There are now 56 correct brackets on espn.com
- Thread starter af102
- Start date
at least since they started doing these things online and keeping track.
It's next to impossible.
It's next to impossible.
I can't find any documented proof of it, but lot's of "hearsay" on the 'Net about someone's cousin's sister's brother. The pure, mathematical odds are about 9 trillion to 1, though the luck factor can never be discounted.HighPointDawg said:
Hey, I was just happy to be like #150 among the hundreds of thousands on the ESPN challenge back in '96. There was a guy at State who was #2 going into the Final Four . . . never did see what happened after that (probably crashed and burned like the the team did after Bullard's payoff).
There are something like 18 quadrillion (18,000,000,000,000,000,000) possible combinations. I heard a stat that if all 7 billion people on earth filled out one bracket per second, it would take 43 years to fill out every potential combination.
perfect brackets have happened. The georgia tech fan did it two or three years ago. The odds of hitting it are not as scarce as 9 trillion to 1. Because teams have odds. There may be 9 trillion possibilities, but everyone knew Kansas St wasn't going to lose in the first round, so that takes away about 2.25 trillion of them.
There are 2^64 possible combinations (18,446,744,100,000,000,000 - 18 quintillion). (This includes the play-in game.) Even if you say the odds that all of the #1 and #2 seeds automatically win their first game is 100%, that's only 8 games taken out. That reduces it from 64 to 56 games with 2 possible outcomes for each. 2^56 is 72,057,594,000,000,000 (72 quadrillion). Them's pretty slim odds no matter how you slice it. And yes, the odds aren't really 50/50 that Team A will beat Team B, but mathematically it has to be, because anything else is just an assumption. Obviously, we saw with Ohio beating Georgetown that you can't really base game outcomes on odds.
If you travelled 18 quintillion miles, you could go to the Sun and back 99 billion times.
/nerd
<span style="font-weight: bold;">
</span>
If you travelled 18 quintillion miles, you could go to the Sun and back 99 billion times.
/nerd
<span style="font-weight: bold;">
</span>
they will be set for life. Simply because of the publicity and they'd probably be asked to go on about 10 different shows/websites every March.
that Georgetown wouldn't lose, either.
Just because it is highly unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible. Statistically speaking, it is POSSIBLE for that many outcomes to occur. Whenever a 16 beats a 1 one day, nobody will see that coming, either.
Hitting a completely perfect bracket is statistically about as likely as hitting Powerball twice.
Just because it is highly unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible. Statistically speaking, it is POSSIBLE for that many outcomes to occur. Whenever a 16 beats a 1 one day, nobody will see that coming, either.
Hitting a completely perfect bracket is statistically about as likely as hitting Powerball twice.
IT HAS HAPPENED and MORE THAN ONE OR TWICE. But yeah, this year there has been too many upsets.. that isn't always the case.
for near about an hour (yes, I'm off work today and have nothing better to do) and have yet to find a documented case of a "perfect bracket". All I see are people saying "yeah, I saw this guy on TV once". Haven't found a name, year, anything. I would think that if it happened - since the odds are in the trillions/quadrillions to 1, that that person and their name would've been all over the news at this time of year. So feel free to find me a link and prove me wrong.
The odds of hitting Powerball are 1 in around 200 million (195,249,054 to be exact).
The number of possible bracket combinations (based on 64 games (includes play-in game)) is 18,446,744,100,000,000,000. 18.4 quintillion.
That means that there are 94,478,020,400 TIMES as many potential bracket combinations as there are Powerball ticket combinations.
Let me repeat. There are 94 BILLION TIMES more bracket combinations as there are Powerball combinations.
The number of possible bracket combinations (based on 64 games (includes play-in game)) is 18,446,744,100,000,000,000. 18.4 quintillion.
That means that there are 94,478,020,400 TIMES as many potential bracket combinations as there are Powerball ticket combinations.
Let me repeat. There are 94 BILLION TIMES more bracket combinations as there are Powerball combinations.
That greatly affects this. The odds that Kansas wins this thing are pretty decent. The odds that Ohio win the whole thing are nowhere near the odds that Kansas will. You cannot treat the whole thing as random. It's not.
To determine the odds of getting a perfect bracket is way more complicated than simply determining the number of possible combinations and saying it's that number to one. I'm not sure that it's even possible to determine the odds of it happening. Maybe someone way smarter than any of us could come up with a way to do it; I'm really not sure.
To determine the odds of getting a perfect bracket is way more complicated than simply determining the number of possible combinations and saying it's that number to one. I'm not sure that it's even possible to determine the odds of it happening. Maybe someone way smarter than any of us could come up with a way to do it; I'm really not sure.
Let's say you can call every single game in the tournament with 90% certainty.<div>
</div><div>Even if you did that, there would only be a (.9^64) or 0.118% chance of getting every game right.</div><div>
</div><div>And we all know that other than a few first round games, there's nowhere near 90% certainty on NCAA Tournament games.</div>
</div><div>Even if you did that, there would only be a (.9^64) or 0.118% chance of getting every game right.</div><div>
</div><div>And we all know that other than a few first round games, there's nowhere near 90% certainty on NCAA Tournament games.</div>
but I know for a FACT that ESPN had a woman on the show that they claimed submitted a perfect bracket and won the prize ($100K or something). This was a few years ago and the next year they had her on the show again and she picked her bracket live on the show and failed miserably. I have never seen the bracket so maybe it was all a farce. Also sportsline had an interview with a guy that did it too. Both years was limited upsets (no George Mason types)..
and quit posting your stupid *** odds. There is 100% chance that ALL four 16 seeds will never ever ever ever win in the same year. Even the Wall Street Journal had the odds this year and while sure that is the actual mathematical odds it is NOT the odds of actually picking a perfect bracket. The WSJ had the odds at about 1-100,000,000 ... which still isn't good..
Guess what man.. people DO win the powerball... regularly. otherwise the pot would get up to 1 Billion dollars.
and quit posting your stupid *** odds. There is 100% chance that ALL four 16 seeds will never ever ever ever win in the same year. Even the Wall Street Journal had the odds this year and while sure that is the actual mathematical odds it is NOT the odds of actually picking a perfect bracket. The WSJ had the odds at about 1-100,000,000 ... which still isn't good..
Guess what man.. people DO win the powerball... regularly. otherwise the pot would get up to 1 Billion dollars.
I'll add to the debate and let the masses draw their own conclusions...
I'm no mathmetician (or even that smart, really), but even if you were the best predictor of the outcomes of sporting events ever to walk this earth, you still would have astronomical odds at picking the correct bracket.
Since the outcomes aren't always 50/50, the 18 bizillion number or whatever it is really isn't that fair. So, let's assume you are so good at picking games, you have a 90% accuracy rate. I'd assume that's a pretty unrealistic accuracy rate even if you are just picking straight up win vs. loss. But, I'll use it for illustrative purposes.
There are 63 games that you must pick right or wrong, so the odds you pick 63 correct, in a row, at a 90 percent probality of getting each individual game correct would be 0.9^63, or 0.131%.
At that accuracy rate, you could pick the right bracket 1 out of every 763 brackets you filled out. Not in the land of impossibility, but that still assumes you are a complete bad *** at evaluating games that you are right 9 out of 10 times and have the time to fill out that many brackets using your 90% judgment.
Bump that 90% accuracy rate down to 80% and you are looking at a 0.00008% of getting it right, or 1 out of every 1,274,473 brackets you filled out.
That being said, it's not impossible, but I would be shocked if someone has pulled it off legitimately.
Am I even in the right ballpark here? I may have made a huge mistake in reasoning. Math really isn't my game...
I'm no mathmetician (or even that smart, really), but even if you were the best predictor of the outcomes of sporting events ever to walk this earth, you still would have astronomical odds at picking the correct bracket.
Since the outcomes aren't always 50/50, the 18 bizillion number or whatever it is really isn't that fair. So, let's assume you are so good at picking games, you have a 90% accuracy rate. I'd assume that's a pretty unrealistic accuracy rate even if you are just picking straight up win vs. loss. But, I'll use it for illustrative purposes.
There are 63 games that you must pick right or wrong, so the odds you pick 63 correct, in a row, at a 90 percent probality of getting each individual game correct would be 0.9^63, or 0.131%.
At that accuracy rate, you could pick the right bracket 1 out of every 763 brackets you filled out. Not in the land of impossibility, but that still assumes you are a complete bad *** at evaluating games that you are right 9 out of 10 times and have the time to fill out that many brackets using your 90% judgment.
Bump that 90% accuracy rate down to 80% and you are looking at a 0.00008% of getting it right, or 1 out of every 1,274,473 brackets you filled out.
That being said, it's not impossible, but I would be shocked if someone has pulled it off legitimately.
Am I even in the right ballpark here? I may have made a huge mistake in reasoning. Math really isn't my game...
<span><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/psteYMyIxcw?f=videos&app=youtube_gdata" width="425" height="355" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowScriptAccess="never" ></embed> </span>MSUCostanza said:
You're probably misremembering or misunderstood the first time you saw it. There has never been anyone to pick an entire bracket perfectly.<div>
</div><div>Think about it. If this had really happened, it would be very easy to find on the Internet. The woman you're thinking about probably just won her year with only a few games wrong.</div>
</div><div>Think about it. If this had really happened, it would be very easy to find on the Internet. The woman you're thinking about probably just won her year with only a few games wrong.</div>
As we are both nerding out here, statistically it is damn near impossible to correctly predict every game in the tournament. I highly doubt anyone has ever done it or will ever do it.
To answer an earlier question, of course quite a few of the games have high probability of one outcome (1 vs 16 games, for example). But there are so many possible outcomes, it's still statistically impossible. Let's say you used Marty McFly's sports almanac and knew the outcome of the entire first round, 33 games including the play-in. That leaves 31 games to be played. There are STILL 2^31 possible outcomes, or 2,147,483,648. Two billion. More than 10 times as many outcomes as there are possible Powerball outcomes. In other words, if the last 31 games were all toss-ups, you're still 10 times more likely to hit the Powerball jackpot than to guess the entire rest of the bracket perfectly.
To answer an earlier question, of course quite a few of the games have high probability of one outcome (1 vs 16 games, for example). But there are so many possible outcomes, it's still statistically impossible. Let's say you used Marty McFly's sports almanac and knew the outcome of the entire first round, 33 games including the play-in. That leaves 31 games to be played. There are STILL 2^31 possible outcomes, or 2,147,483,648. Two billion. More than 10 times as many outcomes as there are possible Powerball outcomes. In other words, if the last 31 games were all toss-ups, you're still 10 times more likely to hit the Powerball jackpot than to guess the entire rest of the bracket perfectly.
you can win a million dollars just by winning the bracket challenge on about 5 different websites, not necessarily a perfect bracket.
if there was ever a perfect bracket, the person who did so would become the tiger woods of college basketball betting in more ways than one and their name would come up every single year, and not on random forum posts through he-said-she-said.
if there was ever a perfect bracket, the person who did so would become the tiger woods of college basketball betting in more ways than one and their name would come up every single year, and not on random forum posts through he-said-she-said.
It's obvious you aren't comprehending the math.
Yes, people win the powerball. As I said, the odds are about 1 in 200 million. Extremely long odds, but it certainly does happen. Sometimes more than one person wins it, even. But think about how many tickets are sold, and you can see how eventually someone will hold the winning number. Even with all those tickets sold, sometimes the jackpot will go months without hitting.
The odds of picking every game right in the tournament are so staggeringly larger than winning Powerball, it's almost impossible to comprehend. Like I said below, even if you knew with 100% certainty the outcome of every first round game, there are still over 2 billion possible outcomes left. And even if you could predict with 90% accuracy the last 31 games, that is still a 0.03% chance of hitting them all. And who the hell could pick at 90%?
Yes, people win the powerball. As I said, the odds are about 1 in 200 million. Extremely long odds, but it certainly does happen. Sometimes more than one person wins it, even. But think about how many tickets are sold, and you can see how eventually someone will hold the winning number. Even with all those tickets sold, sometimes the jackpot will go months without hitting.
The odds of picking every game right in the tournament are so staggeringly larger than winning Powerball, it's almost impossible to comprehend. Like I said below, even if you knew with 100% certainty the outcome of every first round game, there are still over 2 billion possible outcomes left. And even if you could predict with 90% accuracy the last 31 games, that is still a 0.03% chance of hitting them all. And who the hell could pick at 90%?
individual game and then calculate it after the fact. You are correct that you can't assume each game is 50/50. If you say the probability of a correct pick is different by round your odds would be better. If you assumed the probability of a correct pick as 70% in the first round, 60% in the second round, 55% in the sweet sixteen, 50% the rest of the way and 50% for the play in game (my guesses on the odds), your odds would improve to about 1 in 9.8 trillion.
I've seen that on about 20 different "Yahoo answers" posts while researching this. Yet, nobody has a name or year.
Go here -----> http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jay/News/WSJbb.pdf
He states that he contacted the top 6 bracket websites, representing millions of entries over the previous 10 years and none of the spokespeople remembered anyone even coming close to a perfect bracket.
He also states that he contacted scores of mathematicians and statisticians, and said the most "generous" odds given, for the most informed person who researched every game and knew basketball like the back of his hand, was 150 million to 1, which is about the same as hitting Powerball.
It was written in 2006, but honestly, wouldn't we all know the name of the luckiest person on earth if they had filled out a perfect bracket?
Go here -----> http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jay/News/WSJbb.pdf
He states that he contacted the top 6 bracket websites, representing millions of entries over the previous 10 years and none of the spokespeople remembered anyone even coming close to a perfect bracket.
He also states that he contacted scores of mathematicians and statisticians, and said the most "generous" odds given, for the most informed person who researched every game and knew basketball like the back of his hand, was 150 million to 1, which is about the same as hitting Powerball.
It was written in 2006, but honestly, wouldn't we all know the name of the luckiest person on earth if they had filled out a perfect bracket?