Lottery - A Fool's Errand

Last year I asked my probability lecturer (a Princeton graduate) if he gambled. He responded drily with, "I loathe gambling. I think the lottery is a scam and is no doubt only followed by people in poorer demographs." Fair enough, I thought, but Aussies love their lotto according to this interesting article:

One in seven Australians are banking on winning the lottery to deliver them financial security.

After calculating the odds of winning lotto in highschool, I've been convinced it's a complete waste of time ever since. Instead of recalculating the odds for you, I've looked up them up here. For a comparison, I looked up the statistics of being struck by lightning in Australia. If we say 200 people are stuck by lightning each year, you have roughly a 1 in 100 thousand chance of being stuck by ligthing, which is about 80 times better than winning the first division in Saturday lottery. If you're feeling really lucky, you can try your chances at Power Ball, which gives you about 1 in 55 million chance of winning the first division. Hence, you have 500 times better chance of being struck by lightning than winning first division Power Ball.

Naturally, the ligthning statistics is a rough, though generous, estimate. Certain lifestyles and occupations increase your risk of being struck by lightning, and with Australia's aging population, and subsequently, increase in golf players, the number of lightning strikes will increase slightly. Still, you'll have a better chance of being lit up like a Christmas tree than winning division 1 or, even division 2 for that matter. Good revenue raiser for the government, nonetheless. Beats taxes.