The Sports Gambling Podcast Network, the leading all-free sports betting picks and analysis content platform, will host SGPN Live – The Final Four Watch Party on the SGPN YouTube ChannelSaturday, April 1, starting at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT.
SGPN personalities Sean Green and Ryan Kramer plus college basketball expert Colby Dant will hold court as followers join via smartphone and laptop, offering their signature analysis and commentary for the national semifinal games. The trio will also provide attendees with live, in-game wagering advice for the competition featuring the San Diego State Aztecs, the Florida Atlantic Owls, the Miami Hurricanes and the Connecticut Huskies.
The livestream will be interactive with viewers invited to weigh in with comments, wagering advice and questions in a format similar to the Sports Gambling Podcast and College Basketball Experience Podcast. Special guests from among SGPN’s scores of podcasters and contributors will appear throughout the two games, which will be telecast on CBS. The SGPN YouTube content will include live and halftime wagering advice, analysis and reaction from Green, Kramer and Dant, who are among the few national handicappers whose breakdowns and predictions are all-free, all-the-time on the SGPN digital platforms.
“As the sports wagering universe grows, so does our audience and the technology allows us to connect directly in real time to help fans enjoy the games from the sports wagering perspective,” stated Green, the SGPN CEO. “We’ve become a welcome addition to family rooms and mancaves with our entertaining, no-cost content over the past 11 years. Saturday will be fun. Everyone’s invited.”
Green and Kramer launched SGPN over 10 years ago and co-host the network’s flagship show, The Sports Gambling Podcast. The duo has built SGPN into the leading free and independent sports wagering network in the country. Dant hosts both of SGPN’s popular college podcasts, The College Basketball Experience and College Football Experience. He previewed every team prior to the start of the season and his daily podcasts offer expert wagering analysis and insight on each team.
With over 60 contributors and more than 30 podcasts, the LA-based company covers every major, bettable sporting event in the world, offering entertaining and accurate wagering content for millions on their array of available outlets. SGPN saw a record 8 million downloads last year and is already tracking at a 15 percent increase year-over-year.
Genius Sports Limited (“Genius Sports”) (NYSE:GENI), the official data and technology partner that powers the ecosystem connecting sports, betting and media, today announced a collaboration with ESPN for the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship using AI-powered tracking data and live video augmentations.
Through its Second Spectrum division, Genius Sports will provide ESPN and consumers with the first live augmented video feeds for women’s basketball, delivering new levels of interactivity and insight to a rapidly growing audience. ESPN will be able to select from a suite of data-driven visualizations, including split-second shot probabilities and distances to 3-point special effects, captured through optical tracking technology that identifies and delivers the precise coordinates of every player and the ball, 25 times a second.
Genius Sports’ technology and augmentation solutions will be utilized during the Women’s Final Four and National Championship games, when this year’s champion is crowned Sunday, April 3 (8 p.m. ET) at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Fans will be able to experience the Second Spectrum enhancements as an alternate viewing option in addition to ESPN’s traditional telecasts of each game.
“Expanding our relationship with Second Spectrum to support of the Women’s Tournament and their fans is another exciting first for us,” said Kevin Lopes, ESPN Vice President, Sports Business Development & Innovation. “The augmented feeds for the NCAA Women’s Final Four and National Championship game will provide fans with an exciting viewing option that leans into innovative stats and visuals.”
ESPN will also have access to Genius Sports’ unique Insight tool, generating advanced statistical insights on individual teams and players. As the Official Optical Tracking Provider of the NBA, Second Spectrum has worked closely with ESPN for the last six years, capturing rich tracking data and delivering augmentations as well as helping to power the first-of-its-kind ‘Marvel’s Arena of Heroes’ alternate broadcast on ESPN in 2021.
“It’s appropriate that during this Women’s History Month we make this announcement with ESPN to bring immersive, player tracking technology to ‘March Madness’ on the Women’s Basketball side. The days of women’s sports being considered second class are behind us,” said Mark Locke, CEO of Genius Sports. “We are proud to work with ESPN, through the best-in-class work Second Spectrum does, to give the millions of fans young and old, an immersive experience for March Madness that will set a new course not just for the NCAA Championships, but for all of sport that is played by women the world over. It is a new high bar that we will push, and there is no better place to raise that bar than the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament with ESPN.”
Genius Sports is the exclusive supplier of official NCAA data, having worked alongside the governing body since 2018 to develop NCAA LiveStats, the NCAA’s official tool for the collection, management and distribution of game statistics. Genius Sports is the Exclusive Supplier of Official NCAA Data having worked alongside the governing body since 2018 to develop NCAA LiveStats, college sports’ official tool for the collection, management and distribution of game statistics. NCAA LiveStats will be courtside at every game of the NCAA DI Women’s Basketball Championship, capturing every shot, dunk, rebound, assist and more.
ew York already has hit the heights since launching mobile sports wagering in mid-January. Now the Empire State will make its first descent into madness. March Madness, that is.
When the New York State Gaming Commission releases its full February figures, the state’s two monthly handles of 2022 will rank first (January) and second (February) in the all-time national post-PASPA era that began in 2018. Not everyone anticipated such a fast start, with many expecting New York to need time to mature before reaching the top of the list and becoming, in the words of Frank Sinatra, “A-number one.”
The Super Bowl, which is the largest single sports betting event in the U.S., has come and gone, and conventional wisdom suggests New York generated the highest handle of any state — but nobody knows for sure, since the NYSGC did not provide official handle and revenue figures from the game. March brings the NCAA Tournament, joining the Super Bowl in the top two of annual betting events and unmatched in terms of drama coming from all angles at a frenetic pace over the course of three-plus weeks. The largest unofficial betting event in the form of office pools now takes center stage in legal fashion in New York. Eight mobile operators, entrenched to varying degrees, will offer Final Four futures wagers and more, plus various betting lines on up to 66 of the tournament’s 67 games.
After bettors showed a monstrous appetite for the Super Bowl, wagering will again be robust throughout the final two weekends of March and the first one in April. After examining weekly mobile handle figures in New York since launch, basketball-specific wagering across multiple states from 2019 through 2021, and other assorted factors as points of comparison, NY Online Gambling projects mobile betting handle in the Empire State on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament will be between $375 million and $400 million.
That’s wagers to be placed at legal online sportsbooks in New York after the NCAA announced the seeds and brackets on Sunday. Using the industry standard win rate of 7%, mobile operator revenue from that handle would range from $26.3 million to $28 million. With New York’s 51% tax rate on mobile revenue, the state would receive between $13.4 million and $14.3 million.
The NCAA Tournament vs. The Super Bowl Projecting the Empire State’s NCAA Tournament handle can be challenging. New York has generated weekly handle that would rank in the top 10 nationally for monthly handle every full week since launch. The nearly $360 million in handle for the week ending March 6 was the fourth week in five that New York has posted handle between $350 million and $360 million.
The outlier in that stretch was Super Bowl week, in which handle totaled $472.1 million. The NYSGC does not break out handle by sport or divulge any specific wagering information about the game, but the Super Bowl handle may have been at least $200 million. That is a reasonable, conservative estimate, given Nevada set an all-time high with nearly $180 million wagered on the game and New Jersey went from $117.4 million in 2021 to $143.7 million this year despite all those Manhattanites no longer needing to cross the Hudson River to place legal bets.
Is the Super Bowl relevant for March Madness comparisons? Yes and no. One can view the NCAA Tournament as a singular event, but it also consists of 67 single-game events. A more like-for-like comparison could be the NCAA Tournament and the NFL playoffs, in which 13 games are played.
The NYSGC launched on the weekend of Week 18 of the NFL regular season, producing an initial handle report of $171.3 million that covered only those two days. The six wild card round games the next week contributed to handle skyrocketing to $431.8 million in the first full week of wagering. The four divisional round games sparked another bump to $572.6 million. Notably, the Buffalo Bills played in both rounds.
Weekly handle ebbed the week of the two conference title games, falling to $449 million without the Bills, but that was still 28.3% higher than the recent low-end baseline of $350 million per week.
Assumptions of a similar percentage spike for March Madness could prove faulty for a few reasons, most notably advertising. The NFL has inherent advantages over the NCAA, with nearly all of its postseason games airing on network television. The league is also a marketing leviathan capable of making any superstar a national hero, recognized from the city where he plays to the casual fan hundreds of miles away who simply enjoys football.
This past NFL season, sportsbooks spent gobs of money to advertise their product, with the ability to promote themselves as “official league partners” or “approved sportsbook operators.” Of the eight mobile operators in New York, three (Caesars, DraftKings, and FanDuel) are official league partners and three others (BetMGM, PointsBet, and WynnBET) are approved sportsbook operators.
That advertising spend will not take place during the college basketball games broadcast on CBS and other stations. For starters, the NCAA does not have partnerships with gaming operators, and very few schools do.
New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks scored a record win and near-record monthly handle in March as the industry crossed the $2 billion mark in bets since legalization. The spike was fueled overwhelmingly by the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, according to PlayNJ.com analysts.
“The first week of March Madness generated more action than the Super Bowl, and even the First Four games attracted enough betting to rival a busy weekend of NFL regular season football,” said Dustin Gouker, lead sports betting analyst for PlayNJ.com. “That is unquestionably a massive success and shows clearly the importance of college basketball to the Northeast’s legal sports betting markets.”
New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks accepted $372.5 million in March bets, just shy of the record $385.3 million in January, according to official reporting. New Jersey’s online and retail sportsbooks have now accepted $2.3 billion in bets since legalization in June 2018.
March revenue was $31.7 million, up 150 percent from $12.7 million in February. The win and a high-water gross revenue mark for the state’s online casinos combined in March to generate more than $70 million in monthly revenue.
“$2 billion in bets in nine months shows just how much pent-up demand for legal sports betting existed in New Jersey,” Gouker said. “As quickly as the industry has ramped up, though, the next milestone should come more quickly. $3 billion is certainly within reach by the industry’s first anniversary in June.”
New Jersey’s online sportsbook brands accounted for $298,3 million, or 80.8 percent, of total March bets. That’s even with the 80.8 percent of bets that flowed through online sportsbooks in February.
FanDuel Sportsbook/Pointsbet was the dominant online sportsbook, beating rival DraftKings Sportsbook, with $13.3 million in gross revenue, up from $6.59 million in February. DraftKings fueled Resorts’ $7.3 million in March, up from $3.7 million in February.
FanDuel Sportsbook at The Meadowlands remained tops in the retail market with $4.3 million in March gross revenue, up from $1.5 million in February. Monmouth Park followed FanDuel with $986,251.
“Online sports betting will continue to drive the market, and product innovations will likely bear much more fruit in the near future,” Gouker said. “New Jersey’s sportsbooks already offer the most advanced online product of any legal sports betting jurisdiction, and bettors have continually responded.”
Thuuz Sports, the most powerful automated video highlights production platform for worldwide sports, today announced their 2018-19 Top 10 most exciting games for the men’s basketball season. Despite not making the NCAA Tournament, The University of West Virginia, by virtue of their February 26 win over TCU, topped the list. The Mountaineers, appeared twice on the list, just behind Tennessee and Duke, who are each on the list for three games. The regular season matchup between top seeds Duke and Gonzaga also qualified in the Top 10.
Using their custom designed algorithms to measure real-time event excitement, Thuuz will provide a unique look into what games have gotten fans the most excited and engaged as 2019 rolls along.
The game excitement ratings are measured on a 0 to 100 scale and take into consideration game pace, team parity, play novelty, momentum shifts, social buzz, and historical context. The algorithms behind the excitement ratings are statistically calibrated to insure the appropriate distribution of ratings across the duration of a season or course of a tournament.
Using the Thuuz excitement measurement platform, the top ten most exciting games were:
1) West Virginia 104, TCU 96 (Big 12): 2/26/19
WVU outlasted TCU in a triple OT showdown in Big 12 conference play. WVU had 4 players play over 50 minutes in the game, led by Derek Culver who ended the game with 22 points and 21 rebounds. This is the only game in the top 10 that was between 2 teams that did not make March Madness.
2) Duke 71, Louisville 69 (ACC): 2/12/19
Louisville was winning 59-36 with under 10 min left in the 2nd half, before Zion Williamson and Duke began a massive comeback that ended in a 2-point victory. Duke freshman Cam Reddish made 2 FT’s with 15 seconds remaining to give Duke their 1st lead since they were up 21-20 in the 1st half. A defensive stand after those FT’s led to an improbable Duke victory.
3) Tennessee 76, Gonzaga 73 (NCAA): 12/9/18
A battle between two veteran-heavy teams came down to the wire as Rui Hachimura and Gonzaga came up just short against 2-time SEC player of the year Grant Williams and Tennessee. Admiral Schofield was the standout performer for Tennessee with 30 points and 6 rebounds as Tennessee picked up a great non-conference win against the #1 seed in the West in Gonzaga.
4) Duke 74, UNC 73 (ACC): 3/15/19
The two heated rivals faced off for the 3rd time this season after the Tar Heels had won both regular season games. The difference between this game and the 1st two was that Duke didn’t have their star freshman and likely #1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft, Zion Williamson. In his first full game against UNC, he posted 31 points and 11 rebounds as Duke defeated UNC and went on to win the ACC Championship, with Zion being named MVP.
5) Gonzaga 89, Duke 87: 11/21/18
A matchup between two #1 seeds in March Madness went down to the wire in what remains Duke’s only loss of the season with Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish all on the floor for a full game. Gonzaga was led by recently announced 1st team All-American Rui Hachimura, who had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists. He out-dueled Duke’s 1st team All-American duo in Barrett and Williamson, who both had 20+ points in the loss.
6) West Virginia 79, Texas Tech 74 (Big 12): 3/14/19
WVU became the only team to make it in this top-10 list twice and not be in March Madness by pulling off a major upset during the Big 12 tournament over Texas Tech. Two of the better players in the Big 12 battled it out in an entertaining matchup as Emmitt Matthews Jr (WVU) posted 28 points and 8 rebounds against likely NBA lottery pick Jarrett Culver, who had 26 points and 10 rebounds in the defeat.
7) Tennessee 82, Kentucky 78 (SEC): 3/16/19
A back and forth affair between 2 of the top 3 teams in an SEC semifinal saw Tennessee edge Big Blue Nation behind their back-to-back SEC player of the year Grant Williams. Lamonte Turner hit the game-winning 3-pointer for the Vols with 30 seconds remaining after having previously been 0-14 in 3-pointers in his 2 prior games against Kentucky.
8) Arizona State 80 Kansas 76: 12/22/18
Arizona State is one of the final teams in the field, and they can likely point to this monumental win over Kansas at home as the big reason why. Remy Martin (ASU) hit a pull-up jumper with just under a minute remaining to put ASU up 78-76 and become the 5th Sun Devil to reach double figures. That depth outlasted Kansas’ star Dedric Lawson who had an impressive 30 point, 14 rebound performance for the Jayhawks.
9) LSU 73, Kentucky 71 (SEC): 2/12/19
LSU defeated Kentucky on a controversial buzzer-beating tip-in for their 1st win over Kentucky since 2009. This incredibly close game was within 5 points for the final 14 minutes of the game, as the 2 SEC rivals went back and forth in a conference showdown.
10) LSU 82, Tennessee 80 (SEC): 2/23/19
After a crucial foul by Tennessee with less than a second remaining, LSU’s Ja’vonte Smart drained the go-ahead FT’s and as Tigers beat the Vols in OT. This was LSU’s 2nd victory in 2 weeks over a top-5 SEC team. Smart scored a career-high 29 points in the win.
Following Selection Sunday, the first year of legal sports betting in New Jersey for the NCAA Tournament is underway. To celebrate, PlaySugarHouse.com has announced a unique bracket promotion offering entrants a shot at their share of over $50,000 in payouts. For more information, click here.
Heading into Selection Sunday, Duke (+250), Gonzaga (+550), and Virginia (+600) were the betting favorites to win the National Championship. North Carolina joined those three teams as the final #1 seed in the Tournament, and collectively these #1 seeds are a remarkable 81-44-3 “Against the Spread” (ATS) on the season.
The most widely bet teams at PlaySugarHouse.com over the course of the season were #1 Duke (17-15 ATS), #2 Michigan (17-14 ATS), #2 Tennessee (15-14-1), #6 Villanova (20-12 ATS), and #1 North Carolina (20-9-3) showing that this season, the most popular teams have also been good bets
The most popular game to bet this season was the matchup between Duke and North Carolina on February 20th. The second most popular game was on February 17th between Villanova and St. Johns, two teams with significant fan bases in New Jersey.
The best team ATS this season, Drake (25-6), did not make the NCAA tournament
Teams in the tournament with particularly poor ATS numbers are #15 Montana (12-18), #11 Ohio St. (13-19), and #10 Iowa (13-19)
PlaySugarHouse.com will be offering unique bets throughout the NCAA Tournament, including Zion Williamson prop bets and parlay bets with boosted odds payouts
“We are pleased to give New Jersey residents and visitors in the state their first chance to legally bet on the NCAA Tournament,” said Mattias Stetz, COO, Rush Street Interactive. “We’re especially excited to introduce our free to play March Mania bracket promotion, which will pay out entrants on each correct bracket pick, totaling over $50,000 in prizes over the course of the tournament.”
Americans plan to wager $8.5 billion on this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, with 1-in-5 adults placing a bet, according to a new survey released today by the American Gaming Association (AGA).
Zion Williamson (Flickr/Keenan Hairston)
Key findings from the survey, conducted by Morning Consult, include:
47 million American adults will wager $8.5 billion on March Madness;
$4.6 billion will be wagered on a collective 149 million brackets by more than 40 million people;
Nearly 18 million people will wager $3.9 billion at a sportsbook, online, with a bookie or with a friend;
4.1 million will place a bet at a casino sportsbook or using a legal app;
2.4 million will bet illegally with a bookie; and
5.2 million will bet online, likely at illegal offshore sites.
The plurality of bettors favors Duke (29%) to win, followed by Gonzaga (9%), North Carolina(8%), Kentucky (7%), Virginia (5%) and Michigan (5%).
“During this year’s tournament – the first in post-PASPA America – sports fans are expected to bet 40% more than they did on this year’s Super Bowl,” said Bill Miller, AGA’s president and chief executive officer. “Unlike any other sporting event in the country, March Madness attracts millions who fill out brackets, make casual bets with friends or wager at a legal sportsbook, which Americans can now do more than ever before.”
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in May 2018, more than $5.9 billion has been wagered in the now-eight states with legal, regulated sports betting, enabling consumer protections and generating valuable tax revenue for state, local and tribal governments across the country.
“These results indicate there’s still work to do to eradicate the vast illegal sports betting market in this country, and we’re committed to ensuring sound policies are in place to protect consumers, like the 47 million Americans who will bet on March Madness,” continued Miller.
UMBC after its win over UVA in the 2018 NCAA First Round
Want a shot at one million dollars? Looking to have more fun playing fantasy sports? Do you want to have a chance to beat the competition – every time – up until the final buzzer, whistle or gun? Introducing SpeedBrackets, the new app that allows players to change their original pick at any point during a sporting event and still and have a chance to win. And to celebrate their launch, SpeedBrackets is offering a One Million Dollar Perfect Bracket Challenge for March Madness 2019. The best part? Even if you can’t be perfect, you can still compete and ensure you never lose another game the rest of the tournament. With SpeedBrackets, your brackets never bust, and you are never out of the game.
Initially conceived to solve the ‘busted brackets’ problem so often faced during the excitement of March Madness, with participants’ interest waning once they were eliminated (often in the first round). No matter what happens to your team throughout a game, you will be able to continuously adjust your picks to maximize your points as much as possible, even down to the last seconds.
How SpeedBrackets Works:
Users can customize competitions for individual rounds of a tournament or for the overall championship. At the end of each game, points are allotted on a leaderboard in real-time, allowing pool managers and their members to monitor instant results of first through last place. To get started, simply:
Register: Easily register and create your profile.
Join: Join pools or create your own. Invite all of your friends, family, coworkers, clients, customers, etc., with a simple email address. Many pools will award prizes at the completion of each tournament or playoff round, as well as for the total overall championship
Fill out your bracket. Pick your favorites from the “play-in” games to the championship.
Watch the games: SpeedBrackets makes the perfect “second-screen” while watching the action on TV or even live courtside. All the games and all their information on one screen, even the ones being played simultaneously, all on one screen.
Adjust your picks: Switch your selection of winning teams, right up to the last second of a game. Remember, the sooner you choose the correct winner, the more points you earn.
Notifications: Easily toggle notifications on or off for alerts, from “Games about to start in 5 minutes” or “Your team is losing with 5 minutes left in the game” And just in case you don’t switch a losing team and pick the winner, it conveniently reminds you that “Your bracket needs attention” – telling you that one of your teams lost and didn’t make it to the next round and you have to adjust your bracket.
SpeedBrackets’ Men’s College Basketball 2019 Championship app is currently available for free download from the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android). Please visit (https://speedbrackets.com/) to learn all about SpeedBrackets and how to take your fantasy sports experience to the next level.
TCL Tips-Off College Basketball Tournament with The Final 4K Madness Giveaway
TCL®, one of the world’s best-selling and America’s fastest-growing television brands, announced it is giving away 4K TVs each week of March during the 2019 college basketball tournament. The TCL Final 4K Madness Giveaway will feature a simple point of entry for hoops enthusiasts while offering dedicated fans several ways to improve their chances of winning a 55-inch 4K TV.
Beginning today until March 29, each week a winner will be randomly selected among fans who have entered here or through TCL’s social media sites*. One 55-inch 4K TCL Roku TV™ with HDR will be given away each week, for a total of four winners.
“With out-of-the-box stunning picture, our award-winning TCL Roku TVs gives fans access to college basketball games and a perfect centerpiece to enjoy the tournament at home,” said Chris Larson, Senior Vice President, TCL North America. “Everyone should have an opportunity to enjoy our lineup of popular TVs and the Final 4K Madness Giveaway is a fun and easy way for fans to win a viewing experience that’s second to none.”
TCL’s 4K Roku TVs are packed with options for basketball fans to catch all their favorite college and pro teams from home with access to subscription services that provide out-of-market games, live and on-demand streaming through your cable or satellite provider, as well as free channels with sports highlights and live games for those without cable subscriptions. Remaining loyal to cord cutters, TCL TVs were designed to include a TV tuner and offer access to popular network TV and live sports in high definition over the air at no additional cost**.
In addition to the premium basketball lineup and content schedule, the award-winning 4K TCL Roku TV puts all your entertainment favorites in one place, allowing seamless access to over 500,000 movies and TV episodes, your cable box, gaming console, and other devices through a clean, intuitive interface in a sleek modern design.
Fans can enter the Final 4K Madness Giveaway throughout the month of March and winners will be announced on: Friday, March 8th; Friday, March 15th; Friday, March 22nd; and Friday, March 29th at 5:00pm PT.
*TCL USA on Facebook and YouTube, TCL_USA on Instagram and Twitter, TCL Newsletter.
** Antenna for high-definition broadcast reception each sold separately
