Mr. Sweepy's Forums

 I have read numerous articles about sweepstakes odds and most of them contain flawed logic or math or both.The most common misconception is that the more sweeps you enter, the better your odds of winning a sweepstakes. The fact is, your odds are only as good as the best odds for a particular sweep. If you enter a sweep where the odds are 1:25, and another where the odds are 1:10,000, your odds on winning something are.....1:25. Each sweep is it's own enitity, with it's own odds. The only advantage to entering multiple sweeps is increasing your chances of getting better odds, but the averages are usually high (1:X,XXX,XXX). This does not apply to Instant Wins which operate under a different format.
To quote Mr.Sweepy, if I may, "The way I consider the odds of winning a big grand prize is not on the individual sweepstake but over a course of a full year. Why? If I enter a 1000 sweeps in a year with an average of 25,000 entries, then my odds of winning would be 1 in 25.". Actually, the only thing that has increased his chances of winning is entering the same sweep multiple times (25 times per sweep in his example). 1:25 are not his odds of winning, they are his entry ratio (25:1). I'm not trying to burst any bubbles, just putting some fallacies to rest.
 

Here's something else to ponder: Your odds are ZERO if you don't enter any particular sweepstakes. I'll continue to enter just as many as I can for prizes that I want. I figure that my odds ARE way better the more I enter, just for the simple fact that if I DON'T enter them, my odds are ZERO that I'll win. Each and every sweepstakes that I enter, my odds go from ZERO to whatever the odds are of that particular sweep, thereby increasing my odds of winning.

Mr Sweepy has been in this business for many years, and has done statistical data analysis on his members, and especially the bigger prize winners' correlation to how many sweepstakes they enter. It is a fact that the more you enter, the better your odds are of winning, period.

Since the odds of my winning a big sweaps are so low I wonder if Big Brother gain bail me out?  I don't need as much as a wall-street CEO parachute.  I measly $5 or $6 million will do.

I have always subscribed to "you can't win if you don't enter" and "someone has to win".  If I actually look at the odds I would never do anything and that would apply to life as weel as sweeping.

 "You can't win if you don't play" is self-evident. I don't think anyone would argue that point, which I wasn't. But if I gave one person 2 quarters and gave another 100 and told them to flip each one once, what are their odds of heads or tails? Not surprizingly they are the same. But you reason that the person with 100 has better odds?

In your example, you say that a person with 2 coins has the exact same odds of winning (let's assume a win = heads) as a person with 100 coins. That is false. The person with 100 has ONE HUNDRED chances of winning, instead of just two.

It does make a difference how many sweeps you enter, and your example with the coins shows just why it does.

Someone tell me my odds. My last big win was in Jan. of 2006 with a $1500. computer ( now we are talking about almost 3 YEARS). I enter between 90 to 120 dailys on ST and about 50 that I have bookmark EVERY SINGLE DAY. This is not counting all the one-timers. Very few times have I missed a day. I have just a few small instant wins.  I hear of members that have won several big ones in a very short time. What am I doing wrong? You name it, I have tried it.  I know it is a matter of luck, but 3 years is more than just bad luck. The only thing that keeps me going is small instant win every once in a while which I am thankful for.

 I believe that my chances of winning a prize are about I : 1,000,000.

I think I could enter one contest a million times and win a prize. Better would be to enter a million contests one time. Or a thousand contests a thousand times. All should equal a win.  If the prize is the Grand or First or the Second prize..That's pure luck.

I'm with you, jerry.

 owikins   Try adding a few sweeps with smaller prizes. Everyone enters for a  car or trip. Many pass on a crock pot or cookware or treadmill.

Thanks, jerry. Actually, in the last month or two, I have started entering Woman's Day, In Touch, & Point Click, but nothing yet.

 I've always wondered about odds.

Say there are 1000 people who entered the same 100 sweepstakes every day. Why is it that certain people out of that 1000 people win prizes....but the other 990 people win zilch? Are some people just naturally lucky? How can you change the odds to favor you?

 Odds are you aren't going to win if you don't enter.  Period.  I haven't won any "big" prizes yet, hope they're coming, and just keep plugging away.  Like you say, it's the little instants that keep ya going.  Besides, what else am I going to do with my computer?  Seriously, I do believe some people are luckier than others, my sister is one of them.  Some people think I am, but when I see what other people win I have to wonder.  One of the guys I work with thinks I'm lucky to have won 2 Ipods since April, but I entered the sweeps, he didn't.  But he will benefit because as soon as the last one I won gets here I'm selling it to him at a discount.  So I guess that makes both of us winners.  Oh crap, it's too early in the morning and I probably haven't made any sense at all here.  Have a great day everybody!  Happy sweeping!  May the odds be with you!

 "Always" and "never" are a lie
 

owilkins, please don't feel bad, you have won over me by $1,000 for a single prize. My highest win since joining is a shaw rug, i estimate around 400-450. i enter twice as much as you on my good days. i won't lie and say everyday, pain and vacations come first. And to the other replies i enter for every CROCKPOT and small items  i see. i would rather have it than a trip. i too wonder what i am doing wrong but i feel like if i am meant to have it i will. Hang in there, we will persevere because our time is coming.

While the odds for each individual sweepstakes do not change no matter how many times you enter, the odds of you winning actually increase very slightly with each sweepstakes you enter.  It's been a while since I did the math, but I was a tutor for combinatorics (looking at the odds of discrete events occurring) in college, so I'll try to explain.

To start with an easy example, look at a deck of cards. The odds of drawing the Ace of Spades is 1 in 52 (assuming no Jokers).  However, the odds of not drawing the Ace of Spades is 51 in 52.  Let's say you repeat the activity 20 times - each time replacing the card that you drew, and shuffling the deck -- making each draw a separate, discrete event.

The odds of any single one of those draws resulting in the Ace of Spades being drawn is still 1 in 52.

However, the odds of not a single draw resulting in the Aces of Spades being drawn is (51/52)^20 or 67.8%.  So the odds that one of those 20 draws result in the Ace of Spades being drawn is (100-67.8) or 32.2%.  The odds still aren't good, but you've improved your overall odds by continuing the activity.

This can expanded to sweepstakes -- say you enter 1000 sweepstakes each year, and the odds for winning the grand prize of each of them is 1 in 1,000,000 (You could use the actual odds for each, but 1:1,000,000 makes for easier math).  The odds of you winning after entering just one sweepstakes is 0.0001% After one year, the odds of you not winning a grand prize is (999,999/1,000,000)^1000 or 99.9%.  So the odds that you would have won a grand prize at least once have improved to 0.1%. 

Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.  It's probably important to note a few things: 

1) The odds of some (many?) of the sweepstakes will be considerably better than 1:1,000,000 depending on the prize, sponsor, and length of the sweepstakes, which push the odds further in your favor.  The odds are much better if you count in to win any prize, rather than just the grand prizes.

2) Even in my sweepstakes and card drawing examples above, we're dealing with pretty small samples sizes, so the results can be skewed.

3) You can't win if you don't enter.

Thanks,gormon and efd3467  .  If it wasn't for encouragement of some of our members, I would have given up a long time ago. We will all keep trying.  My wish is that all of us could win a great prize.