“The point we’re making is, if you’re putting money at risk — whether it’s a dollar or $10,000 — it’s a violation,” said Bill Saum, the NCAA’s director of gambling activities. “No one thinks a dollar pool is going to have an impact on the integrity of a game, but our kids get so many mixed messages we don’t want to send any more.”

The NCAA has tried to get Congress to ban betting on college sports, and Arizona Sen. John McCain went so far as to introduce a bill in the last session to do just that. The bill died quietly, though, and there are no indications McCain will try again.

Saum believes there are good reasons to worry about betting on college sports. A survey the NCAA did last year found 17 percent of male athletes in Division I sports bet on college sports, while slightly more than 2 percent of basketball players said they were asked to influence the outcome of a game because of gambling debts.

Every team in the NCAA tournament will watch a video this week warning of the dangers of consorting with gamblers or making bets, and Saum and FBI agents will meet personally on the Friday before the Final Four with each of the remaining teams.

Meanwhile, betting has never been easier on tournament games, largely because anyone with Internet access and a few bucks can make a bet. Doyle said his company alone will take in up to $25 million on the games.

“It’s about 10 times what the size of the Super Bowl is for us,” Doyle said. “The Super Bowl is just one game, while March Madness lasts several weeks.”

Las Vegas sports books will likely total less than $100 million, but the first week of the tournament has grown into one of the biggest events of the year on the Strip. The Mandalay Bay has 4,766 rooms, but is sold out from Monday night through Saturday.

“It’s become one of our biggest weekends of the year,” spokesman Gordon Absher said. “If a room did become available it would be $599 a night and there’s a line of people waiting to pay that.”

Absher said last year some fans thought they would get a table in the sports book by staking it out at 3 a.m., only to find they were all taken. The same is true at the Stardust hotel-casino, where people who don’t even gamble come just to soak up the atmosphere.

“As soon as the first game tips off the crowd starts roaring like they are literally at the game,” said sports book director Bob Scucci. “They’re cheering every basket and the excitement never dies down because you always got another game going on. From an action point of view, nothing beats it.”

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Mark J. Terrill / AP

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