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?

@PopcornAndPizzai thought you were wrong when I started now it’s so obvious what you mean, im going to have an issue with all raffles from now on even if the main prize is shit 😆 why hasn’t this been fair before 😆 doesn’t do anyone any favours to be smart, it’s so much better to be in the dark 😂

Of course, you're quite correct. Not sure why anyone is finding this at all confusing.

agreed.

You have 10 tickets in the draw.

1 prize to win.

You have ticket 5.

Each ticket has a 1/10 chance of being the winner.

If I pick one out at random it's a 1/10 chance it will be 5.

If I discarded 9, the last 1 still had an overall chance of 1/10 chance of being 5, even as the last ticket pulled.

The odds of your ticket being pulled goes up each time, but the overall chance of winning remains the same.

And also, if you pick 1 or remove 5, then draw 1, or remove 9 and the last ticket wins...that's the all the same thing. The winner was still 1 ticket out of the 10.

Everyone has an equal chance of winning at the point at which the raffle starts.though.

I could have picked out any of several posts making this point ...

but just wanted to say that this is one of those MN threads that I sense will stay with me for many years! I'm ashamed to say I've never given this much thought. It's changed the way I think about raffles forever!

I've also become incensed at the idea of raffles where they put an undivided strip of 5 into the tub which essentially becomes ONE ticket, for which the customer paid 5x as much as a single ticket. That's just mad and surely not right? I don't think I've seen this happen myself though, but maybe wasn't paying enough attention.

On the other hand, I'm one of those people who don't go in for raffles in a big way - I don't look at a list of glittering prizes and make a calculated risk of buying a lot of tickets because I think it's a reasonable risk/investment to win big. I buy a few tickets at the village show/folk club/school raffle because it's a nice way to support the cause and you might go home with something halfway drinkable.

The concept of counting a strip as one ticket really isn't right if they are charging the buyer for 5 tickets.
If ONE ticket costs £1 and you spend £5 - that's FIVE tickets.
That's a strip but it's 5 different tickets.
To only count the strip as one ticket is not on.
If I realised they were doing it that way I would buy one ticket (so they have to separate it from the strip) and then go back ten minutes later and buy another 1 ticket.... and so on 😂

To most that I've seen, they consider the strip as one ticket. There's no '50p a ticket or a strip of 5 for £2'; it's literally 'tickets cost £2 a strip'.

I don't know whether it's laziness, as a strip is much easier to tear off than an individual ticket (and there's much more room to write a name and phone number if you're keeping records); or if it's just weird perception of value, as a strip is more substantial to hold than a single ticket?

@SprayWhiteDung if that's the only option - "£2 for a strip" and they are classing that as 1 ticket it should be made clear.
1 strip = 1 chance.
I would assume it 5 chances if it didn't specifically say.

I agree: it is deceptive. I know you still only have exactly the same odds as anybody else who has bought one ticket/strip, but there's no chance of those odds winning you more than one prize.

I suppose it's become so commonplace that organisers just do what they think is the norm, without ever stopping to question it.

Because you're wrong! :)

It’s fascinating how many people think something, then when given the facts that it’s not right either refuse to change their view, or just don’t understand the facts so ignore them.

How is it wrong?

I assume you are agreeing with this bit:

It's not about having 4 tickets that could still win the tablet it's that all the tickets should have the same chance of winning the top prize which is presumably known to be superior and therefore used as a top prize to gain more sales.

Our argument was that all tickets should have a chance to win the main prize which is why you draw that prize first.

All tickets do have the same chance of winning, as explained many times on this thread. It doesn't matter if the star prize is drawn first or last.

(The only difference being if some tickets are put in the draw singly, and some as multi-ticket strips. That is unfair.)

Quite.

Imagine.
There are 10 tickets total.
2 prizes to be won (Top Prize and Booby Prize)

Imagine you had 10 tickets on the table see to all, but upside down, so you have no way of knowing which ticket is which.

All tickets have a 1 in 10 chance of winning Top prize. Because 1 ticket out of the 10 will be picked for the Top Prize.
All tickets have a 1 in 10 chance of winning Booby prize. Because 1 ticket out of the 10 will be picked for the Booby Prize.

If 1 ticket is randomly assigned to Top Prize, and 1 is assigned to Booby. Does it matter which order I put the unseen ticket on the Top and Booby prize? No.

Because you still have a 1/10 chance of it being your ticket on the Top Prize, because 1 of the 10 will go on there and 1 of the 10 will go on the Booby.

Spot on
it also doesn’t matter if you first take 5 of those thickets and throw them in the bin. There are still the same chances.

I'm sincerely sorry if I'm not grasping what you're trying to say. But the way I see it, if, say, there are 10 tickets to win 2 prizes, 1 top prize & 1 booby prize and I have 1 ticket amongst them, I have a 1 in 10 chance of winning whichever prize is drawn first. If it's the booby prize & I win, I then have no chance of winning the top prize. If I don't win the first prize drawn I then have a 1 in 9 chance of winning the next prize, not 1 in 10. So imo the fairest way is to draw the top prize first as every ticket has the same chance of winning

You’re thinking of it as 2 raffles, one for the booby prize and one for the main price. It’s not, it’s one raffle.

ignore the middle steps. You start with 10 tickets, you end with one winner. 1/10 odds. Whether there’s a booby prize, or 9, or half the tickets get binned it makes no difference.

to put it a maths way. Start with 10 tickets, 1/10 chance of winning. Throw half the tickets away. The remaining tickets have 1/5 chance of winning but had a 1/5 chance of being not thrown away. 1/5 x 1/5 is 1/10.

or… you had a 1/10 chance of the booby prize and an 8/10 chance of nothing. If you drew the nothings first (threw them away) the remaining tickets have 1/2 chance of winning and a 2/10 chance of being not thrown away. 1/2 x 2/10 is 1/10

Or to put it another way

yes if you don’t win the booby prize your odds are now 1/9, but you had a 9/10 chance of not winning it. 1/9 x 9/10 is 1/10

In your scenario, you have to both:
(a) not win the booby prize, and
(b) then win the top prize.

The odds of (a) are 9 in 10, and the odds of (b) are then 1 in 9. You can’t do (b) without doing (a), and the combined odds are 1 in 10 - the same as winning the booby prize in the first instance. You can’t think of just the odds of (b) in isolation.

But someone who got drawn for an earlier prize still had the same chance of being picked for the big prize surely, as at the start all of the tickets were in play?

I think this boils down to whether you're looking at the situation like:

at the start of the entire drawing event, what chance do you have, or
assessing chances for each individual draw

if you think about assessing chances at the start before they've drawn any tickets then they have an equal chance to everyone else. But of course once they've pulled out a ticket for a lesser prize, you're out of the game.

Either way wouldn't bother me when so many people won't win anything.

It's ok. It's confusing.

Bit you're seeing it as a raffle of 10 tickets for 1 prize.

And then a separate raffle of 9 tickets for another prize.

But it's a raffle of 10 tickets, of which 2 will be assigned to a prize. The odds of any 2 ticket being awarded is 1 in 10.
There's still 10 tickets in the draw. The 1 for the Top prize, the 1 for the booby, and the 8 that are still in the bag.