There were no games played in Atlantic City last week, but “March Madness” still filled the Ocean Casino Resort sportsbook for the first two rounds of the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball championship tournaments.
“It was great. It was very exciting, lots of energy,” reported Patrick Glose, Ocean’s sportsbook director. “The tournament brings in full-day crowds, especially for those first three games; people spend the whole time in the book.”
According to Glose, the first three days of the annual elimination tournaments are the biggest draw. “We get a lot of people for those first three days. Sunday is where it drops off. But it really seems like people like to book hotel rooms and stay Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night. So even though it is a Thursday, it seems like people are taking off work and prioritizing ‘March Madness.’”
The NCAA tourney, of course, follows by less than two months the Super Bowl, which is, well, the Super Bowl of sports-wagering action. Each, explained Glose, has its own patterns.
“In terms of [overall amounts wagered], the Super Bowl is bigger as a single day in terms of transactions. But ‘March Madness’ is bigger. During [the NCAAs] we get lots of small bets. Everyone is picking each game, potentially hedging their brackets, things like that. So, in terms of volume of transactions, March Madness is number-one by far. But in terms of just dollars bet, the Super Bowl is the biggest.”
As with football games, bettors aren’t limited to wagering on the final outcomes of games. Basketball betting also includes proposition — commonly known as “prop” — bets, which can cover such specific aspects of a game as which player will score the most points, which one will be the first to foul out, which team (or player) will attempt the most three-point shots and myriad other situations. Glose, who noted his sportsbook takes prop bets on men’s games, but not women’s, described such wagers as an increasingly popular element of sports betting.
“There is a lot of demand for those,” he said. “And in the years that I’ve been doing this, the number of in-game parlays that we see has increased each year.”
“Basketball lends itself very well to [prop bets] because you have so many frequent score changes and so much action going on, especially compared to a sport like hockey, where there’s only a couple goals scored a game. With basketball, there’s so many more opportunities to either play a hot hand or hedge against what you’ve already bet.
“So, basketball is probably number-one in terms of most in-play wagers.”
Despite the NCAA tournament’s high-level of popularity, Glose indicated that the interest level has peaked, at least in terms of his operation.
“We typically see a little bit of a drop off into the next weekend, even though the games are more important,” he offered. “I think that there is the most excitement around that opening week when you have 64 teams and three games on at a time. But we still expect to fill our book and sell out our room, for those evening games.
“But definitely the first weekend is where we see the most action. Everyone’s bracket is still perfect at the beginning, right? It’s funny how sometimes when your bracket gets busted, you lose your interest in the tournament. So, definitely the first weekend is the biggest.”
That said, Glose insisted one shouldn’t expect crickets and tumbleweeds in the Fanatics Sportsbook — which is located in the space known as The Gallery Bar Book Games — for the “Sweet Sixteen” and “Elite Eight” rounds which commence tonight and culminate Sunday with the identifications of the four teams that will play for the men’s national championship in Indianapolis April beginning April 4 (with the title game set for April 6). The women’s Final Four tips off April 3 in Phoenix with the title game scheduled for April 5.
While the prime sports-betting season concludes with the men’s championship game, Glose and his crew still have plenty on their agenda.
“We’ll get an initial rush for the opening day of baseball with people putting in their futures bets,” he advised. “And that’s also when we get into the NBA and NHL playoffs.”
Interestingly, he continued, the summer months will bring added action and excitement thanks to two other sports.
“The thing that’s really sustained wagering and excitement for us recently has actually been [Ultimate Fighting Championship] and boxing events during the summer. Those weekends where we have headlining pay-per-view fights [constitute] our largest action during the months of June, July and August, after all the other sports are done except baseball.”
Which means they’ll be no rest for the weary at the Ocean betting parlor.
“There’s always a sport, right?” asked Glose with a chuckle. “We’re always working.”
Chuck Darrow has spent more than 40 years writing about Atlantic City casinos.
