NCAAB Public Betting & Money Percentages

College basketball floats through the regular season of play up until the end of February, when fans can begin to sniff the return of March Madness. That's translated to a lot of money wagered on the sport now that online sports betting is legal in several states.

Not every wager is the same amount, however, and college basketball bettors who pay attention to The Action Network's public betting data can spot sharp bets. 

How to Use Public Betting and Money Percentages in NCAAB Betting

We track betting data at a variety of sportsbooks, including "percentage of bets" and "percentage of money" on every college basketball game and bet type. This will help you make more informed decisions. 

• Percentage (%) of bets: The proportion of bets made on a side of a wager. For example, if we track 20,000 bets on the Alabama-Auburn game and 13,000 of them are on the Tigers, that would be 65% of bets on the Tigers.
• Percentage (%) of money: The proportion of money bet on a side of a wager. For example, if we track a total handle -- a betting term that means "amount wagered" -- of $6 million and $5 million is on the Crimson Tide, that would be 83% of the money on the Crimson Tide.

This is important information for NCAA basketball betting because not every bet is the same. Some bettors will place a wager of $5 while others might bet $5,000 based on what they see in terms of Action Network NCAAB odds. The sharp and professional bettors are the ones that tend to bet more, but those bets still count as just a single bet.

Therefore, looking at the difference between the betting percentages and percentage of money can help The Action Network users find the NCAAB sides that have "sharp money" -- in other words, those wagered on by pros. We also have expert NCAAB picks coverage.

Here's another example: Say the Syracuse Orange are getting 69% of the spread bets against the Duke Blue Devils, but 92% of the money bet on that game's spread is on the Orange. That would be a percentage difference of 23% on the Orange, highlighting that the bettors willing to wager a lot of money -- these are likely to be sharp bettors -- are on Syracuse. These are what's known as NCAAB consensus picks. 

Of course, it's also important to look at the total number of bets placed on the NCAA college basketball market, which we also display on this page for The Action Network users. If there are just a few hundred bets, the resulting bet and money percentages might be skewed by the small sample size. In contrast, if that game has thousands and thousands of bets, you can trust that data more as a betting strategy.