I was reading a story today (sorry no link handy but google is your friend) about Warren Buffett/Quicken Loans offer of 1 billion $ to anyone who submits a perfect NCAA bracket for this year's tourney. The story insisted the odds were one in a billion. That seems ridiculous to me, but I'm not sure how one would determine the true odds unless maybe one had a database of human picks.
But it gives me an idea--what if you could get a huge amount of data on all the matchups and do a hard analysis; looking at previous years' tourneys it is exceedingly rare for a lower than 12 seed to win in the first round, and usually those first round upsets are not as 'upsetting' as the rank would indicate. Then, it's even more rare for the rare upset to survive the second round. So, of course the key is to identify the potential upset games, and also to give oneself a better than 50/50 edge for the close matchups like the 8 facing the nine. Looking at previous years, I took a rough guesstimate that I could probably (if i knew anything about the teams, which unfortunately I don't...) increase my odds to 1 in 10,000.
Which make me wonder if the billion dollar offer is risky. Course I don't have stats on how any perfect brackets have materialized overall, so my 10K to 1 may be too generous. If it is reasonable, an easy way to beat Buffett would be to hoist a website and take to social media for recruits. Generate 10,000 unique brackets that cover all the possible (realistic, from a statistical point of view) outcomes. The assign each person who signs up a unique entry to the contest. The people who sign up contract with you to pay the site the 1 billion if their bracket wins. So, everyone who signs up as an excellent chance of walking away with $100,000-- It's a free entry, after all!
Am I on to something, or is my 1 in 10K estimate too liberal?
But it gives me an idea--what if you could get a huge amount of data on all the matchups and do a hard analysis; looking at previous years' tourneys it is exceedingly rare for a lower than 12 seed to win in the first round, and usually those first round upsets are not as 'upsetting' as the rank would indicate. Then, it's even more rare for the rare upset to survive the second round. So, of course the key is to identify the potential upset games, and also to give oneself a better than 50/50 edge for the close matchups like the 8 facing the nine. Looking at previous years, I took a rough guesstimate that I could probably (if i knew anything about the teams, which unfortunately I don't...) increase my odds to 1 in 10,000.
Which make me wonder if the billion dollar offer is risky. Course I don't have stats on how any perfect brackets have materialized overall, so my 10K to 1 may be too generous. If it is reasonable, an easy way to beat Buffett would be to hoist a website and take to social media for recruits. Generate 10,000 unique brackets that cover all the possible (realistic, from a statistical point of view) outcomes. The assign each person who signs up a unique entry to the contest. The people who sign up contract with you to pay the site the 1 billion if their bracket wins. So, everyone who signs up as an excellent chance of walking away with $100,000-- It's a free entry, after all!
Am I on to something, or is my 1 in 10K estimate too liberal?
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