18+ College Basketball Betting Guide
From betting on individual games to placing some action on March Madness Tournament odds, college basketball offers many exciting avenues for wagering. If you are 18 years old or over and are interested in learning more about betting on NCAA basketball, then you’ve come to the right place.
Our outline provides a map to help 18+ bettors slam dunk the best bets and wager at the industry’s finest sportsbooks. No college basketball betting guide would be complete without including March Madness odds, and we’ve got all the ins and outs of the championship tournament covered as well.
Best 18+ College Basketball Betting Sites In 2024
| Sportsbook | Bonus | USA | Rating | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 50% Bonus Up To $1,000 | 5/5 | Visit SiteReview | |
 | 125% Bonus Up To $3,125 | 4.8/5 | Visit SiteReview | |
 | 50% Bonus Up To $500 | 4.1/5 | Visit SiteReview | |
 | 50% Bonus Up To $1,000 | 4.2/5 | Visit SiteReview | |
 | 50% Bonus Up To $1,000 | 4.1/5 | Visit SiteReview |
Is College Basketball Betting Legal At 18?
18 and over bettors that are located within a state that has enacted regulated sports betting and offers physical sportsbook locations can place a wager in-person or online, if offered, directly with a local sportsbook. The minimum age for in-state regulated sportsbooks is usually 21 years old, leaving 18-year-old bettors only one option: regulated offshore sportsbooks.
US sports betting laws allow for 18+ bettors to use offshore, online sportsbooks to make wagers on athletic contests. These sportsbooks accept wagers on college basketball 24 hours a day from the convenience of your mobile device. All that is needed is a connection to the internet for 18-year-old bettors to access all the NCAAB betting action available.
Washington has enacted laws that prohibit all forms of online gaming. All other states allow for 18+ sports betting via online, offshore sportsbooks.
2024 March Madness Schedule
- Selection Sunday: March 17th
- First Four: March 19-20
- First Round: March 21-22
- Round Of 32: March 23-24
- Sweet 16: March 28-29
- Elite 8: March 30-31
- Final Four: April 6th
- NCAAB National Championship Game: April 8th
Best College Basketball Betting Strategies for 18+ Bettors
First and foremost, 18+ bettors should establish a betting limit for each contest, and it is usually based on a percentage of the gambler’s total bankroll. You can stray from your limits from time to time if the odds seem favorable, but developing a limit strategy is key to not going bankrupt prematurely and extending the wagering fun.
Another strategy that all 18-year-old bettors should have in their toolbox is the shopping of betting lines. We have several recommended offshore sportsbooks that we suggest using, and they all offer odds that slightly differ from each other.
That said, before you bet on the Kentucky Wildcats favored at 7 points, another sportsbook might be offering a better spread of 6 points or possibly higher American odds. Shop the odds and play them to your advantage. It’ll earn you the best payout available.
How To Bet On College Basketball
First, we recommend becoming a member of one of the online sportsbooks that we recommend above. Members can then access the hundreds of lines, college basketball odds, women’s college basketball odds, and props on laptops, PCs, smartphones, and tablets from anywhere in the USA.
Types Of Bets Commonly Placed On College Basketball
- The Point Spread – The number of points that a team is predicted to win or lose by
- Moneyline Odds – Straight-up bets on the team that will win the game
- Total (Over/Under) – Bets on total combined points by both teams
- College Basketball Prop Bets – Wagers on any college basketball occurrence imaginable
- Parlays – Combination college basketball betting for higher odds and payouts
- Futures – Betting on NCAAB odds for future occurrences like championships
Where To Bet On College Basketball At 18
We confidently demand that all 18, 19, and 20-year-old gamblers investigate the offshore NCAA Basketball betting sites that we’ve included in the list above because they are the absolute best of the best. We know this because we are members ourselves and use their services to bet on college basketball and most other popular pro and college sports occurring around the planet.
These 18+ NCAA Basketball betting sites accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency options and provide more college basketball odds and prop bets than domestic sportsbooks. Our top sportsbook sites also allow 18 and over gamblers to bet on March Madness all year long with their NCAAB futures odds to win the title.
Are College Basketball Betting Sites Safe?
The safety and security of personal data are paramount when making transactions over the internet of any kind. Our recommended sportsbooks offer the latest in cybersecurity and encryption technologies and process millions of dollars in transactions per day. They hold their standards up to the same level as the banking and financing industry, so sports betting for 18-year-olds can be perfectly safe.
March Madness Betting Guide For 18 & Over Gamblers
March Madness betting takes place each March after the college basketball season has concluded. Sixty-eight teams are selected via a variety of means, and they are placed into a tournament bracket where teams can advance if they win but are eliminated if they lose. The team that wins the entire tournament will win the NCAA college basketball national title.
Best March Madness Betting Strategies for 18+
If you are betting on a single game in the March Madness tournament, then we recommend setting a betting limit based on a percentage of your bankroll. A popular strategy is to establish a maximum bet of 3% of your bankroll to curb any reckless wagering. It’ll keep you from losing all your money too quickly and will serve to keep the wagering fun going for many more games.
Here are a few recommendations we can offer for filling out an NCAA Championship Tournament bracket.
- Be realistic about your hometown favorite. It’s a fantastic feeling to have your team involved in March Madness, but unless your favorite team is Duke, then prospective bettors should be realistic about their team’s chances. Look at each game as an individual contest and pick winners using either championship odds or game lines.
- Home court advantage is essential. Tournament games are hosted in pre-determined locations throughout the country. Sometimes, teams will be assigned to a site that is not too far from their home campus. This is a significant advantage and should be considered when filling out a bracket.
- Roll with the hot hand. A major factor in how a team plays in the tournament depends on how they have been playing leading up to the tournament. A team may only have a handful of defeats on the season, but if those have all come in February, then that’s a problem. On the other hand, a team may have near double-digit defeats on their record, but they might be on a hot streak as they roll into the tournament.
- The lowest seed to ever win March Madness was the 8-seeded Villanova Wildcats in 1985. Keep this in mind when predicting winners in the lower half of the seeding.
Who Has The Best College Basketball Odds In 2024?
Our top recommended sportsbook, Bovada, has provided odds for which teams are most likely to win the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament and win the 2024 national title.
These odds will continue to fluctuate as games are won and lost between now and tournament time. The odds will become narrower as the season progresses, and the favorites become more clear-cut, so the best odds will be available early. Be sure to keep up with the latest trends in 18+ sports betting to make an informed wager.
NCAA Tournament Brackets For 18+ Basketball Bettors
Filling out a March Madness bracket has become a national tradition each year. It has become a popular promotional item across the world of commerce to offer a grand prize to anyone who can pick the perfect bracket.
On Selection Sunday, the selection committee will pick 68 teams that will compete in the NCAA Tournament and will assign each team a spot in the tournament bracket based on seeding.
The seeding is the rank given to a team and is assigned in four quadrants of 1 through 16. The teams ranked 1 are the top four teams in the tournament, and on the flip side, the four teams ranked 16th in each bracket are the four worst teams in the tournament.
Only the first-round matchups are provided when filling out a bracket form. You’ll have to pick the winners of those first-round games and then project the remaining matchups and winners throughout the entire tournament.
What Are The Odds Of A Perfect March Madness Bracket?
The odds of filling out a perfect March Madness bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillions. That’s why the grand prizes for March Madness bracket challenges are so high. They rarely occur. There have been no recorded instances of someone picking a perfect March Madness Bracket. Don’t let that stop you. It will happen eventually, so it may as well be you who picks it.
Free 18+ March Madness Bracket Contests
Towards the end of February each year, bracket challenges will begin to show up in all sorts of places, from the office bulletin board to the local sports bar. Many are into filling out March Madness brackets because no skill is required to do it, and it creates a fun way for everyone to pay attention to the tournament games.
These are some of the best bracket challenges offering the best payouts. There are several other prominent websites that are offering bracket challenges, but these are the top challenges that we see year after year.
- CBS Sports – CBS has been a player in the bracket challenge game for over a decade now. If your bracket finishes amongst the best 10% of entries, then you have a chance of being selected for the grand prize of $10,000 cash and tickets to next year’s Final Four, including hotel and travel expenses.
- ESPN – The leader in sports television hosts a bracket contest called the Tournament Challenge. A random bracket will be drawn from the top 1% of submissions to determine who will win the grand prize – a $10,000 Amazon gift card and an all-expenses-paid trip for two to Maui.