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No, his university's press release says he calculated the value 25 carefully; it's even in the title: "You’re more likely to become president (25 times more lik

• strangecasts 11y ago
  "You’re 25 times more likely to become the next president of the United States, assuming the entire U.S. population had an equal shot at the presidency, than you are to win Powerball, says Miecznikowski."
  • drfuchs 11y ago
    Right, so it's not "a figure of speech", which was my point. He wasn't just saying "hey, like, it's a billion-to-one", which would be a figure of speech because the "billion" clearly would not be meant literally. Rather, the 25 was specifically computed, albeit under unrealistic assumptions (as you point out). In any case, the fact is that he should have said that "you're 48 times LESS likely to become the next president of the US....," based on the observation that there's about one Powerball Jackpot winner per month: http://portalseven.com/lottery/powerball_jackpot_winners.jsp http://portalseven.com/lottery/powerball_jackpot_winners.jsp