Ron Raymond’s March Madness Predictions Saturday, March 20, 2010

March Madness and the Super Bowl are two of the top sports betting events of the year and the Sportsbooks are at their sharpest when it comes to putting out a betting line.

Why the Sportsbooks are at their best this time of year?

Because there’s only a few windows of opportunities to make money and it includes NFL and College Football weekends, Super Bowl, and the first week of March Madness. In fact, the Masters and US Open also garner some interest, but nowhere near the amount of action they will see on a busy Sunday, Super Sunday and the first week of March Madness.

At this point of the year, they know they have to put out some good “sucker” lines to trap the betting public, especially “joe public” who bets the odd football weekend, Super Bowl and his favorite team in the March Madness tournament. Brackets are always a good way of getting the average bettor to get involved in the “betting world”, but once they see their brackets are done, they want to stay involved in the tournament, so they turn to single game betting. Here’s where the Books rake in the cash!

The online Sportsbooks have a few events in which they can make money and it’s times like now you should be consulting Sports handicapping advice like this blog and if you’ve been following my picks, you know I’m 6-1 (ATS) against the spread and my personal brackets are 25-7 through the first 2 rounds. I have Duke vs. Ohio State in the championship game with Ohio State winning. Kansas State and Kentucky round out my final 4!

Now, it’s Saturday, March 20, 2010 and it’s time to get some more winners out, so we can help you make some money for Round 3 of the March Madness tournament. Keep in mind, the Sportsbooks now the public is infatuated with big stories and big names like John Wall and Cinderella teams like Murray State. Stay away from betting the "side" of those 2 games, because the books will eat you alive if you touch those games. If I can share one or two words of advice after Round 1 and 2, try to play on over/unders or play against the big names schools like Kansas and Kentucky, because the books know the betting public will hammer these two teams.

Here’s my Round 3 March Madness picks for Saturday.

• Ohio – Tennessee OVER 141.0
• Wake Forest – Kentucky: OVER 143.5
• Kansas State -4.5 vs. BYU

*Note: Don’t be a hero and try to bet on every TV game going on Saturday and Sunday, because you will not like the outcome. Remember, Less is more and stick to the OVER/UNDERS for the Saturday and Sunday games, you’re chances of making money is much better than trying to pick the next Murray State!

Good luck and enjoy the weekend games.

Record Update

All 3 of these picks won which brings my March Madness record against the spread to 9-1 ATS.