Perfect March Madness Bracket Near Impossible Math: Kalshi Offers $1 Billion Prize For Something With 1 In 9.2 Quintillion Odds

Benzinga_recent_news03-17 06:57

March Madness 2026 has arrived with the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament running from March 17 through April 6. Just how rare is a perfect bracket — and is it even possible? Here’s a look at the odds...

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\nHere’s a look at the odds...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.benzinga.com/markets/prediction-markets/26/03/51286757/perfect-march-madness-bracket-near-impossible-math-kalshi-offers-1-billion-prize-for-something-with-1-in-9-2-quintillion-odds\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BRKC","symbol_name":"YieldMax BRK.B Option Income ETF","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.benzinga.com/markets/prediction-markets/26/03/51286757/perfect-march-madness-bracket-near-impossible-math-kalshi-offers-1-billion-prize-for-something-with-1-in-9-2-quintillion-odds","article_id":"2620490915","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://cdn.benzinga.com/files/images/story/2026/03/16/Basketball-Player-Scoring-An-Athletic--A.jpeg?optimize=medium&dpr=2&auto=webp&width=240"],"rights":{"source":"benzinga_recent_news","url":"https://www.benzinga.com/markets/prediction-markets/26/03/51286757/perfect-march-madness-bracket-near-impossible-math-kalshi-offers-1-billion-prize-for-something-with-1-in-9-2-quintillion-odds","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2620490915","pubTimestamp":1773701820,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"benzinga_recent_news","name":"Benzinga"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"A perfect March Madness bracket has near impossible odds. Prediction market company Kalshi wants to reward $1 billion if someone can accomplish the feat.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"benzinga.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BRKC":"YieldMax BRK.B Option Income ETF","LU0149725797.USD":"汇丰美国股市经济规模基金","IE0034235303.USD":"PINEBRIDGE US RESEARCH ENHANCED CORE EQUITY \"A\" (USD) ACC","LU2168564495.EUR":"AZ ALLOCATION - TREND \"AI\" (EUR) ACC","LU0154236417.USD":"BGF US FLEXIBLE EQUITY \"A2\" ACC","BK4588":"碎股","BRKD":"Direxion Daily BRKB Bear 1X Shares","BK4176":"多领域控股","BK4550":"红杉资本持仓","LU0256863811.USD":"ALLIANZ US EQUITY \"A\" INC","LU1201861249.SGD":"Natixis Harris Associates US Equity PA SGD-H","LU2168564222.USD":"AZ ALLOCATION - TREND \"AAZ\" (USDHDG) ACC","LU0130102774.USD":"Natixis Harris Associates US Equity RA USD","LU0640476718.USD":"THREADNEEDLE (LUX) US CONTRARIAN CORE EQ \"AU\" (USD) ACC","IE00B1XK9C88.USD":"PINEBRIDGE US LARGE CAP RESEARCH ENHANCED \"A\" (USD) ACC","LU0742534661.SGD":"Fidelity America A-SGD (hedged)","BRKU":"2倍做多BRKB ETF-Direxion","LU2168564065.EUR":"AZ ALLOCATION - TREND \"AAZ\" (EUR) ACC","LU0980610538.SGD":"Natixis Harris Associates US Equity RA SGD-H","BRKW":"Roundhill BRKB WeeklyPay™ ETF","LU1280957306.USD":"THREADNEEDLE (LUX) US CONTRARIAN CORE EQUITIES \"AUP\" (USD) INC","IE00B775SV38.USD":"NEUBERGER BERMAN US MULTICAP OPPORTUNITIES \"A\" (USD) ACC","IE00BKDWB100.SGD":"PINEBRIDGE US LARGE CAP RESEARCH ENHANCED \"A5H\" (SGDHDG) ACC","LU2168563687.JPY":"AZ ALLOCATION - TREND \"AAZ\" (JPYHDG) ACC","IE000M9KFDE8.USD":"NEUBERGER BERMAN US LARGE CAP VALUE \"A\" (USD) ACC","LU0234572021.USD":"高盛美国核心股票组合Acc","LU0648001328.SGD":"Natixis Harris Associates US Equity RA SGD","LU0971096721.USD":"富达环球金融服务 A","BK4581":"高盛持仓","LU2168564149.EUR":"AZ ALLOCATION - TREND \"BAZ\" (EUR) ACC","LU0053666078.USD":"摩根大通基金-美国股票A（离岸）美元","LU1074936037.SGD":"JPMorgan Funds - US Value A (acc) SGD","LU0048573561.USD":"FIDELITY AMERICA \"A\" (USD) INC","LU1363072403.SGD":"Fidelity Global Financial Services A-ACC-SGD","IE00BWXC8680.SGD":"PINEBRIDGE US LARGE CAP RESEARCH ENHANCED \"A5\" (SGD) ACC","BK4534":"瑞士信贷持仓","BK4585":"ETF&股票定投概念","LU1366333091.USD":"FIDELITY GLOBAL FOCUS \"A\" (USD) ACC","LU1571399168.USD":"ALLSPRING GLOBAL LONG/SHORT EQUITY \"IP\" (USD) ACC","BK4533":"AQR资本管理(全球第二大对冲基金)","LU0683600562.USD":"AB SELECT US EQUITY \"A\" (USD) ACC","IE00BK4W5M84.HKD":"HSBC GLOBAL FUNDS ICAV US EQUITY INDEX \"HC\" (HKD) ACC","IE00BJLML261.HKD":"HSBC GLOBAL EQUITY INDEX \"HCH\" (HKD) ACC","LU0157215616.USD":"FIDELITY GLOBAL FOCUS \"A\" INC","LU1914381329.SGD":"Allianz Best Styles Global Equity Cl ET Acc H2-SGD","LU0787776722.HKD":"AB SELECT US EQUITY PORTFOLIO \"A\" (HKD) ACC","LU0210528500.USD":"JPM AMERICA EQUITY \"A\" ACC","LU0234570918.USD":"高盛全球核心股票组合Acc Close","LU0170899867.USD":"EASTSPRING INVESTMENTS WORLD VALUE EQUITY  \"A\" (USD) ACC"},"translate_title":"完美的三月疯狂括号几乎不可能数学：Kalshi为赔率为9.2万亿分之一的事情提供10亿美元的奖金","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"BRKC":0.6,"BRKW":0.6,"BRKD":0.6,"BRKU":0.6},"content_text":"March Madness 2026 has arrived with the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament running from March 17 through April 6.\nJust how rare is a perfect bracket — and is it even possible? \nHere’s a look at the odds and how prediction market company Kalshi is looking to reward the near impossible.\n      • DraftKings stock is trading near recent lows. What should traders watch with DKNG?\nPrediction market company Kalshi is offering a $1 billion prize if anyone can complete a perfect bracket of the round-of-64 games through the national championship, which doesn't include the First Four games set for Tuesday and Wednesday.\nThe contest is backed by Susquehanna International Group with no purchase or deposit required from users.\nAlong with the $1 billion prize for a perfect bracket, Kalshi will pay $1 million to the top-scoring bracket and award $1 million to charities and scholarships as part of the promotion. The company said in a video that a perfect bracket is “the holy grail of sports math.” \n\"Warren Buffett offered $1B for a perfect college basketball bracket in 2014. Kalshi is bringing it back. No deposit requirement. Just fill a bracket. Your odds of winning are 1 in 120 billion. Very low. But not zero. Good luck,\" Kalshi co-founder Tarek Mansour tweeted.\nMansour's tweet may have been conservative on the odds.\nThe odds to correctly predict the outcome of all 63 games during the tournament are 1 in 9.2 quintillion based on a 50-50 coin flip and all possible outcomes (that’s 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 in numerical form).\nLate DePaul University professor Jeff Bergen projected the odds could be 1 in 128 billion for those who know about basketball and follow seed trends.\nBergen estimated it could take 2,300 years for every person on the planet, completing a bracket every minute, to cover all 9.2 quintillion outcomes.\nThe DePaul professor said that you would have a better chance of winning the Powerball and Mega Millions in the same week after buying one ticket in each lottery than having a perfect bracket. \nThe current odds to win the Mega Millions and PowerBall jackpots are 1 in 302.6 million and 1 in 292.2 million, respectively.\nHere are some other similar odds from Bergen:\nDraftKings shared that it would be more likely to win the Powerball five times in a row than filling out a perfect bracket.\nGeorgia Tech professor Joel Sokol used statistics to come up with some models for predicting the March Madness tournament. The professor sees odds of 1 in 120.2 billion for scoring a perfect bracket based on past odds and statistics.\nSokol estimates that if every person in the U.S. filled out a bracket that was around 66.7% accurate (a recent average), a perfect bracket would likely occur 366 years from today, or in the year 2385.\nHere’s a crazy analogy from the NCAA on the odds of a perfect bracket. If an acorn was hidden in one of the three trillion trees on the planet, you would have a three million times greater chance of finding the acorn on the first guess than picking a perfect bracket.\nThe NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament expanded in 1985 to a field of 64 teams competing in 63 games. While the field has expanded to include some play-in games, the main tournament follows the same format.\nA verified perfect bracket has never occurred since the field expanded in 1985, according to NCAA.com.\nPrior to 2019, the closest a bracket made it was 39 games in the 2017 tournament.\nIn 2025, a bracket made it 42 games, staying perfect, coming closer than most years to getting a perfect Sweet Sixteen.\nWith the odds of getting a perfect bracket being near impossible, several companies have taken advantage of playing the odds with huge promotional events.\nBetMGM previously offered a $10-million prize for a perfect bracket.\nIn 2022, a contest was hosted by Bally’s Corp that offered to pay out $100 million for a perfect bracket.\nBack in 2014, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett offered a $1 billion prize in partnership with Yahoo Sports and Quicken Loans for a perfect bracket.\nSocial media platform X offered a trip to Mars on a SpaceX rocket for anyone with a perfect bracket. With no perfect brackets, the top prize will be $100,000.\nGames can also be streamed on Max for the Warner Bros. games and on Paramount+ for the CBS games.\nThis article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.\nImage via Shutterstock\nTo add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.2","shortVersion":"4.36.2","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2620490915","isCrawlerRequest":true}