The Science of the Lottery
Winning the lottery is supposed to be a completely random, lucky event, but there’s a surprising amount of science that can go into it. Here are just a few things you might want to know.
Your Existence Was Less Likely to Happen Than Winning. – People like to talk about rare events that are statistically more likely to happen than winning the lottery as a way to show how difficult it is to win the lottery. However, the same trick can be used to show the opposite. Believe it or not, the fact that you were born is an event that’s less likely to happen than winning the lotto. Business Insider reports that the odds of you having been born are about one in 10^2,685,000. On the same note, you’re also more likely to win the lottery than your house is of getting hit by a meteor, which has odds of one in 182,138,880,000,000.
You Can Earn the Money Lost in Taxes Back. – As you may already be aware, the government takes huge chunks of lottery winners’ prizes. However, if you’re smart with your money, you can make it back. First of all, you can either get the winnings as a lottery lump sum payout, or as a lottery annuity settlement. The latter is often more desirable, because less taxes are taken out, and the lottery payments can be used to support the winner while they pursue their passions. However, if a winner chooses a lump sum over an annuity, they can put it away in a savings account for years, where it’ll quickly accrue interest, and eventually become the total amount won after a few years.
Fortune Cookies Win. – In 2005, 110 people won the second place prize in a Powerball drawing. Thinking that there’d only be four or five winners, lottery officials suspected foul play, and found that the 110 people had used the numbers from a fortune put into fortune cookies.
Winning the lottery might seem like an impossible dream, but there are far less likely things that could happen, and have happened. If you’d like to share what you think or know about winning the lottery, feel free to do so in the comments.
