Winning lottery vs getting struck by lightning

tgotb

So it's often said that you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to win the lottery. But someone wins the lottery more or less twice a week, yet when someone *does* get struck by lightning it seems to be sufficiently remarkable to make the news. What gives?

cornerblock

It could be you!

EKE_38BPM

Cornerblock wrote:

It could be you!

I actually said "Wow. Cool" at those lightening burn scars. If chicks really do dig scars, he must be beating them off with a shitty stick!

jds_1981

That picture reminds me of this - http://www.capturedlightning.com/2/blog/?p=43

Ben6899

TGOTB wrote:

So it's often said that you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to win the lottery. But someone wins the lottery more or less twice a week, yet when someone *does* get struck by lightning it seems to be sufficiently remarkable to make the news. What gives?

It's because that often saying is a load of ballax.

Hope that helps.

rick_chasey

Ben6899 wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

So it's often said that you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to win the lottery. But someone wins the lottery more or less twice a week, yet when someone *does* get struck by lightning it seems to be sufficiently remarkable to make the news. What gives?

It's because that often saying is a load of ballax.

Hope that helps.

Odds of being struck by lightning: 576,000 to 1

Odds of winning the California lottery: 13,000,000 to 1

Says: http://www.funny2.com/oddsb.htm

Ben6899

Rick Chasey wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

So it's often said that you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to win the lottery. But someone wins the lottery more or less twice a week, yet when someone *does* get struck by lightning it seems to be sufficiently remarkable to make the news. What gives?

It's because that often saying is a load of ballax.

Hope that helps.

Odds of being struck by lightning: 576,000 to 1

Odds of winning the California lottery: 13,000,000 to 1

Says: http://www.funny2.com/oddsb.htm

If it's on the internet, hell if it's written down anywhere, then it must be true.

And I would hate to win the California lottery because it would mean I lived in California.

bompington

[url=http://www.torro.org.uk/site/lightning_info.php]this website[/url] wrote:

Currently, about 30-60 people are struck by lightning each year in Britain

Looks like the old saying is in the right ballpark.

This thread inspired by DDD's insurance one by any chance?

Ben6899

bompington wrote:

[url=http://www.torro.org.uk/site/lightning_info.php]this website[/url] wrote:

Currently, about 30-60 people are struck by lightning each year in Britain

Looks like the old saying is in the right ballpark.

This thread inspired by DDD's insurance one by any chance?

How many people win the lottery each year?

SteppenHerring

But that's the odds of winning the lottery once with one ticket versus the odds of being struck by lighting over your whole life. If you only ever buy one ticket, yes you are more likely to be struck by lightning than win the jackpot.

Using standard mortality tables, I have just worked out that if I buy a single ticket more than 23 minutes before the draw, I'm more likely to die before the draw than win the jackpot. Hmm.

PedalPedant

TGOTB wrote:

So it's often said that you're more likely to get struck by lightning than you are to win the lottery. But someone wins the lottery more or less twice a week, yet when someone *does* get struck by lightning it seems to be sufficiently remarkable to make the news. What gives?

Not that remarkable...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike#Epidemiology

However, in the UK there appears to be only 30-60 reported strikes a year*, if you say that's roughly one a week the odds of being *the* person in the UK who gets struck each week is about 60 million to one, which is rather higher than the 13 million to one odds of picking that week's lottery numbers.

PP

*http://www.torro.org.uk/site/lightning_info.php

Disclaimer: I'm not actually that good at stats so some or all of the above may be nonsense :-)

bompington

SteppenHerring wrote:

But that's the odds of winning the lottery once with one ticket versus the odds of being struck by lighting over your whole life.

No, 30-60 is the number of people who get struck by lightning in one year, which looks pretty similar to the number of people who win the lottery in one year to me.

SteppenHerring

bompington wrote:

SteppenHerring wrote:

But that's the odds of winning the lottery once with one ticket versus the odds of being struck by lighting over your whole life.

No, 30-60 is the number of people who get struck by lightning in one year, which looks pretty similar to the number of people who win the lottery in one year to me.

Sorry - I was replying to RC but got held up by looking up mortality stats and doing the calculation.

So, his stat that the odds of being struck by lightning is 1:576,000 is more likely that the single ticket lottery win.

Ben6899

Thread conclusion: you can make statistics say whatever you want them to.

rick_chasey

Ben6899 wrote:

Thread conclusion: you can make statistics say whatever you want them to.

I don't think that's exclusive to statistics :P

Ben6899

Rick Chasey wrote:

Ben6899 wrote:

Thread conclusion: you can make statistics say whatever you want them to.

I don't think that's exclusive to statistics :P

Not at all. I can switch off my brain and make my mouth say anything as well.

aeon

SteppenHerring wrote:

Using standard mortality tables, I have just worked out that if I buy a single ticket more than 23 minutes before the draw, I'm more likely to die before the draw than win the jackpot. Hmm.

because you referred to standard mortality tables, your post already sounds authoritative. so i'm going to jump in and say that is an awesome stat right there.

tgotb

aeon wrote:

SteppenHerring wrote:

Using standard mortality tables, I have just worked out that if I buy a single ticket more than 23 minutes before the draw, I'm more likely to die before the draw than win the jackpot. Hmm.

because you referred to standard mortality tables, your post already sounds authoritative. so i'm going to jump in and say that is an awesome stat right there.

+1. Very good stat; I'm surprised Camelot's marketing team haven't cottoned on to this. Who'd have thought you could actually increase your life expectancy just by buying last-minute lottery tickets!

optimisticbiker

OK, i didn't win the jackpot, but i did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my math is correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

EKE_38BPM

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

optimisticbiker

EKE_38BPM wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

Oh thanks :roll: Don't you just love automatic spell/grammar checkers!

supersonic

It's because when the lottery is on, loads buy a ticket.

When a storm is on, they don't all go running outside waving steel rods about.

thegibdog

OptimisticBiker wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

Oh thanks :roll: Don't you just love automatic spell/grammar checkers!

I think your math/s is/are wrong. IIRC the odds of getting 3 numbers is/are about 50-1 so given that you won the first week this would mean the odds of you winning the next two weeks is/are 2500-1.

The whole odds of getting struck by lightning vs the odds of winning the lottery depends on what time period you're looking at and how many tickets you buy. Along with how often you play golf in thunderstorms and whether you think sheltering under a tree is a good idea or not of course.

optimisticbiker

thegibdog wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

Oh thanks :roll: Don't you just love automatic spell/grammar checkers!

I think your math/s is/are wrong. IIRC the odds of getting 3 numbers is/are about 50-1 so given that you won the first week this would mean the odds of you winning the next two weeks is/are 2500-1.

The national lottery site gives the odds of 3 main balls, 2 main ball plus a lucky star ball and 1 main ball plus 2 lucky star balls. all are similar, taking a rough average its about 1:37 so the chances of doing it 3 weeks in a row are 1: 37^3 = ~ 1:50:000

thegibdog

OptimisticBiker wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

Oh thanks :roll: Don't you just love automatic spell/grammar checkers!

I think your math/s is/are wrong. IIRC the odds of getting 3 numbers is/are about 50-1 so given that you won the first week this would mean the odds of you winning the next two weeks is/are 2500-1.

The national lottery site gives the odds of 3 main balls, 2 main ball plus a lucky star ball and 1 main ball plus 2 lucky star balls. all are similar, taking a rough average its about 1:37 so the chances of doing it 3 weeks in a row are 1: 37^3 = ~ 1:50:000

Only if you'd specified the 3 weeks you were looking at beforehand. If it's 37-1 like you say then it would be 1369-1 as you're effectively already starting from a position of winning the first week, you wouldn't even be considering the situation if you hadn't won the first week.

optimisticbiker

thegibdog wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

Oh thanks :roll: Don't you just love automatic spell/grammar checkers!

I think your math/s is/are wrong. IIRC the odds of getting 3 numbers is/are about 50-1 so given that you won the first week this would mean the odds of you winning the next two weeks is/are 2500-1.

The national lottery site gives the odds of 3 main balls, 2 main ball plus a lucky star ball and 1 main ball plus 2 lucky star balls. all are similar, taking a rough average its about 1:37 so the chances of doing it 3 weeks in a row are 1: 37^3 = ~ 1:50:000

Only if you'd specified the 3 weeks you were looking at beforehand. If it's 37-1 like you say then it would be 1369-1 as you're effectively already starting from a position of winning the first week, you wouldn't even be considering the situation if you hadn't won the first week.

There are "lies, damn lies and statistics" . Yes you are right, you have to state the starting conditions... in my case I bought 4 weeks in advance on the same ticket so I would argue that the chances of that ticket winning 3 weeks in a row is as I stated (or if I said NOT winning the first week and winning the following 3 weeks tho then we'd need to factor in the odds of NOT winning anything but these are sufficiently large to arguably ignore).

thegibdog

OptimisticBiker wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

thegibdog wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

OK, I didn't win the jackpot, but I did win with 3 numbers using the same ticket every week for the last 3 weeks... if my maths are correct, thats odds of around 1:50000

FTFY

Oh thanks :roll: Don't you just love automatic spell/grammar checkers!

I think your math/s is/are wrong. IIRC the odds of getting 3 numbers is/are about 50-1 so given that you won the first week this would mean the odds of you winning the next two weeks is/are 2500-1.

The national lottery site gives the odds of 3 main balls, 2 main ball plus a lucky star ball and 1 main ball plus 2 lucky star balls. all are similar, taking a rough average its about 1:37 so the chances of doing it 3 weeks in a row are 1: 37^3 = ~ 1:50:000

Only if you'd specified the 3 weeks you were looking at beforehand. If it's 37-1 like you say then it would be 1369-1 as you're effectively already starting from a position of winning the first week, you wouldn't even be considering the situation if you hadn't won the first week.

There are "lies, damn lies and statistics" . Yes you are right, you have to state the starting conditions... in my case I bought 4 weeks in advance on the same ticket so I would argue that the chances of that ticket winning 3 weeks in a row is as I stated (or if I said NOT winning the first week and winning the following 3 weeks tho then we'd need to factor in the odds of NOT winning anything but these are sufficiently large to arguably ignore).

Yeah if you took the 4 weeks as a whole, and on their own, then the chances of losing the first week and then winning the next 3 weeks in a row would be roughly as you state. Counting winning the first 3 weeks in a row and then losing in the fourth week would double your chances. But this all kind of assumes that these are the only lottery tickets you've ever bought...

Maybe we're getting too deep into this - the real question is whether getting struck by lightning would increase or decrease the odds!