99 Probablems

I just entered to win a copy of Mindy Kaling's new book.  The odds are stacked against me, as only ten copies are available, and over 1800 have been requested.  Still, I'm thinking there's a chance I'll be one of the lucky ones.  Any time I enter a contest or a raffle or buy a lottery ticket, I hope that I'll beat the statistical odds.  Yet I take comfort in statistical odds showing that my loved ones and I are unlikely to get into a fatal accident or come down with a chronic disease or be drafted into the Hunger Games.  I guess this is a pretty obvious and common way of maintaining an optimistic outlook, but I had somehow not really put it into perspective this way.