March Madness Trips Through The Years (2001-2020)

I love college basketball and love betting on college basketball. With sports betting coming to more and more states, trips just to bet on March Madness are becoming less necessary. But I still have my entire history of March Madness trips here in one place:

https://mattholthe.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-march-madness-trips.html 2001 through 2009
https://mattholthe.blogspot.com/2012/07/march-madness-since-2009.html 2010 through 2012
https://mattholthe.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-madness-trips-2013-2014.html 2013 and 2014

In 2015, I attended the Final Four games in Indianapolis. I saw Wisconsin beat an undefeated Kentucky team and then Duke destroy Michigan State in the semi-finals, and then was back two days later to watch Duke beat Wisconsin in the final.

In 2016, we went to Wisconsin Dells over Spring Break. Very close timing-wise to the NCAA tournament, so hard to justify anything other than staying around town for the games. https://mattholthe.blogspot.com/2016/03/great-wolf-lodge-follow-up.html

In 2017, I went to Vegas with some friends and had a great time. But, for whatever reason, I didn't blog about that trip.

In 2018, I went to the Missouri Valley Conference tournament in St Louis, and couldn't really justify a trip anywhere that soon after for the NCAA tournament, so I was around the bars at home. https://mattholthe.blogspot.com/2018/03/mvc-tournament.html

In 2019, I was again at home and watching around town.

In 2020, I will be going to Tunica, MS, to watch and bet on the games. I'll be going back to the same place where I watched the college football conference championship games. https://mattholthe.blogspot.com/2019/12/tunica-trip.html

To summarize all this, covering the last 20 years, I have been to Vegas 6 times (5 opening weekend - 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2017, 1 Sweet 16 weekend in 2010), Tunica once (2020), other trips (non-betting) 6 times (2002, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2018), and staying at home 7 times. Sports betting is supposed to be available in Illinois in the next couple of weeks, so the future might see fewer trips out of state, although you never know.

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