Buffett tosses $1m in basket
Employees get chance to slamdunk big prize at big odds
Billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, is once again offering his employees an astronomical prize to beat almost impossible odds.
The longtime basketball fan is offering US$1 million ($1.3m) a year for life to any Berkshire Hathaway employee who can accurately predict all Sweet 16 teams in this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament, according to Business Insider.
Unfortunately, the odds are not in the employees favour.
According to CNBC, of the 18.8 million March Madness brackets filled out on ESPN last year, just 18 people picked a perfect Sweet 16.
The annual knockout tournament consists of 68 of America’s best college basketball teams all competing for the National Championship.
For a Berkshire Hathaway employee to win the US$1m a year for the rest of his or her life, they will need to pick the correct winners of all 32 first-round games, plus the 16 games in the second round.
Thankfully that’s as far as they will have to go. According to the NCAA website, the odds of predicting the entire tournament correctly (67 games) is as l ow as 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.
Buffett is also offering US$100,000 to the employee whose bracket stays intact the longest.
Buffett started the company bracket challenge in 2014, and so far no one has won the major prize.
The 87-year-old Nebraska native further sweetened the deal by telling CNBC last month, “if either Creighton or Nebraska ends up winning the tournament, we’re going to double the prize.” Sadly Nebraska did not end up qualifying for the field of 68, however Creighton is a No 8 seed and will face Kansas State in the first round.