DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) – March Madness is here, and the Fighting Illini are a favorite to win it all. Plenty of Central Illinois hope to beat the odds with a perfect bracket. That is very unlikely.
The American Gaming Association expects more than 36-million Americans will fill out the NCAA March Madness bracket. That is down 8-percent from 2019, and the probability of winning is nowhere near possible.
“Do you have a pretty good odd, or no?” WAND News asked Joe Stickles, the chair of Milikin’s’ math department. He quickly responded “Uhm, no.”
Stickes says your chance of a perfect bracket is one in 9.2 quintillion. .
"That's a one with 18 zeroes after it,” he said.
Your chance of getting struck by lightning is one in 500,000. Your chance of being eaten by a shark is 15,000 times more likely. You also are 140,000 times more likely to become a billionaire.
"A lot of people are just trying to pick the winner to, they're not trying to pick the perfect bracket so it is a little bit easier to come out of that.”
There has never been a perfect bracket. However, a guy named Gregg Nigl got the first 49 game winner picks right in 2019.
