Warren Buffett's annual March Madness bracket challenge has resulted in a $1 million prize being awarded for the first time. An employee from Berkshire Hathaway's FlightSafety International subsidiary achieved this milestone by correctly predicting the outcomes of 31 out of 32 first-round games in the NCAA Tournament, including an impressive streak of 29 consecutive correct picks.
In addition to the grand prize winner, 11 other participants who also correctly predicted 31 games will receive $100,000 each. This contest has been a fixture within Berkshire Hathaway for nearly a decade, previously without a single winner of the top prize. Buffett noted that the decision to simplify the rules—no longer requiring a perfect bracket for the first round—was partly influenced by his desire to award the prize while still able to oversee the contest.
The chances of predicting the outcomes of these games correctly were approximately one in 780 billion, underscoring the difficulty of the task. The contest has evolved from an initial public challenge in 2014, which offered a $1 billion prize for a perfect bracket, to an internal challenge launched in 2016. The rules for this year’s contest stipulated that participants needed to guess at least 30 first-round games correctly.
Despite the excitement generated by the contest, the identity of the winner remains undisclosed, as the individual has opted to remain anonymous. FlightSafety, which has a workforce of fewer than 5,000 employees, is one of many subsidiaries under the larger Berkshire Hathaway umbrella, which employs approximately 392,000 individuals.