This Week's Odds: College Payback, Winning a Billion Dollars, and Telling That Special Someone 'I Love You'
The future, by the numbers.
Sometimes my odds are on the money, but sometimes they’re off. Last month I posited a six-month over/under bet on South Carolina removing the Confederate flag from their state capital grounds, figuring it would take a while to undo half a century of entrenched “pride.” Instead, they brought it down within a month. Sometimes it feels so right to be wrong. I won’t make a habit of it.
1. The Detroit Tigers’ scoreboards Have Been Hella Full
The dog days of summer bring slow season for sports bets. The NBA is over, the NFL is still off in the distance, tennis is tennis. But Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers have unspooled a prodigious stretch that lined the pockets of any person who an over/under bet during a recent 19-game stretch. Hitting the over 19 straight times is akin to winning 19 straight coin flips. If you’d plopped down a $100 bet you let ride over those 19 games, you’d be the proud owner of $12 million right now. The streak ended on July 8. The Tigers may stay for this sort of thing — they’re run-scoring machines.
Odds the Tigers would beat the over/under odds in 17 straight games: 68,000 to 1
2. Unemployed Law School Grads Will Get Their Tuition Money Back
Getting a job out of college is a crapshoot, so Brooklyn Law School decided to put its money where its money is. On Monday, the school announced a program called “Bridge to Success,” which will refund recent grads 15 percent increments of their tuition if they are still searching for employment nine months after getting their diploma. What makes them gamble so much on their students’ ability to immediately make it in the workplace? The school’s 1,100-student enrollment has a job placement record exceeding 90 percent. Not too shabby.
Over/under odds on the amount students could gain back on the school’s total $130,000 tuition: $19,000
3. The Movie Adaptation of The Girl on the Train Will Go Into Production Immediately
Following in the footsteps of similar noirish, female-focused whodunits like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl, London-based writer and former journalist Paula Hawkins’ book The Girl on the Train has stormed up bestseller lists and into the record books. Last week it surpassed hack thriller writer Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol as the book to spend the most amount of time at the number one bestseller slot at 20 consecutive weeks, beating Brown’s 19-week streak. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the wild success of book-to-movie adaptations caused Hollywood studio Dreamworks to snatch up the film rights in 2014, before it was even published. Considering the book’s performance the studio will undoubtedly push that sucker into production as fast as possible. Emily Blunt is already in talks to star, which means the wheels on the train are rolling. Look for the movie sometime soon.
Over/under odds on when the movie will be released: First quarter of 2017
4. You Will Become a Billionaire if You Play the New York State Lottery
Bad news that’s actually good news for all those people in New York hoping to get rich quick by slicing off a lottery ticket every once in awhile. The state’s lottery commission approved a rule last week that would decrease the odds of winning the lottery by a significant amount. But don’t freak out! Those decreased odds will literally pay off for the people that still throw their cash in to hit the jackpot. The new law increases the chances by 7.5 percent that players could potentially win billion-dollar prizes. You know what they say, right? You can’t win if you don’t play.
Odds of winning the NY state Powerball jackpot following the change of the law: 1 in 292 million
5. Teens and Twenty-Somethings Love to Say, “I Love You”
Because we’re all chumps, chances are many of our dear Inverse readers in long-term relationships have at least told their significant other, “I love you,” at some point or another. Maybe they’ve even told multiple people those three magical words to romantic happiness. That is, at least according to a survey conducted by YouGov, which polled almost 1,000 Americans in four age-range categories: 18 to 29, 30 to 44, 45 to 64, and 65+. Unsurprisingly, the numbers from most respondents range from zero to two partners, which means Americans love telling their boo, “I love you,” in a relatively monogamous manner. Unfortunately, there isn’t any data on if the respondents meant what they said, but still, the odds are always with love winning.
Over/under percentage odds that Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 have told more than one person “I love you”: 35 percent
