Some people are just born lucky. Take Jeffrey Rich; the odds were 300 billion to 1 against him but he succeeded. Louis Tomasetta is another lucky guy; he beat 26 billion to 1 odds. Kobi Alexander wasn't as lucky; he defied odds of only 6 billion to 1.
Compared to those three, the following three are just average risk takers. William McGuire cashed in although the odds were 200,000,000 to 1. Robert Therrien beat odds of 9,000,000 to 1. Timothy Main scored although the odds were 1,000,000 to 1 against him.
Who are these guys? What did they win? How did they get so lucky? Well, they're all CEOs or ex-CEOs of public companies. They won a perfect date to receive stock options: the day when the stock was at a nadir and poised for growth. How they got so lucky is the question? Given the odds of their picking the exact day each year (for several years in a row) on which their gains would be maximized, there appears to be only one answer: backdating the granting of the options.
Note that the odds of winning the Powerball lottery are 146,000,000 to 1.
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