Abel

Fortnite finally posted the odds, so I did the math. Now I get to ruin everyone’s fun with numbers. Pirate Shop Access: 1 in 137,500 per chest Weekly Gold Outfit: 1 in 1,562,500 per chest The following are more likely than you getting the Pirate Shop in one chest: • Dying in a car crash in your lifetime (1 in 101) • Getting robbed in a given year, 2024 US rate (~1 in 455) • A randomly selected Chicago citizen having been shot in 2025 (~1 in 1,500) • A full-odds shiny Pokémon (1 in 4,096) • Winning $50K on a $1 Maryland Pick 5 ticket (1 in 100,000) • Flipping 17 heads in a row (1 in 131,072) More likely than the gold skin in one chest: • Being dealt a royal flush (1 in 649,740) • Naturally conceiving quadruplets (~1 in 700,000) • Winning $50K on one Powerball ticket (1 in 913,129) • Flipping 20 heads in a row (1 in 1,048,576) • Getting struck by lightning THIS YEAR (~1 in 1,222,000) The gold skin barely beats: • Catching a blue lobster (~1 in 2 million) • Flipping 21 heads in a row (1 in 2,097,152) "Just play squads during Treasure Hours." Okay. Treasure rewards are shared with your whole squad. With Nov 7's 2x boost, every time all 4 of you open a chest, that's about a 1 in 17,188 shot at the Pirate Shop. Still more likely: • Finding a pearl in your restaurant oyster (~1 in 10,000) • A hole-in-one on a par 3 (1 in 12,500) • Dying in a cataclysmic storm (hurricane, tornado, blizzard, etc.) in your lifetime (1 in 14,115) • Getting struck by lightning in your lifetime (1 in 15,300) • Flipping 14 heads in a row (1 in 16,384) FINALLY less likely (was more likely than base odds): • Finding a five-leaf clover (1 in 24,400) • Being killed by a dog in your lifetime (1 in 33,899) • Matching 4 Powerball numbers for $100 (1 in 36,525) Same squad odd for the gold skin: with the 7.5x Treasure Hours boost, every time all 4 of you open a chest, that's about a 1 in 52,084 shot. Still more likely: • Flipping 15 heads in a row (1 in 32,768) • Dying from a bee, wasp or hornet sting in your lifetime (1 in 42,626) FINALLY less likely: • Flipping 16 heads in a row (1 in 65,536) • Being dealt a straight flush (1 in 72,193) And the gold skin changes every week. A coin-flip chance at one takes ~1.08 million chests, which is nearly 2 chests every second for 7 days straight. Want EVERY gold skin? Getting all 5 weekly ones from one chest each is 1 in 9.3 nonillion (9.3 × 10^30). That's ~373,000x rarer than winning the Powerball jackpot 3 times in a row. For a 50/50 shot at all 5, you'd need ~3.2 million chests every week. Even with a full squad splitting it, that's 800,000 chests a week, about 1.3 every second, nonstop, for 5 weeks. (Different events, same math. Death odds are US lifetime odds; crime odds are per year; Fortnite odds are per chest at normal rates unless noted. Sources below.)