Take Buffett's Billion

http://www.takebuffettsbillion.com

by cjcenizal • 12 years ago

17 27 12 years ago

selectout• 12 years ago

I've always been curious how many actually unique brackets get submitted to the major bracket places. I'd imagine there's about 5,000-10,000 unique brackets that cover 99% of the people.

It's the one feature I'd love to be able to see is if I have submitted a 100% unique bracket on my own.

Bahamut2• 12 years ago

The idea is nice, but the statistical odds are against you. Say you have a 50% chance of picking it right each time. With the play in games, you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting those right. With the regular 32 games, you would need to get all of them right, or 1 in 2^32. With the next 16 games, you would need to get 2^16 correct. Then 2^8, 2^4, 2^2, and then 2^1.

Multiply them all together, you get 1 / (2^2 * 2^32 * 2^16 * 2^8 * 2^4 * 2^2 * 2^1) = 1 / (2^65)...crazy small odds.

alwaysdoit• 12 years ago

Assuming each outcome is equally likely, which it isn't.

Bahamut2• 12 years ago

Of course, but if you read what the site is doing, it is treating it as if it is in randomly picking a unique bracket.

jleehey• 12 years ago

Hate to be the skeptic, but what's to guarantee that the winner will distribute the winnings evenly? It's not like the site has any official connection to the contest.

ZoF• 12 years ago

Came here to post this, especially because the wording about splitting the money seems purposefully vague.

thotpoizn• 12 years ago

This is exactly what I was thinking. What's to stop someone from pulling a "Oh, hey, thanks for the winning lotto ticket..."

If the answer is "personal integrity and honor" then, well, call me a skeptic - but some people may just come up a little short after a billion-dollar soul searching.

cjcenizal2• 12 years ago

Hey, I'm one of the guys working on this project. You're right, we're not sure how to make sure the winner splits the money with everybody, but given how unlikely it is that anyone wins at all, we're just focusing on executing the bracket distribution for now. If someone actually wins, figuring out how to get that person to split up the money is kind of a nice problem to have! Just think of the drama...!

bduerst• 12 years ago

FYI - this isn't a good pitch to get me to sign up.

At least have a TOS saying you'll distribute the winnings.

brador• 12 years ago

What's the most tax efficient way to get that prize money if you win? How much could you actually keep?

colinbartlett• 12 years ago

Detailed analysis of the tax implications of winning $1 Billion:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/01/21/warr...

mycroft-holmes• 12 years ago

Uncle Sam will take any chance they can to steal money from people. That's a lot.

jonknee2• 12 years ago

It's not a $1,000,000,000 check, you get a 40 year annuity with an annual payout of $25,000,000 OR a one time payment of $500M.

rakoo• 12 years ago

For the people outside of this world like me, a March Madness Bracket [0] is a classical grid of a championship involving US basketball teams.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Madness_pools#Brackets

supremum• 12 years ago

wow this is amazing haha!

when you say "statistically best bracket choices", does that mean you're applying a prior on the guesses?

If yes, could you give us some more details on how you're arriving at the best way to spread our guesses?

My colleague was doing some work on sports betting and remarked how the current odds are actually really good predictors for the outcomes.

cool idea well done :)

brianbarker• 12 years ago

So this pool has 8,832 members. Even if they're unique, 8832 out of how many possibilities there are isn't changing your odds much.

kcbanner• 12 years ago

"We're sorry, but something went wrong."

dameyawn• 12 years ago

All sign ups were recorded, and this error has now been fixed! Sorry about that.

aaronmarks• 12 years ago

Is it just me or was this removed from the homepage?

cjcenizal2• 12 years ago

Seems like it was, not sure why though.

thrush2• 12 years ago

Was going to sign up (because why not?), but then I didn't like some of the questions they're asking me.

https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/quickenloansbrack...

CanSpice• 12 years ago

Blast. It's only available for people living in the United States (or overseas military bases).

Take Buffett's Billion

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