More NaNoWriMo No. 3 and a little Lotto

By now, most people know that someone in California is $1.5 Billion dollars richer. 

Like many people, I played the lottery . . . you kind of have to when you could become an instant billionaire. Imagine, for a moment, how big an asshole you would become in the eyes of everyone you know and even people who have no clue who you are. 

Still, $1.5B . . . I could stand a few dirty looks heading my way. I say that, but I hear a lot of people’s lives don’t turn out well after even a much lesser windfall. Really, I think I could cope. 

Anyway, unlike many people, I did not go out and spend gobs of money on what is a minuscule chance at winning. Based on the odds, if you buy a ticket you have this percentage chance of it being the winning ticket:

                                      0.0000000000342%

Now, if you buy two tickets, you double your chances. 

                                      0.0000000000684%

That almost makes sense. You’re doubling your chances. If you buy a third ticket, you tripled your chances compared to one ticket, but since you already had two tickets, you’ve only increased your chances by  another 50% to:

                                      0.0000000001027%

Now, you could keep buying tickets. Let’s say you bought 1,000 tickets. Your odds then become:

                                      0.0000000342%

That’s roughly 1-in-29,220,000. Think of it . . . you just spent $1,000 and you have a better chance of becoming president than winning the lottery. That’s right; the odds are 1-in-10,000,000 for becoming president. That’s not better by just by a little; they are better odds by a large margin. (zero for me as I was not born here)

Here’s a scary thought . . . the odds of dying in an Asteroid Apocalypse are pegged at 1-in 12,500. A little less scary to contemplate, the odds of being crushed by a vending machine are 1-in-112,000,000. . . much greater odds than winning the lottery, and not nearly as pleasant. 

Here’s a math test (it’s an easy one) . . . what are the odds of winning if your lotto ticket has these numbers:

1  2  3  4  5   PB 6

I am pretty sure most people would not willingly put down money on those numbers, but the odds of winning don’t change. Those numbers have the same odds of winning as the numbers that actually did win. 

So, next time you buy a ticket, choose sequential numbers; there is less of a chance you’ll have to share the prize with anyone.

Disclaimer: while I did most of my own calculations, I did pick some of the numbers from various articles. The numbers that are right are likely mine. Mistakes are probably stuff I read somewhere and did not bother to check.

The info for the next NaNoWriMo 2K15 chapter is below. 

~ ~ ~ ~ o o o o ~ ~ ~ ~

The next post will contain Chapter 25 of the 2015 NaNoWriMo work-in-progress and it will go up immediately after this post goes live. As I said, it’s password protected. Since it’s been a while, click HERE for the previous stuff.

Please, don’t just ask for a password just to make me feel good. Especially, don’t ask unless you’ve read the first few chapters and know that you are interested. Unless you intend to read it, don’t ask. I will not feel hurt, I will not cry myself to sleep, I will not hate anyone who chooses not to read my effort. I will, however, get a little miffed if I get asked for passwords by a bunch of people and then only my usual four or five readers actually read the stuff. 

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