Jeff Haney points to figures from Gaming Control showing the NCAA might have beaten the Super Bowl

Friday, June 29, 2007 | 7:24 a.m.

The NCAA men's basketball tournament might have surpassed the Super Bowl this year, once and for all, as the single biggest sports betting event in Nevada's legal sports books, according to the most recent figures released by the state Gaming Control Board.

That's "might have," only because the handle - or amount of money bet - on the NCAA tournament is not specifically tracked, the way it is for the Super Bowl.

The best we can do is come up with an estimate using the Gaming Control Board's month-to-month reports on the amount of money wagered on basketball - pro and college combined - in the state's sports books.

For the past several years, the estimate of the state's NCAA tournament handle had been roughly equivalent to the Super Bowl handle, reflecting the opinion of oddsmakers that the two events could be ranked Nos. 1 and 1A on sports betting's calendar.

But 2007 could go down as a breakout year for March Madness wagering, as the amount of money gamblers bet on basketball in March surged just a month after the state's Super Bowl handle actually declined from its 2006 level.

In March bettors in Nevada sports books risked more than $228 million on basketball, according to the Gaming Control Board, an increase of $121 million from the $107 million bet on basketball in February.

The amount wagered on the NCAA tournament probably exceeded $121 million, though. If you consider that basketball betting is evenly divided between college and the NBA, as veteran bookmaker and Leroy's sports books spokesman Jimmy Vaccaro estimated, then perhaps $50 million to $60 million was wagered on college basketball in February, with about $60 million bet on the NBA in each month from February through April. (In fact, $61 million was bet on basketball in April, obviously almost all of it on the NBA, the Gaming Control Board reported.)

That means the college basketball handle for March could have been as high as $150 million to $160 million, including some regular-season games and conference tournament action.

Any way you look at it, those figures easily exceed the $93 million wagered on the Super Bowl, in which the Colts beat the Bears 29-17, covering a point spread of about a touchdown.

(Of course, the NCAA tournament encompasses several weeks' worth of action, and the Super Bowl remains king of the single-game, single-day sports betting events.)

While the state's Super Bowl handle dropped from $94.5 million in 2006, breaking a five-year streak in which it increased each year, the handle on March basketball betting increased substantially from a year ago.

The $228 million bet this March represents an increase of 17 percent from the $195.5 million wagered in March 2006. Sports books won, or "held," $16.7 million of that total, or 7.3 percent.

Sports books won at a similar rate in February, holding 6.9 percent of the $107 million bet on basketball, or $7.4 million.

In a mild upset, however, bettors had the best of it in April. The gambling public won about 4.2 percent of the $61 million handle that month, dealing the sports books a $2.6 million loss, according to the Gaming Control Board.

Bettors were certainly on the right side of the NCAA championship game April 2, when Florida beat Ohio State 84-75. Florida was bet up from a 4-point favorite to a 5-point favorite, and the "total," or over/under, in the game was bet up to 140 points from an opener of 135. So the result made winners of Florida bettors, "over" bettors and anyone who parlayed the favorite with the "over."