Gambling related articles
Crazy
odds, but we still love the Lottery!
From
Claire Siblot
May 2016.
All over the world, one of the most popular forms
of gambling is the lottery. As a consequence, there
are some amazing lotteries in different countries
where the jackpot totals can reach enormous amounts.
It used to be that you'd get excited at the prospect
of winning a million dollars, and while no-one would
turn that kind of amount down today, it seems like
small beer compared with some of the mega lottery
jackpots that are now available.
Yet anyone who buys a ticket for a lotto draw does
so knowing that they are going up against some huge
odds in order to win. So why do we all love playing
the lotto so much, when we know how unlikely it is
that we're going to be that winner? The answer, according
to Lethbridge University professor Robert Williams,
is that many of us just can't get a handle on the
size of the odds. The numbers are so big that they
don't seem real.
For example, the PowerBall lottery. To win the jackpot,
you now need to beat odds of 1 in 292 million. It
sounds like a big number, granted, but we tend not
to think about the odds in real terms. Williams explains
that human brains have not evolved to deal with really
big numbers. While we can quickly see the difference
between an army of 10 soldiers and an army of 1,000,
throughout human history, we've never really needed
to quantify really, really big numbers at a practical
level. So that's why we don't acknowledge that there's
a huge difference between odds of 1 in 100,000 to
1 in 292 million when we play the lottery. We're still
in with a chance and the prize is definitely worth
going for!
Playing the lotto has become even more interesting
since it became possible to buy lotto tickets online.
There's now no need to go and queue for a ticket at
the local shop. And better yet is that we can now
all take part in other countries' lotteries as well
as our own. And when you buy lottery tickets online,
just having one account means you can play the lottery
in Spain, Italy, the UK, Canada and the US, wherever
you happen to live.
Where would you go on holiday with a lotto
win?
You can choose whichever lottery you want, whether
you're guided by the size of the jackpot that's up
for grabs or by the relative odds of winning one national
lottery versus another. Buying online means that you
mix up which lottery to play, or enter several at
once and see which is luckiest for you.
Of course, you should bear in mind the low chances
you have of winning and never think of the money spent
as anything other than an entertainment fee. But with
the relatively small price of a lotto ticket, you
always get a lot of fantasy value imagining what you
could spend your winnings on!
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