As the buzzer goes off, another team advances. Basketball fans attempt to make a perfect, winning bracket.
According to the NCAA, the chances of having a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (9 quintillion) if you guess or flip a coin. For those who know a bit more about basketball your chances increase to 1 in 120.2 billion.
As March 21st arrives, people begin putting a bracket together. Due to the low chances of getting a winning bracket, people are either very lucky or have a lot of knowledge about the teams. People become extremely serious about their bracket and have many factors to take into consideration.
Fans can use historical data and trends to fill out their brackets, such as the fact that no team seeded lower than eighth has ever won the championship. Also, a No. 16 seed has ever beaten the No. 1 seed and a No. 5 seed has never won the tournament.
In addition to making brackets, people make crazy bets. These bets can be as low as a couple hundred to a couple million. Personally, putting down that much money for a basketball tournament doesn’t seem worth it because one thing could be off, and you end up losing a bunch of money.
U.S. bettors are expected to wager more than $2.72 billion on this year’s men’s and women’s national tournaments using legalized sportsbooks, according to the American Gaming Association. That’s about twice as much the amount of bets placed on the Super Bowl.
In conclusion, people continue to enjoy March Madness every year to support their favorite teams. Whether they are making bets or putting a bracket together for fun.
