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Are you sweating over the possibility of an audit? Rest assured that the chances of being called in by the IRS have dropped from better than 100-to-1 10 years ago to 175-to-1 these days.

Want to avoid an audit? The best tactic — stay poor. There might be some perks to making $100,000 rather than $25,000, but Baer says that six-figure salary will make you six times more likely to have Uncle Sam breathing down your neck.

Your chances of marrying a millionaire are improving, too, thanks to the swelling number of rich Americans. Their ranks are estimated to grow to 5.6 million by 2005. About 8 percent of them are single, divorced or widowed. Rich women account for a lot of the growth, and that's great news for us gold-digging guys.

In other words, you may soon have a 215-to-1 shot at finding a sugar daddy or mommy. Of course, like supermodels, millionaires have their own mating rituals. Luckily, Baer has advice for those who plan on "moving in for the will."

Is Sainthood in Your Future?

Life: The Odds takes on all sorts of probabilities — catching a foul ball, getting away with murder, dying of the plague, and winning at Keno (your best move is to switch to blackjack). Baer even calculates the chances of achieving sainthood at 20 million-to-1. It's really a simple calculation.

Since the dawn of time, about 100 billion people have walked the Earth (give or take a few hundred million, of course). There are about 5,000 saints recognized by Catholics. Do the math. Again, Baer has advice on improving your odds.

"Become the pope," Baer says. "It's really the best proven path to sainthood."

Perhaps you never thought of yourself as a numbers person. But I've collated some numbers from Baer and other number meisters, and these might help you keep some perspective on the future.

I'll leave the chances of grave illness and catastrophic illness aside, and I won't report your chances of winning a state lottery, because the odds are, Heidi Klum's cell phone number would be astronomically more valuable to you.