The American Gaming Association estimates people will legally wager $2.72 Billion during March Madness. Alabamians, won’t be a part of that, legally at least.

Doug Greenburg is a Sports Betting Reporter at ESPN. He said DraftKings and FanDuel are the top sports betting apps. There, fans can bet on anything from the next play, to who the winner of the match will be.

“You have to download these apps, the way that these apps work in states that are legal,you have to have your,location on with your phone, if the apps aren’t reading your location they aren;t going to let you bet, cause they need to make sure you’re in jurisdiction in that allows sports betting,” said Greenberg. “Usually you have to register with these apps as well. You have to usually send them your driver’s license so they can ensure you are at least 21.”

He said many apps and websites go the extra mile to make sure you are eligible to bet.

“First of all, you have to have the location services on, a lot of the time there’s actually an app, I am pretty sure all of the apps use this, it is an app called GeoComply. Which it is another step further, and not just makes makes sure that the location services on your phone are on, it goes another step to make sure you are where you say you are, it runs in the background on your phone.”

Greenberg explained, legal or not, people are going to place their bets.

“When you look at other vice industries, alcohol, cannabis, things of that nature, these are all things where people are going to do these things anyway. These are things people want. One of the bigs things people have been saying with all the negative press that’s been happening in the sports betting world recently is ‘oh my gosh sports betting is destroying sports, sports betting is destroying society,’ and what proponents of the industry will say is you are hearing about all these scandals now because there are measures in place to catch them.”

AGA data shows in 2023 sportsbooks made a record revenue of $10.9 billion, and almost a $120 billion handle. That leaves us wondering, what is Alabama missing out on with no form of legal sports betting?

“As a I said the $10.92 billion dollars in revenue, but that’s for the sportsbooks, but if you want to talk about the states themselves, we can talk about taxes. The AGA touted in this report that the taxes related to gambling generated $14.4 billion dollars for state local governments in 2023. A lot of tax money,” said Greenberg.

In the report AGA stated, “The industry also contributes billions of additional tax dollars to states each year in the form of income, sales, payroll and various other corporate taxes.”

How much confidence did sports betters have in the Tide for the NCAA tournament?

Greenberg looked at data from BetMGM.

“For the entire tournament including teams that are already gone, Alabama attracted about 1% of all bets for entire tournament and about .6% of the handle, which just means the amount of money being bet,” said Greenberg.

He noted, UNC, the Tide’s next opponent was one of the most popular bets. It could be, because the state of North Carolina just legalized sports betting.

“One thing we’ve heard from the sportsbooks is one of the reasons North Carolina is so popular this year is because North Carolina actually just went online to sports betting, so it’s not a humongous surprise. “

Greenberg said betting on plays, games, and everything in between is another way for fans to get into the game.

“I can see the handle on Alabama Football for starters just being absolutely enormous, sports betting does tend to just exacerbate the fandom that already exists for people, and Alabama is one of the most passionate fanbases in the country.”