Best college basketball betting sites

A board too big to price

Division I has well over three hundred teams. On a busy night a book has to hang a spread and a total on dozens of games, and it does not have a person who has watched every one of those teams. Most books take the market's opening numbers on the small games and let early bets shape them.

So the first thing I'd check is whether a book posts the whole card or only the games people have heard of. The second is when the small-conference lines go up and how much they take on them. Those numbers usually open the night before or early on the day with low limits, and they move as soon as someone who follows that conference bets them. A book that raises its limits as the day goes on is doing it properly. One that keeps you at a token stake on every game outside the big conferences is telling you it doesn't want a player who knows anything.

Halves and live lines

College games are played in two halves, and most books deal a first-half spread and total as well as the full game. For a player who has an opinion on how a team starts, or on a coach who changes things at the break, that is a separate number with its own mistakes in it. I'd want a book that offers it on every game, not only the televised ones.

Live, the last few minutes are where college basketball goes strange. A team that is behind starts fouling, the game stops every few seconds for free throws, and a total that looked dead can go over in a minute of clock. A favorite can lead by 12 with a minute left and win by 6. A live price that hasn't caught up with that is rare, and the book usually suspends the market at those moments anyway. More on how live lines are made is on the live betting page.

Every night is a cost

The real danger in college basketball is volume. There is a game to bet every night, and every bet pays the cut.

Say you bet 10 games a night at $110 to win $100, and you're a good enough handicapper to win exactly half. That is $500 won and $550 lost, so you are down $50 for the night. Do it on 60 nights in a season and you are down $3,000, while picking winners as often as you pick losers. That is the vig doing exactly what it is meant to do, and it does it faster in this sport than in any other.

March

The tournament draws the most casual money of the year, and it comes in on names: the schools people know and the favorites they filled their bracket with. Books know it, and the popular side often costs a little more than it should by the time the game tips. The opening weekend puts dozens of games on the board in four days, and the menu of parlays and props is at its longest.

I'd bet fewer games in March, not more. Pick the ones where you have a real opinion, shop the number at two books, because half a point differs between books more often in college basketball than in the pro game, and put no more than 1 or 2 percent of your bankroll on any one of them. Filling in a bracket for fun costs a few dollars. Betting every game on it doesn't.