The secondary sports betting market website is asking sellers to pay back buyers who purchased NCAA Tournament futures that are now virtually worthless.
NCAA Tournament
The NCAA canceled its basketball tournaments and all other remaining championship events on Thursday in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Nevada sportsbooks won $36.5 million on basketball in March 2019 from $498.7 million in bets, with an estimated $349 million from the NCAA Tournament.
The NCAA decided to not only cancel its men’s and women’s basketball championships, but all remaining winter and spring championships because of the spread of coronavirus.
Several college basketball conference tournaments have been canceled moments before tipoff, putting the NCAA Tournament at risk.
The casino is monitoring developments with the coronavirus, but its 1,500-seat auditorium will be open for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Filling out an NCAA Tournament bracket figures to be more maddening than ever this year with no dominant college basketball team to be found.
The lack of mobile wagering and a ban on betting on California colleges and universities could prevent Nevada sportsbooks from facing crushing competition.
The NCAA will start accepting bids Monday on nearly two dozen sports championships. This is the first year that Las Vegas is eligible to bid after the governing body for college sports indefinitely suspended a ban last year that prevented events from being hosted in states that accept wagers on single games.
Las Vegas took one step closer Friday to landing major college postseason events such as the Final Four men’s basketball tournament and the College Football Playoff National Championship.
An estimated $346.6 million was wagered at Nevada sportsbooks on the NCAA Tournament in March.
Redemption ultimately came for the Cavaliers, who officially exorcised all their demons with a 85-77 victory in overtime before 72,062 at U.S. Bank Stadium, completing arguably one the most implausible 12-month comebacks in the event’s history.
Led by De’Andre Hunter and his NBA-ready game, Virginia held off a tenacious Texas Tech team for an 85-77 overtime win — a scintillating victory that came 388 days after a crushing setback that might have sunk a lesser team for years.
The Cavaliers are 1½-point favorites at MGM Resorts and South Point sportsbooks but the line is 1 everywhere else.
The Cavaliers and Red Raiders meet for a championship Monday night at U.S. Bank Stadium and if you believe the narrative that defense equals boring, the assumption is you either won’t watch or fall asleep doing so.
LISTEN TO THE TOP FIVE HERE