Warren Buffett Offers 1 Billion Dollar Reward for Perfect Bracket (1 Viewer)

[bagger]

With Dayton winning, I'd say more than half of the Warren buffet sweepstakes participants haven been eliminated on the opening game results.

thought the same thing.for the people who dont know, techinically intuit is offering the 1b and buffet is the one offering the insurance if someone actually hits.

regardless buffet is doing the high fiving with every upset for the easiest premium in the history of insurance.

 

[hagmania]

Slaps no money on the counter.

I'm still out.

 

[lod01]

With Dayton winning, I'd say more than half of the Warren buffet sweepstakes participants haven been eliminated on the opening game results.

thought the same thing.for the people who dont know, techinically intuit is offering the 1b and buffet is the one offering the insurance if someone actually hits.

regardless buffet is doing the high fiving with every upset for the easiest premium in the history of insurance.

Nice #### in that avatar.

 

[Guest]

3-for-3. The dream lives!

I would start hedging right now. Put $100 mil or so on your runner-up team.

 

[lod01]

Only about 9 million people took a free shot at $100K.

 

[lod01]

####ting the bed left and right. Cincy ####### me as is my BYU upset.

 

[dgreen]

There are 2 teams that can win each game of the 32 games in round 1, so that's 2^32. But then I was thinking round 2 has 4 teams that can win each game (prior to round 1 starting) and there are 16 of those games, so that round would be 4^16. And so on.

For each set of first round picks, there are only two possible teams that can win in the second round, so you can do 50% for every round.

Doing 2^32, 4^26, etc would include brackets that have Dayton winning in the first round but Ohio State winning in the second, which is impossible.

Ahh, makes sense.

Oddly, I included some impossible scenarios but still did it in a way that gave better odds than reality. I thought I was a genius coming up with that formula.

 

[dgreen]

I don't get where the 9.2 quintillion number comes from, but it was in the original article announcing the challenge...

Shouldn't the actual number be .5 to the 63rd power?

I think .5^63 would give you the probability (between 0 and 1) and 2^63 would give you the "1 in 9.2 quintillion" number. But I'm the person who thought there was a 1 in 8.6B chance, so I'm probably wrong here.

 

[shadyridr]

I don't get where the 9.2 quintillion number comes from, but it was in the original article announcing the challenge...

Shouldn't the actual number be .5 to the 63rd power?

they equal each other

 

[shadyridr]

I don't get where the 9.2 quintillion number comes from, but it was in the original article announcing the challenge...

Shouldn't the actual number be .5 to the 63rd power?

I think .5^63 would give you the probability (between 0 and 1) and 2^63 would give you the "1 in 9.2 quintillion" number. But I'm the person who thought there was a 1 in 8.6B chance, so I'm probably wrong here.

2^63 = 9.2 quintillion. Its the denominator. 1 is the numerator

 

[dgreen]

I don't get where the 9.2 quintillion number comes from, but it was in the original article announcing the challenge...

Shouldn't the actual number be .5 to the 63rd power?

I think .5^63 would give you the probability (between 0 and 1) and 2^63 would give you the "1 in 9.2 quintillion" number. But I'm the person who thought there was a 1 in 8.6B chance, so I'm probably wrong here.

2^63 = 9.2 quintillion. Its the denominator. 1 is the numerator

Yeah, that's another way to say it.

 

[Ballstein]

more brackets eliminated with the harvard win

 

[Spanky24]

Thanks Harvard, one game closer to my $1 Billion!

 

[EddieSpaghetti]

4/4 so far....Got both of the upsets right so far!

 

[lod01]

more brackets eliminated with the harvard win

It will already be over if Albany takes out Florida.

 

[dgreen]

darren rovellVerified account ‏@darrenrovell

Four games in, just 5.7% of the 11 million brackets in ESPN's contest are a perfect 4-0

 

[Sarnoff]

I hate everyone on planet Earth. I can't believe I'm stuck with you bastages for at least another year. When I get my billion dollars, first thing I'm going to do is buy a nuke and use it on Cincinnati.

 

[fantasycurse42]

4/4 so far....Got both of the upsets right so far!

You got this covered

 

[kardplayer]

Yahoo doesn't have stats, but in the ESPN pool, 80% had Ohio State winning and 69% had Cincy. Yahoo not releasing standings until Monday - will be interesting to see if anyone has a chance by that point. My guess is it will be <10, most likely 0. Of last year's top 100 in the ESPN tourny, the best was 27-5 in the first round. Of course, that doesn't mean someone didn't go 32-0 but not have the national champ (which you had to have to finish in the top 100).

http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2014/en/whopickedwhom?entryID=2

http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2013/en/leaderboard

 

[Scoresman]

6/6. This is as good as mine.

 

[Mister CIA]

I' almost forgot about this. Link por favor - Where do I sign up for my chance at one beellion dollars?

 

[Mister CIA]

On a serious note, does anyone else think that the gain of statistical knowledge is the real play here?

Sincerely,

 

[EddieSpaghetti]

OK, so far I am 12/12 after N Dakota State upset Oklahoma and there are 4 more games to play tonight....

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/a-chance.gif

 

[EddieSpaghetti]

Well...there goes that...I had Arizona St to beat Texas.... <_<

 

[Mario Kart]

I know they'd never do it but what are the odds of getting the final 15 games (Sweet 16) all correct? That would be a "better" contest for people to have a chance. How often would someone go 15-0 in that game? Could be a contest similar to The Show perfect game thing.

 

[Johnny Rock]

Only about 9 million people took a free shot at $100K.

The sign up was a fail. I kept getting kicked off when clicking on the mobile number. I saw tons of other people saying the same thing. When I start receiving junk mail from Quicken Loans I'm going to file a class action against them and Berkshire Hathaway.

 

[mr roboto]

If there's a bracket perfect entering the Elite 8, wouldn't the bracket holder be very tempted to try to offer part of their winnings to fix games? They could offer millions per team at that point.

 

[Gottabesweet]

I was 15 for 16 in one. Dream ended at 11/11 lost with Oklahoma.

 

[Spanky24]

I was 15 for 16 in one. Dream ended at 11/11 lost with Oklahoma.

15 for 16 here also. Stupid Oklahoma.

 

[Rove!]

I was 15 for 16 in one. Dream ended at 11/11 lost with Oklahoma.

15 for 16 here also. Stupid Oklahoma.

bad beat there...

 

[Brony]

I was 15 for 16 in one. Dream ended at 11/11 lost with Oklahoma.

:neverforget:

 

[Keith R]

I gather if any FBG was alive after Day 1, they'd be bragging about it here. (I know I would be.)

 

[QuizGuy66]

I don't get where the 9.2 quintillion number comes from, but it was in the original article announcing the challenge...

Shouldn't the actual number be .5 to the 63rd power?

=2^63 possible brackets =

aprroximately 9,223,372,040,000,000,000 9.22337204E18-QG

 

[QuizGuy66]

I know they'd never do it but what are the odds of getting the final 15 games (Sweet 16) all correct? That would be a "better" contest for people to have a chance. How often would someone go 15-0 in that game? Could be a contest similar to The Show perfect game thing.

1 in 2^15 (based on coin-flip odds) = 1 in 32,768

The idea isn't to give someone a chance - the idea was to get hype and attention at which they have succeeded greatly. I bet the insurance premium they paid on this wasn't even all that high.

-QG

 

[Rove!]

per Yahoo, like 98% had Duke, so that's gotta kill a lot of pools. Also, anybody that had Mercer might have lots of crazy/random picks so I'll be surprised if many people are still in

 

[QuizGuy66]

Based on coin-flip odds, given 15,000,000 entries. The odds that at least one of them is perfect through 32 games is .348%

The odds that at least one of them is perfect through 48 games is 1 in 18,764,999

The odds that at least one of them is perfect all the way through is about 1 in 614,891,481,934

an EV of about 15/100 of one cent

-QG

 

[QuizGuy66]

per Yahoo, like 98% had Duke, so that's gotta kill a lot of pools. Also, anybody that had Mercer might have lots of crazy/random picks so I'll be surprised if many people are still in

One pool that I'm in has 1 entry that is 17 for 17. And it's actually not the craziest crazy entry either. However the pool does have a bonus for upsets - that incentive isn't there for the Billion Dollar Contest obviously.

-QG

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

I know they'd never do it but what are the odds of getting the final 15 games (Sweet 16) all correct? That would be a "better" contest for people to have a chance. How often would someone go 15-0 in that game? Could be a contest similar to The Show perfect game thing.

1 in 2^15 (based on coin-flip odds) = 1 in 32,768

The idea isn't to give someone a chance - the idea was to get hype and attention at which they have succeeded greatly. I bet the insurance premium they paid on this wasn't even all that high.

-QG

I assumed the idea was to get millions of people to turn over their e-mail addresses in exchange for the cost of a very small insurance premium against the microscopic odds someone hit the 1/9.2Q shot.

 

[Das Boot]

per Yahoo, like 98% had Duke, so that's gotta kill a lot of pools. Also, anybody that had Mercer might have lots of crazy/random picks so I'll be surprised if many people are still in

One pool that I'm in has 1 entry that is 17 for 17. And it's actually not the craziest crazy entry either. However the pool does have a bonus for upsets - that incentive isn't there for the Billion Dollar Contest obviously.

-QG

17-17 at this point is really amazing.

 

[kardplayer]

darren rovellVerified account ‏@darrenrovell

Four games in, just 5.7% of the 11 million brackets in ESPN's contest are a perfect 4-0

57 people on ESPN were still undefeated before the Arizona game ended.

 

[EddieSpaghetti]

Sitting at 17/20 now...Missed the Texas, Stanford, and Mercer picks....

 

[jon_mx]

If there's a bracket perfect entering the Elite 8, wouldn't the bracket holder be very tempted to try to offer part of their winnings to fix games? They could offer millions per team at that point.

So you are going to promise these team millions but what happens if one team does not cooperate?

 

[hagmania]

Leaderboards just updated, only 37 left.

 

[mr roboto]

If there's a bracket perfect entering the Elite 8, wouldn't the bracket holder be very tempted to try to offer part of their winnings to fix games? They could offer millions per team at that point.

So you are going to promise these team millions but what happens if one team does not cooperate?

You wouldn't have millions to give the other teams?

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

If there's a bracket perfect entering the Elite 8, wouldn't the bracket holder be very tempted to try to offer part of their winnings to fix games? They could offer millions per team at that point.

So you are going to promise these team millions but what happens if one team does not cooperate?

You go to jail?

 

[hagmania]

Leaderboards just updated, only 37 left.

And only 13 have UT winning.

 

[Sarnoff]

Several of the leaders have Tenn over Umass

 

[stbugs]

Several of the leaders have Tenn over Umass

Leaderboards just updated, only 37 left.

And only 13 have UT winning.

Wow, halfway into day two of the first round and 13 left?

 

[Scoresman]

17/17 is amazing. Imagine that as a ML parlay.

 

[Rove!]

anybody left?