Bitcoin lottery miner odds calculator
Solo mining Bitcoin with a small home miner is a lottery: a tiny chance each day of winning a whole block. Pick your miner, see your real odds from the live network hashrate, and compare them with a Powerball ticket.
Chance of finding a block, per day
1 in 5,584,491
Expected wait for a block
15,300 years
on average, never a promise
Chance within 10 years
0.065%
30 years: 0.196%
Versus a Powerball ticket
A single Powerball jackpot ticket has a 1 in 292,201,338 chance. On any one day, your miner is 52 times more likely to find a Bitcoin block than one Powerball ticket is to win a jackpot.
A Poisson model: blocks are found at random, about 144 a day, so the chance does not build up over time and a long dry spell does not make a block due. Solo mining is a lottery with an electricity bill. Electricity, hardware costs and difficulty changes are not included. Not financial advice.
Why solo mining is a lottery
Bitcoin miners compete to find the next block, and the winner receives the block subsidy plus the fees. When you mine alone, you either find a whole block or get nothing. Your chance each block is your share of the network's total hashrate: your hashrate divided by the network's. Because blocks arrive about every ten minutes (144 a day) and the network is enormous, a small miner's chance in any one block is minuscule.
Hobby devices such as the NerdMiner and Bitaxe have become popular precisely because of the lottery appeal: a very long shot at a very large prize. Stories of small miners finding blocks do happen, and they are exactly as rare as the maths says.
How the maths works
- 1Your share = your hashrate divided by the network hashrate.
- 2Blocks you expect per day = 144 times your share.
- 3The chance of at least one block in a period follows a Poisson model: 1 minus e to the power of minus (blocks expected in the period).
- 4Expected wait = one divided by your expected blocks per year.
A long dry spell does not make a block "due". Each block is an independent draw, just like a lottery.
Is solo mining worth it?
- As a way to earn steady income: no. Pool mining pays small, regular amounts, but electricity and hardware usually leave little.
- As a hobby or a lottery ticket: some people enjoy it, with the cost of electricity as the price of the ticket.
- As an investment: no. Treat any spending as entertainment.
Prefer a lottery you can check?
CryptoDrawz: a weekly draw with 90% paid out.
$5 tickets paid in crypto. The winners come from a public random value, and every result is published so you can recompute it yourself. 18+ only.
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<p style="font-size:14px">Free tool by <a href="https://cryptodrawz.com/tools/bitcoin-solo-mining-odds-calculator">CryptoDrawz</a></p>Frequently asked questions
What are the odds of solo mining a Bitcoin block?
They depend on your hashrate and the network's. With a Bitaxe-class miner the chance per day is roughly one in tens of millions. The calculator uses the live network hashrate.
Has anyone solo mined a block with a small miner?
Yes, a handful of small miners have found blocks, which is what keeps the lottery appeal alive. They are the rare exception.
Is it better than buying lottery tickets?
For a small miner, your daily chance can be better or worse than a single Powerball ticket depending on the device. The calculator compares them directly. The electricity cost matters too.
Where does the live data come from?
The network hashrate and price come from mempool.space, loaded in your browser. You can overwrite any number.