Regarding Lotteries ...

[Anthrazit]

1 hour ago, Tyrone said:

Readerz is right here, but it's difficult to explain to a non-economist.

He assumes price of lottery tickets × number of lottery tickets = lottery prize value.

Arguing this assumption is pointless.

Now the thing that is counterintuitive is that 'giving 20% of the tickets for free to teammates' also reduces your income by 20%. You're using your teammates to buy a risk reduction (risk hedging), since you aren't gaining any money directly.

Statistically, hedging that risk has no impact on the win percentage of participants, cause buying 10% of tickets always provides 10% win chance.

 

Additional edit:

Even more counterintuitive is that risk hedging an "expensive" lottery results in even less profit than a fair one.
Expensive lottery being: Lottery prize value < Ticket price + number of tickets.
If you sell all the tickets normally, you'd gain the difference between those two as "scam amount (not really but people like to call it that)"

If you hedge 20% of the tickets, you lose 20% of that "scam amount" by not selling them.

 

So it would actually make more sense from the host perspective to make a "cheap lottery" where Lottery prize value > Ticket price + number of tickets, and give free tickets to team members.

In that situation, hedging risk is more profitable.

There are several possible circumstances were your basic scenario could fall short of the reality and where redspawns argument would have more weight

• If there is a limit in the amount of buyers you find for your tickets: There might be a limit in the amount of people interested in buying tickets/they might have a limit on how many tickets they all will buy. In that case creating tickets above this limit and distributing them to yourself has no negative impact on your income (as they would not have sold anyway) but still provide the positive side effects.
• If it is difficult to find enough buyers/to sell all the tickets (in a desired timeframe or even at all)
  • Promotion by artificial inflating the number of tickets sold: Having a lottery with 100 tickets, zero tickets sold might seem less attractive to participate in than one with 200 tickets where half of them are already (allegedly) sold.
  • Promotion by inflating the total number of tickets available: Comparing a lottery of 200 tickets instead of 100, a participant might be inclined to buy more tickets (e.g. 20 instead of 10 to reach a desired odd to win), thus possibly enabling to sell more tickets than one normally would.
• ...
• If there are (further) biases on the part of the gamblers leading them to participate (more) in the lottery
  It would be nice to get some insight here from people actually gambling in lotteries on the factors that motivate them (more/less) to buy tickets.

[Raederz]

1 hour ago, Anthrazit said:

If there is a limit in the amount of buyers you find for your tickets: There might be a limit in the amount of people interested in buying tickets/they might have a limit on how many tickets they all will buy. In that case creating tickets above this limit and distributing them to yourself has no negative impact on your income (as they would not have sold anyway) but still provide the positive side effects.

Number of tickets available has always been set as soon as the lottery thread is oppened. As suggested in the main post, it should be wrote clearly in rules that any lottery caracteristic can be changed without moderator approval.

If it's just about claiming unsold tickets, we're still in the situation we've been talking about.

 

The host gets to know the tickets wont sell, well, but he already "paid" his part, since he mailed the prize to the moderator. This risk, he took it the day he started the lottery. Now, even if he choose to make less income and hold the remaining tickets, all participants are still satisfied of what they paid for.

 

Idk if you've been talking about creating extra tickets (over the first set limit which is most of the time 100 or 200), then, I would advice to totally forbid this measure, as long as it directly affects already participating people.

 

The "will they sell" question doesnt even need to be paused. As long as the value of the prize is equal to the sum of ticket prices, then, selling or not, ticket are worth the chance they give.

 

We don't write it this way, but in fact, tickets represent parts of the prize, and, since the beggining of the lottery, the host owns the whole prize, and, using tickets, sell parts of it, in a divided version of it. Only point of the lottery is to give tickets a power, once they are all sold, to conclude on a winner.

 

(not sure if my english is understandable here, did my best)

 

1 hour ago, Anthrazit said:

If it is difficult to find enough buyers/to sell all the tickets (in a desired timeframe or even at all)

• Promotion by artificial inflating the number of tickets sold: Having a lottery with 100 tickets, zero tickets sold might seem less attractive to participate in than one with 200 tickets where half of them are already (allegedly) sold.
• Promotion by inflating the total number of tickets available: Comparing a lottery of 200 tickets instead of 100, a participant might be inclined to buy more tickets (e.g. 20 instead of 10 to reach a desired odd to win), thus possibly enabling to sell more tickets than one normally would.

This is something I talked about in the main post, suggesting rules that lower the risks of failing lottery (by failing I mean not-selling tickets)

 

1 hour ago, Anthrazit said:

If there are (further) biases on the part of the gamblers leading them to participate (more) in the lottery
It would be nice to get some insight here from people actually gambling in lotteries on the factors that motivate them (more/less) to buy tickets.

If this question can be asked here, it is also asked a lot in real life.

Who really guess IRL lotteries are worth it in 2018 ? Nobody who is educated. But still, millions of people take part of it.

Here we're entering psychological notions I don't have, but hopes, risk aversion, fun, and addiction will be the main subjects imo.

 

This is kinda different in PokeMMO as long as the host pays no tax, and has no obligation to make profit. Every participant is free to judge if the ticket is worth the potential it has, and if he's willing or not to get this ticket, worth or not, for his reasons (fun, $ détachment, particular appreciation for the prize, or even profit if he finds out it's worth it, in which case he would be tempted to buy all remaining tickets (such a case happens when you look at the lottery in an investment way, and think that total ticket price > prize value)).

 

Mathematics help us to find out if it's a scam or not, but, as you said, the biases makes mathematics unable to give any conclusion about participants comportement.

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Raederz

[Anthrazit]

Hey, I'll not quote to not make this to long :D
Just to clarify, the cases I listed were meant to influence the (economic) decision of the lottery holder before he starts the lottery.

I implied that the rules to not change the lottery after it started apply and also implied that in order to make the (economic) decisions the lottery holder has an assumption of his possibilites (e.g. how much he will sell in total/with which prices/how the pace in which tickets are 'bought' [allegedly or effectively] will influence the sale/...)

[Raederz]

Imo host assumptions is always (before it starts) that he will sell all the tickets.

Making assumptions about a certain number of tickets selling will always be a mistake, if we can predict if customers are pushed to buy tickets or not (with values), nothing helps us predict in what proportion (theory -without psychology- will always say that either everything or nothing is likely to sell).

 

Now, if you refeere to a fear from possible customers to buy tickets when they are looking for some tickets, I suggested a rule that give them security, about the lottery being held, and their ticket being as efficient as promised (or more in case of host inactivity) within a month.

(See the suggestion (3), in the main post)

Such a rule may, at the same time, discourage the host on making such fanciful and kinda useless strategies, AND give the customers a better confidence in lotteries, remaining their ability to value the prize as only determinant factor of their participation.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Raederz

[Goku]

17 hours ago, redspawn said:

How can you pay lets say 20 tickets to yourself?

Increase the original prize with the amount worth 20 tickets. That'll be fair I guess

[Raederz]

2 hours ago, Goku said:

Increase the original prize with the amount worth 20 tickets. That'll be fair I guess

If the lottery caracteristics are still the same as the day the thread were posted, there is no adjustment to make. Being held by the host, or any other player wont change anything for the ticket value and potential.

Please dont keep answering to this, there are way enought ressources page one to understand this, which is not the original purpose of this topic.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Raederz

[Goku]

24 minutes ago, Raederz said:

If the lottery caracteristics are still the same as the day the thread were posted, there is no adjustment to make. Being held by the host, or any other player wont change anything for the ticket value and potential.

Please dont keep answering to this, there are way enought ressources page one to understand this, which is not the original purpose of this topic.

Well giving your teammates free tickets I suppose was also not part of the topic??? JUST absurd. @Akshit please can you tell him how lotto works cuz @redspawn did his best and clearly @Raederz kindergarten math just proved that he quite didn't understand what me and razi were trying to explain to him. I suggest a rule where you can't buy yourself into your own lottery via giving your teammates free tickets how does that sound??? Can you understand that?

[Bearminator]

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

Players creating a lottery must first private message a Trade Corner Moderator before creating a thread.
This is ok, but maybe there should be some filtering from moderators, judging the risk for the lottery to fail, according to the prize itself, and the price it is given.

I don't think it's good idea for obvious reason- this way we would need to determine prize. Lets give example, someone will message me with shiny Gigalith. Currently only one on gtl is for 1.5m but host wants 2.5 m total. Should I cancel it/not allow it because it's risk for the lottery to fail?
No. In lotteries, you're not buying full value of prize. You're buying one ticket. 

If player would make 50m lottery for 1m shiny, obviously it wouldnt fill. He would then be asked to change amount of tickets for example. 
 

 

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

Lottery threads must not be opened until the staff member has confirmed receipt of the prize.

Same as above, can prevent some kind of "hold up" scam idk. But it's not exactely made the right way.

This rule can be kept, but it should be completed with a rule making customers able to buy tickets only once the moderator himself gave the confirmation on holding the prize.

(Which is currenly the case most of the time, but there are no rules about it).

It's obvious that we don't allow lotteries without moderator vision right now and scamming is banable. If someone would make lottery thread claiming that for example I have prize, and I know I don't, I would nuke it asap.

 

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

Once a lottery has been opened on the forums, it must be completed.

This last rule is, in my opinion, the beggining of a nice rule, but it lacks too many details for it to be good. 

What happens if a lottery takes too long to find customers ? What is "too long" ?

What if the host become inactive ?

What if any customer want his money back at any moment ? After a certain duration ?

What if the host want to change the lottery caracteristics after it started (price and/or number of tickets available) ? What about already paid tickets then ?

I will tear apart this one :

What happens if a lottery takes too long to find customers ? What is "too long" ?

/ I think that 2 months of active getting players interest is enought. It's not official measure right now, depends of situation as well. 

 

What if the host become inactive ?

Then, after we will try to reach OP asking to confirm getting money or to give at least sign if his lottery can go. If there will be not a single way of contact from him- no message, no reply- no login into game- we would simply run lottery, because it needs to be held.

 

What if any customer want his money back at any moment ? After a certain duration ?

I'm sorry but I don't think that one should be possible, unless host will agree in certain occasion. This can potentially bring issues with someone canceling ticket in last minute. If you want to buy tickets, you do or do not.

 

What if the host want to change the lottery caracteristics after it started (price and/or number of tickets available) ? What about already paid tickets then ?

I don't see issue here. If host has 100 tickets for 10m as example, then he changes it for , idk, 200 tickets but same value- then if player bought ticket nr1, he would have ticket nr 1 and 101 or whatever- because he bought % chance to get pokemon. If host would like to decrease tickets- its his right and its best for player- his %increase.

 

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

Free lottery :

Does it belong in trade corner ? How to determine time/ticket limit ? How to prevent alts ? Can the host put conditions on the ticket claiming ? What kind of conditions ?

 

Varying price :

Can the host put different prices for people who achived different kind of stuff ? What kind of achievement ? This can be overseen by a same rule for the changing ticket-price due to not filling.

 

Free tickets in non-free lottery :

Extreme version of varying prices, should it be allowed ? What kind of achievements can be asked for it ?

Free lottery belong in trade corner. It's trade after all. Time/ticket limit is up to host, since it's free, players can just wait for free lottery to end. They don't lose anything.

Varying price- Yes, just take yours lottery as example. You said that someone will make drawing, he gets free ticket- is it fair to people who only paid? No, but they can do garbage draw and get one too. If this would include something unethic- like "if you're on my friendlist you get free ticket" then its no-no.

 

I think little things like drawing, or "catch this pokemon and show me (SHOW, not TRADE) is fine. I would like host to contact us to discuss it first tho.

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

(1) When the host private message the moderator, can be refused, according reasons such as :

- Invaild prize

Any prize that is not adapted to lotteries. Such as "lava cookie lottery", "1*31 field egg group breeder lottery". Lotteries are an investment (in time and effort) for both the host and the moderator, it must be reserved for valuable stuff. Also should disable lotteries for stuff like shiny eevee or highly limited items. Prevents high risks of failing lottery, give legitimity to the effort given by moderators on making lotteries possible.

I never seen lava cookie lottery, smallest one I held was for something like 300k vanity so I dont see point here.

As for shiny eevee etc- I don't see reason to limit value. 

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

- Invalid price

Total price of the tickets is way too high regarding the prize. Prevents high risks of failing lottery.

- Any other reason that may give the lottery an high risk of failing.

Any refusal will be directly discussed between the moderator and the host.

Take this 20m for "10m value". It sold out. If there would be problem, tickets wouldn't sold out, he would have to change value /number of tickets and thats all.

On 5/21/2018 at 3:40 PM, Raederz said:

No ticket can be claimed before a moderator has confirmed the lottery validity on the thread.

 

(3) If the lottery is not filled after 2 weeks, the moderator in charge will contact the host to :

- Cancel the lottery :

 

 

We will not allow canceling lotteries at the moment. Amount of checking things and sometimes misscomunication makes it really bad. If you're running lottery, you need to think how to sell tickets.

 

 

 

There was debate about values too. I will answer it like this:

 

If player A makes lottery for around 2m assets, and tickets are up to 4m- it's fine. It's his decision. If lottery will not fill, it's his decision as well. We will ask to change tickets/ value or anything, but its still okay.

There was huge debate about how someone is making lottery with higher value of tickets than assets they were inside lottery. What is common missunderstanding is that player is not buying for example 10*1m shiny for 15m. He is not overpaying. He buys ticket for for example, 1m. If he wins, then his risk pays. I'm sure players have common sense at high enough level to know that they're not guaranted to get prize. 

 

 

 

I will tried to make it all as much readable as I could atm.

 

[Raederz]

40 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

I don't think it's good idea for obvious reason- this way we would need to determine prize. Lets give example, someone will message me with shiny Gigalith. Currently only one on gtl is for 1.5m but host wants 2.5 m total. Should I cancel it/not allow it because it's risk for the lottery to fail?
No. In lotteries, you're not buying full value of prize. You're buying one ticket. 

If player would make 50m lottery for 1m shiny, obviously it wouldnt fill. He would then be asked to change amount of tickets for example.

Here you got the point, moderators wont approve absurd submissions. Stuff can be overvalued, but in a certain measure. 2m5 for something listed 1m5 on gtl is not always absurd, maybe for differenciation reasons, from the prize itself, or even for the way of selling which is different, as long as people need less capital to invest in a lottery.

 

This rule won't make moderators "Value Judge" but "Good-Faith Judge", I hope I'm understandable on this point.

It makes the refusal pretty exceptionnal.

 

44 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

I will tear apart this one :

What happens if a lottery takes too long to find customers ? What is "too long" ?

/ I think that 2 months of active getting players interest is enought. It's not official measure right now, depends of situation as well. 

 

What if the host become inactive ?

Then, after we will try to reach OP asking to confirm getting money or to give at least sign if his lottery can go. If there will be not a single way of contact from him- no message, no reply- no login into game- we would simply run lottery, because it needs to be held.

 

What if any customer want his money back at any moment ? After a certain duration ?

I'm sorry but I don't think that one should be possible, unless host will agree in certain occasion. This can potentially bring issues with someone canceling ticket in last minute. If you want to buy tickets, you do or do not.

 

What if the host want to change the lottery caracteristics after it started (price and/or number of tickets available) ? What about already paid tickets then ?

I don't see issue here. If host has 100 tickets for 10m as example, then he changes it for , idk, 200 tickets but same value- then if player bought ticket nr1, he would have ticket nr 1 and 101 or whatever- because he bought % chance to get pokemon. If host would like to decrease tickets- its his right and its best for player- his %increase.

First, thank you sharing your vision.

My point here was not really to get answers, but to precise what questions we (players) want to staff to discuss about (in a private part) to lead to clear rules.

I also tried to give my vision behind the rules I suggested. I keep thinking it needs to be discussed between staff-only as long as there is no right answer, being very subjective.

 

On the last question, I obviously agree that no participant can be injutred by any changing in the lottery. They should most of the time keep the same chance, and if practical reason need it, it may be allowed to make them advantaged of the change.

Out of this, I think that, for logistic and practical reasons, this may be forbidden, or at least, controlled a lot and made exceptionnal.

 

51 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

Free lottery belong in trade corner. It's trade after all. Time/ticket limit is up to host, since it's free, players can just wait for free lottery to end. They don't lose anything.

Varying price- Yes, just take yours lottery as example. You said that someone will make drawing, he gets free ticket- is it fair to people who only paid? No, but they can do garbage draw and get one too. If this would include something unethic- like "if you're on my friendlist you get free ticket" then its no-no.

 

I think little things like drawing, or "catch this pokemon and show me (SHOW, not TRADE) is fine. I would like host to contact us to discuss it first tho.

Giving a special rule "[Some particular people] can have cheaper tickets" is not fair, because its not a special rule. But, as it's been a long discussion here page one, should we prevent hosts from giving tickets to their friend, as long as it never affects any other participant, but only reduces the hosts income ? In my opinion, it should not be forbidden, as long as giving items, pokemons, or $s to a friend is allowed.

Would be another decision if giving tickets had an impact on other participants, but this is not the case.

 

So, the rule I suggested as "Only [some kind of] special rule are allowed" could be concretized like "Any special rule must first be discussed with the moderator who will be the only judge, on approving it or not".

 

56 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

I never seen lava cookie lottery, smallest one I held was for something like 300k vanity so I dont see point here.

As for shiny eevee etc- I don't see reason to limit value. 

My point is to make rules clear, targeting particular cases can help reducing future prospective problems.

Just by precising you give yourself the right not to approve a lottery because of it's value, you make sure people won't cry about it the day they wanna host the lava cookie stuff.

 

The shiny eevee exemple is because lotteries are particular in their need of comunity implication, it's rare for a lottery to only have 2 or 3 customers, and rares shinies is a market where there are a relly little amount of actors.

 

I see no point giving limits, but as most of the rules I suggested, I feel it wiser to say that moderator CAN use it as a refusal reason.

Btw, a 500 tickets shiny eevee lottery would not be judged the same as a 10 tickets one, even if the value is the same, we rarely see people taking 100 tickets from any lottery.

 

It may look like a lot of responsibilities I add to the moderator role, but in my opinion it is important, and nothing prevents him to ask advice to the rest of the staff. Btw, in most of the lotteries, there will be no need of all these judgement, they just help covering special cases.

 

1 hour ago, Bearminator said:

Take this 20m for "10m value". It sold out. If there would be problem, tickets wouldn't sold out, he would have to change value /number of tickets and thats all.

As said above, the point is not to stop overvaluation, but absurdvaluation, if the moderator feels it can sell, then run it.

 

1 hour ago, Bearminator said:

We will not allow canceling lotteries at the moment. Amount of checking things and sometimes misscomunication makes it really bad. If you're running lottery, you need to think how to sell tickets.

Mistakes are not always avoidable.

Canceling is sometimes the most fair issue, if only it's managed the right way. Mailing the moderator the refunding amount, and letting him refund all participants, before mailing back the prize to the host, sounds, to me, like a clean way to cancel a defective lottery.

1 hour ago, Bearminator said:

He is not overpaying.

Theorically he is, in practice, this is harder to affirm. In practice, the theorical overpaying is not always something unwanted. Not everybody value everything the same way, for personal reasons, which is why non-absurd overpay is not, and should not be forbidden.

 

Thanks for your answer :)

[Raederz]

We got an update on Lottery rules ! :D

 

I'm not totally satisfied, but it's cool to see we can have an impact sometimes :)

 

My opinion about the new rules : 

 

Spoiler

Quote

• Players creating a lottery must first private message a Trade Corner Moderator before creating a thread.

Nothing to say, here it's ok.

 

Quote

• The player must mail the item/Pokemon being raffled to the Staff member who will keep it safe until the lottery ends. The staff member in question will draw the number and mail the prize to the winner. Lottery threads must not be opened until the staff member has confirmed receipt of the prize.

Same.

 

 

Quote

• Lotteries can only be canceled if at least one week has passed since it has been opened AND 0 tickets have been sold. If 1 or more tickets have been sold, it cannot be canceled.

I don't really like this one. It's better than before, but I think, this :

Quote

The host need to mail all the money he got from the lottery + 1k per customer to the moderator, so he can refund all customers before closing the thread, and mailing back the prize to the host.

should be considered. This point, of cancelling or not, and how, is really the main thing to fix imo.

 

Quote

• There is a 1 month time limit on lotteries, and a limit of 250 tickets. If either of these limits are reached, the numbers will be drawn. Hosts can choose lower limits for each, but not higher.

I don't know what's the 250 tickets limit meant for but I like this rule.

Still, we give no solution here for 1 month old lotteries. What happens then ? You draw the winner, ok, but what about unclaimed ticket ? Theorically, as they reprensent unsold parts of the prize, they should go for the host, but I heard you already did it like they are just removed, it sounds like a punishment for the host, but I see no reason he should be blamed here :/

This also may force people to use very bad strategies to get prizes for really low price at the last minutes of the month. And at the same time, freeze the ticket selling for the late days of the month, some bad people waiting the last minute to make sure they pay less ticket for a better chance.

 

Quote

• Ticket prices can only be reduced by 50% - no more, no less, and can only be reduced once during the lottery. If ticket prices are reduced, each existing participant must receive double the number of tickets they purchased at full price. If this would put the lottery over the 250 ticket limit, prices cannot be reduced. Tickets cannot be given to players at a discount, including for free.

This rule is ok, I'm not sure it was a priority, but it's still a good thing to have more control on variations.

 

[Bearminator]

@Raederz The host need to mail all the money he got from the lottery + 1k per customer to the moderator, so he can refund all customers before closing the thread, and mailing back the prize to the host.

 

where this one come from? Have I missed it somewhere? 

[Raederz]

12 minutes ago, Bearminator said:

@Raederz The host need to mail all the money he got from the lottery + 1k per customer to the moderator, so he can refund all customers before closing the thread, and mailing back the prize to the host.

 

where this one come from? Have I missed it somewhere? 

Main post, first part of the (3)

always been here since it's never been edited :p

Edited May 24, 2018 by Raederz

[Bearminator]

1 minute ago, Raederz said:

Main post, first part of the (3)

always been here since it's never been edited :p

Oh you meant your post? I was afraid we left it in official rules for a moment. 

[Raederz]

1 minute ago, Bearminator said:

Oh you meant your post? I was afraid we left it in official rules for a moment. 

Ah yes x) The quote thing wasnt clear my bad haha

 

Also forget to say :

 

Quote

Tickets cannot be given to players at a discount, including for free.

What about people who often give money and/or stuff to each others ?

He can buy the ticket, for real, but getting offered the same amount of $ maybe 3 days before, of after.

Knowing that, is this rule really relevant ?

[razimove]

1 hour ago, Raederz said:

Tickets cannot be given to players at a discount, including for free.

@Bearminator how can you enforce this rule? If the moderator isn't entirely responsable for the lottery, this can't be enforced. The player can just tell you X person paid, when X didn't pay.

Also, Raederz had an interesting concept on his lottery, where a picture of a clefable would get you 1 free ticket in the lottery, meaning everyone had access to that free ticket as long as a picture was provided, is this also against the rules? It was an interesting concept and brings 0 harm to a lottery.

Edited May 24, 2018 by redspawn

[Raederz]

6 minutes ago, redspawn said:

Also, Raederz had an interesting concept on his lottery, where a picture of a clefable would get you 1 free ticket in the lottery, meaning everyone had access to that free ticket as long as a picture was provided, is this also against the rules? It was an interesting concept and brings 0 harm to a lottery.

 

On 5/23/2018 at 11:25 AM, Bearminator said:

Varying price- Yes, just take yours lottery as example. You said that someone will make drawing, he gets free ticket- is it fair to people who only paid? No, but they can do garbage draw and get one too. If this would include something unethic- like "if you're on my friendlist you get free ticket" then its no-no.

 

[razimove]

25 minutes ago, Raederz said:

 

 

I see, my bad, for some reason didn't see that one point.