As Canadians from coast to coast rush to scoop up lottery tickets ahead of Saturday’s Lotto 6/49 draw for an estimated $55 million, a Vancouver-based statistics professor breaks down the odds of winning the jackpot – expected to be the biggest in Canadian history.
Richard Lockhart, professor and chair of Simon Fraser University’s department of statistics, told CTV British Columbia that while every ticket has the same exact odds of winning, the overall odds of taking that top prize are low … very low.
“Odds are one in about 14 million of actually winning the big prize,” he said.
To put that in perspective, you’re 14 times more likely to be struck by lightning or three times more likely to die in a plane crash.
The odds of getting no numbers right is about one in two, while the odds of getting three numbers right is about one in 57.
To make matters worse, research from the National Endowment for Financial Education found that 70 per cent of American adults who unexpectedly gained large sums of money will lose it within seven years.
Not that these numbers are stopping people from playing. It’s estimated that two out of every three Canadian adults will buy a ticket for Saturday night’s draw.
Vancouver residents told CTV News that the prize is just too high to ignore.
“If you don’t buy it, you can’t win,” one ticket holder said.
With files from CTV British Columbia
