ABSTRACT
According to National Geographic (2005), the odds of being struck by lightning in a person’s lifetime are 1:3000. On the other hand, the odds of winning the largest jackpot to date in the United States are 1:176,000,000 (Shur 2012). On March 30, 2012, three winning tickets allowed residents of Illinois, Kansas, and Maryland to split a Mega Millions prize amounting to $656 million. Doing the math, this means that the likelihood of getting struck by lightning is nearly 58,667 times greater than hitting this particular jackpot. Such a figure looms so large that for many it is a challenge to grasp just what it means in practical terms.
