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Warren Buffett offers $1 billion for perfect NCAA tournament bracket

Before you fill out your form, keep in mind, there were some Shockers in last year's national semifinals at the Georgia Dome.

Credit: Johnny Crawford / AJC File

Credit: Johnny Crawford / AJC File

Before you fill out your form, keep in mind, there were some Shockers in last year's national semifinals at the Georgia Dome.
By
Jan 21, 2014

If you can correctly predict the winner of all 63 games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in March Warren Buffett will give you $1 billion.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Quicken Loans announced the "Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge" today. Anyone who enters the free contest online and fills out a perfect bracket will receive the $1 billion in 40 annual installments of $25 million or can opt to receive a lump sum payment of $500 million.

Multiple winners will share the pot. If there are no perfect brackets, the top 20 most accurate brackets among entrants will receive $100,000 each from Quicken Loans to purchase or remodel a home or refinance a mortgage.

The contest begins Monday, March 3, and runs until the start of the 2014 NCAA basketball tournament Wednesday, March 19. This year's championship game will be held April 7 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

So how likely is it someone will cash in on the $1 billion?

DePaul University math professor Jeff Bergen told Yahoo Sports that the odds of filling out a perfect bracket random are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 and the odds of a person with basketball knowledge correctly predicting every game is 1 in 128 billion.

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Michael Cunningham has covered Atlanta sports for the AJC since 2010.

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