(Opinions Needed!) Crowd-funded 50/50 Egg Lotto!

[Andy]

So I've been thinking about how to get more eggs to better satisfy my egg-gambling urges and 50/50 seems to be a way worth trying! I figure if it works at the local hockey games here in my city it just might work on Ephinea too!

Basic thoughts so far are as follows:

• Collect eggs from people who are interested.
• Once ~50 eggs are collected, I will do the draw for the 50/50. Winner takes home their egg prize.
  
• This lotto will keep going even after the first winner, as long as people keep donating.
  
• If 50 eggs are not met after a certain time period (T.B.D.) than your eggs will be returned to you.
• Ballot prices are possibly as follows:
  • * 2 eggs = 1 ballot
  • * 5 eggs = 3 ballot
  • * 10 eggs = 7 ballots

Leave thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions whether you're for or against something like this, and don't forget to partake in the poll!

EDIT: More detailed explanation is down below! Be sure to check it out!

 

[Melirei]

How would you prove the system is fair to all participant, and how would you prove you're trustworthy?

I think someone also proposed something similar many months ago, but with Mag service instead of eggs, it wasn't successful since he didn't have a solution.

 

[Andy]

How would you prove the system is fair to all participant, and how would you prove you're trustworthy?

I think someone also proposed something similar many months ago, but with Mag service instead of eggs, it wasn't successful since he didn't have a solution.

All eggs and ballot numbers + names would be kept track of where everyone can see, either in the main post here or in a read-only google docs or something similar.

Not sure how I would prove I am trustworthy. I'm open to suggestions though on the matter.

 

[Cookie]

I don't really understand this. Is this for people who want to bet less than 5 eggs? Because otherwise they could just do 50/50 double themselfs.

You want to collect 50 eggs, then bet all at once and then lose? Sounds like a terrible idea to me. A 50/50 winning strategy is to start low and double your bet every time you lose. While this sounds super easy, it's actually very risky, because your winnings are very low and your bets get raised exponentially. You can win with it, but need lots of eggs to compensate long lose streaks.

Example:
Bet 5: lose
Bet 10: lose
Bet 20: lose
Bet 40: win

Spent eggs: 75
Won eggs: 80

Again: Sounds / looks easy, but it can go horrible wrong.

 

[Melirei]

Off-topic here: that strategy can slowly increase your egg count, at the cost of having the risk that you lose a lot very quickly. It is not really a winning strategy, as the risk exactly counteracts your gain.

For people who are interested, you can try this out: https://www.random.org/bytes/ Choose the option "Binary" and generate 25 bytes (8*25 digits of 0 and 1) or any amount you want; and treat each "0" as a loss and each "1" as a win. From start to finish, every "1" you see gives you +5 eggs and every consecutive four or five or six "0" (depending on how many eggs you have) means you lose them all. What you probably will see is that you lose more often than you might think.

 

[Cookie]

I just voted "no" and i like how it is 50/50 now.

 

[Andy]

I don't really understand this. Is this for people who want to bet less than 5 eggs? Because otherwise they could just do 50/50 double themselfs.

A little more detailed explanation to hopefully clear up your confusion:

1. You buy ballots with eggs according to the prices listed above.
2. Each ballot is considered an entry into the drawing for that prize pool of eggs.
3. Once enough eggs are collected, or enough time has passed (depending on participation) I will do a draw. This can be done either with a website that generates a random number, or we can code a simple program to do the draw.
4. The winner of the draw wins 50% of the eggs in the prize pool (I'll probably bump up the winner's portion to somewhere between 60% to 80% to provide more incentive for people to participate). If the prize ends up being a non-whole number (something like 26.2 eggs), I'll always round it up in the winners favor (so they would get 27 eggs).
5. Everyone who has placed eggs into the pool will be listed somewhere everyone can see, as well as how many ballots they have in that current prize pool.
6. A list of winners and the amounts they've won will also be kept, as well as anything else people would like to be documented.
7. If not enough eggs are collected for a draw they will be returned to their donors.

My hope is that I can get enough eggs and double them enough times to get some nice prizes from the tier lists. After this easter event is over I could set up something else where you can win some of nice prizes I've hopefully won from the tier-gambling NPC.

From there I would like to continue this into a weekly or bi-weekly PD pool prize where people can buy ballots every week with PDs. But that's a whole other bag of worms to deal with at a later time

As always I'm open to any and all thoughts, comments, questions, opinions, suggestions, etc on anything posted here. If you have better way of doing things, if you think a different community event would be better, or if you feel like a few certain changes would make you more willing to participate than let me know. If this is an absolutely stupid garbage idea and I should feel bad then feel free to shout at me 8)

 

[Trykla]

This might be cool if there were 2 winners so all the eggs were given out, but as I understand it, you ("the house," if you will) will always be profiting which just isn't fair and I don't think anyone will go for it.

 

[Andy]

This might be cool if there were 2 winners so all the eggs were given out, but as I understand it, you ("the house," if you will) will always be profiting which just isn't fair and I don't think anyone will go for it.

Well as I mentioned above it's to help me get eggs so that I can gamble them.
If I can gamble properly I can self-sustain my eggs without having to keep any winnings or buy eggs anymore, at which point all the eggs in the pool can go to the top 2 people as you mentioned.
However, if me keeping eggs is the only thing preventing people from participating then I can give them all away right from the get-go, and just buy my own ballots with eggs I've found myself.

If this ever becomes a PD lotto I'll gladly give them to the top 2 winners right away.