COLUMBIA, S.C. -- People have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning the $800 million Powerball jackpot.
And the odds aren’t even that close.
The Powerball jackpot has climbed to $800 million after the Wednesday evening drawing had no winning numbers. It’s the largest jackpot of the year and the fifth largest ever offered, according to a South Carolina Education Lottery press release.
Powerball drawings are at 10:59 p.m. Eastern on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The latest jackpot has produced a few wins across the Palmetto State, including a $1 million ticket sold in Myrtle Beach and a $200,000 ticket bought in Greenville.
However, the main jackpot remains elusive.
The current odds of winning the total jackpot are one in 292.2 million. How does that stack up to other improbable scenarios, like being struck by lightning or attacked by a shark?
Here are six improbable scenarios that have better odds of happening to you than winning the Powerball jackpot.
Lightning strike
Although around 40 million lightning strikes hit the ground in the U.S. each year, the odds of being struck by lightning are less than one in a million, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states. Also, southeastern states are more at risk for lightning strikes than the rest of the U.S. The average age of a person struck by lightning is 37 years old.
Shark attack
The odds of being attacked and killed by a shark are about one in 4.3 million, according to the International Shark Attack File — the world’s only scientifically documented, comprehensive database of all known shark attacks. Most shark attacks occur in nearshore waters, typically inshore of a sandbar or between sandbars where sharks feed and can become trapped at low tide. Areas with steep drop-offs are also likely attack sites. Sharks congregate there because their natural food items also congregate in these areas, the International Shark Attack File states.
Storm death
Dying in a cataclysmic storm like a hurricane or a tornado is fairly uncommon, but still much more likely than winning the latest Powerball. The odds of dying in a cataclysmic storm are about one in 35,074 over the course of a lifetime, National Center for Health Statistics data shows. The odds of dying in a storm over just one year are about one in 2.7 million.
Snake bite
South Carolina has plenty of snakes and the odds of being bitten by one, while still low, are much higher than becoming a Powerball winner. According to CDC data, the odds of being bitten by a snake are 40,965 to one. The odds of that bite being fatal are 1,400 to one.
Having quadruplets
Seeing twins is a pretty rare occurrence, but what about quadruplets? Turns out a mother has a one in 700,000 chance of having quadruplets, according to reproductive facts.org. Meanwhile, triplets occur in one in 10,000 pregnancies, while twins occur in about one in every 250 pregnancies.
Victim of serial killer
The U.S. murder rate jumped 27%, reaching 7.8 homicides per 100,000, according to the Pew Research Center and CDC data.
Thomas Hargrove, founder of the Murder Accountability project and Michael Arntfield, a retired police officer who has written 12 books on serial murder, agree that around 2% of all U.S. murders are committed by serial killers.
That is a rate of approximately 0.156 serial killer murders per 100,000 in the U.S. in 2020.
This equates to a 1 in 645,000 chance of being a serial killer’s victim.
