HIGHLIGHTS: Just a reminder: It’s basically impossible to fill out a perfect tournament bracket. It’s never been done, and a mathematician says it’s more likely that a family of four will be struck by lightning, separately, in their life.
FULL STORY: If your brother-in-law or someone at work asks you to fill out a March Madness bracket, don’t worry about not being an expert . . . it won’t help much . . . because it’s basically impossible.
The odds of finishing with a PERFECT bracket . . . guessing all the games correctly . . . is 1-in-120 BILLION. That’s assuming you know something about college basketball going in, and consider how the teams are seeded.
If you’re a non-fan who just guesses based on something arbitrary like flipping a coin, the odds soar to 1-in-9.2 QUINTILLION.
One mathematician put it this way: “You have better odds of winning the Powerball with two consecutive tickets than getting a perfect bracket . . .
“[And] you have better odds that a family of four will all get hit by lightning [separately] in their lifetime.” (Which is kind of bleak, but sure.)
And: “There’s a 1-in-10,000 chance that you get injured by a TOILET in your lifetime . . . so there are better odds that that same family of four all get injured by a toilet than picking a perfect bracket.”
And NO ONE has officially submitted a perfect bracket . . . ever. The longest streak of perfection was a neuropsychologist from Ohio who managed to pick the winner in the first 49 games in 2019 correctly. There are 63 games in total.
So just fill it out for fun . . . and who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky, and everyone in your family will trip over a toilet and get struck by lightning. (???)
(CNN)
(The First Four games have already started, but most people only count the official 63 games in the bracket. Those games start TOMORROW . . . so you still have a chance to fill a bracket out.)
(You can find a live bracket, here. And you can submit one, here or here.)
(If you’re curious, here are some tips from experts . . . the main one being to start with your Final Four picks and work your way backward.)
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