New Infographic Illustrates the Odds How the World Will End.  Place Your Bets Ladies and Gentlemen.

Sentient Plants, Murderous Robots, and Nuclear Bombs – it’s the End of the World

35% of people would fight back in the event of an alien invasion or an ape uprising, and 20% believe in ancient evil. But there are other, more immediate ways the world is likely to end – find out how in the new infographic from 888Poker.

There’s so many ways the world could go. Climate change, asteroids, a black hole created by a science experiment. But what’s the most likely? Or the most entertaining?

888Poker have looked into the issue of how the apocalypse could come about, and put together a complete guide to the end of days – covering possibilities ranging from the scientific, like rising water levels and super storms, to the fantastical, like zombie plagues and intelligent ape uprisings.

And while there’s no foolproof tactics for survival (particularly in the event of the sun destroying the Earth), there are some probabilities on it happening (and odds offered by bookmakers in the past). So, if somehow you manage to escape the horrors of the Earth’s demise, you can at least rest easy with the knowledge of the incredible odds you’ve beaten.

Make sure your bug out shelter is stocked and your escape plan is ready, here are odds on how the world will end:

Traitorous Humans and Invincible Monsters

While it’s guaranteed that the Earth will be consumed by the Sun in 5 billion years, there are plenty of ways everything could go wrong before then. Here are some views and stats on the potential disasters:

• 30% of people have been genuinely worried the world would be destroyed by a science experiment gone wrong (for example, if the Large Hadron Collider had created a black hole when it was turned on).
• 35% of people think it’s a real concern that robots will turn on us in the next 200 years, à la Terminator.
• 24% of people think conventional army weapons are the best way to deal with giant monster attacks, narrowly beating out nuclear weapons at 23.5%. Only 12% thought giant robots would work, and 10% thought we had no way of beating them.
• NASA says that it’s impossible for a solar flare to destroy the Earth, making it an outside chance (NASA have made no such declarations on the possibility of vampires taking over).
• Don’t trust anybody – 4.5% of survey respondents said they’d betray humanity to aliens for their own benefit, and 4.3% said that if they were infected by zombies, they’d hide it from others.

Whether you think we’ll be wiped out by nanotechnology hungrily eating its way through the world (“Grey Goo”; 1-in-100) or are more inclined to say it’s a bioweapon that’ll polish us off (1-in-60) – or even that it’s only a few years before the nuclear bombs take us into the worlds of Fallout and Mad Max (1-in-30), make sure to check out the rest of the potential Ragnaroks, Apocalypses and Armageddons on 888Poker.

Here is a full transcript:

THE ODDS OF THE WORLD ENDING

You never know how the world might end. There could be a finger on the Big Red Button right now – but have you thought of all the other possible apocalypses? Check out these odds of some of the more unusual options.

Situation	Odds	Comparison	How this will end the World	Fictional / Scientific / Religious	Examples	Survey Headline
Zombies	1/1000	Mali were 4-0 down against Angola in a football game in 2010, with 11 minutes left, and were given 1000/1 odds of making a comeback. Final score: 4-4	A plague or curse that turns humans into mindless zombies quickly spreads, until the whole human race is infected or undead.	Fictional	World War Z, The Walking Dead	25% of those infected by a zombie would run from survivors to protect others
Giant Monsters	1/1,59m	A 30p bet turned into a £500,000 accumulator win, at 1/1,666,666 odds.	Giant monsters (either created by humanity or from space) arrive and destroy everything.	Fictional	Godzilla, Pacific Rim, King Kong	10% of people believe that we could do nothing to stop the rampage of Godzilla or King Kong
Pandemic	1/2	Superbugs have sprung up several times in the last few years, but none has yet succeeded in human extinction.	A superbug such as Swine Flu or Bird Flu or Ebola springs up and wipes out humanity before a cure can be found.	Scientific	Pandemic
Aliens	1/500	A “flush” hand in poker has a 508/1 chance of appearing.	Aliens with superior technology come to Earth and use powerful weapons to destroy it.	Fictional/Scientific	Independence Day, War of the Worlds	35% of people would fight an alien invasion
Sentient Plants	1/600	One “small” asteroid has a 1-in-600 chance of hitting Earth in 2040.	Plants evolve to levels where they are mobile and carnivorous, and outmatch the human race.	Fictional/Scientific	Day of the Triffids
Black Hole	1/125	Getting a straight in poker is less likely, at 254/1.	A supermassive black hole enters our Solar System and consumes the Earth along with other planets and eventually the Sun itself.	Scientific	Hyperion
Vampires	1/35m	The odds of having identical quadruplets is only 1-in-13 million.	Vampires with superior strength and agility, as well as supernatural powers, take control of the Earth and use humans as cattle.	Fictional	Daybreakers	Being a vampire wouldn’t be so bad to the 1/3 of people who would love to be able to walk this world forever
Mayan Calendar	1/2112	While multiple bookmakers have offered odds on the end of the world, they’ve remained cryptic as to how they would make your payout.	The Mayan Calendar suggested the world might end in 2012. We’re not sure how.	Religious	2012
Judgment Day	According to Harold Camping: 1/1	Harold Camping predicted the end of the world four times.	The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse sweep across the land, and the good ascend to Heaven, with the rest of the world burning in Hell forever after.	Religious	This is the End
Robot Uprising	1/80	There’s better odds on this than on getting a full house in poker – 693/1.	Robots fail to follow the Three Laws of Robotics and set about improving themselves and taking over the planet.	Fictional/Scientific	Terminator	35% of people think the Terminator films might be right about the future of robotics
Grey Goo	1/100	There were at one point 1000/1 odds on man landing on the moon by 1970.	Nanobots are created which consume matter in order to produce more of themselves, and go on to consume the entire planet on an unstoppable rampage.	Scientific/Fictional	Jam, Grey Goo, Deus Ex: Invisible War
Natural Disasters	1/45	All these natural disasters have shorter odds than dying from a car accident – 1/84.	Natural disasters like World Earthquakes, Droughts, Ice Age, Lava everywhere or Super Storms	Scientific	The Day After Tomorrow	24% who thought rising water levels was the most likely natural disaster to end the world
Bioweapons	1/60	The Biological Weapons Convention is supposed to prevent countries from developing, or using biological weapons, but this doesn’t make the odds much longer.	Scientists develop a weaponised biological substance which infects or consumes humanity.	Scientific	The Stand, 12 Monkeys, Resident Evil
Ape Uprising	1/4600	Odds on Leicester City winning the Premier League in 2016 (which happened) were 1/5000	Apes evolve to be as intelligent as humans, and with their natural higher strength and ability, take over the world.	Fictional	Planet of the Apes	19% would try to broker peace with intelligent, warlike apes
Solar Flare	0/1	You could try betting on solar flares destroying Earth, but NASA says it’s impossible.	A powerful solar flare irradiates the Earth beyond liveable conditions.	Scientific	Knowing
Asteroid Impact	1/63,000	You have better odds of being murdered first – 1/18,000.	A massive asteroid hits the Earth and destroys the world as we know it.	Scientific	Judgement Day
Ancient Evil	1/1b	Still more likely than getting two royal flushes in a row in poker – 1 to 42 trillion.	An evil from the past, probably magical or arcane, is awakened, and returns to destroy humanity.	Fictional	Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Thor II: The Dark World	A fifth of people fear the rise of some ageless evil from the darkest corners of the world
Nuclear Missiles	1/30	Odds of a roulette wheel landing on any single number is 1/35.	World War III involves the launching of nuclear missiles, with everyone dying either from the initial explosions or from the fallout.	Scientific	Fallout, Mad Max
Large Hadron Collider	1/1m	There’s better odds on this than there are of you being an astronaut, at 1/13,200,000.	The LHC creates a black hole and destroys everything in the nearby galaxy.	Scientific	The Flash TV series	30% of people were concerned that a scientific experiment would bring about the end of times
Sun Consumes Earth	1/1	While a long way off, the odds are exceptionally short, as the event is guaranteed.	The Sun expands, becomes what is called a Red Giant and its radius will be large enough to envelop the Earth.	Scientific	The Day the Earth Caught Fire

METHODOLOGY

Ape Uprising – World ape population: 500,000

Assuming 1 ape can overpower 3 humans, that’s approximately 500,000-in-2,300,000,000 or 1-in-4600 odds of the apes succeeding, should they develop intelligence and prove vengeful.

Ancient Evil – There are approximately 120 known Egyptian pyramids. As the curse of the tomb of Tutankhamun supposedly killed 8 people, and we assume each pyramid possesses as much evil magic, the pyramids can kill a total of about 960 people. Odds of total extinction are less than that of giant monsters – 1-in-1,000,000,000

Vampires – Should vampires appear, their rate of reproduction is likely to be low. Assuming a single nest of vampires (~5), and each vampire is able to successfully plague a town of 200 people, that’s still odds of 1-in-35,000,000 on them taking over.

Sentient Plants – Plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso says plants are already intelligent, so it’s the odds of the carnivorous ones becoming mobile and wreaking havoc. Compared to robots or aliens, that seems less likely – but more plausible than zombies, making for odds of about 1-in-600.

Giant Monsters – If one monster arrives for each city, that’s odds of 4,416-in-7 billion, or about 1-in-1,590,000 of wiping out every single human.

Bioweapons – There are allegations of 10 countries potentially working on or possessing bioweapons. Assuming odds of it being released as approximately the same as nuclear war, and of extinction as the same as a pandemic, that’s about 1-in-60.

Grey Goo – Slightly less plausible than a robot uprising, but assuming technology is created capable of self-replicating, it would only require a programming error to produce it. 1-in-100.