Once again, March Madness is here and this means filling out your lucky brackets. About a quarter of all American adults will try their luck this year. Most of the people who pick the brackets will be new to men’s college basketball. It is for this reason that Adobe has created a digital helper through artificial intelligence technology. #HackTheBracket is the name of this new tool which launched Monday. This free resource is designed to make your work of picking the winning brackets much easier. Trevor Paulsen is the senior product manager at Adobe Analytics Cloud. Paulsen in an interview with USA Today Sports stated that engineers at his company have been trying out the new tool internally for years.
According to Paulsen, picking your favorite team in each game will only give you a 75% chance of getting it right. However, using this new tool by Adobe has been proven to increase the winning chance drastically. The analytics tools will give you an 80 to 82% chance of being right. The product manager stated that this has been demonstrated internally for over 5 years. With this new analytical resource, perhaps it is time that you filled your printable 2018 March Madness bracket.
Paulsen admits that getting the perfect bracket predication is hard. However, you can greatly improve your chance this way. There are always intrigues that will be unforeseen in this type of tournament. It is interesting to note that Adobe predicts that Purdue will win against Titans on Friday. 98.3% is the probability of the Titans losing as given by Adobe. Warren Buffett has raised the stakes for his Berkshire Hathaway employees. According to Buffett, the 2018 winner will get $2 million every year for the rest of their life. However, this will happen if Creighton or Nebraska wins it all. The billionaire disclosed this to CNBC. It is really hard to get the perfect brackets and according to NCAA, it is only one bracket that had perfect predictions through 39 games.
The group product manager for Adobe Analytics Cloud Ben Gaines says that the hardships of getting it right makes everything more fun. All the data and insights will not do away with surprises. At #HackTheBracket, visitors have the chance to compare over 50,000 games that are pre-loaded to the system. With handy comparison metrics, people can then make the most suitable prediction. A similar analytical engine has been existence since 2011. BracketOdds is a site that was created by Sheldon H. Jacobson, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois. This site uses both data and artificial intelligence.
According to Jacobson, his system emphasizes on historical patterns creating a predictive model. He believes that history can teach a lot regarding what will happen in the future. In 2017, an estimated 54 million people participated in the March Madness according to the Mellman Group. In 2018, more than $10 billion is expected to be wagered on the NCAA pools, and this is according to the American Gaming Association. There are all manner of brackets available including electronic, printables, fantasy and auction style brackets. In this respect, whether a novice or a seasoned fan, you have the chance to try your luck in this charged March Madness season.
