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?
Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
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Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#22A 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.
If these four teams are equally competent. Then you have 50% chance to choose each of three correct (2 final four games + 1 title games correctly). So the chance to win it all is (1/2)^3 = 0.125. Your expected return is $1B * 55% * 0.125 = $68.75M.
Or if you prefer a single payout, $300M * 0.125 = $37.5M. So considering inflation for $68.75M is over 40 years, maybe your expected return is between 37.5M to 50M (idk about 50M, I made it up)? Of course the reality is how much you would sell it very much depend on your conviction of how likely your guesses on final 3 games may be correct.
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#23From 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.
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#24This 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...
Not a good PR move? Is this because you think it is a bad idea for: * quicken to get a ton of free mentions in the press with one month before income taxes are due? * this otherwise unknown gentleman from the midwest to announce to the world that he has a lot of money?
I agree with you, but he is hardly unknown. (Not sure if that was sarcastic?)
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#25It'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...
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#26So 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?
If you assume knowledge about basketball is useful, billions:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/we-have-a-1-in-6001225228...
It goes way up from there if you treat it like coin flips.
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#27A 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.
If these four teams are equally competent. Then you have 50% chance to choose each of three correct (2 final four games + 1 title games correctly). So the chance to win it all is (1/2)^3 = 0.125. Your expected return is $1B * 55% * 0.125 = $68.75M. Or if you prefer a single payout, $300M * 0.125 = $37.5M. So considering inflation for $68.75M is over 40 years, maybe your expected return is between 37.5M to 50M (idk ab…
I'd argue that your chance of winning the bracket (or, at least, a valuation of it) is much higher than that given your ability to predict all of the matches prior.
(I don't think this would qualify as gambler's fallacy, though I'm welcome to counterarguments.)
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#28Well, duh. At 63 games this has an expected value of $1e-10.
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#29From 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.
ha i don't know- i thought the anti-climax was kind of great. speaks to the math really.
Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet
#30There 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...
Had a perfect first day -- then the first game today completely wrecked my bracket - but on the bright side I always enjoy seeing Duke lose