March Madness—the NCAA college basketball championship playoffs—is among the most popular sporting events in the US, thanks in part to the wide-ranging contest that has evolved around predicting which teams will progress through the tournament. This year, almost $10.4 million is on the line in office pools or more organized competitions, and more than 40 million Americans will fill out their own versions of the playoff brackets to take part, according to the American Gaming Association. The chances of predicting a perfect bracket, which no one has ever done, are at least 1 in 128 billion and could be as remote as 1 in 9.2 quintillion.
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