Prize Draws Rules - Car missed

dak

Hi . Does anyone know if there are rules governing the order prizes are selected for Car prize draws. I know someone who won 4th prize because they drew the prizes in reverse order . Should they not have won the car as they were first out of the drum ? By winning 4th they were excluded from the actual car draw! tickets were 100 euro each. What does anyone think? Any legislation ?

Chucky the tree

Check the T&C's and the prize rules.

hotspur

You can check the legislation here if you want:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA2Y1956.html

But don't bother as it's obviously a ridiculous notion that state legislation would provide for regulations regarding the order of a car draw. There is no reason to think that the 1st ticket drawn should be the 1st place ticket. In fact reverse order is more common in awards generally. The question is whether they made it clear prior to drawing the tickets which prize they were drawing it for. Now this wouldn't make it illegal if it weren't clear, but it would be poor form and very incompetent.

They should be happy they won 4th, suck it down.

dak

hotspur wrote:

You can check the legislation here if you want:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA2Y1956.html

But don't bother as it's obviously a ridiculous notion that state legislation would provide for regulations regarding the order of a car draw. There is no reason to think that the 1st ticket drawn should be the 1st place ticket. In fact reverse order is more common in awards generally. The question is whether they made it clear prior to drawing the tickets which prize they were drawing it for. Now this wouldn't make it illegal if it weren't clear, but it would be poor form and very incompetent.

They should be happy they won 4th, suck it down.

I have to disagree - if you pay 100 euro to enter a draw to win a car you expect to have a chance of winning it. 2nd 3rd and 4th prizes are only consolation prizes.

hotspur

dak wrote:

I have to disagree - if you pay 100 euro to enter a draw to win a car you expect to have a chance of winning it. 2nd 3rd and 4th prizes are only consolation prizes.

The ticket did have a chance of winning it, as much a chance as any other ticket, it just didn't. You are getting confused by the mechanics of how it was carried out.

You could carry out a draw in which instead of plucking the winning ticket you instead eliminated tickets by drawing them one by one. If your ticket was drawn and thus eliminated this way are you really going to say that you were given no chance to win the draw because your ticket wasn't in the final 2?

In the car draw every ticket had an equal chance of winning the car. What more could you possible ask for in a fair draw? Essentially you are complaining that there was consolation prizes.

I realise that on simple inspection it's seems weird but you are incorrect in thinking that the ticket didn't have a chance of winning the car. It is an error of thinking to apply its chances in the middle of the draw process when the elimination process has begun.

I'll give one more example. If there are 2 hats full of tickets and 1 prize, and a coin is flipped to eliminate 1 hat before drawing a ticket from the remaining hat, would you jump up complaining that your ticket was in the eliminated hat and therefore you had no chance of your ticket being chosen for the car now? I hope you wouldn't, and I hope you now understand that once the draw / elimination process has begun, assuming every ticket has an equal chance at the beginning then it is a fair draw.

dak

I appreciate your points but your logic is flawed. Normally draws are run so that all have an equal chance of winning first prize. All the tickets are in the draw for the first prize and if you dion't win you have a chance of a second .third/fourth prize etc I don't want to get into a mathematical and statistical debate but if the draw is done in reverse someone else winning fourth /third and second prize actually increases the chances (ever so slightly) for everyone else left in the draw of winning the 1st prize. Its to do with mathematical factorials.Thats no consolation to you if you are one of the consolation prize winners. By drawing in reverse every ticket still has a chance to win the main prize provided they are lucky enough not to win a consolation prize which would eliminate them from the draw they entered . The only way to give every an equal chance to win first is to draw first prize first. Any other logic is flawed unless you clearly state on the rules and conditions that you are running the draw in such a manner! Legally there has already been a similar case in Cavan where the first person drawn out of the drum has sued the promoters and won their case because the promoters denied them their chance of winning the main prize ( which is the actual contract entered into when you buy your ticket) by drawing in reverse order.

You can can have any sort of elimination process /draw picking you can think of provided you state that clearly on the tickets / rules and regulations. By stating this everyone who buys a ticket will be agreeing to this sort of a contract as they are aware of it in advance . In the absence of alternatives the law offers you protection . Would you spend 100 euro on a ticket for the chance to win a 4th prize and by being unluckly enough to win 4th you are denied a chance to win 1st ? You might say sure wasn't it great to win fourth but if the draw was done according to normal rules you would have won 1st Prize!


No one pays that sort of money to have a chance a winning a consolation prize. If you won a consolation prize and your ticket was re-entered in the drum then there would be no problem as all are eligible for a chance at the first prize. On this occasion this was not the case.

Whats even worse is that there was a firm of auditors there overseeing the proceedings. I think they should have had more cop on !

hotspur wrote:

The ticket did have a chance of winning it, as much a chance as any other ticket, it just didn't. You are getting confused by the mechanics of how it was carried out.

You could carry out a draw in which instead of plucking the winning ticket you instead eliminated tickets by drawing them one by one. If your ticket was drawn and thus eliminated this way are you really going to say that you were given no chance to win the draw because your ticket wasn't in the final 2?

In the car draw every ticket had an equal chance of winning the car. What more could you possible ask for in a fair draw? Essentially you are complaining that there was consolation prizes.

I realise that on simple inspection it's seems weird but you are incorrect in thinking that the ticket didn't have a chance of winning the car. It is an error of thinking to apply its chances in the middle of the draw process when the elimination process has begun.

I'll give one more example. If there are 2 hats full of tickets and 1 prize, and a coin is flipped to eliminate 1 hat before drawing a ticket from the remaining hat, would you jump up complaining that your ticket was in the eliminated hat and therefore you had no chance of your ticket being chosen for the car now? I hope you wouldn't, and I hope you now understand that once the draw / elimination process has begun, assuming every ticket has an equal chance at the beginning then it is a fair draw.

5starpool

Tell your friend never to enter another raffle again if that is his attitude.

dak

5starpool wrote:

Tell your friend never to enter another raffle again if that is his attitude.

Theres no attitiude!! We are talking fairness and in a gambling forum I would have though you don't want the odds stacked against you ? I may be a boring accountant and risk adverse but lets think logic here ! Just in case I appear 2 risk adverse I do bet on the grand nationals and had a tenner each way on Hot Weld on the scottish grand national @14:1. Can you tell me why I got 195 back instead of expected 150 ?

hotspur

On the Scottish grand national question - an each way bet is actually 2 bets, 1 bet is that the horse will win at 14/1 ( it did so you got 150 back), the other is that the horse will come in the top 4 at odds of 1/4th of its starting price (it did so 1/4th of 14-1 x €10 means you get €45 back for that), that adds up to getting €195 back.

I might have guessed that someone in Cavan having suprisingly parted with cash for a raffle would go to court if they lost alright

The argument for the illegitimacy of the raffle is one of opportunism and the possibility of recourse to action due to technicalities of norms / stated terms and conditions. There is no flaw in my logic that every single ticket bought had a 100% equal chance of winning that car, and so therefore in my eyes it was a fair draw, if you think there is then I'm afraid logic and probabilty isn't your strong point.

The difference in our arguments in that I'm arguing purely from probabilty and you are arguing about rules and contracts. The former is where the real test of fairness applies in my opnion, the latter is just the appearance of fairness to people who just aren't very clever / don't understand the nature of probability and odds / would wish to contest things in a curmudgeonly manner.

I obviously cannot do any more to impress upon you the reality that every ticket bought had an equal and fair chance of winning that car since that's not really want you are interested in. You don't really care about the true randomness of the draw, you merely care about getting recompense based on arguments of norms of draws / contracts. Just because a judge might rule in favour doesn't make it fair.

5starpool is right about the attitude of your friend, he didn't win the car fair and square, your comment about having the odds stacked against you merely shows that you do not understand odds. Please feel free to get into why the maths of it are such that your friend's ticket did not have a completely equal chance to win the car since you think it would be 100% fair if the terms & conditions mentioned the draw procedure.

5starpool

I have never heard this attitude to a prize draw before, and it is not something that would ever have occurred to me to be honest. His ticket was in the draw. At the start of the draw he had an equal chance to everyone else of winning the car, so I can't see how you can claim he didn't. There was presumably a leaflet/poster/flyer or something that explained that there would be several prizes, and when your friend bought his ticket he automatically accepted the fact that he might win one of the ancilliary prizes rather than the main one.

chump

what a farce this post is...

get a grip OP

wyndham

As a matter of interest, what was the 4th prize? Was it worth more than the ticket price? Was this a raffle for charity?

To me, it smacks of sour grapes.

dak

Moderator

Can you close or move this post ? I raised a genuine query and did not expect these sour grapes and attitude replies ? In reflection this post would be better under the legal discussion forum where the finer points of legislation could be discussed rather than the statistics of betting .

Chucky the tree

legal discussion? You think prizs draw have a set of rules which are written in the laws?

hotspur

If I were the op I'd want this thread closed and deleted too. Imagine having this permanent record of one's utter obtuseness.

Oh and for an alleged accountant who works with numbers you don't understand what the word statistics means.

Best of luck understanding the legalistic arguments made by the legal forum.

This should probably be moves to the humour forum cause anyone I've told so far has cracked up at the guy who reckoned that the ticket had no chance of winning the car.

dak

hotspur wrote:

If I were the op I'd want this thread closed and deleted too. Imagine having this permanent record of one's utter obtuseness.

Oh and for an alleged accountant who works with numbers you don't understand what the word statistics means.

Best of luck understanding the legalistic arguments made by the legal forum.

This should probably be moves to the humour forum cause anyone I've told so far has cracked up at the guy who reckoned that the ticket had no chance of winning the car.

You are the very reason I ask for this thread be closed . Talk about blowing ones trumpet with contempt for other peoples views ? If you had paid more attention to the point I was trying to make you wouldn't answer with such rubbish. As you pointed out I was more interested in the legal issue involved rather than the odds. You keep at the betting . I won't bother commenting on your personal attack on me as an "alleged " accountant as this is not in the true nature of these forums. If normal prize draw rules had been adhered to my friend would have won a car rather than Gaa tickets. If you bother to look at any "Grand Prize Draws" you will see that 1st Prize is always drawn first... then second etc. If it isn't drawn in this order then it must clearly state that on the tickets. In tghe instance I refer too the order wasn't published at all.

chump

hotspur wrote:

If I were the op I'd want this thread closed and deleted too. Imagine having this permanent record of one's utter obtuseness.

Oh and for an alleged accountant who works with numbers you don't understand what the word statistics means.

Best of luck understanding the legalistic arguments made by the legal forum.

This should probably be moves to the humour forum cause anyone I've told so far has cracked up at the guy who reckoned that the ticket had no chance of winning the car.

priceless

OP, you were using flawed logic to try to dismiss a legitimate and well written response to your query - and you were an ass about it.

From personal experience - many raffles and competitions I have seen have started with lower prizes being awarded first with the grand prize the final one. Usually these would be in sports clubs or the like - in this way there is a build up of excitement and then it peaks when they award the BIG prize...

dak

chump wrote:

priceless

OP, you were using flawed logic to try to dismiss a legitimate and well written response to your query - and you were an ass about it.

From personal experience - many raffles and competitions I have seen have started with lower prizes being awarded first with the grand prize the final one. Usually these would be in sports clubs or the like - in this way there is a build up of excitement and then it peaks when they award the BIG prize...

You are entitled to your opinion - I am not interested particularily in your personal experience of prize draws relevant to my post . There is nothing wrong in awarding lower prizes first providing everyone who enters is aware that is the format of the draw . Secondly prizes in clubs as you describe do not usually cost 100 euro per ticket. and the grand prize was worth in the case I described €35,000 . If it was in a club there will have been thousands of tickets sold . Your chances of winning grow quantumly smaller the more tickets that are sold and you would become indifferent to the order of the draw as your bet /return ratio is irrelevant as the chances of winning increasingly diminish as the tickets sold ratio increases. Low premium = low chance of a high return . I am talking high premium ( for a ticket) higher chance of return due to the lower limited number of tickets sold . Odds of winning 100's/1 as opposed to 1000's/1 . I am not interested in the replies of Hotspur who continues to mis interpret the point I was trying to raise . I never proposed that the person hadn't a chance to win - It was that the odds of winning the main prize " for this person only" were removed because of the order that the prizes were drawn . It is the order of the draw only I am referring to .

My friend won 4th but should it have ben first ? . That is my one and only query which is obviously a legal issue rather than a pure ganbling one which no one who has posted a reply appears to have grasped or attempted to answer .

I do not intend to post any more replies to this post .. unless someone has something constructive to add rather than slander

hotspur

dak wrote:

I never proposed that the person hadn't a chance to win - It was that the odds of winning the main prize " for this person only" were removed because of the order that the prizes were drawn .

It's statements like this that are annoying people, in the same sentence you say he had the same chance to win *and* that he didn't have a chance to win the main prize. No-one has a problem with you looking *purely* for a legal discussion but you should stop saying things that are factually wrong like the above. It's not about a "betting" discussion it's about clear and correct thinking.

dak wrote:

My friend won 4th but should it have ben first ? . That is my one and only query which is obviously a legal issue rather than a pure ganbling one which no one who has posted a reply appears to have grasped or attempted to answer .

Everyone grasps it, it's your incorrect thinking about the non-legal nature of it in general discussion people are pointing out. You have been told several times that the legislation doesn't provide for the order of raffles, I've never heard of any court precedent, and I asked my brother who is a barrister and he hasn't either, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been.

dak wrote:

I do not intend to post any more replies to this post .. unless someone has something constructive to add rather than slander

Slander is the oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation. The legal term for the written version is libel. And you are gonna be capable of understanding legal debate huh? Anyway, it may have been impolite of me intimating that you are dumber than a box of rocks, but Jesus there isn't a jury in the country would convict me

I'll leave it there too.
(admits to having searched for op's other boards threads to see if there was equal hilarity to be had )

Chucky the tree

hotspur wrote:

I'll leave it there too.
(admits to having searched for op's other boards threads to see if there was equal hilarity to be had )

Was there? It late and i am bored.

dak

Everyone grasps it, it's your incorrect thinking about the non-legal nature of it in general discussion people are pointing out. You have been told several times that the legislation doesn't provide for the order of raffles, I've never heard of any court precedent, and I asked my brother who is a barrister and he hasn't either, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been.


I going to stop here- there has been a legal precedent set in Cavan already. I getting bored of this ... 2 of my brothers are solicitors as well as my dad and all think there is a case .

By the way Hotspur Dave Murray is a cousin of mine .