Basketball Betting Online

Online betting fever is rampant in America, particularly in March when everybody, from students through to office goers gets onto the net to places a bet. Millions of dollars are gambled illegally as the FBI estimates that over $2.5 billion are wagered on the NCAA tournament with only $80 million betting done legally.

The estimate from the FBI is probably just the tip of the iceberg as independent observers believe that the amount being wagered on basketball is much higher. They may be right because in 2003, 1.6 million bets were placed on the NCAA tourney through wagering outlets. The value of this bets was $96 million.

Most of the betting today is being done online, and the average size of the best is about $50. This is quite large by any standards; we believe that this is because it is much easier to place a bet on an online site. The majority of people do not like waiting for a bookie to pick up the phone, and identify him whereas he can simply go online, and place a wager also there is no one to ask him uncomfortable questions.

On an average, the March Madness fans spend around 1.5 hours every week on the net, seeking information about basketball games or placing bets. A Google search for words like bet, NCAA and basketball threw up as many as 342,000 different betting-related sites. Clearly, basketball betting has gone through the roof.

Most of these sites lure potential betters by promising inside information. The stakes are very high, and sometimes-even teams agree to perform poorly because they have been offered a good amount to lose the match. This turns the fun sport into a spoiled sport.

The NCAA has strict rules regarding leakage of inside information by basketball officials. But the lure of easy money is too high. This can be seen from a university of Michigan study done in 2000. The study, which quizzed basketball and football, sports officials found the following:

   1. More than 84 percent admitted they had gambled since becoming an official
   2. Forty percent of those responding said they had bet on sports.
   3. Almost 23 percent said they had wagered on the NCAA Tournament
   4. Twelve of the 640 admitted knowing an official who had called a game

Potentially, in epidemic proportions, online betting has become a dangerous phenomenon that has started to affect student behavior as well as office behavior. Statistics clearly demonstrate that nearly every office has a basketball pool and the majority of employees in offices, go on the net during office hours to place bets.