If the point of the OP is that probability can often be misunderstood and misapplied and does not always boil down to “the obvious” I absolutely agree. Mocking people for attempting to clarify matters is not helpful.
Here’s how one article puts it:
**Q: What is the probability of an outcome after it’s already happened?**
Physicist : There are a lot of subtleties to this. Reading the question, your gut reaction should be “Duh, it’s 100%! Wait, is this really a question?”.
And yet, there are many times in which you may find yourself estimating probabilities on things that have already happened. If you flip a coin and cover it or go looking for a lost dog, the “true” probability is always 100%: the coin is definitely either heads or tails, and Fluffins (the wonder dog) has a 100% chance of being exactly where it is.
Yes, it's obvious that the coin is definitely either heads or tails. Inevitable even.
Here’s the article. Be sure to read the comments, which directly address the lottery question. It’s really is a different example though, because he uses a figure of 1 million not 100 million, so I’ll understand if some folks don’t think it’s relevant.
https://www.askamathematician.com/2012/10/q-what-is-the-probability-of-an-outcome-after-its-already-happened/
The point Ive been trying to make about the OP is that it is possible that it is relying on an equivocation. If the terms are applied to the same event then it is an equivocation, because the events are not the same.
If the point of the OP is that looking at an event after it has happened and declaring that it was improbable is a mistake because it has already happened and thus the probability is 1, therefore it was not improbable at all but inevitable, well, it depends on how you look at it.
But in no case is the same event both improbable and inevitable. The two are mutually incompatible. That should be obvious.
