March Madness lived up to its moniker last season, with a No. 16 seed winning, Ivy League representative Princeton making it to the Sweet 16 as a No. 15 seed, and not a single No. 1 seed reaching the Elite Eight for the first time ever.
However, when the dust settled, it was the UConn Huskies — the early season March Madness odds favorite to win that fell apart midseason and then pulled it together when it mattered most — who completed their journey to win their fifth National Championship in school history.
It wasn’t the final we were expecting, with the No. 4 Huskies toppling fifth-seeded San Diego State, but our path to the title game still delivered plenty to talk about throughout March and April.
With Selection Sunday in the rearview, March Madness futures and college basketball odds currently have the Huskies favored to repeat in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Check out their odds — plus who some of the other favorites are — with a look at 2024 March Madness odds below.
March Madness odds
| Team |  |
|
|---|---|---|
 Connecticut Huskies |
+420 | +425 |
 Houston Cougars |
+550 | +500 |
 Purdue Boilermakers |
+600 | +700 |
 Arizona Wildcats |
+1,500 | +1,600 |
 Auburn Tigers |
+1,600 | +1,800 |
 Tennessee Volunteers |
+1,800 | +1,600 |
 North Carolina Tar Heels |
+1,900 | +1,400 |
 Iowa State Cyclones |
+2,000 | +2,000 |
 Marquette Golden Eagles |
+3,000 | +2,500 |
 Illinois Fighting Illini |
+3,000 | +3,500 |
 Kentucky Wildcats |
+3,000 | +2,200 |
 Kansas Jayhawks |
+3,200 | +4,000 |
 Creighton Bluejays |
+3,200 | +3,000 |
 Duke Blue Devils |
+3,500 | +3,000 |
 Baylor Bears |
+3,500 | +3,500 |
 Alabama Crimson Tide |
+4,500 | +4,000 |
Odds as of March 17, 2024.
The Connecticut Huskies have the shortest odds to win the 2024 NCAA Tournament at +425, followed by the Houston Cougars at +500 and Purdue Boilermakers at +700.
March Madness favorites
UConn Huskies (+420 to +425)
After coasting to a comfortable 76-59 victory in the National Championship against San Diego State, the UConn Huskies are tied atop the board in the latest March Madness odds.
The Big East juggernauts saw both Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins depart for the NBA during the offseason. However, Dan Hurley has freshmen Donovan Clingan and Alex Karaban back while Andre Jackson Jr. returns as a senior.
The No. 2 Huskies finished the regular season at 28-3, with only two teams managing to eclipse 80+ points against the defending champs. After thumping Xavier 87-60 on Thursday and taking out St. John’s 95-90, UConn took down No. 10 Marquette to claim its first Big East title since 2011.
Selection Sunday saw them claim the No. 1 seed in the East Region, with that first-round matchup coming against No. 16 Stetson.
Houston Cougars (+500 to +550)
Under head coach Kelvin Sampson, the No. 1 Houston Cougars are looking to avenge last year’s premature elimination in the Sweet Sixteen.
Winners of 11 straight, the Cougars are buoyed offensively by point guard L.J. Cryer (15.6 ppg) and boast the best defensive rating in the nation.
The Cougars did fall in the Big 12 title game (69-41 blowout loss to Iowa State) but got their hands on the South Region’s top seed. They’ll play No. 16 Longwood on Friday.
Purdue Boilermakers (+600 to +700)
Last season, the Purdue Boilermakers went 29-6 and captured the Big Ten Conference Tournament title. However, they were on the wrong side of history come March when they were upset by Farleigh Dickinson in Round 1.
Led by 7-foot-4 senior Zach Edey (24.3 points per game, 11.8 rebounds per game), the No. 3-ranked Boilermakers defeated seven Top-25 programs during the regular season. Despite falling short in the semifinal round of the Big Ten tournament, Edey & Co. are as battle-tested as anyone heading into the madness.
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2024 March Madness line movement
Here’s a look at how the opening March Madness odds plot out longitudinally. Stay tuned as we update this graph throughout the season!
Where can I bet on March Madness?
March Madness is one of the busiest times of the year for online sportsbooks and is very popular with bettors. Every betting site will offer March Madness odds, but the best sites are safe and secure, offer a wide range of banking options, and give you a ton of markets for each game. Check out the best March Madness betting sites in your region.
What is March Madness?
March Madness refers to the annual NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, which takes place in March and April. It is one of the most popular sporting events in the United States and involves 68 college basketball teams from across the country competing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion.
The tournament begins with Selection Sunday, which takes place on the second Sunday in March, where the teams are announced and the tournament brackets are revealed. The first round, also known as the First Four, takes place on the Tuesday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday. The main tournament, consisting of 64 teams, then begins on the Thursday and Friday of the first full week of March.
The teams are divided into four regions, each containing 16 teams, and are seeded based on their regular-season records and performance in their respective conference tournaments. The teams then compete in a series of games, with the winners advancing to the next round and the losers being eliminated.
The tournament culminates with the Final Four, which takes place on the first weekend of April, where the remaining four teams compete in two semifinal games, with the winners advancing to the championship game to determine the national champion. Check out our Final Four odds page to see which teams are most likely to advance to the NCAA Tournament’s semifinal round.
March Madness odds explained
Sportsbooks will post odds for the NCAA men’s basketball championship as early as the summer before the season starts. These odds are constantly adjusted throughout the offseason as players get hurt, suspended, or are traded. Once the season begins in November, title odds will change as often as daily as teams win and lose games and as players get hurt or suspended. Sportsbooks will also adjust the March Madness futures odds based on handle and liability to certain teams.
March Madness futures odds will usually look like this:
This means that on a $100 bet, you’ll stand to win $550 if the Aztecs win the NCAA men’s basketball title. If it’s close to the end of the regular season or even during the tournament and college basketball has a very dominant team, you might see that a team has a minus sign (-) ahead of its odds.
This means that you would need to bet $120 to win $100 on a UConn championship.
Above we have posted the American odds for March Madness futures. However, these are easy to convert to decimal odds or fractional odds with our odds converter tool.
How to bet college basketball futures
Learning how to successfully bet on March Madness is one of the hardest things to do in sports betting. The lose-and-go-home format of the NCAA Finals and the fact that a school needs to win six straight games against quality opponents means that the favorites don’t always take home the title.
Another factor that comes into play is that the tournament bracket isn’t set until Selection Sunday. As the college basketball season winds down, you can be pretty sure that the big favorites will slide into the bracket as top seeds. But for teams in the middle of the pack, nothing is certain.
As always when betting futures odds, be sure to look into injuries and suspensions. You might find some current value in a team that is expecting to get a key player back before March Madness begins.
Where can I find March Madness spreads?
Check out our college basketball scores and matchups page daily to see the latest college basketball lines. In addition to March Madness spreads, total, and moneyline info, you’ll also find game previews, betting trends, line movement history, and ATS and O/U consensus data for every March Madness game. We don’t sleep until the nets are cut down.
Past March Madness winners
| Year | Champion | Opening odds | Runner-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Kentucky | +550 | Kansas |
| 2013 | Louisville* | +800 | Michigan |
| 2014 | Connecticut | +7,000 | Kentucky |
| 2015 | Duke | +1,000 | Wisconsin |
| 2016 | Villanova | +2,000 | North Carolina |
| 2017 | North Carolina | +2,400 | Gonzaga |
| 2018 | Villanova | +1,200 | Michigan |
| 2019 | Virginia | +1,800 | Texas Tech |
| 2020 | No tournament (COVID-19) | NA | NA |
| 2021 | Baylor | +800 | Gonzaga |
| 2022 | Kansas | +2,000 | North Carolina |
| 2023 | Connecticut | +1,600 | San Diego State |
March Madness trends
• Of the 20 teams that have entered the tournament with undefeated records, only seven have gone on to win the national championship.
• Only 13 teams successfully defended their national championship the following season.
• UCLA has the most NCAA titles of all time (11), although the Bruins have not won the tournament since 1995.
• A No. 1 seeded team has won the national championship 59.1% of the time since regional seeding was introduced in 1979.
Best March Madness betting promos
Betting boosts are special promotions offered by legal sports betting sites that increase the odds for a specific game, event, or prop, designed to give you better value on your bets or encourage you to sign up for a new sportsbook with unique rewards and offerings.
They can be a great way for bettors to get better value for their wagers, as the odds are temporarily increased, thereby increasing a potential payout. The promotions are usually limited to a specific period and are subject to terms and conditions, so it’s always important to read the fine print for more details.
Types of odds boosts
There are a number of different types of betting boosts available, with some targeting specific games, some aimed at specific leagues, and some just enticing users to try a new sportsbook. Here are the most common types of betting boosts:
- Odds boost: When a sportsbook enhances the value of a specifically chosen player prop or a curated parlay/SGP, offering better odds than if you normally bet or created the wager yourself.
- Profit boosts: When you are given a token that increases the value of any bet you want (such as a 25% boost on one Super Bowl bet). Sometimes these tokens are for all bets, while sometimes they have specific criteria (such parlays/SGPs only or bets above a certain price).
- Sign-up offers: Operators offer benefits such as free bonus bets after your first wager, bonus bets offered as insurance if your first bet loses, an initial account deposit match, or even giving you discounts on other services for signing up with a sportsbook.
Take advantage of our best March Madness betting promos — from our best March Madness betting sites — to see if any other promotions appear that you can place a wager on!
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March Madness Title Odds FAQs
The UConn Huskies are the current favorites at +450.
The UConn Huskies won March Madness in 2023, defeating San Diego State 76-59 in the National Championship.
The term “March Madness” was originally used to describe the excitement and frenzy surrounding the Illinois High School Association’s annual basketball tournament in the 1930s. However, the term became more widely associated with the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament in the 1980s. The term “March Madness” is believed to have been coined by Brent Musburger, a CBS sportscaster, during the network’s coverage of the tournament in 1982. Musburger used the term to describe the unpredictability and excitement of the tournament, as well as the intense emotions and high stakes involved in each game. The term quickly caught on with fans and has been used ever since to describe the annual tournament. Today, March Madness has become a cultural phenomenon and a highly anticipated event for basketball fans across the United States.
The UConn Huskies currently have the best odds to win the 2024 NCAA Tournament at +550 across most books.
Calculating March Madness odds involves assessing the probability of different outcomes in the tournament. Oddsmakers use various factors including team performance, player health, head-to-head matchups, tournament experience, coaching, venue, and advanced statistics. Bookmakers use these factors to set initial odds, and as bets are placed, odds may shift based on the money wagered on each side.
The Duke Blue Devils’ March Madness odds are +2,200, meaning they have an implied probability of 4.3% of winning the tournament.
