EDITORIAL: March Madness means money

March Madness isn’t contained to your TV set. As it does every year in Las Vegas, the NCAA Tournament has taken over the town, with thousands of tourists flooding sports books and plopping down basketfuls of their hard-earned cash on their favorite teams.

The growth of March betting on college basketball has exploded over the past two-plus decades, primarily because of the NCAA Tournament. In 1991, basketball brought in a statewide handle of about $110.4 million for the month of March; in March 2014, it was a whopping $343.4 million, more than three times as much. Just in the past four years, the March handle has increased by $87 million.

Granted, those numbers include professional basketball betting, but the Nevada Gaming Control Board has been told anecdotally that about 70 percent of the basketball volume in March comes from college basketball, which last year would have meant about $240.4 million. A fair chunk of that obviously comes from the NCAA Tournament. The event doesn’t quite rival the popularity of the Super Bowl for bettors — the New England Patriots-Seattle Seahawks clash on Feb. 1 had a total handle of about $116 million — but it’s getting closer.

“The handle for the whole tournament is still behind the Super Bowl, but it’s definitely closer than most people think,” said Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports for the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook. Mr. Kornegay added that the bulk of tournament wagering comes during the frenetic first four days, when 48 of the event’s 63 games are contested. “Fifty-seven percent of the total handle comes during the first weekend.”

Mr. Kornegay’s assessment is backed up by statistics from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Numbers for this year aren’t yet available, but in 2014, the first weekend of March Madness was the second-busiest weekend of the entire year, according to the LVCVA. The hotel occupancy rate was at 98.2 percent for the city’s 150,000 rooms.

And beyond the betting, the tournament creates an incredible nongaming economic impact, with all the eating, drinking and other forms of entertainment basketball fans take in. In fact, the entire month of March provides a sports-centric revenue bounce for the region. In 2014, the top three occupancy-rate weekends were all in March: No. 1 was NASCAR at 98.6 percent, No. 2 was March Madness’ first weekend, and No. 3 was the weekend between those two events, when the city hosted three college conference basketball tournaments.

It’s more proof that nobody hosts a party as well as Las Vegas, and that if sports fans can’t attend a big event in person, the next best place to be is here.