How do the odds work in a lottery?
The Million-to-One Dream
How do the odds work in a lottery?
You buy a lottery ticket. Six little numbers, printed on thin paper. Could those numbers make you a millionaire? The odds are on the ticket: 1 in 13,983,816. What does that number even mean?
Let's shrink the lottery down to something you can see. Imagine a lottery with just three numbers, and each number can only be 1, 2, or 3. How many different tickets are possible? You pick the first number — three choices. Then the second number — three more choices. Then the third. That's 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 possible tickets.
