Are You More Likely To Win The Lottery Or Get Hit By Lightning?

We often hear that people that play the lottery are suckers, and that there’s a greater chance of getting hit by lightning than there is of winning the lottery.

But is that true?

Written by: Gladys

July 22nd, 2012 in gambling, Misconceptions, physics, Science

7 Comments

petersonJuly 18th, 2011 at 11:03 am

Putting the math aside of a moment, the odds on winning the lottery vary a lot because of several factors with the two most important ones being;

a) How many tickets you buy.

b) How many people participate.

In the U.S. single state lotteries usually have odds of about 18 million to 1 while multiple state lotteries have odds as high as 120 million to 1.

In the U.K. the odds on winning the lottery are about 14 million to one.

The odds on getting killed by lightning are about 10 million to one.

But the above figures are based on buying a single lottery ticket and getting all six numbers up that week, whereas the lightning figure is based on how many people per head of the population are killed by lightning per year!

If we correct the above lightning figure by multiplying it by fifty two (520 million) then you’ve got a much better chance of winning the lottery than you have of being hit by lightning, and especially if you buy lots of tickets.

That said, if you play the lottery for fun, feel good about help charities, and can afford to lose money, then go ahead and enjoy yourself, but if you play because you hope to make a bad financial situation better, then please don’t, because the odds on winning the lottery or getting hit by lightning are both so high that neither are likely to happen to you.

no-shmuckJuly 18th, 2011 at 11:14 am

Just a couple of tips.

Don’t use your birthday because even if you win you’ll most likely have to share the prize with lots of others.

Lots of people have the same birthday and lots of people use the dates.

If you want totally random numbers which is what the lottery operators use then maybe try Probabilistic Magic.

donald-drakeJuly 18th, 2011 at 11:34 am

Things That Are More Likely To Happen To You Than Winning The Lottery

Dying in a road accident when you drive 10 miles to buy your lottery ticket? You’re between three and twenty times more likely to get killed in the road accident than you are of winning the lottery.
If you play golf in a group of four people then the odds are about 17 million to one that two of you will get a hole in one in the same hole The odds on dying from flesh eating bacteria are about a million to 1.
Dying from a snake bite? The odds are about 100,000 to 1.
Chances that you’ll be executed on death row? Between about 30,000% to 200,000% more likely than winning the lottery.
The chance of dying because of an asteroid collision in 2029? You’re about 450,000 to 3,000,000 times more likely to die in an asteroid collision in the year 2029 than you are of winning the lottery.

The big variation in some of the statistics is because of location, since if you live in Africa for example then the chances of dying on death row are far less than if you live in Texas.

yellowstoneJuly 18th, 2011 at 11:54 am

If you really want a way to choose random lottery numbers then try this:

Take at least eight wind up clocks and after winding the them up, leave them to run down and stop.

After they’ve all stopped, starting with the first one, make a note of the position of the minute hand on the first six, and those will be your numbers for the coming week.

What about the two additional clocks?

They are in case two of the first six clocks show the same number of minutes.

The above has made me a lot of money and I just have a shop that sells watches and clocks.