How to bet on March Madness: bet types, format and bankroll

We earn a commission if you open a Bovada account through links on this page.

You can bet on March Madness one game at a time with point spreads, totals and moneylines, or on the whole tournament with futures on the champion or the Final Four. Starting in 2027, the men’s tournament grows from 68 to 76 teams, with a 12-game Opening Round before the usual 64-team bracket. Most of the games come in the first six days, so set your budget and bet size before the bracket comes out.

Bracket pools and betting

A bracket asks you to pick every game before the tournament starts. You score points for correct picks, and nobody puts a price on them, so taking a No. 1 seed in its first game costs you nothing.

Betting puts a price on every pick. A heavy favorite pays very little, and a point spread asks the favorite to win by a set margin. You also don’t have to decide everything up front. You can bet each round after seeing how the teams played in the last one.

How the field and schedule work

The bracket has an automatic qualifier from each conference, usually the team that wins its conference tournament. A selection committee picks the at-large teams and seeds the whole field, and the bracket comes out on Selection Sunday. The men’s field had 68 teams from 2011 through 2026, including four First Four games, traditionally played in Dayton, Ohio.

In May 2026, the NCAA announced that the men’s and women’s tournaments will both grow to 76 teams starting in 2027. On the men’s side, the First Four becomes a 12-game Opening Round. The 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers play six of those games, and the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams play the other six. The games are split between Dayton and Wichita, Kansas.

The 12 winners join the other 52 teams in the 64-team bracket, and from the First Round on, the format is the same as before. Selection Sunday for 2027 is March 14.

RoundGames2027 dates
Opening Round (Dayton and Wichita)12Tuesday and Wednesday, March 16–17
First Round32Thursday and Friday, March 18–19
Second Round16Saturday and Sunday, March 20–21
Sweet 168Thursday and Friday, March 25–26
Elite Eight4Saturday and Sunday, March 27–28
Final Four (Detroit)2Saturday, April 3
Championship (Detroit)1Monday, April 5
Men’s tournament. Dates and sites from NCAA.com, August 2026. Game counts follow from the 76-team bracket.

That puts 60 of the 75 games in the first six days.

The main bet types

  • Point spread: if a No. 3 seed is -9.5 against a No. 14 seed, the No. 3 seed has to win by 10 or more to cover. The No. 14 seed covers by losing by nine or fewer, or by winning. Spreads are usually priced at -110, meaning you risk $110 to win $100.
  • Moneyline: you just pick the winner, and the price shows how likely the book thinks each team is to win. Our guide to money lines explains how to read the numbers.
  • Total: you bet on whether the two teams’ combined score goes over or under a posted number, such as 141.5.
  • Futures: longer-range bets, such as which team wins the title or reaches the Final Four, placed before or during the tournament. Your money is tied up until the bet settles, and Bovada’s bonus terms say bonus funds can’t be used on futures.
  • Props: bets on things like a player’s points or rebounds. Bovada lists same-game parlays and a Prop Builder among its sportsbook features.
  • Live bets: bets placed while a game is in progress, with odds that move as it goes. Bovada offers live betting.

How big favorites are priced

Upsets at the very top of the bracket are rare. In the men’s tournament, a No. 16 seed has beaten a No. 1 seed only twice: UMBC over Virginia in 2018 and Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue in 2023. UMBC went into its game as a 20.5-point underdog.

That’s why heavy favorites cost so much on the moneyline. Say a top seed is -2500 and its first-round opponent is +1200. At -2500 you risk $2,500 to win $100, so you’d need to win 96.15% of the time just to break even. One loss wipes out the profit from 25 wins.

The +1200 side implies a 7.69% chance. Add the two and you get 103.85%. The extra 3.85% is called the overround, and it’s how the book builds in its edge. You can run the same check on any market, including futures.

Stringing favorites together in a parlay is riskier than it looks. A parlay of four -1000 favorites wins about $46 on a $100 bet. A price of -1000 implies about a 91% chance of winning, and if each team’s real chance were that high, all four would win only about 68% of the time. You’d lose that parlay roughly one time in three.

Spreads work differently. A big favorite can win easily and still fail to cover, for example when it rests its starters late in a blowout and the other team closes the gap. Popular teams can also draw lopsided betting, and our guide to public betting trends covers what those splits can and can’t tell you.

Managing your bankroll over the tournament

Decide how much you’re setting aside for the whole tournament before Selection Sunday, and only use money you can afford to lose. Then pick a flat bet size and stick with it. With $500 set aside, risking $11 to win $10 on each bet is about 2% of your budget, and even an 0–10 start would leave you with $390.

You don’t have to bet every game. At -110 you need to win 52.38% of your bets just to break even, so each bet starts you slightly behind. A 15–15 record at $11 to win $10 costs you $15.

A few weeks of betting is also a small sample. Over 30 bets at -110, even someone who truly wins 55% of the time ends up behind more than a third of the time. Our guide to 55 percent winners shows the math.

A few habits help during the tournament:

  • Write down every bet with the price you got.
  • Don’t raise your stakes to win back a bad day.
  • Keep part of your budget for the later rounds, when there are fewer games and you’ve seen more of each team.
  • Count money on futures as spent until those bets settle.

If your state has legal online sportsbooks, a state-licensed book gives you more protection than an offshore site. Our Bovada review explains how Bovada works and which states it doesn’t serve.

Bovada has a college basketball section, so you can compare its prices with other books during the tournament. It’s an offshore sportsbook with no US state license.

See Bovada’s college basketball odds

Affiliate link. 18+ (or older where your state requires). Not available in 19 states and Washington, DC.

Only bet what you’ve set aside to lose. If gambling has stopped being fun, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738) for free, confidential help, 24/7, or chat online with the National Problem Gambling Helpline.

Sources