In Louisville, Kentucky, Damon Stinson says his dad, Bob, came up with the idea of creating individual brackets in the 1970s, inspired by a recreational softball league. “That's just when it clicked and he decided, 'You know what, why don't we do this for the NCAA basketball tournament?
The other version of the story? “A lot of people like to say that we started the brackets and stuff like that, which we’re pretty proud of,” said Terence Haggerty, owner of Jody’s Club Forest on Staten Island. “I’m not going to tell you it’s official that we were the ones who started it. My father just started a pool, and it just grew and grew, and the popularity of it was just astronomical.”
Haggerty’s dad, Jody, founded his Irish pub in 1976. A few months later, he came up with the idea to bet on the NCAA basketball championship. For $10, you picked the Final Four teams and the national champion.
Jody’s first pool, in 1977, had 88 entrants and a jackpot of $880. It quickly became the talk of the town. Haggerty says every March for 30 years, Jody’s Club and the surrounding streets were packed with people trying to get their picks in.
It's a you-pick'em no matter what. The American Gaming Association estimates that Americans will gamble $3.1 billion on the men's and women's tournaments. This sum doesn't even include all the money bet illegally, including entry fees for bracket pools (yes, your office pool is technically illegal).