When UConn hit its go-ahead shot against Duke with less than a second remaining in the Elite Eight on Sunday, it made a lot of Huskies fans happy. Especially anyone who may have put down a few dollars on UConn.

According to Yahoo! Sports, one bettor in New Jersey who placed $300,000 on the Huskies money line got $615,000 in winnings following the last-second shot that capped off an improbable comeback. Duke was ahead by 15 points at halftime, no No. 1 seed in the history of the tournament up by that much at the half had ever lost before.

This year, bettors who wagered on NCAA tournament games had access to official in-game data thanks to a partnership between the NCAA and tech firm Genius Sports. It allows that data to be used by sportsbooks for their live betting offerings.

Support for GBH is provided by:
Become a GBH sponsor

It’s another twist in the NCAA’s relationship with sports betting. And it comes as sportsbooks are using data unlike ever before.

Big month for sports betting

Collectively, the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments are the biggest annual sporting event for sports betting in the country.

This year, about $3.3 billion is expected to be wagered on the tournaments with U.S. sportsbooks, according to the American Gaming Association. That’s about double what was expected to be wagered on this year’s Super Bowl.

And the NCAA, which has historically aligned itself as against sports betting, is positioning its data-sharing deal as a way to prevent harmful bets.

Part of the deal is that sportsbooks who take part in the deal, which only applies to NCAA championship events like the tournament, must limit “risky” bets.

According to the NCAA, that includes a ban on high-risk prop bets like those on underperformance and injuries.

Support for GBH is provided by:
Become a GBH sponsor

That tracks with the goals of former Massachusetts governor and current NCAA president, who has pushed to ban prop bets, which include wagers on individual player performances.

“The NCAA has the largest integrity monitoring program in the world, but we still need regulators and gaming companies to eliminate collegiate prop bets, especially on first-half unders,” Baker said in a statement after several college basketball players were alleged to have participated in a point-shaving scheme.

New betting products

Still, even as the NCAA tries to get ahead of potential abuse of betting during the tournaments, the products being offered for live betting are more advanced than ever before.

Mark Gottlieb, executive director of Northeastern’s Public Health Advocacy Institute, said that online gambling is trending toward live betting.

And he said that the online products that are available today, which include live data from games and experiences tailored to individual users, are much different than what they were even a few years ago.

“So this is just so different from going to Vegas and betting on who’s gonna win the tournament,” he said. “It’s a completely different experience and one that poses much greater risks to the user than sports gambling ever had before.”