Fatty December 4, 2005 Share Fatty GC Founder December 4, 2005 Amy and I won the reverse raffle tonight.... 300 tickets, our ticket was never drawn....what are the odds? ($1000 grand prize, last five agreed on 125, 150, 170, 200, 350 prize, so we got 350) So anyways, to get your number called first would be 1 in 300, right? What's the chances of surviving for 299 picks? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stutters December 4, 2005 Share stutters GC Alumni December 4, 2005 300*299*298*297...3*2*1 = (300 factorial) = 300! = i can't find teh button on my calculator. bet all mookie. isn't he the resident math/stats whiz? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookie December 4, 2005 Share mookie GC Alumni December 4, 2005 Not sure how a reverse raffle works exactly, but I'm guessing your odds are actually 1 in 300. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookie December 4, 2005 Share mookie GC Alumni December 4, 2005 Oh I rememer how this sort of thing works again: Odds for surviving first = 299/300 second = 298/299 third = 297/298 ... when you multiply all together everything cancels and you get 1/300. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty December 4, 2005 Author Share Fatty GC Founder December 4, 2005 Ya, I was thinking about this again this morning....even without the math it's much simpler than I made it out to be...every one of the 300 ticket holders walk in with the same exact chance...so 1 in 300. It was darn fun. Had our whole table rooting for us. One guy, in his excitement after a draw grab my sholders and shook me while cheering...problem was I was holding a very full beer and sitting down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters December 4, 2005 Share gOOters Member December 4, 2005 Sorry about that, I told you I would buy you another one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
werD December 4, 2005 Share werD Member December 4, 2005 299! ----- 300! that should give you the probality of winning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stutters December 4, 2005 Share stutters GC Alumni December 4, 2005 ding ding ding. that still equals 1/300 though. man was i off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EbilDustBunny December 5, 2005 Share EbilDustBunny GC Alumni December 5, 2005 *runs in fear of this post* MATH BAD MATH BAD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
appalachian_fox December 5, 2005 Share appalachian_fox Member December 5, 2005 Yep, 1/300. Figured I'd just tell you guys what you already knew. I'll let you guys in on an easier way to calculate the odds than the complicated formulas they teach you: Instead of calculating the odds of each event occurring in the draw (299 draws = 299 events!) think about all of the possible outcomes: The rules state (from what I gather) only one ticket will be left when they are all called out. There cannot be zero tickets left, there cannot be more than one. So, you have 300 possible tickets (the sample space) and you can only choose one. Then, you're at your simple 1/300 with a though exercise far easier than I wrote it up to be. Ahh, the shortcuts you learn in upper-level math...I'd be glad for those years of my life back, actually. And congrats, man! Personally, the law of averages say you should win that 1 in 300 times if you play an infinitely vast number of times, but if my experiences are worth anything it's more like 1 in a million! Lucky man! Of course, the only raffle I ever win anything in is the FragFest raffle (Coming again in 2006, be there or be a regular quadrilateral!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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