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Math Professor Confirms You’re More Likely to Be Mauled by a Bear Riding a Shark During a Lightning Storm Than Win Lottery

The Powerball jackpot is nearly a billion, but your odds of winning are lower than being mauled by a bear riding a shark. Statisticians confirm life is basically a cosmic prank show.

By The Folly Times
8 Min Read
Powerball and Mega Millions lottery tickets on display
Statistically speaking, these slips of paper have the same odds as your grandma winning Olympic gold.

NEED TO KNOW

  • Odds of winning Powerball: 1 in 292 million
  • Odds of being attacked by a shark while a bear also mauls you: apparently better
  • Odds of your grandma accidentally FaceTiming you mid-scratch ticket: almost guaranteed

Lottery Hype Meets Math Reality

With the Powerball jackpot ballooning to $950 million, Americans are once again lining up to fund their favorite tax on hope. But experts warn the odds of winning are roughly the same as guessing which second from the past nine years a stranger silently picked while blindfolded, underwater, and mid-colonoscopy.

Other Things More Likely

  1. You have better odds of being personally tackled by a Secret Service agent after wandering too close to a White House tour group (1 in 80 million).
  2. Statistically, you’re more likely to have your Alexa start responding in Latin for no reason and refuse to stop (1 in 75 million).
  3. You’re 40 times more likely to wake up one morning as the subject of a Netflix true-crime documentary you didn’t know you were in (1 in 60 million).
  4. Odds are better that Guy Fieri shows up uninvited to grill in your backyard, leaves in a cloud of donkey sauce, and never explains himself (1 in 45 million).
  5. You’re more likely to be recruited by NASA to fix a rocket mid-launch despite having failed high school algebra (1 in 39 million).
  6. Statisticians note you’re likelier to trip into a time machine hidden in a Kohl’s clearance rack and become your own grandfather (1 in 28 million).
  7. You also have better odds of Mark Zuckerberg accidentally tagging you in his family Christmas card (1 in 24 million).
  8. You’re 10 times more likely to get struck by lightning while explaining to a friend how you “never get struck by lightning” (1 in 19 million).
  9. Odds are higher that you’ll be called on stage at a Taylor Swift concert, handed a kazoo, and told to play backup for 90,000 screaming fans (1 in 16 million).
  10. And yes, you’re more likely to receive a jury summons for Bigfoot’s tax evasion trial than you are to cash in a winning Powerball ticket (1 in 11 million).
  11. Statisticians note that you’re 300 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the jackpot.
  12. You also have better odds of becoming U.S. president (1 in 32 million).
  13. Being killed by a falling vending machine (1 in 112 million)
  14. Being chosen as the next Bachelor despite already being married with three kids (1 in 150 million).
young smart sexy woman in eyeglasses near blackboard with math calculations

Hope Springs Eternal

Despite these comically grim figures, Lottery players remain undeterred. “I already got struck by lightning once at an Arby’s, so I figure my odds are warming up,” said one customer buying five tickets at a gas station. Mathematicians suggest that while your chance of winning remains infinitesimal, your chance of suffering crippling disappointment remains at a clean 100 percent.

If you do win, though, the odds of every single family member suddenly remembering your phone number shoot up to exactly 1 in 1.

I’m not saying the lottery is a scam, but statistically, you’re better off investing in Beanie Babies and praying for Y2K to come back.

Dr. Paula Sneeze, Association of Math Sadists and Killjoys of America
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