Perfect NCAA March Madness 2015 Bracket Odds At 1 In 9.2 Quintillion, Easier To Win Mega Millions Twice In A Row
Warren Buffett offered a nice round(ball) sum of $1 billion for a perfect NCAA Tournament March Madness bracket last year. The allure of that much cash led millions of people to submit brackets, each hoping to be the one to collect the incredible prize. Of course, nobody did, and it shouldn't be shocking since there has never been a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket. A new study by a mathematics professor at DePaul University puts the odds of achieving such a feat at 1 in 9.2 quintillion, an incredibly ginormous number that makes getting struck by lightning or a meteorite appear to be a sure bet.
Taking a look at the 2014 NCAA March Madness bracket, one can see the huge upset of No. 2 Duke University by No. 14 Mercer University pretty much ruined every office pool and every bracket submitted in the Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge. Also problematic for basketball prognosticators were the upset victories by No. 11 University of Dayton over No. 6 Ohio State University and No. 3 Syracuse University. All three of these unlikely events took place during the first week of the tournament. Any perfect bracket surviving beyond the second round should be given its fair share of praise, considering how hard it is to accurately predict the outcomes of so many games.
"It would be easier to win the Mega Millions lottery two times in a row buying one ticket both times than it would be to get a perfect bracket. Getting a perfect bracket is also the mathematical equivalent of picking the winning party of each presidential election through 2264," DePaul's Jeff Bergen said in a statement.
The 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 odds are based on a person using pure guesswork to make picks, so any knowledge of college basketball and the NCAA Tournament should help push the odds slightly in your favor. If you're an NCAA March Madness expert, Bergen puts your odds at around 1 in 128 billion.
Those odds are way higher than hitting the Powerball jackpot, which are around 1 in 175.2 million. And they're way, way higher than the lifetime odds of being killed by an asteroid impact, which are around 1 in 700,000. While everybody in the world could accept Buffett's challenge for the perfect NCAA March Madness bracket, should he choose to extend it again, it's pretty safe to say his money would be safe for yet another year.
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