To think this is not how raffles work?

[PopcornAndPizza]

Hotly contested discussion at work and although light-hearted I now think I'm either losing the plot or almost all my work colleagues are all weird.

A colleague was pleased yesterday that she had won a coffee voucher at her grandsons school raffle. She mentioned her prize was the 8th top prize and that unfortunately her ticket didn't win any more prizes after that including the top prize which was a tablet.

I was only half paying attention until the other colleague (that I think is right) then said well surely they announced that one first? To which she replied well no they did that one last to build suspense.

To help the other colleague I tried to point out that's not how it works because then your ticket isn't actually in with the chance of winning the top prize but only me and this one other lady had this viewpoint, everyone else couldn't see the issue.

It's not us is it, that's not how raffles work? Surely the top prize should be drawn first so everyone has an equal chance at winning?

Yes, years ago I took part in an organisation that had a yearly raffle. They used to call the prizes out in last prize to first prize order. One year they informed us that they would now be calling first prize to last prize because that was the law.

Ok I've looked it up and I think I'm totally wrong!
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/592260/does-the-order-in-which-prizes-are-allocated-to-raffle-tickets-matter

The link is genuine, it's just checking you're not a bot.

So, there are complicated maths involved, but it shakes out the same. I have learnt something today by arguing on the internet - a first for humanity?!

Let's imagine you are one of the final two tickets that may win a car.

Your odds of winning the car during the raffle are not one in two, they are one in 500. You bought one of 500 tickets to the raffle, all of which had an equal chance to win the car.

I think the error is in seeing this as one of a series of 500 raffles, rather than one raffle.

But I will bow to any proper statisticians who know better.

This would be the same. As the people winning the smaller prizes would then have zero chance of being the winning ticket in the envelope or box or whatever.

I think the 8th to 1st way is absolutely fine. It makes absolutely no difference what order they do this in

Raffles are highly regulated and if you’ve bought one ticket and you win a prize then that’s that but if you’ve bought more than one then the remainder of the tickets should still be in with a chance unless it’s stated that the whole strip counts as one ticket.
I hate raffles that decide to draw tickets “backwards” and if I know this is going to happen then I refuse to buy!

Agree its obviously not fair to do it reverse order of value! People saying that there’s lots of ways of doing it are missing the point that there shouldn’t be! I doubt your colleague had her eye on the coffee voucher and so didn’t mind no longer being in the running for the tablet!

I never get with raffles why five tickets are kept connected and count as one.

If they say that is "one ticket" that is fine.
If they allow you to buy individual tickets its different.

Most raffles I've taken part in are usually something like 50p for one ticket or £2 for 5 (ie a strip) so you get one ticket free. It's to encourage you to pay more than 50p obviously.
But that means you have FIVE tickets and could potentially win FIVE prizes.
A strip is not one ticket !

@PopcornAndPizza It's not us is it, that's not how raffles work? Surely the top prize should be drawn first so everyone has an equal chance at winning?

It doesn't matter if the top prize is drawn first or last. All tickets still have an equal chance of winning it. The probability of your ticket being drawn 1st, 27th or 52nd is exactly the same.

And I was quite prepared to admit I was wrong and find the complex math’s interesting.

turns out I was right. Maybe another first there!

My maths was good enough to realise there were complicated maths involved, but not good enough to realise that would come to the same answer.

At least, I'm assuming it works for all other numbers of tickets, prizes etc... haven't checked!

Assuming that (a) no tickets are sold once the draw starts, and (b) winning tickets are removed from subsequent draws, the order in which the prizes are won has no impact on your odds of winning any specific prize from the outset. It’s just simple maths 😁

Our raffles have lots of prizes. They are numbered one to twenty or whatever. Tickets are drawn and the prizes handed out in order. Sometimes highest value last. Saves loads of time!

Obviously, you can't do anything (legal) to change it, but when it comes to actual tombolas - ones where they have a single 'headline' prize that everybody will want - the organisers are always desperately hoping that the big prize isn't won early, as it then massively reduces the number of people who have a go and thus the amount of money that they make.

I have heard of organisers who keep the ticket for the big prize out of the tombola until nearly the end, in order to make the maximum money - I can see the thinking, especially if the money is going to charity; but it's extremely dishonest and thoroughly illegal.

@SprayWhiteDung tombolas aren't usually big prizes though.
Popular ones are Bottle Tombola so the prizes are drinks (like a cheap bottle of wine for adults, fruit shoots for kids) or things like bubble bath or shower gel.
There isn't a "main" prize.

Well, now I have read this I think your way is the way they should work!

But I had never thought about this before and don’t know if it actually is the norm.

Our school raffles have the prize drawn electronically which saves all this anxiety because the numbers are effectively all drawn at once.

True, it's not normally either a new telly or one of 100 Mars Bars; but most tombolas that I've seen will have one or two prizes that are very clearly a cut above the others.

I suppose it might also make a difference whether people were there earlier and saw the better prizes on the table before they were won; otherwise, if they have no way of knowing what they missed out on, they may well still happily have a go!

You are totally right OP - If I buy 5 tickets to win a prize car I don't expect one of my tickets to be pulled out of the draw because I get a keyring from that because my odds of winning the main prize become reduced. Unless they throw the booby prize ticket back into the bucket for the next draw so you could potentially win everything on offer.

I think she meant usually first ticket out wins the best prize. That's usually how it's done. But if they want to do it differently I think that's fine too.

Let's imagine you are one of the final two tickets that may win a car.

Your odds of winning the car during the raffle are not one in two, they are one in 500. You bought one of 500 tickets to the raffle, all of which had an equal chance to win the car.

You're both right and wrong. At thexstart of thecdat, you had a one on 500 chance if winning. You are correct in that. BUT what you and others are missing, is that every time a ticket is removed for a lesser prize, the odds change. So that at the end, in your example, the odds of winning actually are 50:50 for the two remaining tickets.

Look at it this way. If the organiser took a handful of tickets out and put them in the bin, would you still argue that your odds of winning haven't changed? By taking out a ticket, even to give them a lesser prize, you're still reducing your chance of winning to zero.

Yes of course the odds remain the same of winning any prize but I personally anyway would like it in order of value so that I’m at least always in the running for the good stuff first! 😃

I'm pleased people are enjoying the discussion and am getting a bit of a big head at the thread being referred to as one of the best some have engaged with recently. Although not a huge accolade due to the amount of one post and run threads recently it's still made me smile that others enjoy such mundane discussions. 😀

It's been very interesting to see all the statistics and in-depth analysing of how raffles work, some of you would fit right in at work, we discuss nonsense like this pretty frequently. A few weeks back we had heated discussions over the correct colour of tea.

The chance of winning the top prize is exactly the same whichever order the prizes are drawn in.

Suppose there are 100 tickets and 3 prizes.

If the top prize is drawn first, your chance of getting it is 1/100.

If the other two prizes are drawn first, your chance of not getting either of those is 98/100, and then your chance of getting the main prize is 1/98. These probabilities are multiplied together, giving 1/100.