Congratulations again to all who participated in the latest SOS raffle ..
for the XMas afghan and soaps.  We raised $420 for Jean Caputo-Lee's
shelter in this raffle, which is great!
 
There have been some questions about how this raffle was run, and whether
it was "fair" that one gentleman won four or five ferret soaps.  So, I
thought I'd take a moment to explain how this raffle was run:
 
SOS sold tickets for the raffle at the cost of $1 each, or 6 for $5.  When
people bought tickets, I assigned them "numbers".  For instance, let's say
that the first person who bought tickets bought 6, and the second person
bought ten.  I sent an email to person one saying the he/she had tickets
1-6, and I sent an email to the second person saying that he/she had 7-16.
I copied the emails with the "numbers" to the other SOS members, but NOT
to BIG, since he would be running the random number generator.
 
When the ticket selling deadline had passed, it turned out that we had
sold 474 tickets.  So, I emailed BIG, and told him to please use the range
1 through 474 for his random number generator.  The generator first
"pulled" one number as the afghan winner, and then another 10 to win the
ferret soaps.  Again, BIG was just generating numbers out of the range
of tickets we sold ..  he had no way of knowing which person had which
tickets!  The random number generator was written to give each number
between 1 and 474 (in this case) an equal chance of winning .. without
allowing one number to be pulled more than once.
 
Well, as it turned out, one person won four or five of the ferret soaps
because four or five of the tickets he held were selected.  Some people
have questioned whether this was "fair", or somehow "rigged".  Well,
yes it was (fair, that is)... of the $420 that we received in ticket
purchases, this gentleman had bought $85 worth of tickets ... 102 tickets
in all.  So, he donated about 1/5th of the money we raised ..  and held
about 1/5th of all of the tickets, too.
 
I'd love to run a raffle where EVERYONE could get a prize just for
entering ... but I can't afford to do that, unfortunately, since I donate
all of the ferret soaps (and shipping on them) myself.  (I also donated
the shipping on the afghan, and Kat Parsons was kind enough to donate the
actual afghan).
 
It seems only fair to me, though, that the more chances you buy, the
greater your odds of winning a prize (or multiple prizes).  If the odds
were the same for the person who spent $100 and the person who spent $1,
I doubt we'd raise as much money running raffles.  Heck, if you had the
same odds of winning your state lottery by buying $1 worth of tickets as
buying $500 worth of tickets, I don't think those lotteries would make
much money, either!
 
BTW, to all of the winners .. congratulations again, and I should have
your prizes ready to mail in the next week.  My family member is still in
the hospital, so I'm just running a BIT slower than usual .. I apologize!
 
- Ela
 
 
   (000)___(000)        Ela Heyn
   /   @    @  \        [log in to unmask]
   |           |
   ======@======    http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/5483
[Posted in FML issue 3648]