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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

#31

Post by waterlesscloud »

jerf wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#32

Post by cjf4 »

jw2013 wrote: post #15
thrush wrote: post #7

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...

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

And that's the bottom line...

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#33

Post by bluedevil2k »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #31
jerf wrote: post #10

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.

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.

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

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#34

Post by dsrguru »

jmduke wrote: post #27
jw2013 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Regardless, I think it would qualify as gambler's fallacy for the person buying your stake!

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#35

Post by testacular »

ed wrote: post #28

Well, duh. At 63 games this has an expected value of $1e-10. https://www.google.com/search?q=1000000000%2F2%5E63

You naively assumes that every game is a 50/50 coin-toss, resulting in an estimate that's off by many orders of magnitude.

A more realistic model would put the average edge around 58%, and the value of a single bracket at a much greater level: $0.000001.

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#37

Post by fsk »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #18

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.

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.

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#38

Post by cfredmond »

arb99 wrote: post #24
dfc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

he may be referring to dan gilbert...

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#39

Post by dfc »

arb99 wrote: post #24
dfc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

It was sarcasm. I had hoped that including the bit about omaha would make it obvious. To be honest the motivator of the second option was:

"I have enough money that I can risk giving up a billion"

I had assumed everybody knew that Buffet had so much money. I did not understand how the commenter thought that this contest was going to be the way the world found out that Buffet was loaded.

Re: Out of 15M brackets, none remains to win Warren Buffet's $1B March Madness bet

#40

Post by gammarator »

thrush wrote: post #7

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...

There is one on Yahoo that still has a chance to get all of the first round right: https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack...
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