Thursday, March 17, 2011

[pgktsklb] Bracket Auction

Is there incentive to set the seeding of the NCAA single elimination tournament bracket correctly?  We need some system where if a worse-seeded team upsets a better-seeded one, there is punishment to the bracket designer.

First choose the 68 teams, then apply an auction system where candidate brackets are submitted, gamblers bet (over-under) on the number of upsets each one will have.  (Yes, gamblers play an integral role in bracket creation.)  The one with the lowest number is selected, and all bets are cancelled except that one.

But there are ~68! possible brackets.  There is financial incentive for teams to progress further in the tournament, so incentive for a financial backer of a team to rig the system as an investment.

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