Vegas Says Who Will Win the NCAA Tournament

5 top teams combined have 50% chance to win. Bottom 17 teams have a combined 1% chance!

Las Vegas, Nevada (March 18, 2009) – Las Vegas odds, properly analyzed, tells us what the betting experts think of each team’s chances in the 2009 NCAA tournament. RJ Bell of Pregame.com breaks down the true meaning of the odds:

The five top teams in order of likelihood to win the tournament are: North Carolina (15%); Pittsburgh (11%); Louisville (10%); U Conn (8%); Memphis (6%). Note that the combined percentages of the top 5 teams add up to 50%.

RJ Bell of Pregame.com said: “An interesting question to ask is whether the five favored teams have a better chance of cutting down the nets than all other teams in the tournament?”

The bottom 17 teams in the tournament have a combined chance of less than 1% of winning it all! This means the average odds against winning a championship for each of those 17 teams (25% of the field) is 1700-1 against. So much for the myth of Cinderella!

Details: the odds stated above have been adjusted through a proprietary Pregame.com formula to remove the commission charged by sportsbooks. Without this adjustment, the odds against a result are understated substantially (often upwards of 50%). For example, an event whose true odds are 10-1 against will be incorrectly stated as 7-1 against (the difference is the commission charged by the sportsbook). As a result, there is an overstatement of the chances of the event happening. The failure of nearly all widely circulated odds to account for this adjustment makes the numbers unreliable and misleading.

What are the odds of a perfect bracket?
http://pregame.com/forums/blogs/rj-bell/archive/2009/03/15/perfect-march-madness-bracket-the-odds.aspx?gn=525735

For all of RJ Bell’s unique March Madness reporting, visit: http://pregame.com/forums/blogs/rj-bell/default.aspx

MEDIA NOTE: Print, radio, TV, and Internet media should feel free to quote any information above. Please attribute: RJ Bell of Pregame.com. For follow-up questions, or media appearances - email: rjbell@pregame.com

RJ Bell of Pregame.com is the only sports bettor on Forbes’ recent list of Gambling Gurus and has been called “a true insider” by ESPN, “incredibly astute” by AOL and a “point-spread maven” by USA Today. Mr. Bell has been featured on CBS News with Katie Couric, ABC News with Charles Gibson, Nightline, Sportscenter, Outside the Lines (ESPN), First Take (ESPN2), Mike & Mike, Colin Cowherd, Jim Rome, Dan Patrick, ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, Yahoo, CNN.com and in the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, LA Times, Newsweek.com, Bloomberg, Maxim, and Sports Illustrated. Pregame.com is the largest sports betting news website compliant with US Law.

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