[drc500free]

Is there a term for this "winning the lottery jackpot is unbelievably unlikely, but every week we hear about someone winning it" effect? People get it when the media reports on the lottery, but somehow miss the amplifying effect on pretty much any other topic.

[jmopp]

There is Littlewood's Law: a miracle (defined as a one in a million event) happens about once a month (assuming you observe one event every second and are observing your surroundings for 8 hours a day). There is also the law of truly large numbers: given a sufficiently large sample space, you will observe the very unlikely events