There’s nothing worse than a bad beat. A player dribbles down the court with the game already decided and your UNDER bet looking locked up — then they huck up a shot for no reason. As the ball swishes through the net, the outcome of the game doesn’t change but your betting win just became a loss.
March Madness bad beats can be tragic, but this year we found a way to turn them around. For the Sportsbook round of the NCAA Tournament, we partnered with [Sportsbook not available for your region] to create odds for the number of bad beats.
Below you can find those odds, a breakdown of how we suggested to bet on the market, and a tracker of the bad beats for the Round of 64. Lock in your March Madness bets at the button below:
If you’re looking for our best bets, check out our NCAAB Computer Picks page. For more information on the various ways to bet on the NCAA Tournament, check out our How to Bet on March Madness page. For the latest odds to win the tournament, keep it locked on our NCAA title odds article.
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2022 March Madness Bad Beats Recap: R64
Cal State Fullerton Backdoor Cover
Duke’s Theo John made a tip with 10 seconds left. The basket should’ve been the last one of a game that was long over, but instead the Cal State Fullerton Titans drove the ball up the court in six seconds and Dante Maddox Jr. slammed home a dunk. The two points didn’t matter to the ultimate score, finalizing the game at 78-61 for the Blue Devils, but it ruined a Duke -18 cover. What a bad beat to start off the tournament.
Wisconsin Can’t Cover
Colgate over Wisconsin was a trendy moneyline bet in the Sportsbook round of this year’s March Madness. Though the Raiders held tight in the first half, the Badgers ultimately pulled away, entering the last few seconds set up to win and cover.
After Wisconsin’s Johnny Davis hit two free throws to ice the game, Colgate’s Nelly Cummings had other ideas. A layup with five seconds left helped Colgate pull off a +7.5 cover and ruin the day for Badger bettors.
Davidson Pulls Close
With 26 seconds left, this game was over. Michigan State was shooting free throws up six, set to move on and easily cover a 2-point spread. Then, the Spartan cover slipped away. In the final seconds, MSU missed a free throw and Davidson drained two Hail Mary three-pointers to claw back a cover, handing Spartan bettors a bad beat.
Below, check out the odds for the March Madness bad beats ahead of the Sportsbook round. And check back next year to turn the bad beats into profit once again!
Sportsbook Round: March Madness Bad Beat Odds
| Winning Bet | Odds |
|---|---|
| 0 | +110 |
| 1 | +215 |
| 2 | +550 |
| 3 | +800 |
| 4 | +900 |
| 5 | +1200 |
| 6+ | +1400 |
Odds as of March 17 at [Sportsbook not available for your region]
According to [Sportsbook not available for your region]’s bad beat odds, it could be a good Sportsbook round of betting for college basketball handicappers. The March Madness bad beat odds favorite is 0, at +110, implying a 47.62 percent chance that there won’t be a single bad beat in the Round of 64 this year.
Our Best Bet For March Madness Bad Beat Odds:
In these one-of-a-kind odds, we see some value in betting on an underdog. While zero is the favorite, we all know it’s inevitable that there will be a random buzzer-beater or backdoor cover in the Sportsbook round.
Just looking at last year, we have some recent history to back up our bet. Depending on the lines you used, there was at least one bad beat in the first round of last year’s NCAAB Tournament. In the Sportsbook-round contest between Eastern Washington and Kansas, Jacob Davison hucked up a jump shot that swished through the basket to snag a backdoor 10.5-point cover for the Eagles. The bucket pushed the score to 93-84 and crushed the hearts of all Kansas spread bettors.
There’s likely to be a similar heartbreaking bad beat in this Round of 64, but now we can profit off it.
The Pick: 1 Bad Beat +215
What Is A March Madness Bad Beat?
A bad beat can be any game that, at its conclusion, sees a dramatic shift in the result of the OVER/UNDER bet or the spread outcome. This last-second basket would push a point total OVER or change the spread result of a game, costing many bettors in the process.
For these March Madness odds, we have a very specific definition of a bad beat. Here’s the direct explanation from [Sportsbook not available for your region] for what bad beats will count in this wager:
"Games with teams from the First Four do not count towards wager. For this wager a 'Bad Beat' is defined as if the last basket is scored with 5.0 seconds or less in the game and that score would cause any of the Sportsbook Spreads or Totals wagers to change from a winning wager to a losing wager."
How To Bet On March Madness Bad Beat Odds
Just like any kind of tournament-long NCAAB prop, these March Madness bad beat odds give you the opportunity to bet on an aspect of the games that won’t directly impact the Sportsbook.
Props are any bets that may or may not directly correlate to the outcome of a single game. Let’s say you want to bet on this bad beats prop; odds at the sportsbook would look something like this:
| Winning Bet | Odds |
|---|---|
| 0 | -200 |
| 1 | +160 |
If you believe there will be zero bad beats and you lay down $100, you’d get a payout of $150 – your original money is returned along with your winnings of $50.
That same $100 on one bad beat to win would give you $260 – you get your $100 back, coupled with your prize of $160.
Our Odds Calculator will tell you what you’d win based on the March Madness prop odds and amount you bet.
