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The odds of winning SuperLotto are 1-in-41 million. For Fantasy 5, 1-in-575,000. But for both? . . . 1 in 23.575 trillion.

This is less spectacular when you think it through. It is somewhat misleading given its limited scope. These are the odds of any particular person winning both lotteries. And yes, those odds are astronomical. (And this is no disrespect to the lucky winner; I'd be pretty d*mn happy if it happened to me, too.)

However, the odds of some person winning both lotteries, given the millions of suckers who buy tickets, are much higher. I won't try to calculate them as I have no idea how many people buy lottery tickets in that jurisdiction. But there was a woman in New Jersey in the early 1990s who won two major lotteries within four months. The odds of that particular woman winning was 1 in 17 trillion. The odds that it would happen at all? 1 in 30.

There's a mathematical principle called the law of truly large numbers. Basically it says that when you have large enough sample sets, improbable events become common, or indeed inevitable.

Another real-life example: My grandmothers share the same birthday. It so happens it is Valentine's Day. "Wow, that's incredible! What are the odds?" someone might ask me. Easy: 1:365² = 1:133,225. In other words, there are thousands of pairs of mothers-in-law out there with shared birthdays on February 14. I just happen to be the grandson of one pair.

All you've done is compared the odds that a particular person would win both lotteries to the odds that both lotteries will be won. While you're right that someone winning the lottery is a rather common occurrence - happens every week or two here in NY - the point is that the odds of any one person winning both lotteries are rather long.

There's a mathematical principle called the law of truly large numbers. Basically it says that when you have large enough sample sets, improbable events become common, or indeed inevitable.

Well, yes, but here, by definition, the sample set is one person, given two drawings. And the odds on that are pretty bad ;)

There's a mathematical principle called the law of truly large numbers. Basically it says that when you have large enough sample sets, improbable events become common, or indeed inevitable.

If I'm not mistaken, this is related to chaos theory, and also is used for finding sameness in seeming randomness.

It seems to me I read a book wherein this type of math was used to pin down the location of a missing sub (missle?) on the ocean floor...