When it comes to money, Warren Buffett isn't one to monkey around. Well, maybe just this once. Pepsi's
With Yahoo!
Irony runs soda syrup thick here because, of course, Berkshire Hathaway has been a longtime investor in Pepsi's rival Coca-Cola
Pepsi paid an undisclosed seven-figure sum for Berkshire to assume the risk of the show's final contestant winning it all. As an insurance giant, Berkshire Hathaway didn't need to study its actuary tables to realize that this was a good deal. The odds of someone walking away with the billion-dollar prize is a bleak million-to-one long shot. That's chimp chump change for Berkshire, which should emerge as the real winner here.
Berkshire will have to pay no more than 250 times what it is receiving from Pepsi and the chances of paying it out, to any of the thousand participants, are one in a thousand? Nice odds. Find a casino that pays out just 25% of the take? Even the state-run lotteries have better distribution chances. Berkshire looks to be the one that will have a Coke and a smile by the time it's all over.