March Madness 2025 Betting – Public Beats the Books

After the Super Bowl, March Madness is the biggest sports betting event of any given calendar year. This year, the American Gaming Association (AGA) projected that roughly $3.1 billion would be wagered legally on the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. 

The problem with obtaining solid numbers is that most states in the U.S. do not disclose sports betting handle or revenues by individual sport. Still, there is enough data gathered from a number of states to provide some rather intriguing information.

March Madness 2025 was indeed a sports bettor’s dream. It was a tournament for the favorites, and we all know that public bettors love favorites. As a result, there was a distinct pattern that shows up in the states that have released their March 2025 sports betting numbers. Let’s take a look.

Bet the Favorites

The pattern that showed up in much of this early data from the month of March shows that win rates for sportsbooks were extremely low. On the other end, that means that sports bettors did well, winning a sizable portion of their March Madness bets. 

There really weren’t many significant upsets in this year’s NCAA tournament. Bettors that stuck with favorites ended up having a pretty successful month. The 2025 NCAA tournament was the first since 2007 to not have a team seed No. 11 or lower in the Sweet 16. That is the longest run since the NCAA began seeding teams in 1979. There were 16 tournaments in a row with at least one team seeded 11th or lower in the Sweet 16.

If you had just bet on favorites over the first two days of the 2025 NCAA tournament, you would have gone 25-7, a winning percentage of 78.1%. If you had just bet the top four seeds to win in each region over the first weekend, you would have gone 16-0. If you had bet on those top four seeds to cover the spread, you would have gone 11-5. 

Conference Powers

Half of this year’s Sweet 16 – 16 teams – came from one of two conferences – the SEC or the Big Ten. Public bettors love the popular teams from these conferences as we know. We also know it’s much easier for a bettor to focus on one or two conferences rather than try and bet on all 350-plus teams in Division I college basketball.

Regardless, when March Madness 2025 was whittled down to the top 16 teams – the Elite Eight – all 16 teams came from what we call the Power 4 conferences: the Big Ten, the SEC, the ACC, and the Big 12.

It was the first time in over 50 years that so few conferences were represented in the Sweet 16. Nearly every year in the NCAA tournament, at least seven conferences had sent teams to the Sweet 16. 

If you dive in even deeper, you’ll find that the higher seed won each game in the Sweet 16 and in the Elite Eight. Bettors who simply took the higher seed in the second weekend of tournament play cashed their moneyline plays. This also contributed to lower sportsbook win rates.

Record Breaking Handle, Poor Win Rates

In North Carolina, sports betting was legalized just before the 2024 NCAA tournament. This March, the state broke its betting handle record from last year. It was also the highest in its short sports betting history. Still, the state’s gross revenue, the amount sportsbooks keep after paying out winnings, was the third-lowest in its brief history. 

North Carolina’s handle for the month of March was $685 million. Only $38.1 million was earned in revenue because sportsbooks’ win rates were just 5.57 percent. 

New York didn’t set a new record for betting handle in a month, but the $2.5 billion was the second-highest in state history. The revenue was a different story though. It didn’t even hit the top 10. That, of course, is because the sportsbook win rate was just 6.6 percent. 

March’s win rate is the third-lowest since sports betting became legal in New York. The state’s average is 8.7 percent. 

Indiana is one of the biggest basketball states in the US. The state reported $553.6 million in handle for March. Over half of that was basketball related. Unfortunately, the state also experienced its third-lowest win rate ever and brought in $3.4 million in taxes on $35.8 million in revenue.

Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia all reported their March numbers. Maryland had the highest win rate, 8.1 percent, but that was about three points below its average. Kentucky’s sportsbook win rate was 6.17 percent and West Virginia reported its lowest win rate in three years – 5.4 percent.