What Are My Odds of Winning a Perfect March Madness Bracket?
The perfect March Madness bracket is elusive, to say the least. In fact, one would stand a better chance of capturing the Lochness Monster or Big Foot then winning a perfect bracket in any March Madness office pool or NCAA Men's College Basketball Perfect Bracket contest.
Some believe it's as low as 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (or 1 in 9.2 quintillion), while others, including Jeff Bergen, a professor at DePaul, think it's as "high" as 1 in 128 billion.
The reality is that there has never been a published account of a perfect March Madness bracket being achieved.
Websites like Bookmaker.eu promise $1 million to the perfect bracket in their contest knowing it won't happen while offering $10,000 to the best bracket, which will.
None of this is to say some folks won't come close to perfection.
In 2015, the longest anyone achieved perfection was 34 games to start the tournament, as reported (and verified) best by ESPN senior writer Darren Rovell. This occurred in the ESPN bracket contest, making for easy verification.
- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
