NCAAB Futures and Season Props

How to Bet on NCAA Basketball Odds to Win National Championship

Next to the Super Bowl, there’s no event more popular in sports betting than the NCAA Tournament. College Basketball Odds to win the National Championship are posted year-round, so if you have a hunch that a Cinderalla team can make it to the big dance, then you might find +EV (positive expected value) opportunities by betting on National Championship futures odds before the season tips off.

Of course, to partake in the madness you need to sign up at online sportsbooks like bet365, Fanatics, Caesars, BetMGM, DraftKings, and FanDuel,, as well as find out the sports betting logistics in your state. Laws and regulations vary across jurisdictions, some forbidding betting on in-state colleges — lame, we know. You can find out all of those details with our state pages for sports betting in Michigan, Colorado, Tennessee, New Jersey, New York, Indiana,West Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and more!

Now that you know where and how to bet on NCAA Basketball Odds to Win National Championship, let’s take a closer look at what it means to bet on college basketball futures and how to read odds.

What Are College Basketball Futures?

In gambling parlance, a futures bet is any wager on an event that will be determined in the future. College basketball futures bets include NCAA basketball odds to win National Championship, conference championships, and individual player accolades like the John R. Wooden Award.

NCAA Basketball Futures Odds Explained

Often, futures odds are listed with a plus sign (+) in front of a three to five-digit number. Here are a few examples of odds to win the NCAA Tournament.

Duke +1200
Arizona State +13000

The odds above are simply shorthand for “Duke is 12-to-1 and Arizona State is 130-to-1 to win the NCAA basketball national championship.”

On these bets, a $10 on Duke will win bettors $120 in profit, while a $10 on Arizona State will win $1300. Simple enough.

In some cases, when a team is especially dominant or later in the NCAA Tournament when there are fewer teams remaining, the favorite will be listed with a minus-sign (-) in front. This makes them what sports bettors call the “odds-on favorite.” By wagering on the odds-on favorite, bettors will have to risk more money than they will win. Like the previous examples, these too payout like moneylines. So, if a team has -120 odds to win the national championship, bettors must risk $12 to win $10.

You can also use our Odds Calculator to see the payout of a futures bet before placing it.