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Has anyone read what happens if there are multiple winners? Do they split the prize? Is one winner chosen at random? Do they all get a billion? It really affect

Has anyone read what happens if there are multiple winners? Do they split the prize? Is one winner chosen at random? Do they all get a billion? It really affects how you should play. For example, a common bracket might be to pick all the top seeds. In some sense that's the most likely outcome. But that may be a bad entry as there would certainly be lots of people who enter that. In a similar way, the worst possible lottery entry is 1 2 3 4 5 6 is the most common lottery entry, and hence the worst since if it did come up, you'd have to split the prize many ways. [1] [1] http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21573993-britons-love-gamblingand-are-rubbish-it-herd-mentality http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21573993-britons-love-...

sudothinker 13y ago
They split the prize. "The winner will have the option of taking 40 annual payments of $25 million or a lump sum of $500 million. Multiple winners would split the money." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buffett-basketball-bet-20140122,0,7653962.story#ixzz2reH2xOKN http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buffett-basketball-bet...
maxerickson 13y ago
I don't think an upset free bracket has ever happened. Some of that is because of the first round match ups; 7 plays 10 and 8 plays 9, and if the seeds are good, those games are toss ups.
- harryh 13y ago
  Yes. The most likely outcome is still very unlikely.
- cschmidt 13y ago
  That's true. But only a vanishingly small fraction of the possible brackets has come up in history. Similarly, the lottery ticket 1 2 3 4 5 6 has probably never won. Since all lottery tickets are equally likely, it still makes sense to avoid it, since if it did you have to do more sharing. (Similarly people tend to play their birthdays, so number that can be dates should be avoided.) It is more fun here, because all brackets are not equally likely. So you want to pick your most likely brackets, but only if you don't think others will be playing the same bracket.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    The lottery is at least theoretically based on perfect information. I'm not sure it is a given that the 8-9 match ups are more likely to go to 8. (but I did sort of overlook how few brackets have been played out)

sudothinker 13y ago

They split the prize. "The winner will have the option of taking 40 annual payments of $25 million or a lump sum of $500 million. Multiple winners would split the money." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buffett-basketball-bet-20140122,0,7653962.story#ixzz2reH2xOKN http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-buffett-basketball-bet...

maxerickson 13y ago

I don't think an upset free bracket has ever happened. Some of that is because of the first round match ups; 7 plays 10 and 8 plays 9, and if the seeds are good, those games are toss ups.

harryh 13y ago
Yes. The most likely outcome is still very unlikely.
cschmidt 13y ago
That's true. But only a vanishingly small fraction of the possible brackets has come up in history. Similarly, the lottery ticket 1 2 3 4 5 6 has probably never won. Since all lottery tickets are equally likely, it still makes sense to avoid it, since if it did you have to do more sharing. (Similarly people tend to play their birthdays, so number that can be dates should be avoided.) It is more fun here, because all brackets are not equally likely. So you want to pick your most likely brackets, but only if you don't think others will be playing the same bracket.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  The lottery is at least theoretically based on perfect information. I'm not sure it is a given that the 8-9 match ups are more likely to go to 8. (but I did sort of overlook how few brackets have been played out)