Luck Is the Key to Winning March Madness Office Pools
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iStock/Thinkstock(ANN ARBOR, Mich.) — We’re on the verge again of March Madness.
Part of the insanity has to do with NCAA basketball pools at work and filling out brackets for the chance to win some big money, although nearly everyone who plays comes away empty-handed.
Dae Hee Kwak, who teaches sports management at the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology, was curious to find out why people keep selecting brackets year after year even as many bettors go down in flames before the first round of games is even over.
It’s something called control theory and overestimation, which basically means that certain people have a high degree of confidence based on their knowledge and research.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Kwak says you have just as much of a chance of winning your office pool even if you know nothing about men’s college basketball by merely flipping a coin as he did one year against a control group.
Kwak did three sets of brackets, picking winners by a coin flip and each time outperformed those who made their picks through the control theory and overestimation.
So why do perennial losers keep doing it? Kwak explains that “high confidence drives winning expectations, which drives the greatest enjoyment.”
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