NCAA March Madness Betting Could Top $2.7B: What WI Allows

WISCONSIN — Residents of Wisconsin will have to drive to Iowa if they want to place wagers online during NCAA March Madness, which industry experts expect to result in $2.7 billion in wagers nationwide.

Sports wagering is now legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia. Online betting is legal in most but not all of them. About a dozen states prohibit betting on college games involving home-state teams. Four New England states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont — make exceptions for tournaments. And Maryland and Ohio ban bets on how many points, rebounds or assists a particular player puts on the board.

In Wisconsin, online or mobile betting remains illegal. But sports gamblers can place wagers at the Oneida Casino in Green Bay and the Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee.

Wisconsin teams whose tickets were punched for the big dance include UW-Madison and Marquette University. Both teams play their round one game on Friday.

Marquette plays at 1 p.m., and the Badgers play at 8:40 p.m. Friday.

Sports betting has expanded since 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on state laws that allowed for sports betting

Betting on all sports totaled $121 billion in 2023, an increase of 30 percent from 2022, according to the American Gaming Association. Sportsbooks saw about $11 billion in revenue last year, up from about $7.5 billion in 2022, the group said.

David Foreman, vice president of research for the American Gaming Association, told The Associated Press that March Madness is the biggest kind of individual event of the year for sports betting

The Super Bowl also draws big bets, but it's only one game between two NFL teams. The NCAA Division 1 men's and women's basketball tournaments feature 136 teams playing 134 games over three weeks.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.