The Best March Madness Betting Strategy Nobody Talks About

There's a pretty simple way to make money during the March Madness tournament and you don't actually have to pick the winner. The March Madness Tournament is one of the few time in sports where a strategic cash out plan can quickly lead to serious profit.

Every March Madness winner in the KenPom era has been in the top 57 of adjusted offensive efficiency and the top 44 of adjusted defensive efficiency going into the big dance. The teams that meet this criteria this year are within the green lines in the plot below. Now, if you throw out the one anomaly that is the 2014 UConn team, it's actually the top 21 in adjusted offensive efficiency and top 44 in adjusted defensive efficiency. These are the teams to the right of the red dash line.

Teams with the best chance to win the 2026 March Madness tournament

Okay, so here's the important part. You can see we have each team’s championship odds (as of 2/20/2026) and what you're doing is not actually trying to pick the winner, you're trying to pick teams who 1) have a chance to actually win a couple games in the tournament and 2) have outstanding odds to win it it all. And what better teams to do that than the teams who actually meet this whole KenPom trend to begin with. The logic here is as teams get eliminated, every team’s odds have to get redistributed and those with moonshot odds will have the largest drop in odds if they win a game or two which means your cash out value gets the highest return.

For you to have the best chance at profiting, you need a good strategy. What you're going to do is take whatever amount of action you normally have on any game (aka your unit size), and you're going to divide that into three or four tickets. So, if you normally bet $100, you're going to bet four $25 tickets for the same team to win it all. After every game that they win, those tickets become more and more valuable because by the time you go from the field of 68 down to 32 or 16, those odds have to get redistributed, meaning that those odds have to go down. That is going to be in your favor. Now, because you don't actually expect them to win it all, the four tickets will get you cash out opportunities up to the final four, but ultimately when you cash out is up to you.

One of the best examples we’ve had doing this is betting on Florida Atlantic in the 2023 tournament. We were able to cash out our $25 tickets for $547 each once they pased the Elite Eight.

*Important Note: Try not to place all 4 bets on the same sportsbook. Not only will different books give you differ cash out values, some may hold you hostage and not always offer a chance to cash out when you want to. Placing them on different books minimizes that risk.

The obvious question now is which team(s) should you choose? Remember, this KenPom trend is only valid at the end of the regular season, not right now, but as we get closer and closer to March, it becomes more and more valid. As of today, teams like NC State at +15,000 or Utah State at +20,000 are teams I would target. We update this plot daily on our March Madness Winner Watchlist page so be sure to check back here after the conference tournaments are done for the most accurate list.

And if you’re looking for more action, be sure to check out our model to get actual game by-game predictions for every game in the March Madness tournament, NIT, CBI, you name it.