Even before the first upset of the tournament, I was intrigued by something I recently came across.

It was an article about March Madness and bracket pools. What grabbed my eye was that gambling pools involving brackets are illegal in Illinois.

I am sure I was not the only person in DeKalb who didn’t think that this form of competition was wrong, much less illegal. Seriously, it doesn’t get much better than taking your friends’ money when your ‘Cinderella’ pick goes past the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8 and no one would have thought it but you.

But in light of the illegality of this, I have come to realize that there are plenty of other alternatives for college students. Heck, some have better incentives than winning five bucks from each of your friends.

Any sports fan knows there are competitions online for prizes. Web sites such as on ESPN.com, Yahoo.com and Facebook all offer bracket challenges.

But people do not tend to put forth a full effort in these picks. It’s because of the large amount of competitors. Therefore, the chances of winning the grand prize seem slim to none without a near-perfect bracket.

However, some people fail to realize that you can still compete with your friends through these Internet versions of the competitions. And it is just as fun and exciting to do it this way than involving money.

Facebook, for example, allows a person to create as many groups as they want, invite all their friends and still compete against them. However, you compete not only for bragging rights, but if you finish in the top 10 percent of all competitors, you are eligible for a chance to win the grand prize of $10,000.

This brings out the best of both worlds. First, you get bragging rights for the next year with your friends. Then, if you’re good enough (or, should I say, lucky enough) to have a great bracket, you may just win some money, too.

ESPN.com also offers a $10,000 grand prize and allows you to create groups to compete with your friends. The site also lets you see how your bracket stacks up with people from all over the country, not just college students. ESPN offers expert advice for the casual fan who may not know when to lay off the upsets and pick some higher seeds.

It’s a lot easier to fill out a bracket online than to go through five or 10 brackets on paper, scratching off when you reconsider your 15-2 upset pick three or four times.

The allure of these free tournament challenges makes them difficult to pass up. Your brackets are always online, in case you decided to “randomly” leave your bracket at home and insist that you picked San Diego to upset UConn in the first round.

The competition is there. The incentives are there. And the best part of all: It’s legal. So why isn’t everyone else there yet?

Well, maybe next year.