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ELI5 Yahaaa

Two out of a million is still nearly none

Why Does Buying Two Tickets Barely Help?

Doubling a tiny chance gives you a tiny chance, twice.

One ticket One chance in a millionTwo tickets Two chances in amillion
Twice as likely, and still almost exactly never.

  1. Step 1 of 5

    A chance is your tickets over all the tickets.

    Your ticketone chanceEveryone else'sthe other999,999

    If a million tickets are sold and you hold one, your share of the prize is one millionth. That fraction is the whole story.

  2. Step 2 of 5

    Doubling a tiny number keeps it tiny.

    One ticket0.0001%Two tickets0.0002%A hundred tickets0.01% — stillalmost never

    Two millionths is genuinely twice one millionth. It is also still a number so small that nothing in your day changes.

  3. Step 3 of 5

    Our sense of chance stops working down there.

    1 in 2 Feels real1 in 1,000,000?Feels the same as 1 in100,000

    We can feel the difference between a half and a tenth. Below about one in a thousand, every number simply feels like 'maybe'.

  4. Step 4 of 5

    Rare events still happen — to somebody.

    Somebody wins Nearly certainYou win Nearly impossible

    A million tickets means somebody almost certainly wins. Winning is common; you winning is not. Those are two different questions.

  5. Step 5 of 5

    Which is why the news is a bad guide.

    1 A millionplayers2 One is on thenews3 You see onlythat one

    You only ever hear from the winner. The million people who bought a ticket and heard nothing are never interviewed.

    The same reasoning explains why shark attacks feel common and falling coconuts do not, despite the numbers.

The short version

Doubling a tiny chance leaves it tiny, and 'somebody wins' is a completely different claim from 'you win'.

Try it yourself

Work out your share if a raffle sells 500 tickets and you buy 5. One per cent — and that one is worth having.

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