Who Won The AS and Truck At Madison

[gaylejoe]

I haven't heard anything about the Airstream and tow vehicle which was to have been given away at Madison. Did anyone win them?

[Rhonda]

You had to scratch off the 6 keys out of if I remember correctly 24 spaces. When we registered the lady said nobody had accomplished that next to impossible feat.

[dwightdi]

Actually it was 30 squares. The odds were very low that anyone would win and they gave out more than one card to each attendee to improve their odds, but I and no one else one. A number of people scrapped off all the covers to verify there were 6 keys. There were. The low cost to the sponsor of providing this contest was reflected in the low odds of having to pay off the winner. It is the same kind of insurance policy they use to cover the cost, if someone actually wins the contests at half time at sports events.

[bredlo]

That's kinda lame, and I think it reflects more poorly on the sponsor than actually ponying up and ensuring that somebody wins. I think I recall hearing the sponsor was Ewalds.

[dwightdi]

Millions of people still bet on the lottery every day and the odds of winning that are even worse. I think it was a novel idea proposed by Ewald in hopes that it would entice more people to attend the rally. Personally, I do not bet (throw my money away) when the odds against me winning are very high. I do not think this lottery card type promoting convinced anyone to come to the rally that would not have come otherwise. To some it added to the "Adventure" of coming to the rally and may have provided some "Fun". That meets two of our three goals for the club: Fun, Fellowship and Adventure.

I am not sure, that if we had to spend club treasury money it should be repeated. However; it was free to the club, so I see no harm. Ewald did not use their donation to try to get much advertising for their business from the club and few knew that Ewald was the sponsor.

[dogpound]

This contest was somewhat like a "hole in one" prize at a golf tournament. Odds of a amature golfer getting a hole in one is one in 10,000. An insurance company sells an insurance policy covering the cost of the A/S and TV. It has to be sponsored by somebody, either another business or whatever. They have to pay the insurance premium. Nothing uncommon about this type of contest. Kind of livens up the activity.

I've played in many golf tournaments that this type of contest is held. Never have come close to winning a vehicle but it sure makes it a little more of a challenge.

Bob
4CU/CAC
WBCCI # 10105
AIR # 28748

[RonaldC303]

If I did the math right, getting 6 keys out of 30 squares would be about a 1 in 600,000 probability. Better than the lottery but still a long shot.

[pmclemore]

My stat professor allowed me out of his class with a B only if I promised never to seek a career in the field.

That being said, I think the answer is 30! minus 24!. As I am on the road and don't have a calculator I have no idea what that number is. It should be very large, though.

Please don't tell Dr Narula that I even ventured a guess.

Pat

[Boondocker]

If I understand how the contest was set up the odd were 1 in the number of tickets printed. The keys were not randomly placed and order of the keys is not at issue.

[gaylejoe]

I think the whole thing was misleading.

[airedale]

I believe No one won. When I scratched off mine before the end time of when you could claim the prize, no one had won yet...and lets just say, I wasnt the lucky winner!

[dogpound]

Whoever ran the program does not
have the market on running a program that is misleading. First off you need to have a person that is "in charge" of the program andhave them worke with the sponsor along with the insurance company that provides the policy for the prize. Usually the insurance company (which specializes in this type of insurance) will also provide 2nd and 3rd place prizes, i.e. Caribbean cruise, etc. with their insurance policy.

Some of the hole in one rounaments iwas involved in usually took several people to pull it off.

Bob
4CU/CAC

[dwightdi]

The odds were carefully explained on the handout that came with the ticket. The explanation of the odds were not specifically spelled out in the advertising that was done for the rally. The ads were not misleading, just incomplete. Some people, with wishful thinking, might have believed they were actually going to give away an Airstream. Due to the zero price to get a ticket and the number of proposed attendees at the rally, you should have guessed that they could not afford to give away $100,000 to one of the 1000 couples who came. That would have averaged $100 per couple to cover the cost of the prize. I am not sure what the insurance policy costs, but I heard it cost Ewald about $6,000 to run it. Ewald pulled out of bringing units and salesmen to the rally because he was down to one salesman. Bill Thomas RV brought up 13 units from St. Louis and took back very few.

[Crusty]

The odds of winning for one card is 1 in 593,775.

This is easier to calculate than you might guess.

The odds of scratching a first key is 6 in 30, the odds of scratching a second key is 5 in 29, ... , the odds of scratching a 6th key is 1 in 25. So, the overall odds are (6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1) in (30 x 29 x 28 x 27 x 26 x 25) = or 720 in 427,518,000 = 1 in 593,775

[Boondocker]

Originally Posted by Crusty

The odds of winning for one card is 1 in 593,775.

This is easier to calculate than you might guess.

The odds of scratching a first key is 6 in 30, the odds of scratching a second key is 5 in 29, ... , the odds of scratching a 6th key is 1 in 25. So, the overall odds are (6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1) in (30 x 29 x 28 x 27 x 26 x 25) = or 720 in 427,518,000 = 1 in 593,775

I stand corrected, Crusty is correct. I had misread an earlier post to suggest that there was a single winning ticket. I am duly embarrassed.

[dwightdi]

Since they printed up ( I heard) 2,000 cards, the odds of anyone winning is about 600000/ 2000 or roughly 300 to one that no one would win. Therefore the $100,000 divided by 300 is $33. During the rally, they keep finding more reasons to give away more tickets to better the odds that someone of the 900 attendee couples would win, but it did not happen.

[overlander63]

If you got two tickets, the odds of your winning would be roughly 2 in 600,000, not one in 300,000. It's a subtle difference, kind of like buying two lottery tickets.
That's why I only buy a lottery ticket if the pot is over $50 million, and then only a single ticket.