think the MM or PB has bad odds?Previous TopicNext Topic

Try filling out a college bball bracket. I have one loss already (Cal). Odds of getting a perfect bracket are 1 in 9 million trillion!!! You are 60 billion times more likely to win the powerball (at current 1 in about 195 million).

wow is that really so?

yes sir. And that is assuming that every team in the tourney has a fair chance of winning (i.e. uconn or pitt, etc. dont lose to the huge dogs) Even if every favorite won (assuming no upsets) the probbility is 72% that favorites would win every game, still netting you a 1 in 970 Million odds of a perfect bracket. Dont give up folks, the lottery looks like a coin flip compared to these odds!!!

What is a bracket and how is it so high in odds?

You are saying  there are 9 million trillions possible out comes which is hard for the average person with little or no math skills to believe.  How did you figure those odds?

There ae no sports bettors in here? In a college ball tounrament, there are 64 tams that compete in single elimination. That alone means that 64! (forget the statistical talk 64) If u take 0.5 times 0.5 by 63 times, you get about 1 in 2 to the power of 63, or one in 9 million trillion!!!!!! Assuming you pick favorites with no upsets it is still one in 124 billion to get a perfect bracket. All favorites with no upsets, assuming the favorite wins 72%of the time is still nearly one in a billion!!!!! By the way, I have 3 losses now, but Im still in the running.

Its never happened (a perfect bracket) and it NEVER will. Thats why they offer huge amounts of $$$$ to those who can actually do it. Ive heard $10 M dollars to anyone who can fill out a perfect bracket which is really weak at best. At these odds, it should pay out $100B to anyone who can do it!!!!!!!!

That alone means that 64! (forget the statistical talk 64)

When you're talking about odds, statistical talk matters.

If you start out with 64 teams, you will have 32 possible outcomes
2nd round...... 32 teams will have 16 possible outcomes
3rd round.......16 teams will have 8 possible outcomes
4th round.......8 teams will have 4 possible outcomes
5th round.......4 teams will have 2 possible outcomes
6th and final round..2 teams will have 1 possible outcomes

Possible outcomes once you know the 64 teams in the tournament would be:
32 x 16 x 8 x 4 x 2 = 32,768 possible out comes
that makes the odds of predicting the out come 1:32,768 the way I figure.

Rjoh-

There are a total of 63 games played, each with a 50% chance outcome. Trust me, look it up online. The actual number is 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 or in in over 9 quintillion!!!!!

I did at:

http://www.printyourbrackets.com/marchmadness.html

My calculations show 32+16+8+4+2+1=63 games being played.

According to the Los Angeles Times:Sports

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/03/bracket-busted.html

"There are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 possible ways of filling out a 65-team bracket. That's 18.4 quintillion ... a number so large that even insurance companies weren't audacious enough to use it in their bailout requests."

Correct. JONNIE's original post omitted the play-in game between the 64 and 65 seeds. That effectively doubles the number of possible outcomes in his original post.

gl

j

While there are 32 possible winning times, there are still 64 different outcomes in the first round and each must be used with all the other outcomes. So shouldn't  it be something like (64 * 63) times (32 * 31) times (16 * 15) times (8 * 7) times (4 * 3) times 2?

<Moved to Gaming forum>

Please post in the appropriate forum ... thank you.

The following was in THE MATH FORUM - ASK DR.MATH
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56223.html

From: Doctor Paul
Subject: Re: NCAA tournament possibilities

First notice that the 64 teams play 63 total games: 32 games in the
first round, 16 in the second round, 8 in the 3rd round, 4 in the
regional finals, 2 in the final four, and then the national
championship game.

32+16+8+4+2+1= 63

Now let's answer an easier question.

If there were four teams, and they played three games, how many
different ways would there be to fill out a bracket?  You can write
them down. There are only eight of them. Where do that eight come
from?  Well, there are three games, and you have two possible choices
for each game. Hence, 2^3 = 8 possibilities.

Now back to the real tournament. Since there are 63 games to be
played, and you have two choices at each stage in your bracket, there
are 2^63 different ways to fill out the bracket.

2^63 = 9,223,372,036,854,775,808

That's more than nine quintillion possibilities.