Incidental or Indictable?
August 22, 2005 12:15 AM Subscribe
MeFi beverage enthusiasts – For the past three years or so I’ve been buying the fruit drink brand called Sobe from gas stations whenever I fill up my car and so forth. Anyways, on the cap has always been the message: “1 in 12 scores! Instantly”, and yet never in all these years have I once got a winning cap. My question is this: are they blowing smoke up my ass? For instance, has anybody else that likes this brand noticed this? Or is it probably just chance? I don’t want to exaggerate, and don’t have an accurate count for how many I’ve bought, so I’ll just say that I’ve probably unscrewed 40 or 50 caps without a win.
Maybe they mean "score" as in get lucky (3 a : to gain or have the advantage b : to be successful: as (1) : to succeed in having sexual intercourse), not that you actually win something. From what I know of Sobe, this is would be my guess.
posted by HSWilson at 12:31 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by HSWilson at 12:31 AM on August 22, 2005
What you want to calculate is a binomial probability.
In your case, let's say the number of bottles of Sobe you bought is 50 (n).
You haven't won any prizes — i.e., no "successes" — so k = 0.
Your chance of success on any given trial (or bottle) is 1/12 (p) and therefore your chance of failure on any given trial is likewise 1-p=1-1/12=11/12 (k).
With those parameters, your exact chance of going 50 bottles (trials) without a win is 1.3%, within rounding error.
Without knowing how many other people are buying bottles of Sobe, it's hard to say whether these are good or bad odds.
Still, to have one winner, you need eleven losers. With hundreds of thousands of bottles likely out there, it's not unlikely for someone to be a real loser and hit a "bad" streak.
Also, among other assumptions, binomial trials assume "independence" between trials — i.e., the availability or selection of one bottle of Sobe doesn't change your odds on winning on another bottle.
We don't know if the bottling plant deliberately puts all the winning caps on a series of bottles at the plant, which would then be put into one case that goes to one location. This kind of bottling decision would break the independence assumption and change the probabilty model — and your odds — considerably.
You're better off playing drinking games you can win, like the Pepsi iTunes promotion.
posted by Rothko at 12:32 AM on August 22, 2005
In your case, let's say the number of bottles of Sobe you bought is 50 (n).
You haven't won any prizes — i.e., no "successes" — so k = 0.
Your chance of success on any given trial (or bottle) is 1/12 (p) and therefore your chance of failure on any given trial is likewise 1-p=1-1/12=11/12 (k).
With those parameters, your exact chance of going 50 bottles (trials) without a win is 1.3%, within rounding error.
Without knowing how many other people are buying bottles of Sobe, it's hard to say whether these are good or bad odds.
Still, to have one winner, you need eleven losers. With hundreds of thousands of bottles likely out there, it's not unlikely for someone to be a real loser and hit a "bad" streak.
Also, among other assumptions, binomial trials assume "independence" between trials — i.e., the availability or selection of one bottle of Sobe doesn't change your odds on winning on another bottle.
We don't know if the bottling plant deliberately puts all the winning caps on a series of bottles at the plant, which would then be put into one case that goes to one location. This kind of bottling decision would break the independence assumption and change the probabilty model — and your odds — considerably.
You're better off playing drinking games you can win, like the Pepsi iTunes promotion.
posted by Rothko at 12:32 AM on August 22, 2005
But would 100 bottles be enough of a sample to actually prove or disprove the 1 in 12 claim? According to that logic you could just purchase 12 and if at least 1 wasn't a winner then you could contact a lawyer. The thought of some poor guy spending hundreds of dollars on Sobe, hauling it back to his house and then opening each individual bottle to see if he's won - well it just makes me laugh. Let me know if you decide to do it, dgaicun, so I can buy some Sobe stock beforehand.
Seriously, is there some fine print on the bottle somewhere that could shed some light on what they mean by "1 in 12 scores"?
posted by quadog at 12:36 AM on August 22, 2005
Seriously, is there some fine print on the bottle somewhere that could shed some light on what they mean by "1 in 12 scores"?
posted by quadog at 12:36 AM on August 22, 2005
Quadog, take a look at the "Learn How" link on Sobe's promotion site.
posted by Rothko at 12:51 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by Rothko at 12:51 AM on August 22, 2005
According to that logic you could just purchase 12 and if at least 1 wasn't a winner then you could contact a lawyer.
Sobe's lawyer's would present a mathematician to the court, who would prove to the jury there's a 35% chance, believe it or not, that you can buy twelve bottles from the store and still not get a winning cap.
Think about it like baking a big cake with 10 blueberries in it. There's a really good chance you will cut the cake in half and still not get 5 blueberries. In reality, the distribution of the blueberries cannot be assumed to be equal throughout any single cake.
But if you baked a million cakes with 10 blueberries each, and you cut each cake in half, on average you would then get 5 blueberries in each of your million halves of cake.
posted by Rothko at 1:04 AM on August 22, 2005
Sobe's lawyer's would present a mathematician to the court, who would prove to the jury there's a 35% chance, believe it or not, that you can buy twelve bottles from the store and still not get a winning cap.
Think about it like baking a big cake with 10 blueberries in it. There's a really good chance you will cut the cake in half and still not get 5 blueberries. In reality, the distribution of the blueberries cannot be assumed to be equal throughout any single cake.
But if you baked a million cakes with 10 blueberries each, and you cut each cake in half, on average you would then get 5 blueberries in each of your million halves of cake.
posted by Rothko at 1:04 AM on August 22, 2005
You realize that; the game has already ended, you could have sent a entry in without buying a Sobe, and lastly the probabilities given in the link that Rothko supplied are hinky. There's no way there was a 1 in 12 chance of winning with the probabilities they supply. Write them a polite, humourous letter and they'll probably send you some swag. I think they've left themselves wide open to a lawsuit if someone cared enough to pursue the matter.
posted by rdr at 1:17 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by rdr at 1:17 AM on August 22, 2005
I was mis-reading the chart. There are two sets of prizes. The first is instant win and the second is two for one. If you combine the sets, then the 1 in 12 makes more sense.
posted by rdr at 1:23 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by rdr at 1:23 AM on August 22, 2005
It's said this same thing for 3 years? SoBe has always had weird messages on the caps.
posted by LadyBonita at 2:34 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by LadyBonita at 2:34 AM on August 22, 2005
I think he meant on the top of the cap, LadyBonita, not under it. At least I hope that's what he meant, as those silly under-cap messages were one of the defining 'SoBe' things that made it worth ponying up the, like, $2 per bottle.
The 3-year-ago mark roughly coincides with when I stopped drinking SoBe all the time, but I never ever remember them having contests like that. Knowing them it probably is a silly stunt of some kind and not an honest-to-god contest like you find on Coke bottles.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 5:13 AM on August 22, 2005
The 3-year-ago mark roughly coincides with when I stopped drinking SoBe all the time, but I never ever remember them having contests like that. Knowing them it probably is a silly stunt of some kind and not an honest-to-god contest like you find on Coke bottles.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 5:13 AM on August 22, 2005
Carrying further what Rothko said, here's a comparison: The probability of not getting a prize after fifty bottles is roughly the same as picking three cards out of a deck and having them all be the same suit. Unlikely, but not inconceivable.
Also, it looks like almost half of the prizes (the "buy one, get one free" prizes) are "not available in all areas." If you don't live in the right area, in other words, your chance of winning on a given bottle goes down by a half, and your chance of not winning after 50 bottles goes up to 7.7%. I wouldn't retain that fancy lawyer just yet.
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:02 AM on August 22, 2005
Also, it looks like almost half of the prizes (the "buy one, get one free" prizes) are "not available in all areas." If you don't live in the right area, in other words, your chance of winning on a given bottle goes down by a half, and your chance of not winning after 50 bottles goes up to 7.7%. I wouldn't retain that fancy lawyer just yet.
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:02 AM on August 22, 2005
I've been getting sobe alot recently i'd say i'm about 0-12 myself
posted by matimer at 7:36 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by matimer at 7:36 AM on August 22, 2005
100 bottles would be enough to bring the probability of not winning down to 0.016% or about 1 in 10,000. Pretty unlikely. 150 bottles brings it down to 0.00021%, or about 1 in a million. If you like the stuff, you could buy 50 bottles in bulk, keep the caps, and get a good indication of whether it's scammy or not. These bottle caps would not be proof, since you could have just removed all the winners from the ones you bring to court. But, if you buy 100 and there's no winner you might be fairly assured that there ARE no winners. At that point, you could probably find some way to bring suit, I'd think.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:52 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:52 AM on August 22, 2005
I'm having a similar issues with the stated 1/12 probability of winning more products from Diet Coke. I've probably had 150 or so bottles over the last two months and have won exactly once.
My luck with Diet Pepsi's iTunes giveaway was much better. Interestingly, the number of wins I experienced went up dramatically as I drove across the country picking up bottles of Diet Pepsi along the way (btw, I wasn't driving across the country trying to win iTunes songs).
posted by mullacc at 7:58 AM on August 22, 2005
My luck with Diet Pepsi's iTunes giveaway was much better. Interestingly, the number of wins I experienced went up dramatically as I drove across the country picking up bottles of Diet Pepsi along the way (btw, I wasn't driving across the country trying to win iTunes songs).
posted by mullacc at 7:58 AM on August 22, 2005
How about Matt buys 25,000 and we agree to reimburse him one each? If, after unscrewing all the caps, he finds the odds aren't one in twelve, we go for a class action.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:04 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:04 AM on August 22, 2005
For the past three years or so I’ve been buying the fruit drink brand called Sobe from gas stations whenever I fill up my car and so forth.
Well, if you were the ONLY person buying Sobe from only ONE gas station, you probably should have won by now.
However, there are probably several thousand other people buying Sobe from each gas station you visit. There are a whole bunch of variables that keep you from winning and that keep you perplexed about that. It's not strictly statistical.
One: You have no idea how many drinks are being bought from each gas station respectively. It's entirely possible that the winning drinks are bought by other people.
Two: How often do you refill your gas tank at any given gas station. Maybe the winning bottles have been bought long before the gas station needs to restock it's beverages, thus presenting you with the opportunity to win. You could be buying losing bottles from a supply that has not been restocked with winners.
Three: 1 in 12 could be a reduced fraction. That is, don't buy 12 and expect to win once. Maybe, there are 1000 winners out of ever 12000 bottles. Considering that the only way to put the "You've Won!" notice under the cap is at the bottling facility, there's no guarantee that they've included 2 winning bottles in every 24 pack.
Four: Since they can't really guarantee an equal distribution of winning bottles it's also entirely possible that most of the winning bottles aren't being distributed to your area. The company can say, "Out of every 120000 bottles of Sobe, 10000 have caps that announce a winner." Ultimately, that's only ten thousand winners distributed over innumerable gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, and even hotdog vendors being consumed by an equally vast number of Sobe drinkers.
One in Twelve is pretty lousy odds in reality. I mean, if you hung out at the bottling facility and opened every bottle, you'd probably win once in twelve bottles.
But after that, there are too many other factors. Even grabbing twelve bottles off the shelf won't guarantee you the win. You could conceivably pick the losing bottle forever. I could flip a coin a thousand times and get tails every time, despite the significant 50% chance of getting heads.
posted by Jon-o at 8:39 AM on August 22, 2005
Well, if you were the ONLY person buying Sobe from only ONE gas station, you probably should have won by now.
However, there are probably several thousand other people buying Sobe from each gas station you visit. There are a whole bunch of variables that keep you from winning and that keep you perplexed about that. It's not strictly statistical.
One: You have no idea how many drinks are being bought from each gas station respectively. It's entirely possible that the winning drinks are bought by other people.
Two: How often do you refill your gas tank at any given gas station. Maybe the winning bottles have been bought long before the gas station needs to restock it's beverages, thus presenting you with the opportunity to win. You could be buying losing bottles from a supply that has not been restocked with winners.
Three: 1 in 12 could be a reduced fraction. That is, don't buy 12 and expect to win once. Maybe, there are 1000 winners out of ever 12000 bottles. Considering that the only way to put the "You've Won!" notice under the cap is at the bottling facility, there's no guarantee that they've included 2 winning bottles in every 24 pack.
Four: Since they can't really guarantee an equal distribution of winning bottles it's also entirely possible that most of the winning bottles aren't being distributed to your area. The company can say, "Out of every 120000 bottles of Sobe, 10000 have caps that announce a winner." Ultimately, that's only ten thousand winners distributed over innumerable gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, and even hotdog vendors being consumed by an equally vast number of Sobe drinkers.
One in Twelve is pretty lousy odds in reality. I mean, if you hung out at the bottling facility and opened every bottle, you'd probably win once in twelve bottles.
But after that, there are too many other factors. Even grabbing twelve bottles off the shelf won't guarantee you the win. You could conceivably pick the losing bottle forever. I could flip a coin a thousand times and get tails every time, despite the significant 50% chance of getting heads.
posted by Jon-o at 8:39 AM on August 22, 2005
Jon-o makes one good point (and only one, which has already been made): you don't know that Sobe attempts to spread their 1/12 probability of success out evenly across all distributed bottles of Sobe. Which is the only thing that makes the statistics a (tiny bit) iffy.
But that makes me wonder: would it be legal to claim p=x as the probablity of winning a contest, if Sobe knew that the distribution was entirely non-random? That is, in NY you have a 6x chance of winning, and in AZ you have x/100 chance of winnng, simply because the distribution sends most of the winners to the east coast?
Is Sobe responsible for making sure that a (mostly) random sample of their bottles shows up at each distribution point?
posted by teece at 8:50 AM on August 22, 2005
But that makes me wonder: would it be legal to claim p=x as the probablity of winning a contest, if Sobe knew that the distribution was entirely non-random? That is, in NY you have a 6x chance of winning, and in AZ you have x/100 chance of winnng, simply because the distribution sends most of the winners to the east coast?
Is Sobe responsible for making sure that a (mostly) random sample of their bottles shows up at each distribution point?
posted by teece at 8:50 AM on August 22, 2005
Regarding Jon-o's other points:
Basically, what we're discussing above is the probability that "other people have bought the winning beverages". Aside from the case where the distribution of winning bottles is heavily un-uniform, it is unlikely to open 50 bottles and not find a winner. IF the winning bottles were consumed by someone else (that is, there really ARE 1/12 winners, evenly distributed), then our hero has stepped into an unlikely, although not implausibly unlikely scenario that occurs only about 1/100 times. That is, if 100 people each opened 50 bottles, only one of them should expect no wins at all.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:02 AM on August 22, 2005
Basically, what we're discussing above is the probability that "other people have bought the winning beverages". Aside from the case where the distribution of winning bottles is heavily un-uniform, it is unlikely to open 50 bottles and not find a winner. IF the winning bottles were consumed by someone else (that is, there really ARE 1/12 winners, evenly distributed), then our hero has stepped into an unlikely, although not implausibly unlikely scenario that occurs only about 1/100 times. That is, if 100 people each opened 50 bottles, only one of them should expect no wins at all.
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:02 AM on August 22, 2005
It's not strictly statistical.
posted by Jon-o at 8:39 AM PST on August 22
If the winners are distributed across the country and not, say, all taken to a single gas station in Bumfuck, IA, then it is strictly statistical.
One: You have no idea how many drinks are being bought from each gas station respectively.
Totally irrelevant. If a) the winners are randomly distributed and b) he gets a random bottle, the odds should be 1/12. Even if the people before and after him win, the odds are still 1/12.
You could be buying losing bottles from a supply that has not been restocked with winners.
It doesn't work that way. The guy in the delivery truck doesn't have a separate pallet of winning bottles, unless Sobe's parent company is looking forward to being defrauded or sued or both.
1 in 12 could be a reduced fraction. That is, don't buy 12 and expect to win once. Maybe, there are 1000 winners out of ever 12000 bottles
It's the same fucking thing. Any purposeful "clumping" of winners by Sobe or their bottlers is going to open them up to legal action, as long as they maintain that the odds of winning are 1/12.
Now: it's possible dgaicun could buy 1000 bottles, all losers, but it is highly unlikely, and it certainly has nothing to do with the Bizarro-world statistics you're using.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:04 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by Jon-o at 8:39 AM PST on August 22
If the winners are distributed across the country and not, say, all taken to a single gas station in Bumfuck, IA, then it is strictly statistical.
One: You have no idea how many drinks are being bought from each gas station respectively.
Totally irrelevant. If a) the winners are randomly distributed and b) he gets a random bottle, the odds should be 1/12. Even if the people before and after him win, the odds are still 1/12.
You could be buying losing bottles from a supply that has not been restocked with winners.
It doesn't work that way. The guy in the delivery truck doesn't have a separate pallet of winning bottles, unless Sobe's parent company is looking forward to being defrauded or sued or both.
1 in 12 could be a reduced fraction. That is, don't buy 12 and expect to win once. Maybe, there are 1000 winners out of ever 12000 bottles
It's the same fucking thing. Any purposeful "clumping" of winners by Sobe or their bottlers is going to open them up to legal action, as long as they maintain that the odds of winning are 1/12.
Now: it's possible dgaicun could buy 1000 bottles, all losers, but it is highly unlikely, and it certainly has nothing to do with the Bizarro-world statistics you're using.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:04 AM on August 22, 2005
One thing nobody seems to have mentioned so far is that people who beat dgaicun to the store didn't cheat and find the bottles with winning caps before buying. e.g., this page, about a Pepsi contest. There could be something dirty going on without it being something dirty on Sobe's part.
posted by jepler at 11:17 AM on August 22, 2005
posted by jepler at 11:17 AM on August 22, 2005
Response by poster: I farmed Google for other consumers who have commented on the matter with the most probable search terms I could think of. Here is everybody I could find.
This guy:
"Sobe "1 in 12 Wins" Bottles drank without winning: 35"
Screwed.
These guys:
"So they say 1 in 12 wins. I've bought at least 100 and never won. Somebody has all my 1's."
"Oh, yeah... I know what you mean.. I'd average at least 21 a week because over the summer I lived at home and my dad would buy me 3 SoBe's everyday, one Energy, one Courage and one Black and Blueberry Brew, but still, I rarely EVER one... Maybe 5 wins at most.. However, I did win a shirt.. I didn't really care for it and it's already ruined.. It has yellow spots on it I believe."
Screwed. Screwed. Though we know there are at least winners, the accuracy of Sobe's winning ratio is what's in doubt. Is it even close to what they say it is?
This guy:
"The promotion (scam) says "1 in 12 scores". What I score is still not clear. Cause I haven’t scored yet . . . the massive quantity of the stuff I’d put down my throat you’d think I’d see a winning cap. I probably average one bottle a day, so I should be winning every two weeks. But all last summer I came up dry, and this summer is looking ever worse."
Screwed.
These guys:
"sometimes in practice, we sit around & complain about how many Diet Coke & Sobe bottles we buy each week with bottlecaps that may/may not have the words "you've won a free 20 oz." on the inside of the cap..."1 in 12 wins", so they say....hundreds of bottles later, we have still won none."
The sheer consensus of getting screwed by people who buy a ton of the stuff raises a red flag, even though its possibe people are just more likely to bitch about than celebrate imbalances of fortune. In Sobe's favor though the very last search hit was one of these needed yangs:
" Ok, I buy those SoBe energy drinks when my kids make me crazy, right? Theres a 1 in 12 chance of winning a free drink, but I won the 2nd time i bought one, so I was sure my chances of winning increased! A few bottles later, I didnt win anything, so I got a little pissed, and didnt buy one for awhile. Yesterday, I was so frazzled, that I broke down and bought one. I reached in the freezer to pick one out, but at the last second, I picked ANOTHER one, and............ I won!!!!!!!!! So Ive won like 2 in 12!!!!!! Thats liek twice as much as anyone else! So maybe my world isnt all that bad."
posted by dgaicun at 12:47 PM on August 22, 2005
This guy:
"Sobe "1 in 12 Wins" Bottles drank without winning: 35"
Screwed.
These guys:
"So they say 1 in 12 wins. I've bought at least 100 and never won. Somebody has all my 1's."
"Oh, yeah... I know what you mean.. I'd average at least 21 a week because over the summer I lived at home and my dad would buy me 3 SoBe's everyday, one Energy, one Courage and one Black and Blueberry Brew, but still, I rarely EVER one... Maybe 5 wins at most.. However, I did win a shirt.. I didn't really care for it and it's already ruined.. It has yellow spots on it I believe."
Screwed. Screwed. Though we know there are at least winners, the accuracy of Sobe's winning ratio is what's in doubt. Is it even close to what they say it is?
This guy:
"The promotion (scam) says "1 in 12 scores". What I score is still not clear. Cause I haven’t scored yet . . . the massive quantity of the stuff I’d put down my throat you’d think I’d see a winning cap. I probably average one bottle a day, so I should be winning every two weeks. But all last summer I came up dry, and this summer is looking ever worse."
Screwed.
These guys:
"sometimes in practice, we sit around & complain about how many Diet Coke & Sobe bottles we buy each week with bottlecaps that may/may not have the words "you've won a free 20 oz." on the inside of the cap..."1 in 12 wins", so they say....hundreds of bottles later, we have still won none."
The sheer consensus of getting screwed by people who buy a ton of the stuff raises a red flag, even though its possibe people are just more likely to bitch about than celebrate imbalances of fortune. In Sobe's favor though the very last search hit was one of these needed yangs:
" Ok, I buy those SoBe energy drinks when my kids make me crazy, right? Theres a 1 in 12 chance of winning a free drink, but I won the 2nd time i bought one, so I was sure my chances of winning increased! A few bottles later, I didnt win anything, so I got a little pissed, and didnt buy one for awhile. Yesterday, I was so frazzled, that I broke down and bought one. I reached in the freezer to pick one out, but at the last second, I picked ANOTHER one, and............ I won!!!!!!!!! So Ive won like 2 in 12!!!!!! Thats liek twice as much as anyone else! So maybe my world isnt all that bad."
posted by dgaicun at 12:47 PM on August 22, 2005
It doesn't work that way. The guy in the delivery truck doesn't have a separate pallet of winning bottles, unless Sobe's parent company is looking forward to being defrauded or sued or both.
I know that. And that's not what I mean. What I mean is that he could be just unlucky and shopping at places where the winning bottles have been purchased by other people. Maybe the gas station has enough bottles that, if he only stops in twice a week over a three week period, they haven't had to reorder and, therefore, his chances of buying a winning bottle are zero (winning bottles having been purchased by other people already).
It's entirely possible that, even though Sobe might produce 1 winner in 12, none are available to a particular customer because of circumstances that occur at the point of purchase.
Example: A case (24 units) of the beverage shows up at a retailer containing 2 winners and 22 non-winners (assuming that the manufacture has deliberately ensured the 1/12 statistic). Maybe, in the first 24 hours, both winners are purchased. Say the first Sobe customer picks the winning bottle. Realistically, at that specific store store, he had a 1 in 12 chance of winning. The second customer, despite the fact that nationally there's a 1 in 12 chance of winning, only had a 1 in 23 chance of winning because of that store's particular stock because, unknown to them, a winner has been removed from their specific selection pool. Anyone else who wants to purchase that beverage in the hopes that they'll win really has a 0% chance of winning at that store if the winning bottles have already been purchased. They'll have to wait until the store restocks another case of Sobe, refreshing the chances to 2 in 24.
My point is that if you're visiting a variety of retailers with no consistency or deliberateness, it's entirely likely that you're ultimately shopping at places where the winning bottles have been purchased and your actual chances of winning are zero. You could visit every store in your area and be selecting from pools which have had winning bottles removed by other customers. Unless you're the first customer through the door on delivery day, your real life 1:12 odds probably aren't intact. Even if you ARE the first customer, your actual odds could be something like 2:31 if they restock before they run out. Sobe might distribute 1:12, but you can't guarantee that every point of purchase will maintain that proportion. At the factory, the chances are 1 in 12 but at a retailer, the sample size and the ratio of winning units to losing units is completely fluid and random. You could walk into a place where there are 50 bottles and all of the winners have been purchased already. You're only guaranteed a 1:12 chance if you're using a pure pool. If your order your own case of Sobe, you'll certainly win.
posted by Jon-o at 6:21 PM on August 22, 2005
Ok - a retailer orders its own case and has a "pure pool" as you call it.
You argue that there is a chance that someone has already bought all of the winners, leaving me with no chance to win.
What you are neglecting to mention is that there is also a chance that no one has bought the winner, but a bunch of people have bought losing bottles - which RAISES your chances of winning. In fact, this happens much more often than the previous case.
These two effects cancel each other out. Assuming that SoBe's distribution is sufficiently random and it's not rigged, then, the chance of buying a winner is 1 in 12. End of story.
posted by reishus at 1:26 AM on August 27, 2005
You argue that there is a chance that someone has already bought all of the winners, leaving me with no chance to win.
What you are neglecting to mention is that there is also a chance that no one has bought the winner, but a bunch of people have bought losing bottles - which RAISES your chances of winning. In fact, this happens much more often than the previous case.
These two effects cancel each other out. Assuming that SoBe's distribution is sufficiently random and it's not rigged, then, the chance of buying a winner is 1 in 12. End of story.
posted by reishus at 1:26 AM on August 27, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by effugas at 12:23 AM on August 22, 2005