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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

#71

Post by mgkimsal »

dfc wrote: post #13
dba7dba wrote: post #9

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...

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?

it's quicken loans, not quicken, which aren't related except for the name. but the mindshare spillover quicken is getting from people like yourself certainly doesn't hurt (and didn't cost them anything!).

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

#72

Post by paul_f »

fsk wrote: post #37
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…

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.

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

#73

Post by biesnecker »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #69
fsk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Assuming each is a coinflip is not a reasonable assumption.

I think it's even worse than a coin flip. At least with a coin there's a reasonable assumption that the odds are 50% both ways. Flipping the Duke/Mercer coin, though, you have have a maybe 95% of landing on Duke, which causes significantly more than 95% of people to put their money down on that, whereas with a normal unweighted coin you'd expect ~50% of people to bet on each side.

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

#74

Post by dustinrodrigues »

yock wrote: post #52
cgtyoder wrote: post #42

There is still one bracket left as of 11:27p EDT. https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack...

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

This person submitted a Yahoo bracket, but it wasn't part of the billion dollar challenge. But still, 32/32 is nothing to shrug at. The rest of his bracket is pretty reasonable too, except for Oregon in the final four. Oftentimes, people who are correct after the first sets of games are people who don't have a very sound bracket and randomly chose upsets that happened to end up correct.

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

#75

Post by 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.

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

#76

Post by ianhawes »

yock wrote: post #52
cgtyoder wrote: post #42

There is still one bracket left as of 11:27p EDT. https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack...

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

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.

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

#77

Post by cgtyoder »

ianhawes wrote: post #76
yock wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

How is he not in the Quicken Loans bracket? He's at the top of it: https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack... or is that not the right standings list?

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

#78

Post by gibybo »

fsk wrote: post #37
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…

If Buffet only offered half the EV, it's likely you could sell your stake to another investor/insurance company/etc at something closer to the EV (maybe 90%+), so I think Buffet would have to offer close to that as well.

You could probably even find someone to sell a partial stake to which would get you set for life and still allow you to ride the bet to the end.

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

#80

Post by wernercd »

gammarator wrote: post #40
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...

One person still in the running... the rest of the people with 31/32 all had the same wrong pick. Brutal.
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