Lottery vs. Bitcoin Solo Mining

🎰 Lottery vs. Bitcoin Solo Mining: Which One Actually Gives You Better Odds?

When people first hear about Bitcoin solo mining, many compare it to “buying a lottery ticket.” It’s true: you’re hunting for a rare, high-value event.

But here’s the surprise most people don’t expect: solo mining often gives you far better odds than the lottery — especially as you increase your hashrate.

This article breaks down the real numbers using:

• Ontario Lottery (Lotto 6/49) as an example
• 1.1 TH/s as a starting solo-mining hashrate
• $0.18/kWh electricity cost
• A direct comparison of 1-year odds between solo mining and buying lottery tickets

🎟️ Lottery Odds: The Baseline

For Ontario’s Lotto 6/49, the published jackpot odds are:

Jackpot odds: 1 in 13,983,816 (per ticket)

Buying more tickets improves your odds, but only linearly. For example, if you buy one ticket twice per week (104 tickets in a year):

104 tickets ÷ 13,983,816 ≈ 1 in 134,461 chance per year

Even after a full year of steady play, your odds are still around 1 in 134,000+. That’s extremely low.

This is what people tend to compare Bitcoin solo mining to—but the math tells a very different story.

⛏️ Bitcoin Solo Mining Odds (Starting at 1.1 TH/s)

Let’s take a modest solo-mining setup at 1.1 TH/s (terahashes per second). Based on current Bitcoin network difficulty, that gives a rough yearly probability of:

• Annual probability: ~0.005% per year
• Odds: ≈ 1 in 20,000 per year

Right away, that means:

• About 700× better odds than buying a single Lotto 6/49 ticket
• About 100× better odds than buying 104 tickets over a year

Solo mining odds are small, but they’re nowhere near as tiny as lottery odds.

⚡ Power Cost of 1.1 TH/s at $0.18/kWh

Now let’s look at the cost to run that 1.1 TH/s at home. A compact, efficient solo miner in this range may use roughly 18 watts of power.

18 W × 24 h × 365 days = 157.7 kWh per year
157.7 kWh × $0.18 = ≈ $28.39 per year

So the annual electricity cost is only around $28.

• No ongoing “ticket” cost
• Your miner is a physical asset with resale value
• The potential block reward is massive compared to the size of your yearly power bill

Compared to buying lottery tickets, solo mining is often cheaper per year and offers way better odds.

📈 Why More Hashrate Dramatically Improves Your Odds

This is one of the most important differences between solo mining and the lottery:

Bitcoin solo mining scales linearly with hashrate.

• Double the hashrate → double the annual chance of finding a block
• Triple the hashrate → triple the annual chance
• 5× hashrate → 5× the annual chance

There are no diminishing returns in the probability itself. The odds improve directly with hashrate.

For example, if you start at 1.1 TH/s and then add a second miner such as a compact BM1370-based unit, your total might become:

1.1 TH/s (original) + 1.2 TH/s (new miner) ≈ 2.3 TH/s

Since the hashrate has a bit more than doubled:

• Your odds improve from about 1 in 20,000 per year
• To roughly 1 in 9,500–10,000 per year

Doubling hashrate cuts your odds roughly in half. If you double again, they’re halved again. This is a key idea: every time you double your hashrate, you reduce your “one-year odds” of success by about 50%.

🛠️ Quiet, Low-Power Ways to Increase Hashrate

If you want to improve your solo-mining odds without turning your home into a data center, low-power, low-noise miners are ideal.

One example is a compact solo miner like this:

BM1370 1.2TH/s Bitcoin Solo Miner for Home

A miner in this range typically offers:

• ~1.1–1.3 TH/s hashrate
• Very low power usage (often under a typical light bulb)
• Minimal noise – suitable for a home office or living space

Adding one or two of these types of miners can move your odds from:

• 1 in ~20,000 per year (1.1 TH/s)
• To 1 in ~10,000 per year (around 2.3 TH/s)
• To around 1 in ~5,000 per year as you approach ~4 TH/s

All while keeping electricity usage and noise at very manageable levels.

🧮 Side-by-Side: 1-Year Odds Comparison

Even at relatively small hashrates, solo mining can dramatically outperform lottery odds on a one-year basis—often for less money than regular lottery play.

🎯 The Bottom Line: A Smarter “Lottery”

When you compare the real numbers, the picture is clear:

• Solo mining gives far better odds than a lottery jackpot, even at hobby-level hashrates.
• Doubling your hashrate directly reduces your odds (you’re roughly twice as likely to find a block for each doubling).
• Electricity costs at $0.18/kWh are modest for efficient miners, especially under 50–100 watts total.
• Your hardware retains value and can be resold or reused—unlike lottery tickets.

If you think of solo mining as a fun, long-shot “digital lottery,” it’s a much smarter lottery:

• Better 1-year odds
• Potentially lower annual cost
• A real shot at a full Bitcoin block reward

And if you want to boost those odds in a quiet, power-efficient way, consider adding a compact miner like:

BM1370 1.2TH/s Bitcoin Solo Miner for Home

Double your hashrate, and you don’t just buy another “ticket” — you cut your odds and give yourself a much better chance over the next year.