What Are Your Odds Of Winning The Lottery? [Infographic]

18 Comments

11/29/12 at 1:21 pm

If this was put to scale properly people would be paging down for weeks on their PC to reach the odds of Powerball......

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Robot

11/29/12 at 1:54 pm

I do not buy a lotto ticket with the belief I will win. I buy it for a couple of other reasons. One reason is the profits I believe goes to the school system and second, I get to walk around and day dream of how I can spend my ka-zillions for a day. It's fun to day dream once in a while. ;)

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I doubt that

11/29/12 at 2:34 pm

I'm not buying it

Less than 50 people have been elected president of the united states in 250+ years

Someone wins the lottery EVERY WEEK...

And yr telling me that you are more likely to be elected president of the united states than you are to win the lottery?

Nope...

I think someone is comparing apples and oranges here.

Perhaps you are comparing the odds that you will win THIS lottery, THIS WEEK AND ONLY THIS WEEK, after buying ONLY ONE TICKET to the odds of ANY AMERICAN in the history of america being elected president EVER.

The odds of winning the lottery are much higher than 1 in 135 million.

There are roughly 300 million people in america.

So if the odds are winning the lottery are 1 in 135 million to 1 then approx 3 people should have won the lottery.

Yeah I think someone goofed and made a cute graphic about it

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Him

11/29/12 at 3:02 pm

@ I doubt that Just to clear up a few things: 1) there is not a lottery winner every week, that is how the jackpot rose to this amount. 2) There have not been 50 presidents elected. 3) I believe you do not look at things very scientifically, and that means you are on the wrong part of the internet.

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I doubt that

11/29/12 at 3:25 pm

@Him

You are being obtuse and misquoting me

There is in FACT a lottery winner every week, in fact there is MORE than 1 lottery winner every week

You are making the same mistake the author of this article made.

You are talking about ONE LOTTERY AND ONE LOTTERY ONLY.

There is in fact more than one in this country, and someone wins THE LOTTERY every single week.

I don't know where you are from but where I am from when someone says "I won THE lottery" they don't always mean that they won whatever lottery you are reffering to in this particular week.

I person could win "THE" lottery without winning whatever lottery you are talking about.

You are also misquoting me I never said there were 50 presidents. I said there were less than 50.

Instead of criticizing my "not looking at thing scientifically" why don't you LEARN HOW TO READ instead of misinforming about what I said?

You are much more likely to win "THE LOTTERY" meaning ANY state lottery than you are to be elected president. People win "THE LOTTERY" all the time. As I said less than 50 people have been elected president of the united states.
(Barrack Obama being the 44th president in case anyone is interested)

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simski

11/29/12 at 3:48 pm

I agree that this is a stupid infographic. If you never swim in the ocean, your odds of being attacked by a shark approach 0. If you go surfing in shark-infested waters every day, the odds are much higher than 1/11,500,000. The same goes for most of the other odds. Unless U.S law changes, I have a 0% chance of becoming president, whereas my chance of finding a pearl in an oyster probably depends on where I get my oysters from.
This isn't comparing apples with oranges, this is comparing apples with discussions on yesterday's weather.

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64Dman

11/29/12 at 4:46 pm

if you guys were going for ignorance in these comments you nailed and the writer of the article didn't do anything wrong you did for being incomplete and ignorant.The writer was implying that if you were swimming or was attacked by a shark he is implying those numbers and for the president thing he is saying that if everyone had a fair chance at getting to be the president of The U.S.A. I know that some numbers don't seem real but don't be ignorant about it either

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Robot

11/29/12 at 4:57 pm

I had fun buying my lotto ticket last night have no regets!

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I doubt that

11/29/12 at 6:10 pm

@ 64Dman

I'm not saying the numbers aren't real, I'm saying that he's not comparing your chances of "winning the lottery" as he says, he is comparing the chances if you bought 1 singles ticket to that exact lottery on that exact day and on no other day to your chances of ever in your life being hit by lightning, or elected president of the united states

Your chances of "winning the lottery" are higher than 1 in 135 million, 1 in 135 million is your chance of winning THAT lottery one that day if you buy one and only one ticket, even buying

More than 1 in every 135 million people HAVE WON THE LOTTERY, it's not theory, this has already happened. There are around 300 million people in america, if only 1 in every 135 million of them won the lottery then only around 3 people would have "won the lottery".

The author is not talking about a persons chance to win the lottery but his chances had he bought 1 ticket and 1 ticket only to that exact lottery.

He doesn't compare for instance your chances of getting hit by lightning FOR ONE EXACT LIGHTNING BOLT in the same way, he comparing the chances in you entire life of EVER EVER EVER getting hit by lightning, to your chances of winning that one exact lotto on that one exact day and buying only 1 single ticket.

So 1 in 135 million would only be your chance of winning the lottery if you ONLY BOUGHT ONE TICKET EVER IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.

I suppose some people may have bought 1 single ticket in their entire life on that exact day and will never ever ever in their life buy another lottery ticket. I suppose for those very specific people thier odds to "win the lottery" would be 1 in 135 million.

It's certainly not my chance to win the lotto, I didn't play on that day, and I have bought more than 1 single ticket on the days I did play.

The REAL number of how likely you are to "win the lott" COULD possibly be figured out.

But not by looking at the odds to win if you bought 1 single ticket from that exact lottery on that exact day/week.

That is the odds for THAT EXACT TICKET to win THAT EXACT LOTTO. Nothing more. Not your chance to "win the lotto" in your life.

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DickySimms

11/29/12 at 6:24 pm

Dude, the EXACT wording on the box is "Odds of winning the Mega Millions Lottery Jackpot". He's DEFINITELY talking about THIS lottery and he's making no secret out of it. You're just a spaz case.

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sdfwesdfwe369

11/29/12 at 8:54 pm

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I doubt that

11/29/12 at 10:20 pm

@dickysimms

The article is titled What Are Your Odds Of Winning The Lottery? [Infographic]

But it's ok cause there is no infographic showing "what are your odds of winning the lottery"?

It also says "This infographic shows exactly how crappy your chances are of winning the lottery--and how lucky today's winners really are."

But that's ok too I guess because the infographic doesn't really show "exactly how crappy your chances are of winning the lottery" at all?

Why claim it shows something it doesn't?

That's legit to you?

SCIENCE!!!

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I doubt that

11/29/12 at 10:31 pm

And the reason it matters is this.

Some people will read the title, the text following it and believe falsely that they have a better chance of becoming president than of winning the lottery.

It's not true, and it's being presented with the claim of SCIENCE!!!

Some people don't look at a chart like that and say to themselves... "That can't be, I can't be more likely to be elected president which happens to almost no one compared to winning the lottery which happens pretty much weekly to someone in one state or another"

It's real simple...

Only 1 person is elected president every 4 to 8 years.

SOMEONE wins the lottery EVERY WEEK OR SO. Even if you stick to ONLY THIS LOTTERY.

It's MUCH HIGHER than once every 4 to 8 years.

It's MUCH MUCH MUCH closer to once every WEEK than once every 4 to 8 years.

It's just NOT POSSIBLE that you are more likely to be elected president than to win the lotto.

It does not add up. It's not even close...

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Robot

11/29/12 at 10:52 pm

I won when I bought the lottery ticket and none of you, got it at all. One, my purchase made me feel good to donate money to the school system. Two, for 2 dollars I got to entertain myself with a lot of fun planning and day dreaming of how I spend my ka-zillions. For the time I got for entertainment, I think I got a good deal. A movie theater ticket cost around $20 bucks. Plus, I do not have any belief I actually would win, so I had no disappointments too.

Ta-da!

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MunkiiNoPants

11/30/12 at 6:28 am

I've been audited twice in 7 years, suck it infograph!..

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tyleradkins

11/30/12 at 2:02 pm

PRESIDENT Gees....
You can be president unless you are 35. How many people die before 35?
You can be 35 but not worthy without political background. yeah yeah you can run but you wont win in 2016 without at one time being a senator, governor, or at least congressman. Im sure in the past there have been Presidents with army only backgrounds but to get a parties backing you need more today.

I think the odds of all this are way higher than 1 in 10,000,000.

There are only 10.75 elections in an average 35-78 year olds life. and odds are you wont get elected at 70. Hillary would be 69 in 2016 if she ran and these days people lean younger. Its something you have to prepare for going into college really the odds are crazy.

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strap

12/06/12 at 1:43 am

i think i enjoy reading the comments more than i do the article. i think the info graph was based on the following

1) your chances of winning the lotto compared to how many people have played that specific lotto as compared to how many have won

2) the ammount of people who have been attacked by sharks/mountain lions/struck by lightning a compared to the global (or american, i suck at math) population.

and in all reality, all graphs like this are wrong, because the guy who won the lottery sees different odds, maybe it was 1/2, he played twice and won one. as someone mentioned about swimming with sharks. how can i be struck by lightning if im so obese i never leave the house, i know a lot of people who have not gotten injured and died in the next year. the odds arent tailored to your specifics, they see everyone as a whole. my odds of getting elected president are 0, and i am an american citizen, but it just doesnt interest me. stop digging so deep into this and just enjoy it for what it is, is a simple graph that contains a crap ton of little dots.

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dzlash

03/20/13 at 11:07 am

@I doubt that

I understand your argument, however, if someone had these 1 in 135 million odds and played the lottery everyday twice for 100 years, their odds of winning is 0.054% You would still be 926 times more likely to get cancer in your life.

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