Winning chances?

Holy random.
(Chance to win)=1/(entries)

If the random generator is perfect, the chance is (number of copies) to (number of entries), which is most case works out to about 0.5% or less.

STATISTICS LESSON INCOMING

Your number of entries (1) divided by the number of total entries.
So lets say you enter (1) time in a giveaway for Mirror's Edge, which has 1000 entries (including yours). Your chance to win in this case would be 1 / 1000, or a 0.1% chance to win.

Technically if it draws for each copy separately its more like The multiplication of 1 - (1/number of entries - 1n) for each copy, where n begins at 0 and increases by 1 for each additional copy, then you subtract the result from 1.

So 1- (1- (1/#of entries) 1-(1/(#entries - 1)) 1-(1/(#entries - 2)) ... etc

Is there really enough of a difference for me to point this out? No, but I felt like figuring it out, and then I wasn't very well going to not share it.

To put it in simpler terms, if you had two 10% chances, what is your chance of winning? It's not 20%. It's actually 1- ((1 - 0.1) (1 - 0.1)) = 1 - (0.9 0.9) = 1-0.81 = 19%

This becomes more apparent when you realise that 10 10% chances is not the same as having a 100% chance of winning... but you do have a pretty good chance of winning (65%).

Enter

ALL THE MAGIKA DLC THINGS!

low chances it seems :(

I know what you mean. I feel like I will never win.

Since most giveaways now have more than 1k entrants, your respective chances are less than 0.1 percent.

Your chances are 0 in 130.
HA!
Sorry.

I just got invited and im really hoping that my chances are not that bad

There's a factor written into the random generator that LOWERS your chance to win anytime you make a forum post about your chances to win.

Keep in mind that your chances to win used to be 0%, prior to joining the site. No matter what your chances are from here on out, are 100% better than then. So no bitching about low chances.

1/number of entries - this is your chance. So they're really bad. But some kinda pseudorandom number generator is more good than nothing.