---
title: 'The Best March Madness Betting Strategy (Nobody Will Tell You This)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=bYN-a9DRnAY'
video_id: 'bYN-a9DRnAY'
date: 2026-08-19
duration_sec: 546
channel: 'OddsJam: Sports Betting, Free Picks & Best Bets'
---

# The Best March Madness Betting Strategy (Nobody Will Tell You This)

> Source: [The Best March Madness Betting Strategy (Nobody Will Tell You This)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=bYN-a9DRnAY)

## Summary

This video reveals two profitable sports betting strategies for college basketball, focusing on pregame and live betting. The creator emphasizes using sharp sportsbooks like Circa and Pinnacle as guides to identify value bets, and explains how to leverage discrepancies between sharp and 'wreck' books for live betting opportunities.

### Key Points

- **Two Profitable Strategies** [00:02] — The creator claims to have made $600 in one week (20% ROI) using two strategies: pregame betting and live betting, emphasizing that most bettors are 'flying blind' without understanding sharp sportsbooks.
- **Pregame Strategy: Use Sharp Books** [00:27] — For moneyline plays, use Circa and Pinnacle as guides because they take the most money. Use a collective blend (50/50) and set agreement to 100% for plays with an edge. Odds range preference is +-20, with edges of 0.5% or higher.
- **Point Spreads: Bookmaker and Circa** [01:47] — For point spreads, use a three-book blend (Bookmaker, Circa, BetOnline) or just Circa and Bookmaker. Avoid Pinnacle for this market. Example: South Alabama had over 1% edge with Pinnacle taking $3,000 and Circa $2,000.
- **Totals and First Half Markets** [02:28] — For totals, lean on Circa and Pinnacle. For first half markets, use Pinnacle and Circa, but note lower liquidity (e.g., only $500 taken), indicating less confidence. For first half point spreads, focus on Bookmaker as the primary sharp book.
- **Conference Matters** [03:38] — The conference affects liquidity. In lower-tier conferences (e.g., Howard vs Delaware State), Pinnacle might take only $250, making the bet less confident despite an edge. In Power Five games (e.g., Houston vs Iowa State), sharp books take $4,000-$5,000, indicating higher confidence.
- **Live Betting: FanDuel for Lower Conferences** [05:01] — For live betting, Pinnacle only offers odds for top 25 teams or Power Five conferences. For other games, use FanDuel as the sharp book because it offers odds on every game and has the fastest algorithm.
- **Live Betting: Discrepancy Thresholds** [05:57] — In the first half, look for at least 2-3 point differences between sharp and wreck books. In the second half (under 10 minutes), reduce to 1-1.5 points. For moneyline in close games (under 5 minutes), arbitrage between books when leads are 5 points or less.
- **Final Advice** [08:14] — For pregame, focus on books with the most liquidity. For live, use the discrepancy strategy. The creator promotes his 'Cowshi' betting strategy for additional setups.

### Conclusion

The video provides a detailed framework for using sharp sportsbooks to identify value in college basketball betting, both pregame and live. The key takeaway is to align with books that take the most money and to exploit price discrepancies, especially in live betting scenarios.

## Transcript

with you the two most profitable strategies that no one talks about. Literally, I made $600 in one week using these exact strategies. A 20% ROI on my
investment. And here's the thing, most betterers are flying blind when it comes to betting on basketball. They don't understand that certain sports books are sharper than others depending on the market that they're betting into. If you
liquidity, you can use them as your guide to pick off the stale wreck books going to share with you my pregame betting strategy that helps me crush money lines, spreads, and totals. And then also my live betting strategy where
and some solid structure so that you can first dive into moneyline plays. Over here on Odds Jam's positive EV tool, I have the filter section pulled up right here. And there's two sports books that
I specifically like to lean on. Circa and Pinnacle. They take the most amount of money on this market compared to any of the other sharp sports books. Now, you can use just one book as your guide or reference. I like to use a collective
blend. So, a one for pinnacle, a one for circa. Take this bar all the way up to 100% where we need agreement from circa and pinnacle when we're looking for plays with an edge. Now, my odds range is a preference of plus -20. If you take
is a preference of plus -20. If you take this beyond that plus - 300, 400 or 500, you'll introduce more variance. If you shrink this gap to plus - 150 or plus shrink this gap to plus - 150 or plus -25, you'll see less variance. Anything
that has a half of a percentage edge or higher, I'm interested in because we need two sports books to come together with an agreement. When I find agreement or plays that have an edge, I have extreme confidence in these plays. So
looking over here at South Alabama, this is just over a 1% edge. You could see Pinnacles taking $3,000 and Circus taking $2,000. For point spreads, you have two different options. You could use a threebook blend of bookmaker,
circa, and bet online. Or you can just use circa and bookmaker. All of these are fine options. We just want to avoid pinnacle as they don't take a lot of And as you can see here, we see agreement for Charlton State, Drexel,
and Marshall between Circa and Bookmaker. All of these plays have over a half percentage edge. So, I'm willing to bet every single one of these plays that pop up on my screen. When it comes to the total points market, we want to
lean on Circa and Pinnacle as they take the most money in this specific market. Again, guys, on this left-hand side, my setup does not change. When we focus on the first half markets like first half total points or first half money line
plays, this is where we use Pinnacle and Circa as our guides. You can either use either book or a collective blend of both. And so when we're looking at this the first thing that you're going to notice is a significant reduction in
liquidity taken by the sharp sports books. So there's less confidence in Circuit and Pinnacle on this play even though we found an edge. So, if you want to avoid the first half markets altogether, no problem at all. But for
markets, these would be the two books that I lean into. But again, they're only taking $500. When it comes to first half point spreads, there's no question there's only one book that you should focus your time and efforts into, and
that is Bookmaker. They take the most money when it comes to this specific market, and this is the Sharp that I lean on. Now, here's something crucial that most bettors ignore. the conference that you're betting into really matters.
Looking at the first half total points for Howard and Delaware State, when we come down to the main line at 61.5, what you'll notice is is that Pinnacle is the only Sharp Sports Book that's offering this market and they're only taking
$250. Now, there seems to be some solid value over here at Caesars where Pinnacle thinks we have to put up $121 to profit $100. Caesars, we only have to put up $15 to receive that same $100 profit. But Pinnacle is only taking
$250, which is an extremely small amount of money. So depending on the conference that we're betting into, for this specific example, I would just avoid this bet altogether. While we have an edge, because of the lower liquidity
being accepted by Pinnacle, I don't have much confidence in this play. But if we're looking at the moneyline market between Houston and Iowa State, two top five teams in the Big 12, you could see that Circus taking over $5,000 on either
side for Houston and Iowa State, while Pinnacle's taking $4,000. That's a to the first half total points market that we were just looking at a few in the Power Five conferences, where the Sharp Books are taking significantly
more money than the lower tier conferences, is a recipe for success. markets for the lower tier conferences is another sound strategy. If you want to try Odds GM one week for free and get full access to the custom EV formula
builder, use code Billy35. It'll be linked in the description below. You'll receive a oneweek free trial, then 35% off your first month after the oneweek trial ends. Over here on Ozam Sportsbook screen, Pinnacle only offers live
betting odds for the top 25 teams or power five conferences. So, in this example, we have a game going on right now between Southeastern Louisiana and teams aren't in a Power Five conference and they're not ranked in the top 25. In
this example, this is where we want to lean on FanDuel as our sharp sports book. FanDuel offers odds on every college basketball game live. They also wreck book, and they have the fastest algorithm, meaning their odds move the
time. So, if you're betting into the Missouri Valley, the Horizon Conference, lean into FanDuel. When we're looking at the ACC, your Big 10, this is when you want to have a collective blend of FanDuel and Pinnacle together. When
we're looking for discrepancies of at least two to three points from our sharp looking to place the bet at. What do I mean by that? So, in this basketball game, if this game were in the first half, FanDuel's at plus -3 1/2. That
means we would need DraftKings to be at plus 15 1/2 or plus 16 1/2 for us to take the Louisiana play. For us to take this Texas A&M play, we would need to this Texas A&M play, we would need to see - 11 1/2 or - 10 1/2. A onepoint gap
in the first half is not enough of value because there's so much time left in the game. So we want at least a 2 to three point difference, whether that's point spreads or total points. But things change a bit in the second half. When it
comes to the second half, specifically once we hit the under 10 minute mark in the game, I'm looking to take a one to one and a half point difference for point spreads and total points. So, FanDuel sitting at 11 1/2 at the minus,
I'm looking for a minus 10 1/2 or minus 10 or on the plus side here, a plus 12 1/2. I'm looking for a plus 13 or plus4 type of play from a draft, Kings, a Caesars, or a Bet Rivers. As we get closer to the end of the game, finding
difference between the Sharp book and the Wreck book is massive. But if you're only into the first couple minutes of the second half, well then I would still stick to that two to three point gap. Once we get around the 12 to 10 minute
mark or less in the basketball game, that's when my approach switches for point spreads and total points. And I'm looking to just grab a 1 to one and 1/2 point difference. When it comes to moneyline plays, specifically in close
basketball games with less than five minutes to go, I'm only looking to arbitrage these types of plays where the lead's most likely going to go back and forth, especially when it's five-point lead or less in this basketball game.
I'm looking to just bet one side of a book, then look to bet the opposite side likely you're going to get a lot of timeouts, a lot of stoppages in that lead change going back and forth where you'll be able to find plays between a
plus -25 or plus - 150 range and just make easy profits. For pregame betting, pay attention to the books that take the most liquidity on those markets. The the most confidence in their projection or lines, which when you find plays with
an edge, give you even more confidence to bet that play. If you found any value smash that subscribe button, click that thumbs up button, and tap that bell notification so you don't miss the next video that we release. Conference
tournament and March Madness is coming up soon, where basketball is going to be going on 24/7. Utilizing these two specific strategies for pregame and live is going to put you in a very profitable position as we enter the end of the
wreck books can provide a lot of profitable opportunities, if you're someone that's gotten limited betting into these wreck books, then you need to check out my cowshi basketball betting strategy that provides three specific
setups that's going to allow you to crush cowshi specifically with zero It's going to walk you through each strategy step by step. the setup, the know that you can start turning Koshi
know that you can start turning Koshi into an unlimited profit