$1 Billion Free Lottery, Kalshi Launches Prediction Challenge

Original Title: "Kalshi Issues $1 Billion Free Lottery Ticket, Remember to Scratch It"

Original Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

In the early morning of March 17, the prediction market Kalshi announced a post on X, stating that they will mimic the stock god Buffett and launch the "Perfect Bracket Challenge" for the upcoming NCAA "March Madness" event—users who perfectly predict all match results will be able to take home a $1 billion jackpot.

"March Madness": America's Hottest Basketball Feast

The so-called "March Madness" refers to the NCAA Men's College Basketball National Championship held by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in March every year. Since the event usually starts in March each year, adopts a single-elimination format, has an intense schedule, and fierce competition, it is so named.

According to the schedule confirmed by yesterday's draw, the 2026 "March Madness" will officially kick off on March 18th (tomorrow) Beijing time.

The 68 college basketball teams that have earned a spot in "March Madness" after months of regular-season battles will begin the championship competition, starting with the First Four round. The first-round play-in games will see 8 play-in teams directly eliminate 4 teams, leaving the remaining 64 teams to compete through five rounds of single-game knockout matches (64 → 32 → Sweet 16 → Elite 8 → Final Four → National Championship) to determine the ultimate winner.

As America's most-watched college basketball event, compared to the NBA, which is based on clubs, the NCAA, based on universities, often easily forms a strong "home team identity" at a mainstream level. During "March Madness," school students, alumni, and even the local community will spontaneously cheer for their alma mater. Because of this, the atmosphere of national participation presented by this event, to some extent, may even surpass the hype of the NBA Finals.

From a competitive perspective, although college players still find it difficult to compare with professional players overall, the uniqueness of "March Madness" lies in the fact that most participants have very limited time on the stage—usually only 1 to 4 years, and the most outstanding talented players often enter the NBA after their freshman season. This "short-lived" opportunity makes every round of the game more urgent—once they step onto the court, almost everyone will compete fiercely.

Meanwhile, the year 2026 is widely seen as a landmark NBA draft year, further amplifying the attention on this year's event. Players such as Darlin Peterson from the University of Kansas, AJ Dibonsa from Brigham Young University, and Cameron Boozer from Duke University (son of Carlos Boozer, a rival of Yao Ming) are all seen as rare talents of the generation, poised to compete for next year's NBA first overall pick. The direct dialogue among these "future stars" has added a layer of foresight about the future NBA landscape to this year's "March Madness," beyond its entertainment value.

Splashing Traffic: How Could the Prediction Market Miss Out

During "March Madness," predicting game results through filling out brackets via sports betting services has long been a local tradition in the United States. How could a professionally aligned prediction market miss out on this opportunity?

Currently, prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have already launched prediction events related to "March Madness." Polymarket has even included this in the first batch of fee-charging sports events, seemingly prepared to make a big profit in the upcoming event frenzy.

Polymarket's real-time probabilities show that the current top four college teams in the "March Madness" championship odds are the number one seeds from the four major regions:

· Duke University, home to the upcoming NBA first overall pick favorite Cameron Boozer, ranks first, currently at 21%;

· University of Michigan ranks second, currently at 19%; University of Arizona ranks third, currently at 17%;

· Defending champion University of Florida ranks fourth, currently at 11%.

On the other side, Kalshi, this morning, emulated Buffett by sending out a nuclear-level "1 Billion USD Grand Prize" event. All users can submit a prediction on Kalshi for free, and users who perfectly predict all match results can take home 1 billion USD. If no one can predict successfully, Kalshi will still provide a 1 million USD reward to the user with the best prediction performance, and allocate an additional 1 million USD to support charitable organizations.

Of note, Kalshi has also enlisted NBA star Devin Booker to boost morale. In 2014, the University of Kentucky, where Booker played, had an undefeated record of 31 wins and 0 losses in the regular season, once favored to win the national championship that year. However, they were defeated 64-71 by the University of Wisconsin in the semifinals, and the following year, Booker entered the NBA, unable to revisit this regret in his lifetime.

Buffett Has Offered $1 Billion Prize for 12 Years, But No One Has Claimed It

The reason the Kalshi prize is mentioned in emulation of Buffett is because Buffett set up the same prize as early as 2014—employees of his company Berkshire Hathaway could win a $1 billion jackpot if they correctly guessed the outcome of all games, to be paid out over 40 years by the company (or a lump sum option of $500 million).

However, due to the extreme difficulty of a perfect prediction, no one has ever claimed the prize. Buffett subsequently lowered the difficulty of the guess multiple times (with the reward adjusted accordingly), until last year when an anonymous employee of FlightSafety International, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, correctly predicted the results of 31 out of 32 first-round games, taking home a million-dollar prize after the difficulty and reward had been simultaneously reduced.

How difficult is a perfect prediction? One of the most classic figures passed around in the industry is "1 in 9.2 quintillion." This probability arises from the following mathematical calculation: assuming each game is 50% vs. 50% (completely random) without considering seed strength, odds, or historical trends, March Madness has a total of 63 games (excluding play-in rounds), resulting in 2^63 possible permutations, represented numerically as 9223372036854775808... If all these potential outcomes were written on paper, the weight of the paper would reach 180 trillion tons, equivalent to the weight of 500 million Empire State Buildings...

Do you feel it's impossible? Don't worry, I'm here to help you significantly increase the probability!

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour mentioned this morning regarding this event that the probability of a perfect prediction is about "1 in 120 billion."

The reason for such a huge difference between the two probabilities is because the latter is based on a more realistic model calculation—sports games are not 50/50; strong teams often win. After weighting by historical win rates and related odds, the academic and statistical communities typically estimate the probability of a perfect prediction in March Madness to be between "1 in 10^11 to 1 in 10^13," with "1 in 120 billion" falling within this range.

Even a "1 in 120 billion" chance means the possibility is almost zero. Obviously, Kalshi is playing the same probability game as Buffett, believing that no one will be able to take away this $1 billion.

The Community is Eager, AI Could Be the Key

After Kalshi's grand prize event was announced, it immediately sparked widespread discussion on social media—after all, predicting is free, what if you win?

And this time, many users have placed the key to the breakthrough on AI, a revolutionary technology. Overseas KOL Chase Passive Income stated on X that he would spend $50 million on data processing, allowing numerous AI agents to create accounts and fill in all possible combinations, which would be the "easiest $1 billion ever earned."

Will the unsolvable probability puzzle continue? Can AI work miracles? Until the conclusion of the "Crazy March" national championship, no one can know the answer.

As spectators, besides waiting to watch the game, don't forget to fill out a dream ticket on Kalshi.

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