$1 Billion Prize For Perfect NCAA Bracket!

[Darkestknight]

I thought it was a joke but there really is a $1 Billion prize coming up for anyone who can make a perfect NCAA bracket!

I don't know much about sports, but I know the chances of this happening are more or less 0.

My first thought was that sports books would have a decent shot at this because you just have to correctly pick all the winners (67 of them I think) and you don't have to worry about point spreads which I would think would help a lot. Then again, you can't make a single error and I would imagine that most of the match ups are pretty close together.

Here's the thing, its free to enter. That means even someone with 0 sports experience like me can take a half hour to sit down and do his best at hit and miss and gain some entertainment from it.

My next thought was clearly we should all join forces and fix the games (JOKE! Would never do that)

Anyone else entering the contest? Other thoughts related to the contest?

FYI there are a few runner up prizes of 100K each for the 20 best brackets that aren't perfect.

[Three]

I don't think anyone has ever come close. There was a big deal a few tears ago when part way through the sweet 16 someone still hadn't lost. They thought that was the closest by far that anyone had come. You are going to have to pick all the upsets. I am not sure the permutations to pick all the combinations. You would have to predict before any games were played so that really ups the cmbinations over picking at the start of each round.

[Dtb239]

The odds of winning are said to be one in 4,294,967,296

[Nyne]

That number is wrong. If every match is a coin flip, the odds are 1 in 2^63. If you assume every favorite wins the first round and the remaining matches are coin flips, it's 1 in 2^31. That article says its 1 in 2^32 without giving any explanation for why that's the case. Basically, any bracket that survives round 1 has about $0.23 of EV at that point if the remaining matches are coin flips. I wonder what Buffett charged to insure this?

Edit: also choosing them all from the beginning vs at the beginning of each round is exactly the same. You are choosing team A or B in 63 games. It doesn't even really matter what team is A and what team is B, but if it helps, then consider that the only combination that gets all 63 games right requires that you get all 1st round games right, so you do know who is in round 2, then you get those right so you know who is in round 3, etc. But really it's just a 0.50 chance on 63 consecutive trials, or 0.5^63.

[Three]

I heard on the news the odds are around 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000.

You are not picking 67 coin flips. The final game has 33 possible teams on the play in side playing 1 of 32 possible teams on the side that has no play in game. That is a lot of possible matchups. You only have a coin flip game when both teams are playing teir first game. Of course there is dependence on success in the previous round. If you were not eliminated you have only 2 teams to choose from. Too early to get into how to figure it out.

[Nyne]

You are wrong Tthree. If every matchup were evenly matched, it is exactly 1 in 2^63, or if you have to predict the four play in games too, it's 1 in 2^67. If it helps, work out the probability of getting round 1 right (1 in 2^32), then the probability of getting round 2 right conditional on having a perfect round one (1 in 2^16), then the probability of getting round 3 right conditional on having a perfect round one and two (1 in 2^8), etc. down to the finals, then multiply them all together. It doesn't matter that there could have been a different team at the final because if your predicted team didn't win the semifinal round, you've already screwed up. The only combination we care about is the one that involves getting every guess right, and if you get the previous guesses right, then you already know what teams are in the finals.

[ZenMaster_Flash]

Septillions must be way big I think.

[22 Dreams]

Yep, it's definitely 1 in 2^63. That's only 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.

Hey Flash, we're talking quintillions here...leave septillions out of it!

[Blitzkrieg]

Don't worry soon enough we will have Billion dollar lottery winners. QE to infinity baby!!!

[Brock W]

But of course the games are not coin flips. The closing line of each individual game will represent the closest approximation of each outcome. Taking all favs will have a better chance of coming in than taking all dogs. I concur that there is no practical application of this information however it has made for some great PR for Quicken and Berkshire.

[Gronbog]

Assuming that the odds makers are right, then taking all favorites would have the best chance of success, however, assuming that the prize is split among multiple winners, it may also end up being the most diluted choice making its actual value less than a bracket containing some dogs.

Useless, but still fun to think about.

My office runs a pool on this tournament every year even though none of us really follows the sport. Points are assigned for each correct pick in the bracket with the point value going up by the Fibonacci Sequence with each round and you must complete the entire bracket before the tourney starts.