Armed Polite Society

Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: griz on March 19, 2014, 09:55:40 AM

Title: statistics question, perfect bracket
Post by: griz on March 19, 2014, 09:55:40 AM

The recent offer of a billion dollars for a perfect bracket led to a question about the odds.  So assuming every game is 50/50, what are the chances of getting every game correct?

Title: Re: statistics question, perfect bracket
Post by: makattak on March 19, 2014, 10:59:00 AM

Less than a billion to one. MUCH less.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/03/ncaa-tournament-odds-perfect-bracket-yahoo-warren-buffett/

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Statistically speaking, the odds of getting a perfect NCAA tournament bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.

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Even so, allowing for some knowledge of college basketball and taking it account the norms of the NCAA tournament, the odds of a perfect bracket are still about 1 in 128 billion, according to DePaul math professor Jay Bergen. Heck, only one person on ESPN.com’s challenge has picked a perfect opening round in the past seven years. Think about that: Only one person has gotten halfway to perfection in seven years.

Title: Re: statistics question, perfect bracket
Post by: griz on March 19, 2014, 11:38:21 AM

Wow, the one that floored me is it would be the same odds as hitting the powerball jackpot three times in a row! 

Thanks for the link.