College Basketball tips off in less than a month, are you ready to profit on the new season?
With the NFL betting season in full swing, it can be easy to overlook college basketball, which is what’s starting down the pipe for bookies to offer.
This guide will make sure you are caught up and how to best sell NCAAB to your clients.
The College Basketball season tips off on November 5th, 2019 with the 2K Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden and culminating with the Final Four in Atlanta on April 6th, 2020. This gives both bookies and bettors five full months of games to try and profit from.
With so many teams and the constantly changing player base, college hoops can seem like a bit of a large undertaking. But, when handled properly, it can be a great boon to your sportsbook’s profit margin, especially when the calendar turns to March.
Getting as many players who are regularly betting NCAA basketball before March is the idea with your numbers expected to spike once the madness begins.
First up, let’s catch up on a few changes this offseason which effect the college basketball betting industry across the board.
NCAA Rule Changes
The Powers that be have decided to make a big shift in how the game is played by significantly moving back the three-point line more than two inches.
The arc will be extended from 20’9” to 22’2 inches, the current set distance for international basketball purposes, including the NBA. This marks the first change since 2008 when the 20’9” distance became league standard.
This was an experiment in the NIT last season and appears to have been a success.
In the 2018-19 NCAA D1 season, just five teams hit more than 40 percent of their deep ball, Fairleigh Dickinson (40.4%), Virginia (40.9%), South Dakota State (41.0%), Wofford (41.6%) and Lehigh (42.3%). This year we might not see any who hit that mark.
Only two players, Derrik Jamerson Jr (51.2%) and Marcus Hammond (52.2%), hit more than half of their three-pointers.
According to the league, this will be beneficial for a number of reasons. It encourages players more to drive to the basket, making for a mew exciting game according to them. This will also look to curtail the teams, and there are many, who rely too much on the long ball. They are aiming to make the shot more challenging while still maintaining its overall impact.
This will create a temporary drop in 3 point percentage and reliance for most, if not all, programs. This will open up the court and create more space down low for post players.
Don’t expect this to keep numbers down for long as players will adjust rather quickly. But, this might be a chance to find and exploit some advantages in over/under betting and also scoring props.
This adjustment will also challenge defenses as they will now be required to cover more of the court and not just focus on perimeter D.
The other significant change to this NCAAB season is the resetting of the shot clock after an offensive rebound. This change will give the offense just 20 seconds to put a shot back up instead of the previous 30 seconds.
This essentially cuts out the allotted ten seconds to make half court after possession changes. This is another change aimed at upping the tempo of college basketball games and was also tested in the NIT tournament last year.
Gathering Your Players for NCAAB Betting Season
Now that we’re all caught up on what changes will be made to the league that affects sports betting we can start planning how to actually get players interested.
One thing that makes College Basketball betting so attractive is the high probability of huge upsets on a weekly basis, especially come March.
It is one of the only sports to promise such moneyline upsets and the huge payouts that come with it. This is why you should be promoting such moneyline upsets by highlighting them however you chose to when contacting clients.
Whether an email or text blast, be sure to keep your guys aware of the big profits to be made.
Since chasing these wins is both enjoyable and very difficult, it’s a perfect place for your players to be betting. This becomes especially true come February when teams are jockeying for NCAA Tournament seeding and the games are all important.
This will also help build momentum for your players heading into the tournament, especially if they happen to nail a big dog win in the week’s leading into the tournament.
Another great way to promote the upcoming season is to offer an incentive for players to get in on the action early on. One way to do this is by offering a “risk-free” first bet of the season on College Hoops valid for the 2K Sports Classic which kicks-off the season.
Giving your players such promotions is a great way to not only promote a sport but also to promote your sportsbook to potential new players.
You can also offer a deposit bonus up to a certain amount but which can only be used for College Basketball.
Increasing College Basketball Betting Action
Now that you have your players betting basketball the next step is to keep them coming back. So how do you keep and increase interest in betting NCAA hoops?
Well, there are a few tips which can certainly help achieve that goal. First off, send out weekly literature based around the sport. Whether it’s game previews, what to watch out for or even betting guides.
Just check out what games are nationally televised for the upcoming week and start there. Don’t forget, most bettors really like to watch the games they wager on.
This is also a great opportunity to highlight promotions too. Be sure to keep this in mind as this is helpful for all sports, not just basketball.
Another tactic is to create more attractive betting options, such as cross-sport parlays. This is a great tool to get the average NFL or NBA bettor interested in starting to bet on College Basketball.
A cross-sport parlay allows you to grab a major event, say Monday Night Football or a TNT Thursday Night Doubleheader, and tie it to a specific NCAAB game taking place around the same time.
Be sure to adjust your odds here and offer lines above normal parlay odds. A 4-team cross-sport parlay should payout at least 12:1.
Starting by delivering targeted messages based on the information you receive from player activity reports is also a vital tool for college basketball bookmaking. In fact, studying those player reports can lead to more efficient marketing across the board, so pay attention to them.
Upping your ROI just with marketing work is a huge plus if you can pull it off. This requires sending the right messages to the right players. It’s kind of like customization of the user experience.
Sure, you will also be sending out generic info to everyone, but targeting the right players for certain things is a massive boon for your sportsbook.
This way you can find the guys who are already betting a lot on NCAAB and try to get them to lay even more. You can also find guys who just dabble a bit and work to encourage them to expand their NCAAB betting.
Likewise, if you see a guy with zero interest in the sport, it might be best to minimize or eliminate his exposure to CBB materials altogether. Be sure not to spam your guys too much with emails or texts as we all know how annoying that can be.
A quick daily update on the night’s hoops action is all you need, really. Just be sure to target the right guys.
Study those player reports and send out morning reminders on Saturday for the night of action. Keeping interested in imperative for continuing profits after the Super Bowl in February and basketball is the only real game in town.
The Final step in maximizing your betting profits is to have the right sportsbook management software. This will allow you more time to focus your efforts on marketing both within your book and to new potential clients.
BossAction.com offers independent bookmakers premium solutions to managing and tracking all activity in your book. So head on over to the Join Us page or hop into the live chat and our customer service agents will help you with any questions you have to get you started on your way to becoming a master sportsbook manager today.
