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Pastimes : 2014 NCAA College Basketball March Madness -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob who wrote (78)	3/21/2014 12:05:53 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 289

I think the odds are better at winning Powerball and MegaMillions on the same day as scoring a perfect bracket. On a strict 50/50 basis, the odds are a staggering 1 in 9.2 quintillion. But if you factor in that some teams have a mathematically better chance at beating others, the odds are supposedly 1 in 128B, per: usatoday.com. It's not really that hard to calculate the true odds, IMO, based on historical data. 1s have an historical x% chance of being 16s, 2s have an x% change to beat 15s, and so on for each round. Perhaps that's what the guy did to reach 1 in 128B. There's a guy here in town who sells billions in catastrophe bonds, all based on the odds a major disaster will strike someplace and what damage it would cause. The math behind it is actually way simpler than what you might expect (more akin to hole-in-one insurance). Give me detailed data on the tournament for its duration and I'll give you the most logical odds to get a perfect bracket. - Jeff