Congratulations, Purdue, you’re off the hook. There’s a new biggest loser when it comes to the 2023 NCAA Tournament — but this defeat came at the casino and not on the hardwood.
One bettor apparently had quite a bit of confidence in No. 7 Missouri’s matchup with No. 15 Providence in the Round of 32 on Saturday. That turned out to be a costly mistake. Literally.
Per Ben Fawkes of ESPN, one gambler placed a $344,126 wager on Missouri to defeat Princeton. They also took No. 1 Alabama over No. 8 Maryland on the moneyline as a two-leg parlay.
But because Princeton defeated Missouri 78-63, his bet didn’t reach the second.
Winning that bet would’ve netted this individual $458,834.65 for a total collection of $802,960.65. Instead, it’s more than a quarter-million dollar loss.
If there’s anything we’ve learned about this year’s March Madness tournament, it’s to expect the unexpected. We saw No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson defeat No. 1 Purdue in the opening round. No. 15 Princeton is heading to the Sweet 16. No. 13 Furman upset No. 4 Virginia on Day 1.
So, gamble with caution during the rest of this year’s tournament. We’ve already witnessed a ton of chaos in the first two rounds. We’d be shocked if there isn’t more later.
NCAA Tournament Gets Record Ratings for Round 1
Thanks to chaos the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament produced this year, CBS saw record ratings. Everyone wanted to catch part of the action, as multiple teams pulled thrilling upsets on Thursday and Friday.
The audience for the first round of games — Thursday and Friday — averaged 9.2 million viewers. On Friday, that viewership increased to an average of 9.3 million. CBS says that’s the best first round day, ever.
With several double-digit seeds upsetting highly-seeded teams, this year’s tournament also took a toll on brackets. When Day 2 of March Madness officially ended, there wasn’t a single perfect bracket remaining.
Creating the perfect bracket isn’t an easy thing to accomplish in a normal year. Per the NCAA, the odds of picking a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. In other words, everyone on the planet could fill out more than a billion unique brackets, and only one would be perfect.
Turns out,, those odds are even more ridiculous in 2023. We’ll all still find our confidence again next year when we fill these things out — only to be crushed again by another wild tournament.