NCAA Basketball Brackets Dominate Online Gambling

As many as forty million Americans are expected to either play at online gambling sites or pick winners in office pools, creating $12 billion in gaming play.

In the US this week, gambling is all about picking the winning brackets in the NCAA college basketball tournament. As many as forty million Americans are expected to either play at online gambling sites or pick winners in office pools, creating $12 billion in gaming play.

Like the SuperBowl, people who rarely gamble find themselves enthralled by the posibility of turning a small wager on correct bracket picks into a sizeable winning. The first two days of play, games run all day and night, creating massive distraction at offices and workplaces around the US.

The Delaware County Times reveals its far more likely to beat even a large pool of competitors rather than win one of the free entry events that rewards only a perfect score. The possible bracket combinations equal more than nine quintillion, even worse odds than scartch-off tickets.

Lost production in the workplace during the March Madness tournament amounts to more than two billion dollars, according to consultants Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

Websites taking bracket play abound, with even supoosedly non-gambling sites happy to score pools or run their own promotional brackets. Online casino sportsbooks will also see a jump as players try to exploit the perceived underdog factor in the early rounds.

While the excitement calms for many after the first two rounds are played and many brackets busted, this next week will see all watercooler talk head toward favorite choices for the Big Dance.