Playing the odds, but what are they?
What are the Odds? That is a question every lottery player has in the back of their minds. In gambling and gaming, the odds of winning even a very minor prize are always very low for the player and always very high for the lottery operator. This mathematical difference is the reason that operators make a lot of money. They always take in much more money than they pay back out to prize winners simply because the odds are always in the operators’ favour..
Typical odds on the Lottery
One of the ways of seeing that in action is to take a look at a typical 649 lottery draw. The odds of winning the top prize are around 14 million to one against the player which are quite high and very biased against the player. Slot machine odds can be as high as 17 million to one, even higher odds for the operator and lower odds for the player. And if we look at the Powerball lottery, it is around 292 million to one. Just to see how high these actualy are against the player, let’s look at the odds of being hit by lightning. Did you know that your lifetime odds of getting hit by lightning is a piddling little 3000 to one, but being hit by lightning in any one year is only 700,000 to one. Yes, you have much greater odds of being hit by lightning than you do winning the lottery jackpot.
But desite the very poor odds of winning, people do win lottery jackpots, and are winning these large jackpots, and their odds of winning were just the same as yours would be. There was never any advantage that they had over you. Only sheer luck. But luck aside, even though the odds are against you, real people win and you could potentially be one of those people. All you need is one single ticket to win. If you don’t have at least one ticket, then you are absolutely guaranteed not to win. But even one ticket gives you a chance on the draw and places you at the same level of wining as every other person with a lottery ticket.
Having a ticket does not guarantee you a win. But having a ticket does give you a chance, and no matter what the odds are, you could be the next big winner.