Large numbers and probabilities are hard for us to get our heads around. That’s why people often underestimate just how bad their chances are of winning a lottery (e.g. Powerball). The odds of winning Powerball are 1 in 292 million. To put that in perspective…

Imagine that you are in the stands in an American football stadium. You close your eyes and ask a friend to mark a one centimeter (diameter) circle anywhere on the field. After your friend marks the circle, you randomly throw a one centimeter marble onto the field.

You are about five times more likely to hit the circle with the marble than you are to win Powerball.

It’s true that the probability of winning if you don’t buy a ticket is 0%. However, if you buy a ticket, that only increases your chances to .0000003%. For all practical purposes, that’s still pretty much zero!

If you work in a big company, you probably spend a lot of time talking about large numbers.  Most people can’t make sense of them. While everyone agrees that a billion is “a lot” more than a million, many significantly fail to understand just how much more it really is.  Find ways to help people make sense of your data.  It will greatly improve your decision making.