March Madness, NCAA basketball’s annual national tournament – notorious for its widespread gambling opportunities – has prompted admittedly little response from the Boston University administration, which forbids gambling on campus otherwise.
Directly following “Selection Sunday,” when the 65 teams in the tournament are chosen and seeded, brackets saturate the internet, spanning websites including ESPN.com, Yahoo.com and even Facebook.com. For people willing to wait a few hours, brackets appear in the next morning’s newspapers.
Although popular, betting on the NCAA tournament violates school regulations. One line in the BU Life Book is dedicated to the issue, simply stating, “Gambling is not permitted.”
“Gambling is not allowed in residence halls,” Associate Dean of Students Jack Weldon said. “It is not something we encourage, but if we are unaware of it, we are not going to say you can’t do it.”
Weldon said the university’s primary concerns are student safety and the problems of illegal drug and alcohol abuse.
“If we were to get a complaint about gambling, we would address it,” he said. “Gambling is not permitted, but we are not going to go around knocking on doors looking for it. We will do that for illegal drugs.”
Weldon and BU spokesman Colin Riley said they have never heard a complaint about NCAA tournament pools on campus.
In the event that gambling did become a problem, including student loan sharking or orchestrating a widespread gambling ring, the university would take appropriate action. A stark difference from the more common $5 tournament pools, major gambling is a “serious infraction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Weldon said.
“It would become a police matter,” he said. “Bottom line: gambling is illegal, but if someone’s throwing a few dollars into a pool, we’re not going to know about it or say anything about it.”
People do not just fill out brackets or watch their favorite teams for fun, though. Most enter tournament pools with friends, co-workers and fellow students. COM freshman Colton Bozigian runs a pool in Warren Towers, and said he placed flyers around the dormitory asking entrants “for a five dollar donation for the winner.”
Bozigian, an entrant in his own pool, said he started participating for money in his freshman year of high school and before that helped his father select teams in his company’s office pool. He said he will not keep any of the money unless he wins.
“It’s a winner-take-all tournament,” he said. “I’m not trying to make any money unless I win the pool.”
Bozigian said he does not bet on any other sports, nor does he complete a bracket purely for the money.
“I just think it’s fun,” he said. “It’s fun to research teams, and I feel proud when underdogs I pick win … the chance of winning money is just an added bonus.”
School of Management freshman Zach Hoffman runs a pool at West Campus, also with a $5 entrance fee, via Yahoo.com.
“Gambling on the tournament adds much more excitement to it,” he said. “Because I don’t have a personal favorite team in the tournament, putting money on it makes me care who wins each game.”
According to global outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray ‘ Christmas, Inc., American businesses will lose a combined $3.8 billion in productivity while fans either miss work to watch games or sneak in some viewing time on office computers.