What Are the Odds of a Perfect NCAA Tourney Bracket? 1 in 9.2 Quintillion

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The odds of filling out a perfect NCAA tournament bracket?

The generally accepted figure is one in 9.2 quintillion.

Here’s what that number looks like:

• 9,200,000,000,000,000,000

So yeah, not good. The tournament started Tuesday with Hampton and Ole Miss winning their play-in games.

The local teams that made the tournament are Northeastern, Harvard, and Providence College:

• Northeastern (No. 14) is playing Notre Dame (No. 3) Thursday at 12:15 p.m.
• Harvard (No. 13) is playing North Carolina (No. 4) Thursday at 7:20 p.m.
• Providence (No. 6) is playing the winner of Boise State and Dayton Friday at 10 p.m.

The essentially impossible odds of filling out a perfect bracket led billionaire Warren Buffett to offer up one of his billions if anyone correctly picked all the winners. No one won, of course. Illinois resident Brad Binder came the closest to filling out a perfect bracket—though even his was busted not even halfway through the second round.

Buffett is not doing the contest again this year.

Some estimate that the true odds of filling out a perfect bracket are better than the generally accepted figure.

Duke University professor Jonathan Mattingly said by factoring in predictions—such as the fact that no No. 16 seed has ever beaten a No. 1 seed—you can improve your odds to about 1 in 2.4 trillion.

Brackets are big business. Americans filled out more than 70 million brackets and bet more than $2 billion this year, according to the American Gaming Association. That’s more than the number of ballots cast for President Obama (66 million) in 2012.

Obama filled out a bracket of his own this year; he picked Kentucky to win it all.

Have you filled out a bracket?

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Photo credit: NCAA