In the college basketball landscape, March features various one-and-done tournaments, from conference tournaments to the NIT. The most popular one-and-one tournament is, of course, March Madness.
Knowing the format of the tournament – if a team loses then it is eliminated from further contention – should shape the strategy with which we approach it as bettors. There are different kinds of betting strategies that you could find suitable for March Madness, one being the moneyline rollover strategy. First, I will explain what the moneyline rollover strategy is. To be clear, I am not discussing the rollover requirements that top-rated sportsbooks have.
This is about how you should place bets for a March Madness-style tournament: should you confine yourself to wagering on individual games? Should you play futures? Should you employ the moneyline rollover strategy in one of its various forms?
After describing what this strategy is, I will look at what sort of usefulness can be attributed to it.
The Concept
Conceptually, the moneyline rollover strategy is like a future.
You are interested in a moneyline rollover strategy or a future when you foresee a team advancing far into a given tournament.
Moneyline Rollover vs. Future
Let’s say that you think Duke will advance to the Final Four.
If you wanted to place a future on Duke, you might wager on Duke at +800 to make the Final Four. With that future in place, you will either win your bet or lose it. You will win if Duke makes the Final Four and lose if Duke does not make the Final Four.
The moneyline rollover strategy is a lot more open-ended than a future because of what it is.
For the moneyline rollover strategy, you are investing in a team to win its first tournament game. Then, you are taking your winnings and “rolling them over,” or investing those winnings in that same team winning its second game. After this team wins its second game, you are taking your winnings from the first two games, and “rolling them over,” or investing those winnings in that team winning its third game.
More Open-Ended
The money-line rollover strategy is more open-ended than a future because, while the concept is the same – you are wanting to invest in a team to advance far into a tournament – its execution is up to you.
Whereas you are stuck with a future, as you would be stuck with any wager, nobody is forcing you to roll over your winnings from one game to the next. If you are unsure that Duke will win its second-round game, you can stop the rollover.
Of course, Duke might win the second-round game, in which case you would regret not having rolled the money over.
If you are the anxious sort of bettor, then a future might end up being more profitable for you because, in placing a future, you would be inhibiting yourself from backing out to any extent, such as you would be doing by not rolling over your winnings onto the Duke ML for its second-round game.
However, maybe Duke really does get faced with a nightmare matchup in the second round. If you want to evaluate your chosen team’s matchup on a round-per-round basis, then the moneyline rollover strategy allows you this evaluative freedom, whereas you are stuck with a future no matter who your team faces.
Questions of Profitability
You might hear people say that the moneyline rollover strategy is more profitable than a future.
This depends on the future and it depends on which opponent your team faces. If your team’s road to the Final Four is really hard, such that it is repeatedly the underdog, then the moneyline rollover strategy might be more profitable than the future.
However, the future could also be more profitable if a team winds up with an easy road, such that it is repeatedly the favorite, to the Final Four.
Because of all these contingencies, I don’t recommend deciding whether to employ the moneyline rollover strategy – as opposed to investing in a future – for financial reasons.
Takeaway
The decision between following a moneyline rollover strategy and investing in a future is likely a difficult one.
A future would surely be better if you locked it in earlier in the season when the odds were more attractive. In such a case – let’s say that Duke was picked before the season to finish last in the ACC and you locked in Duke to advance to the Final Four at +40000 – the odds are so attractive that you should be content with riding out Duke, come what may opponent-wise.
Yet, if you don’t have an attractive future come March and Duke is at +600 to advance to the Final Four, then you don’t have such a reason to be content.
The moneyline rollover strategy is great, in sum, for when you want freedom to affirm your investment in a given team before it plays its upcoming game.
