You're calculating something, but you're then misinterpreting the results.
If you have some set of currently active giveaways, with a number of entries equal to {E1, E2, E3, ..., EN}, then the chance of winning each one is equal to {1/E1, 1/E2, 1/E3, ..., 1/EN}. The chance that you'll win at least one of them will then be 1 - ((1-1/E1) (1-1/E2) (1-1/E3) ... (1-1/EN)). So, for the simplest situation, if you enter two giveaways, each with 2 total entries, the chance of you winning at least one of them is 1 - ((1-1/2) * (1-1/2)) = .75.
If any giveaways you've entered have already ended and you didn't win them, then the chance that you'll win them is 0. You can't then use them in the above calculation. That is, if you entered one giveaway with 2 entries and you didn't win, and you then enter another giveaway with 2 entries, you have a .5 chance of winning that. You aren't owed anything from that previous giveaway, and having entered that has no effect on the second giveaway.
So if you've already entered 1,000 times without winning anything, that doesn't mean that you're due for a win or that the chance of the next one will be higher for you. It just means you weren't lucky before. If every giveaway has 1,000 entries, you'll still need to enter an average of 1,000 giveaways after that in order to win.
The same goes for those coin flips. Assuming a fair coin, every time you flip it, there's exactly a .5 chance of getting heads. Even if you've just flipped it ten times and gotten a tails each time, there's still a .5 chance of getting heads on the next flip.
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It's better to ask how much of a chance do I have to NOT win. If you know this, then you will get sort of an idea of how much chance you have to win.
Let's say you're entering a giveaway of 500 entries. Your chance to NOT win is 499 out of 500 or 99,8%. Nice odds, right?
Now what are the chances of getting this result (ie. NOT win) two times in a row. We have to multiply our two chances to know. So 499/500 * 499/500 = 0,996 = 99,6%. So to know how much chance you have to get the same result 3 times in a row you'll have to do (499/500)^3=0,994011 or 99,4%.
Let's jump ahead to 500 times in a row (ie. you entered 500 giveaways with 500 entries). The math: (499/500)^500= 0,3675 = 36,75%. It's still a very big chance to not win 500 times in a row. 1000 times: (499/500)^1000 = 0,1351 or 13,51%. 2000 tries: (499/500)^2000 = 0,01824 = 1,824%. This means on average about 2 people in 100 will not win even after entering 2000 giveaways with a chance of 1 in 500.
Then why is there a 1 in 500 chance you might ask. Statistics are all about infinity. After entering an infinite number of times everybody will approach this number. Meaning that if you divide the amount of games won by the amount of giveaways entered it will resemble 1/500 if you enter an infinite number times.
If you would take the average of everyone's winnings divided by entries to this moment, you would see that it approaches the correct number.
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> Math! Take a coin for instance. No not mine, I'm poor. But flip your own once. Chance of a heads is .50 or 50%. Flip it again and we do some fancy pants mathy dance and now you have a 75% chance of getting a heads! Look at that! Your chances just went up! Again and it's 87.5%. Keep going and it will inch closer and closer to 100% but never really get there.
No. No. NO. no. Nein. nope. No SIR! No WAY! Each toss of the coin is entirely INDEPENDENT of the previous or indeed the next toss - so each one has a 50% probability of returning a head.
And the same goes for SteamGifts. Each entry into different giveaways are independent.
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Depends how you read it. There is a 75% you have a head somewhere. I thought he meant you flip it once, then flip it again and the 2nd time will have a 75% head chance not 50% - like flipping it once makes it a weighted coin for the 2nd time.
Thanks for explaining that he meant there is a 75% chance that one (or more) of the two tosses will have given a head.
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I apologize if someone has already stated this, but I looked over your document and didn't see any stochastics at all... Also, it should be noted that a "random winner" generator isn't random because, well, computers can't be fully random. So, to actually know what your percentage chance is (given any variable) you'd have to look at the hard code to see what kind of algorithm they have in place for deciding such a thing. Just my 2 bits. :D
Edit: added a link to stochastic probabilities in the off-chance you're not aware of them.
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So I see this a lot around these parts; folks asking "I entered 1000 contests, when will I win?" or "why does this guy have 500 entries and 100 wins?" etc... A fair question I suppose, though a bit baiting for many oldtimers here, so why don't you win, eh? What makes some folks win 5 in a row their first week here and others are into their thousands of entries with no luck? Well, Billy... I can call you Billy right? Well, it's just that! LUCK!
But luck is such an ugly term. Seems so flighty. So how bout we use the word "statistics" instead and call in some of his buddies, probability and chance!
First off, the whole "how does this guy win so much" issue. I've seen a few guys here that have an astounding win rate. Or so it seems! If you look at the people with higher than expected win ratios, you'll find that the contests they enter into have only about 10-20 entries! 10 entries means you have a 10% chance to win! That's fantastically high odds! Better odds than handing out your phone number on the street and getting a date odds. Well, that is if you look like me anyways... Moving on...
While objectively, you can say anything you enter is just a chance to win or fail, the number of other people who enter wildly effects the probability of your success. So if you have, again, 10 entries into a contest, that's 10% chance to win; 100 entries is 1% chance, and 1000 is .1% chance... When you start talking 2000-5000 entries into a single contest then well, I think some epic rare loots in WoW have better drop ratios. Still... all things considered, you have an enormously greater chance of winning something here than say the Lottery.
But you all know this jazz and I'm sure you don't want to listen to me babble and rant on and on... So here's the bread and butter; "when will I win?"!!! Well Billy, it all comes down to sample size and number of samples... Or another way, how many contests you enter and how big they are. Someone that enters 100 contests of 1000+ entries has a less chance to win than a guy that enters 100 contests with only 50 entries or less! So how do you figure out when your time comes? Math! Take a coin for instance. No not mine, I'm poor. But flip your own once. Chance of a heads is .50 or 50%. Flip it again and we do some fancy pants mathy dance and now you have a 75% chance of getting a heads! Look at that! Your chances just went up! Again and it's 87.5%. Keep going and it will inch closer and closer to 100% but never really get there.
What that means for YOU, Billy, is that for every contest you enter, your chances to win the next one edge a weeeeeeee bit up a notch. Sure, math is funny and can be skewed by entering a few smaller contests, but it gives you a good idea about how you're doing in the realm of probabilities. (the actual math is kind of simple, just subtract 1 by 1 divided by the number of entries and multiply it by the next contest and the next and next... then subtract 1 by all that and times by 10 and you get a nice percentage.)
But uh, you don't want to really be doing math now... So I made a spreadsheet for it! It only goes up to 1000, but it's mostly there to give you an idea. Now, this is all just fancy number play so it's not like it'll say you've got an 80% chance to win and you will... you just uh, have the odds stacked in your favor for it. The reality is the chance for you to win is reset with every contest. A contest of 100 entries still means you have just 1% chance to win, regardless, but this is just a fun little tool to mess with. (also, the field labeled "Individual Ave." is the real best way to see where you stand... it's just a little more depressing) So there you have it! If someone asks "when will I win?", show them some formulas and hand them a calculator! Or just say "probably never, because the gods of luck hate you"... either way works.
So without further delay:
SteamGifts Chance 2 Win.xls
I did it with Open Office so I'd suggest using that. I locked the sheet to prevent accidents but the password is password.
Oh, and shameless plug, visit my site!
Coffin-Comics.com
Enjoy! ALSO: It might be fun to post what your current "when will I win percentage"! Mine's at 8.8% Not bad... not bad...
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