COLUMBUS – Notre Dame’s 89-87 double overtime win over Rutgers early Thursday morning at the First Four in Dayton was a reminder of why they call it March Madness.
The Fighting Irish fittingly qualified for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament in the early-morning hours of St. Patrick’s Day.
The tournament begins in earnest Thursday with 16 games. Ohio State will play its first game Friday against Loyola-Chicago.
More than 17% of American adults, or about 45 million people, are expected to wager $3.1 billion according to the gambling industry’s national trade group, the American Gaming Association.
Legal sports gambling across wide swaths of the United States might have made the next three weeks’ worth of NCAA Tournament games easier to bet on individually, but it didn’t change one simple truth. There’s nothing quite like the magic of picking winners of all 60-something games, figuring out the Final Four and national champions, then watching every agonizing game unfold.
The Better Business Bureau and the Ohio Attorney-General’s office have words of caution for fans who are filling out brackets, placing bets or watching the games on computers or other mobile devices:
- Use well-known bracket sites such as ESPN and CBS and be wary if any links seem to take you to a team fan site.
- Don’t open attachments and avoid suspicious emails, such as emails inviting you to join bracket pools or groups you did not request to be part of.
- Don’t buy tickets from unauthorized sources.
- Don’t purchase tickets if they don’t include the block, row, and seat details.
- Stream games on reputable sites.
- Don’t enter personal information or payments over public WIFI.
If you’ve spotted a scam, whether you’ve lost money or not, report it here.