Warren Buffett offers $1 Billion.....

Hercules Rockefeller said:
Just a minor nitpick, but there are two definitions of a quintillion.

1. (Mathematics) (in Britain, France, and Germany) the number represented as one followed by 30 zeros (1030). US and Canadian word: nonillion
2. (Mathematics) (in the US and Canada) the number represented as one followed by 18 zeros (1018). Former Brit word: trillion
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But Ponylandistan is on the Continent of Randica so you understood which one we were using, right. (Er... it's an American story about an American sport and an offering by an American company supported by an American rich dude and reported in the American media.)
 
Foolmewunz said:
But Ponylandistan is on the Continent of Randica so you understood which one we were using, right. (Er... it's an American story about an American sport and an offering by an American company supported by an American rich dude and reported in the American media.)
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But then your calculation is not correct.

2x10^63 is much, much bigger than 9.3 quintillion. (Or, I got confused somewhere in this thread. The probability of that is much, much lower).

ETA: changed quadrillion to quintillion.
 
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Hercules Rockefeller said:
But then your calculation is not correct.

2x10^63 is much, much bigger than 9.3 quadrillion. (Or, I got confused somewhere in this thread. The probability of that is much, much lower).
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Could be wrong. I didn't do the calculations. (They promised no math when I signed up.) As I said above, I read it somewhere.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameo...ent-perfect-bracket-odds-quintillion/1999795/

And is quadrillion a typo? Or is that the British version of the American quintillion?
 
zooterkin said:
What odds would you get from the bookies for a similar prediction? Would it work as an accumulator or some other type of bet?
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Don't the Brit bookies claim to offer bets on anything? Why not ask them? I think they understand football much better but you could stretch out the numbers for the World Cup to get that high by including all the regional play-downs couldn't you?


ETA: Scratch that last question. You wouldn't know the pools for a 64 team World Cup projection, so it's not comparable.
 
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Hercules Rockefeller said:
But then your calculation is not correct.

2x10^63 is much, much bigger than 9.3 quintillion. (Or, I got confused somewhere in this thread. The probability of that is much, much lower).

ETA: changed quadrillion to quintillion.
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It's not 2x10^63, it's 2^63 (63 games, each with binary choice of winner). 9.2x10^18.

Since all the stats are giving this figure, I assume you only have to fill out the 64-team bracket and not pick the winners of the play-in games.
 
Is there a limit to the number of entries from any one person? Suppose you could enter, say, 1,000,000 of the most likely combinations (2 vs. 3, not 1 vs. 16)? Would that have any practical effect on the odds?
 
Bob001 said:
Is there a limit to the number of entries from any one person? Suppose you could enter, say, 1,000,000 of the most likely combinations (2 vs. 3, not 1 vs. 16)? Would that have any practical effect on the odds?
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Extremely limited, e.g. one per "household".
 
Bob001 said:
Is there a limit to the number of entries from any one person? Suppose you could enter, say, 1,000,000 of the most likely combinations (2 vs. 3, not 1 vs. 16)? Would that have any practical effect on the odds?
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If you could do it, your odds would go down to the neighborhood of winning one of those mega-lotteries with one ticket.
 
I suppose if you wanted to maximize your odds, you would always pick the higher seed to win (unless you have a good reason to believe that a particular team isn't seeded correctly, or there is a key injury or something like that). Problem is, I'm sure a lot of people will use exactly that strategy so you'll have to split the winnings if you are right.

ETA: even then, the odds are slim. You never see a tennis tournament for example where all 16 seeds make the round of 16.
 
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Puppycow said:
I suppose if you wanted to maximize your odds, you would always pick the higher seed to win (unless you have a good reason to believe that a particular team isn't seeded correctly, or there is a key injury or something like that). Problem is, I'm sure a lot of people will use exactly that strategy so you'll have to split the winnings if you are right.

ETA: even then, the odds are slim. You never see a tennis tournament for example where all 16 seeds make the round of 16.
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I mentioned that above. There's never been an NCAA Tournament when the higher seed has won every game. The thing with this bracket betting is that you have to do it all at once. You don't get to wait until the first round is over and check the matchups in the next round. You have to pick the teams that are going to win each game, sight unseen except for the records for the year. So when Florida Gulf Coast gets hot, no one picking the favorite is going to have them. Or when three starting Billikens get busted for climbing the Gateway Arch the night before the tournament and get suspended for the rest of the year, your picks are already in. Injuries. Hot hand. None of that is really available when you make out your brackets.

ETA: And arguably, while we all know there's a No. 1 team in the country, the four regions have seeds 1 to 16 and ostensibly you would wind up with four #1s playing each other in the semi-finals.
 
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I believe someone got very close a few years ago (relatively!! :)):

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/8632/autistic-teen-picks-perfect-bracket


But that is only 2 rounds and I also seem to remember something about him having filled out hundreds of brackets.... not that hundreds or thousands would help much when you are dealing with quintillions; but it might have helped with getting the first 2 rounds.

ETA: Here's those odds from the article:

the chances of picking the first two rounds of this NCAA tournament are one in 13,460,000, which means you have a better chance of winning the lottery twice over.
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Also, the article sure sounds like I am mis-remembering the multiple entries... still not sure about that. Maybe there was a later update on that story.
 
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OnlyTellsTruths said:
I believe someone got very close a few years ago (relatively!! :)):

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/8632/autistic-teen-picks-perfect-bracket


But that is only 2 rounds and I also seem to remember something about him having filled out hundreds of brackets.... not that hundreds or thousands would help much when you are dealing with quintillions; but it might have helped with getting the first 2 rounds.

ETA: Here's those odds from the article:




Also, the article sure sounds like I am mis-remembering the multiple entries... still not sure about that. Maybe there was a later update on that story.
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Well, the thing is that they're writing at ESPN who hosted almost five million entries that year - with zero correct and the kid was on the CBS pool which has a few million more and there are several others... and this is the only perfect two rounds we heard of. If the odds are like 15 million to 1, there may have been nearly fifteen million entries in the various public pools.

Also, if you follow the game... His upset mania fell apart after that weekend. I'd expect someone could get the first couple of rounds. I once got all of all of the opening Thursday games.
 
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