Who Wants to be a Billionaire?

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#3

Well...the odds are only 1 in 9.2 quintillion if the probability of predicting each game correctly is 50%. If you're really good and you can predict every college matchup at 80%, it's only one in 1.3 million. If you go more realistic and say 80% in the first round, 70% in the second round, 60% in the third round, 50% beyond that, then your odds are 1 in 3.2 billion - which really isn't too bad odds for a free entry into a $1B sweepstakes.
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#4
A perfect bracket? I'd have a better chance of hitting a five millimeter bullseye on a moving target from five hundred yards away, without my glasses on.
 
#5
I'd be curious to see an estimate of the odds of "someone" winning this. They probably have a rough guess of how many people will actually play.... It would be tougher to try to determine the average skill level of that population, but given all of that, what would be the odds that they actually give out $1B this year?
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#6
I'd be curious to see an estimate of the odds of "someone" winning this. They probably have a rough guess of how many people will actually play.... It would be tougher to try to determine the average skill level of that population, but given all of that, what would be the odds that they actually give out $1B this year?
It has to be super low. I estimated above that it was a one-in-3.2 billion shot if you give pretty generous "skill" in making picks. Let's put it this way - I don't think Yahoo/ESPN/etc. online brackets have ever produced a perfect bracket. At 100 million entries per year (could be really generous) you'd figure one winner every 32 years (again if everybody is really good at prediction).

So it's basically not going to happen.
 
S

SacKings2002NBAChampions

Guest
#9
If the psychic is any good, he/she will fill out the bracket for him/herself.
If you knew mud about "actual" psychics, you would know that they are not permitted to do such things as it can cause them more bad than good. They just offer information.
That's assuming you believe in that nonsense anyways...