The NCAA men’s basketball tournament tips off on Thursday morning with the first of 63 games to be played over the next two weeks. And 15 million people will be rooting for their brackets to defy the odds and go 63 for 63 with their picks.
Because if you got your picks in by 1 a.m. EDT Thursday morning, then you might still have a chance, albeit a hilariously small chance, to win a billion dollars from Quicken Loans. How small of a chance? 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to be exact.
For those that haven’t even seen a number that big, that’s 9 quintillion.
If you were lucky enough to be one of the first 15 million people to hand Quicken your name, address, date of birth and other important mortgage data in exchange for your chance at a billion dollars in Quicken's Billion Dollar Bracket Challenege.
HousingWire decided to try our luck and laugh in the face of astronomical odds so we entered a bracket of our own into the contest because, well, we like money too.
Our strategy for winning Quicken’s billion was to choose the higher seeds in nearly every game.
It’s not adventurous but we’re focused on housing here. HousingWire newsroom TV’s are tuned to CNBC and CSPAN, not ESPN and CBS Sports.
We’re trying to be logical here. These teams are ranked higher for a reason so we’re trusting the rankings and hoping for the best. There are almost always big upsets in the early rounds but those are impossible to predict. That’s why the odds of winning this contest are so insane. So we don’t actually think we’re going to win but we’ll certainly be rooting for our picks over the next two weeks. We’ll update you on our status as the tournament progresses.
Check out our picks here and compare them against your own.
For the record, our Final Four is Florida, Virginia, Arizona and Wichita St., with Florida beating Wichita St. in the championship game.
If you entered the contest yourself, share the link to your picks in the comments below.
And if you win, maybe you can share some of your money with us too.
Just a small finder's fee. Say, $500 million?
