The Nonce Hunt vs. Block Discovery

For those who might not be familiar, a nonce in the Bitcoin world is a “number used once” that miners are trying to find to validate a new block. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, except the haystack is the size of a galaxy, and the needle… well, it’s not really a needle but a specific number that makes the block’s hash fit within the network’s difficulty target.

To put it in perspective, finding the correct nonce is like trying to guess the exact number a roulette wheel will land on, but instead of 36 numbers, there are billions upon billions of possibilities. And yet, despite these odds, blocks are being mined consistently.

So, this got me thinking, and I’d love to hear your thoughts:

What are the statistical probabilities of finding a nonce compared to actually mining a block?

Has anyone here been part of a mining pool that struck gold by finding the right nonce? What was that like?