Do you play the lottery?
Everyone knows the odds of winning the lottery are unlikely, but exactly how unlikely?
First off, I am talking about the major lotteries here.
Namely, The Powerball and Mega Millions. Heard of them?
The odds are similar for winning both. Around 1 in 176,000,000.
Not too bad, right? Oh wait, yes it is.
In fact, here are a total of 24 things that are more likely to happen than winning the lottery…
Dying Isn’t That Likely
You have heard that you are more like to die on the way to buy your lottery ticket than you are to win the lottery, right? The odds of you dying in a car accident are 1 in 6,700, by the way.
Dying isn’t really that likely, especially in some of these weird ways, but it’s still more likely than winning the lottery.
Here are 11 other ways you are more likely to die than win the lottery:
- Being killed by a vending machine. (1 in 112 million)
- Being killed in a terrorist attack on an airline. (1 in 25 million)
- Dying from a bee, hornet or wasp sting. (1 in 6.1 million)
- Dying from being left-handed and using a right-handed product incorrectly. (1 in 4.4 million)
- Dying in a plane crash. (1 in 1 million)
- Being killed by flesh-eating bacteria. (1 in 1 million)
- Getting Struck by Lightning. (1 in 1 million)
- Drowning (1 in 2,000,000)
- Drowning specifically in a bathtub. (1 in 840,000)
- Dying in an on-the-job accident. (1 in 48,000)
- Being murdered…just in general. (1 in 18,000)
It’s pretty unlikely that any of that will happen to you and it’s definitely more unlikely that you will win the lottery.
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It’s not all bad though. There are actually good things…or at least, neat things, that are more likely to happen:
- Getting attacked by a shark. (1 in 11.5 million)
- Visiting the ER for a pogo stick related injury. (1 in 115,300)
Oh wait! I said good things…here you go:
- Investing in Bitcoin and becoming a Bitcoin millionaire (1 in 1,000)
- Having identical quadruplets. (1 in 15 million)
- Becoming US president. (1 in 10 million)
- Becoming a Movie Star. (1 in 1,505,000)
- Becoming an astronaut. (1 in 12,100,000)
- Becoming a pro athlete. (1 in 22,000)
- Winning an Olympic gold medal. (1 in 662,000)
- Winning an academy award. (1 in 11,500)
- Finding out your child is a genius. (1 to 250)
- Dating a millionaire. (1 to 215)
- Getting a royal flush in a first hand of poker. (1 in 649,740)
Talk about good luck. Well, better luck than winning the lottery.
Also Read: LearnBonds Forex Trading Guide
So if you want a safer investment than the lottery, try Vegas. Or try to find one of those millionaires.
With all of these odds, it’s hard to believe that anything is less likely than winning the lottery, but you would be surprised…
There is a better chance that you will win the lottery, than there is that these things will happen:
- Getting a perfect NCAA bracket (1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808)
- Shuffling a deck of cards into perfect, sequential order (1 in 10^68)
- Being hit by a meteor (1 in 182,138,880,000,000)
I guess those are 3 things that aren’t worth trying…especially getting hit by a meteor. Don’t try that at home, kids.
Well, if someone offers a billion dollars for guessing the NCAA bracket, it doesn’t hurt to try.
You Exist! What Are the odds?
It’s important to know that you are less likely to exist than you are to win the lottery.
So that means you have already beat the odds by being here at all.
Good job!
The odds of you existing are 1 in 10^2,685,000. Check this out:
If you like to be specific, you can actually calculate your odds for winning the lottery here.
Don’t miss all of my free online guides:
- The Complete Guide to Control and Save Your Money
- The Complete Guide to Investing
- The Complete Guide to Paying Off Your Debt
- The Complete Guide to Using Credit Cards the Right Way
- The Complete Guide to Productivity
- The Complete Guide to Creating Positive Habits
- The Complete Guide to Make Money Blogging
Photo Credit: wetwebwork, Trey, Art, Thomas
Sources: 1, 2 (temporarily unavailable), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
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