March 12, 2007--1 in 175,711,536
Again we’re in the market for a new sofa. So on Saturday we schlepped ourselves down to Pier 94 to see what we might find at the annual Architectural Digest Home Furnishing Show, and to our surprise we came upon on one that might work in our tight living room space. I even tried it out for its potential as a place to take a nap. Before lying down, I took off my shoes and was thanked by the salesman who told us that the women who just bought it would appreciate that. Since it passed the nap test, we made our way down to lower Wooster Street in Soho to visit their New York showroom, thinking we should look at fabric samples.
At the store, we ran into friends who were also shopping for a sofa and wouldn’t you know it, incredibly, they are the ones who bought the floor sample from the show!
Later that day, Rona and I, neither one of us good statisticians, attempted to calculate the odds of this remarkable happenstance. We started with an estimate of how many people we know, even casually, and came up with a very generous 500. Of that 500, we guessed how many might be looking for a sofa right now? Again generously, maybe two. Of those two, what are the odds of one of them going to the show at all, much less being attracted to that particular sofa when there were dozens of others to fall in love with?
Then, what are the mathematical chances of this friend being the very person who bought the floor sample? And, finally, what is the likelihood of all of us converging on the store at exactly the same time?
We “calculated” that the odds of all of these things happening were maybe something like hundreds of millions to one. Rona said, after losing out on the recent $390 million Mega Millions Lottery (no, we are not the folks who bought the winning ticket in New Jersey but have as yet not revealed ourselves), that the odds of Susan S ____ buying “our” sofa are probably higher than the likelihood of winning the lottery.
Probably wrong. The NY Times reports that the odds of winning that recent lottery were one in 175,711,536. (Article linked below.)
Frustrated by having been beaten out for the sofa and not winning even half the $390 million, I grumbled a bit at Rona for “wasting” her money on the lottery—“For someone with an MBA, don’t you know lotteries are for suckers?”
She shot back, “But it’s fun!”
It must be because 66 percent of all adults in America played the lottery last year, with 13 percent doing so on a weekly basis. Never mind that households with regular players spend about 2 percent of their annual income on lotteries and this percentage is considerably higher for low-income folks. And if you are among the 66 percent or the 13 percent, when standing on line to buy your ticket it is obvious that most of the people purchasing 20 bucks worth could use that money for rent or food.
Psychologists and neurobiologists who study lottery players claim that it’s not just the possibility of winning that hooks people—it's at least equally the anticipation of winning. The same area of the brain that lights up when someone wins is the one that fires when players fantasize about what they will do with the money if they win. Which is a good thing considering the odds—a cheap thrill seems to work as well as the real thing.
That of course is not true when it comes to sofas.
(By the way—it turned out that the sofa is too big for our living room. So the search continues.)
At the store, we ran into friends who were also shopping for a sofa and wouldn’t you know it, incredibly, they are the ones who bought the floor sample from the show!
Later that day, Rona and I, neither one of us good statisticians, attempted to calculate the odds of this remarkable happenstance. We started with an estimate of how many people we know, even casually, and came up with a very generous 500. Of that 500, we guessed how many might be looking for a sofa right now? Again generously, maybe two. Of those two, what are the odds of one of them going to the show at all, much less being attracted to that particular sofa when there were dozens of others to fall in love with?
Then, what are the mathematical chances of this friend being the very person who bought the floor sample? And, finally, what is the likelihood of all of us converging on the store at exactly the same time?
We “calculated” that the odds of all of these things happening were maybe something like hundreds of millions to one. Rona said, after losing out on the recent $390 million Mega Millions Lottery (no, we are not the folks who bought the winning ticket in New Jersey but have as yet not revealed ourselves), that the odds of Susan S ____ buying “our” sofa are probably higher than the likelihood of winning the lottery.
Probably wrong. The NY Times reports that the odds of winning that recent lottery were one in 175,711,536. (Article linked below.)
Frustrated by having been beaten out for the sofa and not winning even half the $390 million, I grumbled a bit at Rona for “wasting” her money on the lottery—“For someone with an MBA, don’t you know lotteries are for suckers?”
She shot back, “But it’s fun!”
It must be because 66 percent of all adults in America played the lottery last year, with 13 percent doing so on a weekly basis. Never mind that households with regular players spend about 2 percent of their annual income on lotteries and this percentage is considerably higher for low-income folks. And if you are among the 66 percent or the 13 percent, when standing on line to buy your ticket it is obvious that most of the people purchasing 20 bucks worth could use that money for rent or food.
Psychologists and neurobiologists who study lottery players claim that it’s not just the possibility of winning that hooks people—it's at least equally the anticipation of winning. The same area of the brain that lights up when someone wins is the one that fires when players fantasize about what they will do with the money if they win. Which is a good thing considering the odds—a cheap thrill seems to work as well as the real thing.
That of course is not true when it comes to sofas.
(By the way—it turned out that the sofa is too big for our living room. So the search continues.)
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:10 AM
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