Gambling News

Here's some more great gambling tidbits from Darren Rovell's sports Business Blog on the eve of what should be a Great Tournament. I love this stuff.

Careers publisher Vault Inc. says that 67 percent of employees admit to taking part in office betting pools for March Madness. That number, the company says, is up 6 percent from last year. According to its survey, which included 328 employees from organizations across the country, 80.5 percent of people aren't bothered by the fact that office pools are technically illegal, while 86 percent of offices did not specifically have a company policy against betting pools.

Workplace productivity: Every year, workplace consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. predicts how much will be lost in workplace productivity because of the tournament. This year's number is $3.8 billion, and chief executive John Challenger says that could be a conservative estimate now that CBS will show the games online for free this year. I think people might be less productive at work, but I'm not sure it's this bad. Why? Because this assumes that people are productive in their 9-5 jobs anyway, which is not even close to true. For those people at Challenger, Gray & Christmas who don't believe me, come to Bristol and I'll show you when people are hitting up our site. In Vault Inc.'s survey, 73.5 percent of people said they spent only 5-10 minutes at the office making their picks and saved further research for when they're at home. Then factor in this: Tournament games are only being played over four work days.



How much is bet? So many people want to know these days exactly how much is gambled on the NCAA Tournament. It's impossible to know because online gambling and office pools are obviously not reported in the way Las Vegas is. The latest estimates I've seen from industry pundits is that about $3.5 billion to $4 billion is bet on the tournament, with a nice chunk of that coming from online. The 180 or so sports books in Las Vegas only take in about $90 million in bets, while estimates have online bookmakers taking in more than $1.2 billion, which would about double the money taken in online on this year's Super Bowl. One of the reasons why the money online continues to go up is because, on some sites, bettors can risk a tremendous amount on one game. Sites like PinnacleSports.com will take up to $30,000 on one game.



Best bet? Around this time of year I always have people asking me if there's anything new and different on the betting scene around tournament time. One of the coolest things I've seen this year is PicksPal.com. The site allows players to wager points on over/unders and props. Once you register (registration is free and not cumbersome), you go to the bracket. Say you click on the first-round matchup of Memphis vs. Oral Roberts. You can pick the game, but you will also see props such as:



Will R. Carney be the game's leading scorer?


Which team's starters will score more points?


In which half will Memphis score more points?



The site also promises to have live in-game picks for fans to make. The fan with the highest point total at the end of each round will win an iPod, while the overall winner will win a 42-inch flat plasma HDTV.



Did the players really know the spread? Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks his data shows they do. The New York Times recently profiled Wolfers, who has collected the results of almost every college basketball game over the past 16 years. Wolfers' data shows that smaller favorites -- teams favored by 12 or fewer points -- beat the spread about 50 percent of the time, while heavy favorites cover in only 47 percent of their games. According to the New York Times, given the volume of data that Wolfers has collected, he surmises that the difference is significant and that players on top teams might be shaving points. Wolfers contends that the players are aware of the spreads based on the fact that there are too many games where favorites either barely cover by one or two points or don't cover by the same margin. It's hard to tell how much the players know, but I don't think a majority of them have the spread in mind when they are on the court.