{"id":646,"date":"2026-03-17T15:07:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T16:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/?p=646"},"modified":"2026-03-25T13:28:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T13:28:03","slug":"march-madness-duke-now-the-betting-favourite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/17\/march-madness-duke-now-the-betting-favourite\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness: Duke Now the Betting Favourite"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>Men&#8217;s First Four play-in games set to tip off tonight<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><b>Duke now the tournament odds favourite<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>NCAA Women&#8217;s First Four gets going tomorrow night<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ncaa-betting-aga-americans-march-madness-betting\/\">March Madness<\/a> officially gets going tonight, with men\u2019s First Four play-in games tipping off \u2013 Howard at UMBC (6:40 p.m. EST) and NC State at Texas (9:15 p.m. EST), both games at UD Arena in Dayton, OH, with the NC State game\u2019s Over 157.5 the most bet total, according to BetMGM.<\/p>\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_379518\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-379518\" data-style=\"width: 858px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-post-thumbnail-858xAUTO wp-image-379518 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"\" width=\"858\" height=\"572\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/March-Madness-2025-1-858x572-1.jpg\"><figcaption>A detail of March Madness branding prior to the first round of the NCAA Women&#8217;s Basketball Tournament at Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center in South Bend, Indiana. (Image: Michael Reaves\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Tonight&#8217;s Betting Lines<\/h2>\n<p>Moneyline at DraftKings is -110 even. Spread is UMBC -1.5 (+110), Howard +1.5 (-130), and the O\/U 142.5. The latter game ML has NC State -120, Texas +100, with the spread NC State -1.5 (+102), Texas +1.5 (-122), and O\/U 158.5.<\/p>\n<p>Howard are slight betting favourites at theScore at -115, with UMBC at -105. Spread is UMBC +1.5 (-120), Howard -1.5 (Even), and the O\/U 141.5. For the later game, the spread is NC State -1.5 (-105), Texas +1.5 (-115), and O\/U 158.5. ML is Texas -105, NC State -115.<\/p>\n<p>And at FanDuel, Howard is at -115, with UMBC at -104. Spread is UMBC +1.5 (-120), Howard -1.5 (-102), and the O\/U 141.5. For the later game, the spread is NC State -1.5 (-104), Texas +1.5 (-118), and O\/U 157.5. ML is Texas -105, NC State -114.<\/p>\n<p>At theScore, for tonight&#8217;s games, for UMBC versus Howard, 66.2% of bets, 69.5% of handle are on UMBC\u00a0(+1.5), 63.8% of bets, 51.8% of handle are on UMBC ML\u00a0(-105), and 38.5% of bets, 72% of handle are on Under\u00a0(142.5). For Texas versus NC States, 51.8% of bets, 60.6% of handle are on NC State\u00a0(-1.5), 52.7% of bets, 65% of handle are on NC State ML\u00a0(-115), and 60.9% of bets, 59.9% of handle are on Over\u00a0(158.5).<\/p>\n<h2>Odds Movement<\/h2>\n<p>First Four play on the women&#8217;s basketball side gets going tomorrow night with Richmond (+142) against Nebraska (-170), 7 p.m. EST, at Cameroon Indoor Stadium in Durham, NC, and Stephen F. Austin (+124) against Missouri State (-148), 9 p.m. EST, at Moody Center in Austin, TX.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson from theScore Bet is reporting some interesting odds movement of note on the men&#8217;s side, since the brackets for March Madness Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s NCAA Basketball tournaments were released Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>Duke is\u00a0now the favorite\u00a0(+320)\u00a0after entering the\u00a0Selection\u00a0Sunday\u00a0show with the\u00a0second best\u00a0odds\u00a0behind Michigan\u00a0at +375.\u00a0Michigan was\u00a0the +320\u00a0favorite at the end of the Big Ten championship\u00a0game on Sunday afternoon and\u00a0now have the\u00a0second best\u00a0odds\u00a0at +375.<\/p>\n<h2>Duke Now the Favourite<\/h2>\n<p>Iowa\u00a0State is\u00a0now +1800,\u00a0sixth best odds,\u00a0after\u00a0sitting at +2800\u00a0(9th\u00a0best) on\u00a0Sunday afternoon.\u00a0Illinois\u00a0shortened from +2500 to +2200,\u00a0still 7th\u00a0best odds.\u00a0St. John\u2019s is now +6000 after sitting at +5000\u00a0just before the bracket reveal.\u00a0Gonzaga is down to +6000 from +6600\u00a0on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>At theScore Bet, since the bracket was revealed Sunday night, in terms of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ncaa-betting-march-madness-record-engagement\/\">national championship winner<\/a>, Arizona has been seeing 16.8% of bets, 22.3% of handle, Michigan 8.9% of bets, 10.9% of handle, Purdue 6.9% of bets, 8.9% of handle, Iowa\u00a0State 5.5% of bets, 8.6% of handle, and Duke 11.5% of bets, 7.9% of handle.<\/p>\n<h2>Canada March Madness Betting Interest<\/h2>\n<p>Out of curiosity, what about March Madness in Canada compared to the U.S.?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would often over the years compare percentages with colleagues that were at U.S.-facing books,&#8221; said Phill Gray, the former head of sports betting operations at Sports Interaction, and sports betting industry consultant. &#8220;In general I&#8217;d say it was about 25% in terms of handle relative to the size of the overall book. College football was about the same. Certainly still somewhat significant\u00a0to us, but nowhere near the importance in the U.S.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/ncaa-betting-march-madness-odds\/\">March Madness: Duke Now the Betting Favourite<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\">Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Men&#8217;s First Four play-in games set to tip off tonight Duke now the tournament odds favourite NCAA Women&#8217;s First Four gets going tomorrow night March Madness officially gets going tonight, with men\u2019s First Four play-in games tipping off \u2013 Howard at UMBC (6:40 p.m. EST) and NC State at Texas (9:15 p.m. EST), both games&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":648,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerulepillar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}