

Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet - callmevlad
https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbracket/group/all/standings
Original title: Out of 15M brackets, only 1 remains to win Warren Buffet&#x27;s $1B March Madness bet<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sports.yahoo.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;ncaab-the-dagger&#x2F;there-are-no-longer-any-perfect-brackets-left-in-the-billion-dollar-bracket-challenge-003853949.html
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thrush
There are currently still 3 perfect brackets on ESPN.

    
    
      1. http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2014/en/entry?entryID=576318
      1. http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2014/en/entry?entryID=4155737
      1. http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2014/en/entry?entryID=10928050
    

[http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-
bracket/2014/e...](http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-
bracket/2014/en/leaderboard)

~~~
jw2013
Now they are all done. Thanks, SF Austin. I got it wrong, too.

~~~
cjf4
And that's the bottom line...

------
jerf
From a game design standpoint, that was one problem with this design. Since
half the tournament occurs in the first round (well, not counting the wildcard
round), there's no drama; everyone gets shot down immediately. In the movie
version of this, it'll come down to at _least_ the Final Four before our hero
gets knocked out, no matter how implausible the odds of making it that far
are.

~~~
waterlesscloud
There's usually perfect brackets a couple rounds in. This year was rough.
While the first round has half the games, they're usually a lot more
predictable than later rounds.

This is probably my worst first round ever, anecdotally.

~~~
bluedevil2k
Not true - in ESPN leagues, only 1 bracket the past 7 years made it past the
first weekend perfect.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Hmm. I'm pretty sure I've seen more than 1 perfect bracket in the last 7 years
on Yahoo, but I was certainly wrong about second round. Apparently there's
only one documented case ever of a second round perfect bracket.

------
bluedevil2k
A friend and I today discussed if you had a perfect bracket after the great 8
round, going into the Final 4, would you, and for how much, sell a stake in
your bracket to hedge your money?

The numbers, though it's a "billion $" bracket, that's actually $25M over 40
years, or an optional $300M single payout. In the US, you could expect about
55% of that after taxes, so $165M. There are 3 games left at the Final 4 game.

~~~
fsk
In an interview, Warren Buffet suggested that if someone was perfect at the
Final Four, he'd offer to buy them out for the EV (or even half the EV). If
you aren't already rich, you'd be an idiot to not take his offer. It pays for
Warren Buffet to buy someone out for their EV, because that minimizes HIS
risk.

Even if the person refused the offer, Warren Buffet could go to Vegas and bet
on the last couple of games, as a hedge.

Even if you're perfect at the sweet 16 (which has never happened), with 15
games left (assuming each is a coinflip), your EV is 1/2^15 ~ 1 in 32000, so
your bracket is only worth $300M/32000 ~ $9k.

~~~
paul_f
There is no way to hedge $100M+ on sports bets. Nobody will take that kind of
action, even if he spread it around to every single book.

I personally think if I was offered $10M as a settlement, I'd take it.

~~~
fsk
He can start hedging in the Sweet 16 (assuming only 1 perfect bracket exists),
where he only has to bet $20k-$100k on each game.

------
callmevlad
Some background: Warren Buffett Offers $1 Billion For Perfect March Madness
Bracket

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/01/21/warr...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/01/21/warren-
buffett-offers-1-billion-for-perfect-march-madness-bracket/)

------
Alex_MJ
From a "get people to play with numbers" perspective, this was actually a
pretty cool challenge on Warren Buffet's part. Most people are going to spray-
and-pray (my facebook feed is full of facetious "shit, there goes my billion
dollars") but I would be surprised if there weren't a large number of people
who put more effort than they otherwise would have into trying to figure out
statistical models for who wins basketball games.

------
cgtyoder
There is still one bracket left as of 11:27p EDT.
[https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack...](https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbracket/2030973)

~~~
yock
I saw this too. Am I missing something or is the headline here wrong?

~~~
ianhawes
Notice how he's not entered into the Quicken Loans Bracket Pool? They also
sent out an email to all the participants stating that nobody was left
perfect, so I'm going to guess that he either filled out his bracket post-
Round of 64 or was unlucky enough to not actually enter it into the Billion
Dollar Challenge.

~~~
cgtyoder
How is he not in the Quicken Loans bracket? He's at the top of it:
[https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack...](https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbracket/group/all/standings)
or is that not the right standings list?

~~~
ianhawes
I think he simply entered it into Yahoo Sports, but didn't actually submit it
to the Quicken Billion Dollar Competition. If he were in the Quicken
competition, the bracket page would have it listed under "Pools" \- which its
not. But I'm not 100% sure.

------
creade
It's not in the article but my guess would be that none of Warren Buffet's
money was ever actually on the line. The last time Pepsi had a contest for $1
Billion, they bought insurance against someone meeting the conditions to win
the prize. Who'd they buy that insurance from? Berkshire Hathaway.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Billion_Dollar_Sweepstake...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Billion_Dollar_Sweepstakes#Insurance)

~~~
curiouscats
Right, same deal this time as I remember reading about it. It is funny that
Buffet gets most of the PR when Buffett's company is just making a fortune
insuring against a very unlikely outcome. Normally the crazy people marketing
the potential $1B payout (that buy insurance from some boring insurance
company) would get the PR.

~~~
FireBeyond
I doubt it's a fortune. After all, given the astronomical odds, I think you'd
be able to argue an insignificant premium was appropriate.

------
PhantomGremlin
Assuming you could pick game winners with 80% probability, your odds of
selecting a perfect 63 game bracket are less than 1 in a million. I.e.

    
    
       >>> .8 ** 63
       7.846377169233378e-07
    

Even at 90%, your odds are little better than 1 in a thousand:

    
    
       >>> .9 ** 63
       0.0013100205086376223
    

Needless to say, I didn't even bother entering.

~~~
Afforess
What? You didn't take 1 in a million odds because? The challenge was _free_. I
took the challenge (and lost). To dismiss the challenge because of the long
odds is silly. You left a free lunch on the table.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Elsewhere in this discussion someone posted this link [1] which claims that

    
    
       Odds are that Buffett’s bracket isn’t worth your time,
       however. Having a 1-in-7.4 billion chance of winning a
       billion dollars is worth the equivalent of 14 cents.
       That’s before accounting for taxes
    

I understand why you entered. It's for the same reason people play the
lottery. People value a large payoff much more highly than a small one, even
if the odds are worse for the big payoff.

I.e. for many people it's not worth betting $2 for a 1:2 chance of winning $4.
That won't be a life changing event. But people are willing to bet $2 for a
1:175,223,510 chance of winning perhaps $100,000,000, even though those odds
are much worse. That's how Powerball makes money. BTW I do bet on Powerball
once in a while.

In my case I figured it wasn't worth betting $0.14 (because I knew it would
take more than that of my time) to win $1,000,000,000.

[1] [http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-
have-a-1-in-6001225228...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-
have-a-1-in-6001225228-chance-of-winning-buffetts-billion/)

~~~
dingaling
> In my case I figured it wasn't worth betting $0.14 (because I knew it would
> take more than that of my time) to win $1,000,000,000.

People in work say this and it amuses me - as they then go on to say how they
enjoyed an evening-in watching two films back-to-back.

In other words: your time should only be equated to money if you don't enjoy
the task.

------
joeblau
LOL, this is hilarious. I was talking to my Girlfriend and all of my friends
and I told them: You have a better probability, after being born, of becoming
a billionaire just because you're alive versus you wining Warren Buffet's
money. Then they countered, with: But if we play, we at least have some
chance. I just laughed and got back to programming.

------
selectout
It's actually none now. They sent out an email and push notification.

~~~
callmevlad
Looks like I can no longer edit the title, but you're right.

[http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/there-are-
no-...](http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the-dagger/there-are-no-longer-
any-perfect-brackets-left-in-the-billion-dollar-bracket-
challenge-003853949.html)

~~~
fjw
Looks like the final perfect bracket (even though it's ineligible for the
Billion Dollar Challenge) is about to be busted anyway with VCU on the verge
of beating S.F. Austin.

edit: March Madness.

~~~
defen
S.F. Austin had a 4-point play with 3.6 seconds left in the game to tie. Then
they won in overtime. That guy is still perfect!

------
6thSigma
Buffet said he calculated what he thought the odds were of a perfect bracket
and took a premium on top of that. I wonder what return he got on his $1B bet.

------
dennisz
There's still one perfect bracket after BOTH days (though not in the Buffet
challenge): [http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2001973-this-is-the-
only-...](http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2001973-this-is-the-only-perfect-
ncaa-tournament-bracket-
left?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=programming-
national)

------
magikbum
Actually down to just 1 at the time of 10 PM EST on Friday

------
runevault
Upsets are common. However so many of them appeared I'm completely unsurprised
the money is already safe. Watching brackets in my company pool crumble left
and right had been crazy.

With weighted results, I wonder what the odds of this set of outcomes
happening even was (note, some of the "upsets" by seed weren't really, like
the CU vs Pitt game where Pitt ran them over).

------
xefer
What am I missing...? The top bracket is still perfect, currently 30/30 and
their pick is leading in the other two games

~~~
dperfect
From what I can tell, the still-perfect bracket is not in the Billion Dollar
Bracket Challenge, but just at the top of the overall leaderboard among all
brackets/pools on Yahoo.

------
waylandsmithers
They should have put more emphasis on the top 20 non-perfects winning 100k.
That's still pretty good! But I suppose the goal was harvesting information
for quicken loans so mission accomplished.

------
thejosh
So I have absolutely no idea how this works, but I've seen it around a lot.

So I assume that you can enter once, how many unique entries would there need
to be to actually get a combination that would win?

~~~
maxerickson
If you assume knowledge about basketball is useful, billions:

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-
have-a-1-in-6001225228...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-
have-a-1-in-6001225228-chance-of-winning-buffetts-billion/)

It goes way up from there if you treat it like coin flips.

------
ed
Well, duh. At 63 games this has an expected value of $1e-10.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=1000000000%2F2%5E63](https://www.google.com/search?q=1000000000%2F2%5E63)

~~~
naftaliharris
That would be the case if each of the games were played between truly equal
teams. In fact, many of the games are much easier to predict than 50/50 since
one team is better than another. So the expected value is actually higher,
(though presumably still quite small, of course!)

------
cheeyoonlee
We have a better chance winning the Mega Millions jackpot

------
jpeg_hero
This shows you the power of statistics

------
dba7dba
This stunt actually makes me angry. Not a good PR move imo.

"I have enough money that I can risk giving up a billion $. And I may just
give it to you if you can beat the odds that's harder than getting hit by
lighting multiples times in 1 year."

How about offering pot of 100 million to top (aka sweep) 16 instead...

But never mind, it's their money...

~~~
_Robbie
This does seem silly. According to the article, the odds of picking the
correct bracket are less than 1 in 128 billion, so there is practically zero
risk.

~~~
dfc
...drum roll...

Accurately assessing financial risk is the reason Buffet has stacked so much
paper.

