vpFREE2 Forums

Value of drawing

#1

Local Casino, drawing, I have 530,000
entries, I was called for $500 and turned it down for a chance at $50,000 final drawing and 17 other
drawings for total of $84,000, ( 1 winner for $50,000, 2
winners for $5,000 and 1 for $10,000, and the remaining 14 are $1,000 each ). The 32 $500 drawings are called first, then
the others. If you accept any drawing win, you are not eligible for any other
drawings. The 32 $500 drawings are
called first, then the others.

Drawing
official estimated 10,000,000 to 30,000,000 entries depending how many people
are at the casino. I estimate 2,500 people
at casino with avg (over estimated) entries of 20,000 each equals 50,000,000
entries, double the official estimate to 60,000,000 entries, divided by 530,000
equals 1 out of 95 chance to get called.
$84,000 divided by 95 equals $884.
Is it a $384 advantage to turn down the $500 ?

#2

Let us know , did you win ?

#3

That’s a very fascinating problem.

Your numbers make sense except that you’d have to add some weighting to each of the 84 prizes - they are not equal. You could start with a simple EV calc of each jackpot. So my napkin numbers tell me that you have 1% on 50,000, which is close to $500, not $884.

The other issue is that you’re dealing with very “nebulous” numbers. First off you’re making estimates on top of estimates on top of estimates. So that will cloud things. Also, if this one was like other raffles I’ve been to, they do them over a long period of time (not all in one shot so that people will stay longer). The estimate you come up with at 6PM may be far off from the estimate you get at 10PM when they do the big(ger) prizes - people will know to show up later because thats when the going is good. You would have to factor in some element of time into your calculations.

Overall, I would assume that your EV is still rather thin to start and more people showing up will only degrade the edge. Take the early prize.

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On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 2:36 PM, billchu…@…com [vpFREE] <vpF…@…com> wrote:

Local Casino, drawing, I have 530,000
entries, I was called for $500 and turned it down for a chance at $50,000 final drawing and 17 other
drawings for total of $84,000, ( 1 winner for $50,000, 2
winners for $5,000 and 1 for $10,000, and the remaining 14 are $1,000 each ). The 32 $500 drawings are called first, then
the others. If you accept any drawing win, you are not eligible for any other
drawings. The 32 $500 drawings are
called first, then the others.

Drawing
official estimated 10,000,000 to 30,000,000 entries depending how many people
are at the casino. I estimate 2,500 people
at casino with avg (over estimated) entries of 20,000 each equals 50,000,000
entries, double the official estimate to 60,000,000 entries, divided by 530,000
equals 1 out of 95 chance to get called.
$84,000 divided by 95 equals $884.
Is it a $384 advantage to turn down the $500 ?