March Madness
Seventy-six teams, single elimination, three weeks — the event where a title price can halve or double in one afternoon.
- How often
- Annually, from Selection Sunday in mid-March to the title game in early April.
- Who decides, and on what
- The results of the NCAA Division I men's and women's tournaments, as recorded by the NCAA.
Open markets on March Madness
Live prediction markets whose question turns on this event. Prices update with the rest of the site.
Will USC reach the 2027 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four?
Volume $1.7K
8 %
▼ −5.3%
Will Ole Miss reach the 2027 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four?
Volume $1.5K
4 %
▲ +0.0%
Will VCU reach the 2027 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four?
Volume $1.5K
6 %
▼ −3.1%
Will Stanford reach the 2027 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four?
Volume $1.1K
4 %
▼ −0.4%
March Madness odds by team
What traders pay for each team on Polymarket and Kalshi right now, and how many of 4 licensed US sportsbooks list it.
As of : for 12 of 18 teams, no Polymarket or Kalshi price is 3 points or more away from the no-vig consensus of licensed US sportsbooks. The median largest gap per team is 1.9 points.
Exchange prices are before the venue's fee. The consensus is the median of at least two sportsbooks' prices with their margin removed across the whole field. With this many outcomes that slightly overstates long shots, because books put more of their margin there. Teams priced below 2 % everywhere are left out of the count.
Compare with the sportsbook consensus
| Team | Polymarket | Books |
|---|---|---|
| Duke Blue Devils | 16.5 % | 4 |
| Florida Gators | 15.5 % | 4 |
| UConn Huskies | 10.1 % | 4 |
| Michigan State Spartans | – | 4 |
| Illinois Fighting Illini | 9.0 % | 4 |
| Kansas Jayhawks | 5.5 % | 4 |
| Texas Tech Red Raiders | 4.8 % | 4 |
| Texas Longhorns | 4.1 % | 4 |
| Arizona Wildcats | 5.3 % | 4 |
| Houston Cougars | 2.9 % | 4 |
| Louisville Cardinals | 3.4 % | 4 |
| Virginia Cavaliers | 3.4 % | 4 |
| St. John's Red Storm | 1.1 % | 4 |
| UCLA Bruins | 4.2 % | 4 |
| Arkansas Razorbacks | 3.3 % | 4 |
| Gonzaga Bulldogs | 3.0 % | 4 |
| Kentucky Wildcats | 1.4 % | 4 |
| Tennessee Volunteers | 0.6 % | 4 |
| Miami Hurricanes | 2.1 % | 4 |
| LSU Tigers | – | 4 |
| Alabama Crimson Tide | 1.8 % | 4 |
| USC Trojans | – | 4 |
| Vanderbilt Commodores | 1.5 % | 4 |
| North Carolina Tar Heels | 1.1 % | 4 |
| Indiana Hoosiers | 0.8 % | 4 |
| Missouri Tigers | 1.2 % | 4 |
| Purdue Boilermakers | 0.6 % | 4 |
| BYU Cougars | – | 4 |
| Michigan Wolverines | 3.8 % | 4 |
| Nebraska Cornhuskers | 1.4 % | 4 |
| Baylor Bears | – | 4 |
| Iowa Hawkeyes | – | 4 |
191 more teams further down the field are not shown.
Data only — we do not link to or recommend any sportsbook.
How accurate have these markets been?
The corpus holds 0 scored markets of this kind so far. We publish a hit rate from 30 — fewer than that rewards luck rather than measuring anything.
Measured on our own corpus of resolved markets, using the price seven days before resolution. A band shows a rate only from 30 cases — fewer than that rewards luck. A historical frequency is not a probability for the next one.
Schedule, venues and live odds
Who plays when and where this week, with the live price of every game.
A title price is a path, not a rating
A team's price to win the tournament is the product of the six or seven games it has to win, and the bracket decides which opponents those are. Two teams of equal strength can carry clearly different prices because one of them has the harder region.
That is why prices move on Selection Sunday before a ball is bounced: the draw itself is information. Reading a title price without the bracket next to it compares paths, not teams.
Single elimination makes every favourite doubtful
One game decides each round, so even a strong favourite has to survive a string of one-off games. Over six rounds the chance of at least one upset is high for every team in the field, and the favourite's title price is far lower than its chance in any single game suggests.
The contract trades between rounds. A position bought before the first round can be sold after the second without ever needing the team to win the final.
Common questions
When do March Madness odds move the most?
On Selection Sunday, when the bracket fixes each team's path, and after every round, when the field halves. An injury to a starter moves a title price more here than in a seven-game series, because there is no second game to recover.
Do these markets cover the women's tournament?
Where the exchanges list it, yes. Men's and women's markets are separate contracts with separate prices — check which tournament a market names before reading the number.
How accurate are these markets?
The accuracy figures on this page are measured from our own corpus of resolved markets, and the page shows the sample size rather than a number when the corpus is too small.