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It seems like everyone loves March Madness -- especially betting in the office pool. Of course, the only way to assure victory is by anticipating every possible outcome. So, what would it take to cover all your bases? We hope you have plenty of patience, because there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 different ways to fill out a tournament bracket from a 65-team field. To find the answer, we took the number of games played in the tournament (64, including the "play-in game") and figured that each game has two possible outcomes. Either the Wildcats maul the Bulldogs or vice versa. So, the answer is 264. For you nonmathematicians out there, that's 2 multiplied
by itself 64 times. Math Forum confirmed our logic and also offered an interesting side note we'll paraphrase for you. If every person on the planet (around 6.5 billion) filled out a bracket, the odds of someone (anyone!) achieving perfection are still infinitesimal. Suddenly keno's not looking like such a bad deal.
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