The March Madness selection committee may have installed the Auburn Tigers as the No. 1 overall seed, but oddsmakers have the Duke Blue Devils favored to cut down the nets — even with Cooper Flagg’s injury status up in the air after hurting his ankle last week in the ACC tournament.
Duke is the favorite or co-favorite to win the national championship at sportsbooks across the country, listed at +350 odds at BetMGM (along with Florida at +350). No. 1 seeds Auburn (+425) and Houston (+625) are the only other teams with title odds shorter than 10-1 at BetMGM, followed by 2-seeds Alabama at 16-1 and Tennessee at 18-1.
Three separate oddsmakers said they had Duke as their top power-rated team heading into the tournament, assuming Flagg was healthy.
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“Cooper Flagg’s health is a question mark but we expect action to pour in on Duke if Flagg can play,” BetMGM college basketball trader Seamus Magee said in a release. “Along with Duke, Florida and Michigan State are teams we don’t want to cut down the nets.”
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Auburn (7%) and Michigan State (6.9%) have the second- and third-most wagers at BetMGM, and Florida (15.4%) has the second-most money wagered to win the national championship, in part due to the biggest reported futures wager at any sportsbook: A $100,000 wager at BetMGM placed on March 6 on Florida at +900 odds. Duke has the most bets (13.5%) and total dollars wagered (23%) of any team at BetMGM and several other sportsbooks around the country.
However, regional biases remain and different books will have differing liabilities depending on geographic location. St. John’s, Florida and Auburn are also three teams that many books will be cheering for an early tourney exit.
“We’re definitely rooting against St. John’s,” Thomas Gable, the BetMGM sportsbook director at The Borgata in New Jersey, told Yahoo Sports. “They’ve been extremely popular and we have a lot of liability on them. They were 50-1 through the vast majority of the season and 25-1 going into the conference tournament. We do have liability on Duke.”
Down in Biloxi, Mississippi, Carl Johnson, the BetMGM sportsbook director at The Beau Rivage, has taken the most title bets and money on Auburn, with Florida No. 2 and Duke third. “Anyone but Auburn will be OK with us,” Johnson told Yahoo Sports on Monday morning.
And out in the desert in Las Vegas, Chris Andrews, the sportsbook director at The South Point, said he’ll be rooting against Florida, Arizona and St. John’s to cut down the nets. “Those teams are the only real exposures,” he told Yahoo Sports.
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Here are some other notable futures wagers, sorted by sportsbook:
Caesars
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$1,000 on Georgia at 750-1 odds to win the national championship for a potential $750,000 win
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$300 on UC-San Diego at 1,000-1 odds
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$10,000 on Houston at 22-1 odds
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$30,000 on Auburn at +350 odds
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$10,000 on UConn at +900 odds
BetMGM
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$100,000 on Florida at +900 odds to win the national championship for a potential $900,000 win
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$2,000 on St. John’s at 50-1 odds
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$1,000 on Missouri at 125-1 odds
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$400 on Michigan State at 500-1 odds
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