The men's and women's NCAA Tournament fields were revealed Sunday night, giving basketball junkies a chance to dive into this year's brackets. Plenty of bettors are already studying the matchups as well, with 68 million American adults expected to wager on this year's NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, according to a survey from the American Gaming Association.
The AGA survey projects that those bettors will wager $15.5 billion on the event. The total number of bettors is expected to be higher than the 50 million people the AGA projected to wager on the Super Bowl, but the NCAA Tournament's projected handle is about $500 million less than the Super Bowl projection.
“March Madness is one of the best traditions in American sports – and America's most wagered-on competition,” AGA President and CEO Bill Miller said in a press release. “Critically, the expansion of regulated sports betting over the past five years has brought safeguards to more than half of American adults who can now bet legally in their home market.”''
Legal sports betting is available in over 33 states and Washington, D.C. Massachusetts is the latest to launch legal mobile sports betting, with digital platforms going live in the state last week.'