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While most daily fantasy sports websites are shunning March Madness the way Major League Baseball shuns Pete Rose, one fantasy site sees the NCAA's annual, 68-team, basketball free-for-all as too good an opportunity to ignore.
Tradesports (www.tradesports.com) will be offering contests for the tournament, but with a twist.
You don't put your money on players, you put it on props (short for propositions).
In an interview earlier this week with Gambling 911, Tradesports chief executive officer Ron Bernstein explained how March Madness, Tradesports-style, will work.
"What makes Tradesports so great is that we can focus on teams, specific games and the conference rivalries instead of individual players that aren't very well known," Bernstein said.
"Remember, in our game, it's about making predictions on whether various props will come true and beating out the other contestants in your contest," he said. "We have multiple contests at all different entry points. As low as $2 and as high as $250."
He continued: "We have a great line-up. We had a Selection Sunday Contest. We'll have round by round individual games. Will this team win? Will this game have more than x points? How will this player match up vs. that player? All in contest prop form.
"We'll also do round by round seedings and team predictions. For example, will any #7 seed make the Final Four? And we'll combine that with other topics based on seeds and conferences. We'll also be doing an NCAA Seed Upset Contest. Will this team advance vs. the higher seed? Will any upset teams advance?
"And, to top things off besides the every day game by game contests, we will be having a Real Time Futures Trading Contest for which team wins the NCAA tournament. This will start once the Sweet 16 is determined. Contestants get a starting stake to trade with--$50,000--and all the teams are like stocks, where losers go to zero and the final winner goes to 100. Whoever has the highest portfolio--the most money--when the winner claims the trophy, wins the contest.
"We're pretty unique," Bernstein said. "Because of the fantasy contest structure that we use, as well as our real-time trading game, we also give all new sign-ups a free $20 to try things out. We know we have a new format, so we want to lower the risk of a new player making dumb and expensive mistakes while they learn our game."
Information about the daily March Madness contests being offered by Tradesports can be seen here.
The infomation will be updated daily throughout the tournament, Bernstein said.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
