March Madness begins later this month, in what is one of the highlights of the American sports calendar.
68 teams will compete in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, with the winners being hailed as America's best college basketball team. The final takes place in Arizona on April 3rd.
As the tournament is played in a bracket format, millions of Americans compete in prediction tournaments, hoping to path each team's route to the final.
Warren Buffett, one of the World's richest men, has upped the stakes for a second year in a row. If any of Buffett's employees in Berkshire Hathaway (which includes companies such as GEICO and Fruit of the Loom) correctly predict the last 16 teams in the tournament, he will pay them $1million a year for the rest of their lives.
Depsite Buffett's outrageous incentive towards his employees, the odds are stacked in his favour. According to Forbes, 14 out of over 11.5million participants predicted the 16 teams in an ESPN.com competition in 2014.
Over 85,000 people reportedly took part in the competition last year. Nobody correctly predicted the 16 teams, but Buffett split a $100,000 prize fund between two people who were closest getting the jackpot.
Buffett is worth over $70billion, and a $50million hit would be a drop in the ocean for the generous 86-year-old.
Luckily for Buffett's employees, they do not have to predict the results of all 48 matches before the Last 16. According to Paddy Power, the odds of correctly predicting all 48 results in last year's tournament was 12,789,952,715/1. A €1 bet would win the bettor over $12.7billion.
Those odds are massively skewed by the 16/1 outsider Middle Tennessee defeating Michigan State in a First Round shock. Even without that game, the odds would have been around 780,000,000/1.
It's nice money if you can get it.
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