BetMGM Promising $10M for Ever-Elusive Perfect NCAA Tourney Bracket

Posted on: March 13, 2023, 07:02h. 

Last updated on: March 15, 2023, 12:43h.

Todd Shriber @etfgodfather Read More
Expertise: Financial, Gaming Business, Mergers and Acquisitions.

It’s the holy grail of sports wagering, and yes, office pool entry fees are considered bets. What is it? The perfect NCAA Tournament bracket, of course.

BetMGM
The NCAA’s March Madness logo. BetMGM promises $10 million to a perfect bracket winner. (Image: Sports Illustrated)

Should anyone accomplish the highly improbable, though not impossible, feat on BetMGM’s free-to-play game this year, the sportsbook operator will reward that contestant with a cool $10 million.

BetMGM mobile customers can compete for a $10 million grand prize by predicting the perfect bracket. The free-to-play contest is available in the BetMGM mobile app, customers can log in to select their bracket entries,” according to a statement issued by the gaming company. “If a perfect bracket is not picked, the player (or players) that accumulate the most points by selecting the most overall correct picks throughout the tournament will be rewarded with up to $100,000 in guaranteed prizes.”

While the tournament pick ‘em game is free to play, BetMGM is leveraging the arrival of March Madness — one of the most wagered-on domestic sporting events — to lure new customers and drive more business from existing clients.

The operator promises new customers up to $1,000 back in bonus wagers if their first bet on the platform is a loser. Likewise, throughout the tournament, “customers will be awarded odds boost tokens, bonus bets, and parlay tokens for select games.”

BetMGM Prize Peanuts Compared to Rival 2022 Offer

No one is going to scoff at $10 million. But the top prize offered by BetMGM is pennies on the dollar compared to the $100 million for a perfect bracket offered by Bally’s last year.

Companies offering lavish prizes for flawless NCAA Tournament brackets can do so because the odds are stacked against contestants. The number of possible outcomes on the bracket is 9.2 quintillion, according to the NCAA.

“If we treated the odds for each game as a coin flip, that makes the odds of picking all 63 games correctly 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Again, this is not a completely accurate representation of the odds, as any knowledge of the sport or tournament’s history improves your chances of picking games,” notes the college athletics governing body.

Think you’re a college basketball expert? That shortens the odds of a perfect bracket to a still daunting 1 in 120.2 billion. Consider this: the odds of winning a Powerball drawing are 1 in 292.2 million.

Other NCAA Tournament Odds, Ends from BetMGM

With last week’s debut in Massachusetts, BetMGM is taking sports wagers in 19 states, Washington, DC, and Ontario, Canada.

As of early Monday, the operator’s biggest liabilities are Kansas, UCLA, and Purdue. In terms of handle percentage, the top three are Kansas, Houston, and UCLA, while the order is the same for the top three in terms of currently processed tickets at BetMGM.

Kansas and UCLA are the top two seeds in the West Region, meaning they may face off with a trip to the Final Four on the line. That would reduce BetMGM’s liability to one of those sides in the process.

BetMGM is evenly controlled by MGM Resorts International and Entain Plc.