Over $2 Billion and Counting for our Schools

NH Lottery Expects Record-Setting Sports Betting Volume on Men’s College Basketball Tournament

3/15/2023
 

Concord, NH – The New Hampshire Lottery is projecting record levels of wagering on this year’s NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, which begins in earnest with first-round games tomorrow, Thursday, March 16. Last year, New Hampshire players placed more than 300,000 bets topping $23 million over the three-week tournament and the New Hampshire Lottery expects to exceed those totals this year. The tournament has historically been the largest sustained sports betting event each year since sports betting began in New Hampshire in late 2019.

Even before filling out brackets, New Hampshire players have already placed nearly 200,000 wagers totaling more than $32 million on college basketball this month alone between the NCAA national tournament and conference tournaments, which concluded this past weekend.

“From the conference tournaments through the championship game on April 3, there is no shortage of excitement,” said Charlie McIntyre, Executive Director, New Hampshire Lottery. “The NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament is the perfect opportunity for sports fans to experience the thrill of sports betting. And at the New Hampshire Lottery, we are especially excited about the revenue March Madness helps us send to New Hampshire schools.”

DraftKings’ Johnny Avello, who has spent more than 30 years as an oddsmaker in Las Vegas, expects the momentum of the tournament to fuel busy betting throughout the weekend as the first and second rounds of the tournament get underway.

“Every year, we see nail-biting drama and Cinderella stories that set the perfect stage for sports betting, whether you’re new to the game or a master of the odds,” Avello said. “Even though this is one of the biggest sports betting events of the year, we’re always amazed by the enthusiasm of fans getting in on the action.”

While DraftKings is constantly expanding betting opportunities for the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, Avello offered a number of tips and insights for keeping the experience fun and simple:

  • Find your Cinderella. Avello suggested doing some extra research to find a team or two who might have what it takes to surprise the field for a game or two. “I think you can find a couple teams where maybe the oddsmakers are disregarding them a bit,” Avello said. “There are some teams oddsmakers just aren’t as familiar with.”

  • Pick your favorite. Particularly if players are newer to sports betting, Avello suggested picking a team or two on a future book that they can hopefully root for over several games. “Look at a favorite like a Houston or an Alabama or maybe look a bit deeper to a team like Marquette, who is playing really well right now,” Avello said. Pick a couple games early. This Thursday and Friday features the most volume of action with a total of 32 games taking place over the first two days. Avello suggested trying to do a deeper dive on one or two of the first-round matchups and making a bet against the point spread or the game’s outcome. Keep it simple. Players can bet not just on game outcomes and point spreads, but on any number of prop bets, such as total score, individual player stats, first team to score a certain amount and more. But if a player is newer to sports betting, it can be easier and more fun to just zero in on a match up or two and bet against the spread or on the outcome, Avello said.

In addition to mobile sports betting via the DraftKings Sportsbook app, New Hampshire players can place bets at three retail sportsbook locations–DraftKings Sportsbook at The Brook in Seabrook, and DraftKings Sportsbook at Filotimo in Manchester and Dover.

Since the New Hampshire Lottery and DraftKings launched mobile sports betting in New Hampshire on December 30, 2019, bettors have wagered more than $2 billion. As of January 2023, players have placed more than 13.2 million wagers totaling more than $537 million this fiscal year.

New Hampshire residents can download the DraftKings Sportsbook app to place wagers through DraftKings, the exclusive digital operator in New Hampshire. Sports fans can place bets on the DraftKings Sportsbook app via iOS and Android or online at Sportsbook.DraftKings.com. Together, DraftKings and the New Hampshire Lottery take responsible gaming seriously and the state-of-the-art app offers consumers a number of responsible gaming tools including limit setting, cooling-off periods, and self-exclusion.

For more information and to download the app, visit: https://nhlottery.com/Sports/Mobile-Internet-Sports-Bettinghttp://cd3.campaigndispatch.com/link.php?M=2073566&N=7039&L=16418&F=H.