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At 10:00 this morning, October 5, the first Hispanic US Supreme Court justice in history will take the bench for her first hearings. Sonia Sotomayor’s introduction to the court allows for odds that could not have existed before now: The odds a person who has ever served on the Supreme Court is Hispanic are 1 in 116.

Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation may have seemed uncertain, but historically the majority of nominees, 1 in 1.29 (78%), get to serve, or at least get the privilege of making up their own minds (of confirmed nominees, 1 in 22.71 turn the offer down). To put that confirmation success rate in perspective, the odds are about the same—1 in 1.3—that an American household owns an outdoor barbecue grill.

Modern politicians may seem to be especially harsh in their criticisms of nominees—at least the other party’s nominees—but is it really harder to be confirmed today than in the past? No: nominees in the past 25 years have received a higher percentage of votes to confirm than their 19th-century predecessors got. For Sotomayor, the odds seem to say it all: despite all the talk about her ideology and qualifications, just 1 in 3.19 Senators voted against her.

Sotomayor’s first term will include several big hearings, including decisions over the 1st Amendment (religion, free speech) and the 8th Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment). No one knows whether Sotomayor’s judgments will calm her critics or please her supporters. One thing is certain: Whatever the Court decides this session will engender another new set of odds—the odds a Hispanic Supreme Court Justice will join the majority in a decision.