Billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett and Quicken Loans have teamed up on a Billion $ Bracket Challenge.

Basically, Quicken is offering a $1 billion grand prize — yes, that's billion, with a B — if someone correctly picks the outcome of all 63 games in the men's Division I college basketball tournament this spring.

The picking has to be done, of course, before any of the games have been played. The challenge doesn't include the "first four" play-in games that are held to fill out the tournament's 64-team field.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate is the insurer that will pony up the money if someone wins. According to the challenge's rules, if anyone does fill out a bracket that ends up being perfect, he or she can collect the winnings either in 40 annual pre-tax payments of $25 million each or in a pre-tax lump sum of $500 million.

Smaller prizes will also be handed out: "$100,000 each to the owners of the top 20 scoring brackets."

So, what are the odds of getting all 63 games right?

According to the rules released so far, the "contest begins at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time ("EST") on March 3, 2014 and ends at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time ("EST") on March 19, 2014 One entry per household."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/22/264899815/warren-buffetts-1-billion-basketball-bet-is-a-very-long-shot
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