‘Gambler’s paradise’? March Madness fuels Florida sports betting craze

As March Madness reaches a peak, so too, it seems, will Florida’s fervor over online sports betting.

The legalization of sports betting has taken an annual event already steeped in gambling even further. For bettors, it’s the perfect time of year: so many teams are competing at once that if you lose money, you can always bet on another one, or just bet on multiple games at the same time. The Seminole Tribe’s sports betting app, the only legal app in Florida, is offering daily deals through a March Madness-centered marketing campaign coupled with relentless ads on social media.

“It’s kind of a culmination that’s built up throughout the season,” said Jared Casto, 42, an avid sports bettor based in Davie who says his best friend takes off work just to gamble on the games. “… It just makes it exciting, all the games going on. It’s like a gambler’s paradise, really.”

Last year, sports bettors had to travel to Vegas, download offshore apps, or find local bookies in order to cash in on March Madness. Now, with a swipe of the finger, they can bet as much money as they like at all hours of the night and in the comfort of their bedrooms.

A patron celebrates his winning bet in the Michigan State NCAA March Madness game at the Hard Rock Sports Bar in Davie on March 21, 2024.But that kind of accessibility also comes at a cost: Calls to Florida’s gambling addiction hotline have surged since the app launched in December, and experts predict that high interest times like March Madness may drive more vulnerable people to addiction.

Sports betting already had surged in interest since online betting launched to all Floridians over the age of 21 last December, drawing new users and longtime gamblers alike.

The Hard Rock Bet app, Florida’s only legal app operated by the Seminole Tribe, has amassed over 74,000 reviews since its launch and is currently ranked 18th in the Apple Store’s sports app category. Its account on X, which shares winning bets, offers and memes and clips of players, has close to 40,000 followers.

The company has capitalized off of the excitement surrounding college basketball and its star players.

This month, Hard Rock Bet launched a “Ballapalooza” marketing campaign with deals and offers for new and existing bettors both on the app and on social media. Local Hard Rock and Seminole casinos are also hosting watch parties, said Jon Chapper, a spokesperson for Hard Rock Bet.

Chapper could not provide numbers on bets placed or money won or lost so far this month, but said that betting volume for March is similar to January and February, both of which contained “high-interest” events that “drive betting volume,” NFL play-off games and the Super Bowl. While the Super Bowl is the single most popular day for betting, he anticipates wagering over the course of March Madness to surpass it.

Sports betting legalization in Florida is also contributing to national numbers: The American Gaming Association predicts that U.S adults will legally wager over $2.7 billion  on men’s and women’s NCAA games, which is only 2.2% of the total amount legally bet in 2023.

#MarchMadness brackets are officially set! Are you planning to bet on this year's games?

AGA estimates show that American adults will legally wager $2.72B on the 2024 men’s and women’s tournaments, equivalent to 2.2% of the total handle legally wagered by Americans in 2023. pic.twitter.com/OMDduOVTAz

— American Gaming Association (@AmericanGaming) March 18, 2024

The event “has something for everyone: local teams, underdogs, rivalries, and captivating individual and team storylines,” Chapper wrote in an email. “Sports betting is a way for fans to engage with their favorite teams and events, and the more buzz and interest there is surrounding a particular event, the more action we’ll see on the app.”

In the first round, the app’s most-bet games both involved local teams, he said: the University of Florida and Florida Atlantic University.

For bettors who already participate in March Madness, legal apps have offered, at minimum, another avenue, and, at most, an addictive, easier-to-use alternative.

Casto’s friends are “hardcore” bettors who already used offshore sites and local bookies. For them, he said, legal betting has become just another, more convenient avenue; and sometimes he finds that the offshore sites he uses actually have more options.

But ever since the legalization of sports betting, Casto said he noticed an increase in casual users, including women, who he had never seen so interested before. Meanwhile, just this week, he said, he went to the bar and saw young men making parlays on the Hardrock app.

“The promotions are kind of weak to me,” Casto said. “But it has picked up. Because a lot of casuals, I think, are finding it easy to do.”

Meanwhile, Zackary Dean, a 33-year-old based in Ocala, said he bet on every first round of every March Madness game, coming out 20 and 12 and winning about $200. Dean used to rely on offshore websites, but legalization has made everything far less complicated.

“The app is so much easier,” he said. “To just download it through the app, deposit though PayPal, you’re able to bet right away. Offshore you have to go through all these steps.”

Yorel Scaggs, 37, a former college basketball player, opens the Hard Rock Bet app before anything else when he gets up at 5:30 in the morning. Sometimes he uses his basketball experience to try to predict the flow of the game, though that doesn’t always work out.

“March Madness treated me really good,” he said, adding that, while he already bets every day, now that more games are going on, “I probably bet more.”

Unlike many of the other methods, the app also allows users to bet in real time, after a game has already begun, and to change bets if, for example, your team is losing.

All of the excitement also comes at a cost. Florida’s gambling addiction hotline, 1-888-ADMIT-IT, has received more than double the number of calls and texts, or over a 100% increase, since the app became available everywhere in December. High interest times like March Madness will likely drive even more vulnerable people to the app, experts say.

“It’s not necessarily a sporting event that is causing the uptick,” said Richard Pinsky, a spokesperson for the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, which runs the helpline. “It is the entire online sports betting that has been overwhelming and so significant. So when you have that over 100 percent increase, and then you add on a March Madness, maybe it’s 110 percent.”

Pinsky says that, while 96% of the population is able to gamble responsibly, about 3% of the general population is at risk of turning it into a compulsion.

“There’s just so many ways to wager on sports that it’s easy to get folks that already have that behavioral trigger in their brain,” he said.

Some sports bettors told the South Florida Sun Sentinel they have struggled with taking betting too far, or are unable to put the app down. Scaggs described sports betting as a “habit, for sure,” though he says he isn’t addicted. Casto says he has friends and family members who are addicted, some of them constantly on their phones, or betting out of boredom.

“It’s kind of a slippery slope,” he said. “You’ve gotta be real disciplined to do it properly, or like it’s just a hobby. That’s what I do. I’m very careful what I bet on. If I gamble all weekend and I go to work on Monday, I feel hung over, even though I didn’t drink.”