/1 or less. This makes the Intertops offer exceptionally lucrative if you do like Kentucky a lot. Any odds about Kentucky making it to the Final Four, or a previous round, are not going to be enticing for betters as they are just that respected by bookmakers, and that bet on by the public.

Where can I find value then?

Betting on the national champion isn’t the only place that you can find value. Teams to win their regions can be exceptionally valuable and other seemingly esoteric bets also provide interesting opportunities for bettors. It’s important to note that not many player props are available, and considering the high volatility of college basketball overall, that might be good. We are going to break down some of the interesting bets available to players from our different partners so that you can get the best deals available.

I like Iowa State a lot, they have a high powered offense that lives and dies by the three. They are one of those teams that could flame out in the second round, or make a very deep run to the Final Four. A lot of books are offering them odds of about 5/1 on making it to the Final Four, and 30/1 to win the whole thing. If you want to take a flyer on a non-top 2 seed than Iowa State is a good contender, as they are also coming off a Big 12 Championship in which they beat Kansas in the final. The only knock on the team is that they do fall behind a decent amount and mount furious comebacks when the shooting fortunes turn around. It could be a good time to mix fun basketball and good value though.

Carbon Poker is offering an over of 7.5 wins for Big East teams at 2.2/1. This would be a good opportunity to pick up some value. Even if you think Villanova is the weakest number 1 seed, that’s fine, because you can still count on at least two wins from them before they are going to be realistically tested. This leaves the rest of the team to get 5.5 wins, which seems doable. They have 6 teams in the tournaments and 5 of them are a 6 seed or higher with St. Johns being the team with a lower seed and they still grabbed a 9. This means a lot of winnable games on opening day. Georgetown is also a 4 seed, so they will be favored in the first two games, meaning that if you can get 2 wins apiece from Villanova and Georgetown you need 3.5 wins from the rest of the league to make the bet a win for you, and with odds of 2.2/1, it seems like a pretty easy spot.

Bovada is offering -110 on if the largest margin of victory in the round of will be under 35.5. Taking the under here is smart, because there are not a lot of blowouts, even when a lot of weak teams are in the field. The gap between good and bad has gotten smaller in recent times and coaches are also being more careful with players. If Kentucky opens up a 30 point lead, you can be sure that they will be resting everyone down the stretch. Style points just don’t matter to coaches and they shouldn’t be counted on. Further, there isn’t any “I can’t believe how awful that team is” this year, so betting the under is a lot more likely than trying to go with the over and hoping that reserve players can hold a huge lead down the stretch.

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Summary

The NCAA tournament is normally something people fill out brackets for, and that can be fun, but there are other ways to leverage your knowledge for even more profits, especially if you don’t want to be subject to random luck of someone winning your office pool who just liked the look of the team’s colors. Bovada, Carbon and Intertops all have some great props for you to take advantage of. Tell us on Twitter or Facebook which team you think will win it all!