Original Title: "Kalshi Released a Free Lottery Worth $1 Billion, Remember to Scratch It"
Original Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily
In the early hours of March 17, the prediction market Kalshi announced on X that it will imitate stock market guru Warren Buffett by launching the "Perfect Bracket Challenge" for the upcoming NCAA "March Madness" events — users who perfectly predict all match outcomes will win the grand prize of $1 billion.
"March Madness": America's Hottest Basketball Feast
"March Madness" refers to the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship held every March by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The event typically starts in March each year, using a single-elimination format with an intensive schedule and fierce competition, hence the name.
According to the schedule confirmed by yesterday's draw, the 2026 "March Madness" will officially kick off at 8:00 AM Beijing time on March 18 (tomorrow).
68 college teams that qualified for "March Madness" after months of regular-season battles will compete for the championship. The first round will involve the First Four play-in games, where 8 teams will eliminate 4, and the remaining 64 teams will determine the final winner through five rounds of single-elimination matches (64 teams → 32 teams → Sweet 16 → Elite 8 → Final 4 → Championship Game → National Champion).
As the most watched college basketball event in the U.S., compared to the NBA, which primarily features club competitions, the NCAA tends to generate a strong "home team identification" among the public. During "March Madness," students, alumni, and local communities actively rally to support their alma mater. Because of this, the atmosphere of nationwide participation in this event often surpasses the excitement of the NBA Finals to some extent.
From a competitive perspective, while college players still struggle to match the overall strength of professional players, the unique aspect of "March Madness" is that most participants have a very limited stage window — usually just 1 to 4 years, and the top talents often enter the NBA after their freshman season. This "fleeting" opportunity makes every round of the competition feel more urgent — once on the court, almost everyone will compete with all their might.
Meanwhile, 2026 is widely regarded as a big year for the NBA draft, further amplifying the attention on this year’s event. Kansas University’s Darrin Peterson, Brigham Young University’s AJ DiBenzza, and Duke University’s Cameron Boozer (son of Yao Ming's rival Carlos Boozer) are seen as rare talents expected to compete for next year's NBA first overall pick. The direct confrontation between these "future stars" adds an extra layer of foresight regarding the future NBA landscape beyond the spectator appeal of this edition of "March Madness."
Massive Traffic, Prediction Market Cannot Miss Out
During "March Madness," predicting game outcomes through sports betting services by filling out brackets has long been a major custom in the U.S. How can a professional prediction market miss this opportunity?
Currently, prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have launched prediction events related to the "March Madness" tournament. Polymarket has even included it among the first batch of pilot paid sports events, seemingly prepping to cash in on the upcoming excitement.
Polymarket's real-time probabilities show that the top four colleges with the best championship odds in "March Madness" are the number one seeds from four major regions:
· Duke University, featuring the highly anticipated NBA first overall pick candidate Cameron Boozer, ranks first with 21%;
· University of Michigan is ranked second with 19%; University of Arizona ranks third with 17%;
· Defending champion University of Florida is fourth with 11%.
On the other hand, Kalshi imitated Buffett by launching the nuclear-level "$1 billion reward" campaign this morning. All users can submit a free prediction on Kalshi, and users who perfectly predict all match outcomes can win $1 billion. If no one predicts successfully, Kalshi will also provide $1 million to the user with the best prediction performance, along with another $1 million allocated to support charities.
It’s worth noting that Kalshi has also enlisted NBA star Devin Booker to help promote the event. In 2014, Booker’s University of Kentucky achieved an undefeated record of 31 wins and 0 losses during the regular season and was considered a strong contender for that year's national championship, but lost in the semifinals 64-71 to the University of Wisconsin. Booker entered the NBA the following year, unable to rectify that regret.
Buffett Has Been Offering Rewards for 12 Years, but No One Has Claimed the Grand Prize
The mention of Kalshi's grand prize being modeled after Buffett is because Buffett has been offering a similar grand prize since 2014 — employees of his company Berkshire Hathaway can win $1 billion if they can correctly predict all match outcomes, with payouts distributed over 40 years (or a one-time cash option of $500 million).
However, due to the immense difficulty of a perfect prediction, the prize has never been claimed. Subsequently, Buffett has lowered the difficulty of predictions several times (the rewards would also decrease accordingly), until last year when an anonymous employee from Berkshire Hathaway’s subsidiary FlightSafety International managed to correctly predict 31 out of 32 match outcomes in the first round and received a million-dollar prize reflecting the reduced difficulty and rewards.
How difficult is perfect prediction? The most classic figure circulated in the industry is "1 in 9.2 quintillion," which means "once in 92 quintillion." This probability derives from the following mathematical calculation: if every game is a 50% vs 50% (completely random), without considering seed strength, odds, or historical rules, "March Madness" has a total of 63 games (excluding the First Four play-in games), thus all possible permutations would be 2^63, which amounts to 9223372036854775808... If one were to write all these possible outcomes on paper, the weight of the paper would reach 180 trillion tons, equivalent to the weight of 500 million Empire State Buildings...
Does it seem impossible? No worries, I’ll help you significantly improve the odds!
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour stated this morning that the probability of perfect prediction is about "1 in 120 billion," meaning "1 in 120 billion."
The vast difference between the two probabilities is because this probability is based on more realistic model calculations — sports events aren’t just 50-50; strong teams often have a higher chance of winning, and after weighting historical winning rates and related odds, academics and statisticians typically estimate the probability of perfect prediction in "March Madness" to be between "1 / 10¹¹ and 1 / 10¹³," with "1 in 120 billion" falling within this range.
Even at "1 in 120 billion," it means the possibility is almost zero. Clearly, Kalshi is playing the same probability game as Buffett, believing that no one will claim this $1 billion.
The Community is Ready, AI May Be the Key to Breakthrough
After the announcement of Kalshi’s grand prize campaign, it immediately sparked widespread discussions on social media — after all, predicting costs nothing, what if you win?
This time, many users are pinning their hopes for a breakthrough on this revolutionary AI. Overseas KOL Chase Passive Income stated on X that he would spend $50 million on data processing, allowing countless AI agents to create accounts and fill out all possible brackets, calling it "the easiest $1 billion to earn."
Will the unsolvable probability problem continue? Can AI create miracles? Before the national champion of "March Madness" is revealed, no one can know the answer.
As spectators, apart from waiting to watch the games, don't forget to submit your dream bracket on Kalshi.
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