No one has ever picked a perfect March Madness bracket

In 1985 March Madness expanded to 64 teams and in the 40 years since, there have been numerous places offering NCAA tournament brackets featuring prizes of one form or another and to date not a single perfect bracket has been filled out.  At first, they were done in private clubs and casinos as free-to-play promotions and then when the internet became viable, almost every sports related website and gambling site offered NCAA Tournament brackets, some for free and some paid. When it became clear how difficult picking a bracket was, prizes for a perfect bracket were often in the millions of dollars, In 2014 Warren Buffet, in partnership with Quicken Loans, offered a $1 billion prize to anyone who could pick a perfect bracket. No one in that year had a correct bracket that moved beyond the round of 8.

Why is picking a perfect bracket so hard?

The reason it’s so hard to pick a perfect bracket is obvious. For every game where the outcome is obvious, there are many games that are a toss-up. And as the tournament progresses, games become even more of a coin toss and all picks have to be chosen at the outset of the tournament. In fact statistics show that 99.9% of March Madness brackets are eliminated after the first round and if one is just picking at random (i.e. flipping a coin to pick a team at each point), the chance of getting a perfect bracket is 1 in 9.2 quintillion! If the player uses insight and skill, as most do, the odds drop to 1 in 120 billion. Therefore, in the first scenario there is a 31.5 billion times better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot than picking a perfect bracket, while in the second scenario where the person uses logic and handicapping skill, there is a 411 times better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot than picking a perfect bracket.

So it’s only logical to assume that a perfect bracket will never be picked.

NIL has changed the odds

But while chances are slim to none of doing so, the possibilities of a perfect bracket have increased thanks to the NCAA’s Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) program which allows players to profit off their name, picture and likeness. The NCAA introduced the new rule after being sued by some players and agents and called out by some in Congress for disallowing star players to sign 3rd party agreements. The argument the players made was that it was unfair for only the schools and league to profit from tee shirts, sports cards and other paraphernalia that showed an athlete’s name and image rather than the player himself of herself.

The schools and leagues argued that the players receive scholarships which is compensation enough, but when it was clear the NCAA would lose in court, the league allowed players to profit from NIL. Not surprisingly, this new rule combined with the transfer portal, which allows star players at lesser skilled universities to transfer to more prestigious universities to increase their stature and chance at both NIL revenue and getting a higher draft pick when going professional, has led to a situation where only the best teams have the really good players and the lesser teams are playing mostly with students who are only receiving a scholarship and will never make the pros. Moreover, prior to NIL a lot of the better players forewent their last year of eligibility to jump to the pros, which meant that teams like Duke often played without their best seniors, giving the mid-major and smaller teams a fighting chance. But now that the players can make money off their names and images, the star juniors are staying in in school for their last season of eligibility, limiting the huge upsets that happened before.

2025 NCAA Tournament is the new blue print for bracket success

Last year every single number 1 seed (Auburn, Duke, Houston and Florida) made it to the Final Four, the first time since 2008, the only other year all four number ones made it to the last round of the dance after it expanded to 64 teams. It’s true that in 2024 number 11 NC State made it to the finals and in 2023 the highest ranked team in the final four was a 4th seed, but it’s widely accepted that it has only been since 2024 that NIL rules have seen an effect, since in 2022 and 2023 there was a lot of confusion, infighting and companies were unclear about NIL rules so few players were benefitting from it. 

I spoke to Jack, a sports trader at a popular offshore gambling company, and asked if he has seen any difference between now and years prior to NIL and he said there absolutely has:

"There was a time before the pandemic when we saw as much money on #12 and #13 teams as we did on the Duke’s and Florida’s and that included both the spread and money line, but now all the money is on the favorites. Over 90% of the bets for national champion this year are either on Duke, Arizona, Michigan, Florida or Houston and almost all the other bets are on Purdue, Iowa State, Illinois, Gonzaga or Connecticut. In the past you would have seen a lot of bets on #4 or #5 seeds to pull off the upset. But nobody believes in Cinderella anymore and for most bettors, unless you are a #1, #2 or #3 seed, you have no chance.

It’s also true with the spreads themselves. I don’t recall ever seeing a 25-point favorite for a #2 seed in the first round, but that’s what Connecticut is against Queen’s University and let’s be honest, the chances of a Queen’s University win is nonexistent. Unless you go there you won’t know any player on that team and if you polled people across the U.S. where they think Queen’s University is, they  would probably say England. In fact every #2 seed this year is at least a 20-point favorite in their first game and Gonzaga and Illinois are more than 20-point favorites as the #3 seeds. That’s unheard of. In the past the 5-12 and 6-11 games were competitive and often produced upsets, but this year most #5 and #6  seeded teams are big favorites."

I asked Jack if he could foresee a perfect bracket this year and he laughed and said no. But he also acknowledged that the sportsbook he works for has a bracket contest and has for years and he did see a lot more players advance beyond the first round last year than previously.  He added that with only seven games out of 32 with a point spread less than 5 points in the first round, it is possible, though still unlikely. He said that in his opinion once NIL is completely understood and straightened out and the best players are all on about 12 teams it is very possible that it could happen . . . in the next decade. He also noted that the number of companies offering a bracket contest this year with a prize of $100,000 or more for a perfect bracket are far fewer than before, indicating management at those companies believe the chance of a perfect bracket is not zero and they either don’t want to be on the hook for a huge payout, or insurance companies aren’t prepared to underwrite the possibility.

Cinderella is dead

So, looking at the NCAA Tournament lines and odds to win the National Championship, it’s clear that Cinderella has left the ball and the slipper isn't fitting on any team. The days of a #8 team winning the tournament like Villanova did in 1985 and the days of a #16 team knocking off a #1 team like UMBC and Fairleigh Dickinson did are probably over. Make no mistake, the best NCAA players deserve to make money off their name and image, but that rule along with the transfer portal has hurt both March Madness and the NCAA football bowl season from a gambler’s perspective. But it also opens up the chance of a perfect bracket. Is it likely to happen this year? Probably not. But there are people who win the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots so anything is possible and you may as well fill out the bracket here at OSGA since you can’t win if you don’t at least try, plus it’s free.

Read insights from Hartley Henderson every week here at OSGA and check out Hartley's RUMOR MILL!