Your chances of winning Oregon’s vaccination jackpot? 1 in 2.2M
Published 3:00 pm Thursday, June 24, 2021
- Pendleton High School student Scott Train, right, watches as Specialist Stephanie Gonzalez, of the Oregon National Guard, administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine during a vaccination clinic for high school students at Wildhorse Resort & Casino on March 17, 2021.
SALEM — What are the odds of winning Oregon’s $1 million vaccination lottery drawing on Monday, June 28? With roughly 2.2 million adults vaccinated in Oregon so far, it’s one in 2.2 million.
In other words, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning — 1 in 500,000 in any given year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The prizes — $1 million, three dozen $10,000 awards, five $100,000 college scholarships and a smattering of cash prizes in a limited number of counties — are only available to Oregonians who’ve received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine by 11:59 p.m. June 27.
Winners are expected to be announced in the first week of July.
The odds get a lot more interesting when it comes to the state’s $10,000 prizes.
Oregon will award $10,000 to one person for each of its 36 counties — regardless of the county’s population size. That means up until recently the odds of pocketing $10,000 were the best in Oregon’s smallest county — Wheeler, population 1,440 — where one lucky person out of about 600 vaccinated adults will take home the prize.
In recent days, however, 11 other Oregon counties have added to the prizes offered to their residents, using millions of dollars of federal coronavirus money allocated by the vaccination rollout. Now the chances of pocketing some significant cash are best in Gilliam County, population 1,990, where 11 of approximately 676 vaccinated adults will win $10,000 each.
“I’d say your odds of winning $10,000 are excellent,” said Patrick Johnson, a spokesperson for the Oregon Lottery, which is assisting the governor’s office and the Oregon Health Authority in randomly drawing winners.
But the odds look considerably less impressive in Oregon’s largest county — Multnomah — where county officials aren’t supplementing the state’s prizes with more awards. More than 470,000 adults in the county have received at least one dose of vaccine. You guessed it: That puts residents’ chances of taking home the cash at about 1 in 470,000.
The odds are approximate because state officials don’t publish the precise county-by-county numbers of residents 18 and older who’ve been inoculated.
