PA Powerball Players: Catastrophe More Likely Than Winning Jackpot

PENNSYLVANIA — Of course you're going to play the Powerball lottery today. With the jackpot currently standing at $1.2 billion, the second-largest amount in Powerball history, lottery lines are certain to be long across the nation.

Just don't count on winning.

Sure, someone eventually will come up with the right numbers. But the Powerball website is brutally candid in the odds of it being you - one in 292 million.

How daunting is that? State College-based AccuWeather noted that you are much more likely to be the victim of a catastrophic event than you are of winning the jackpot.

According to the forecasting service, a person has a 1-in-15,300 chance of getting struck by lightning in an 80-year lifespan. That makes your odds of encountering a lightning bolt almost 20,000 times higher than hitting the winning Powerball numbers this evening.

There's more, according to AccuWeather. Your odds of being devoured by a shark are 1 in 3.7 million; the odds of being fatally injured by a meteorite striking the Earth is 1-in-1.9 million and the odds of dying in a vending machine accident - yes, a vending machine accident - are 1-in-112 million.

That unlikely event still is far more possible than you claiming that $1.2 billion prize this evening. Remember that when you buy your ticket.

The drawing occurs at 10:59 p.m. But you likely already knew that.