Whether the entry method affects chances of winning

joho

I once asked the National Lottery how many jackpot winners had entered online rather than physically buying a ticket in a shop. They said they couldn't break the numbers down that way - utter codswallop! But I didn't think there was much I could do about their answer.

But I'm curious about other competitions with multiple entry methods, e.g. ITV comps where you can text, phone or post an entry. Which method have most winners used?

It must be possible to find this out, but will companies like ITV provide that info if you ask? Is it the sort of thing that is covered by Freedom of Information?

Anyone already looked into this?
Have a good weekend everyone.
Jo x

mjm3346

Not covered by the FOI Act.

If a random competition is run properly then entry method should make no difference and it would generally be expected that most winners would come from the most used entry route.

ITV used/may still use this (there are other examples around as well)

The Winner Selector works by taking in all entries to a competition from each entry route, and assigning a unique random number to every entry. This is done independently of the original entry method, and assures that each entry has the same chance of being selected, irrespective of the method of entry.

Compingfairy

Not sure if connected recently seen loads of fb and TW comps run with one winner for the same prize and all have come from Twitter

AubreyMac

Although there's no way to prove this, I do suspect that postcard entries lower your chances (if there is a phone/text option too) as the comp runner are not making a profit from it. Though I do know there were loads of itv winners who entered online when that used to be allowed.


I have won a few times through postcards where postal was the only entry route but I've never won when the other options are phone/text.

mjm3346

AubreyMac wrote: »

Although there's no way to prove this, I do suspect that postcard entries lower your chances (if there is a phone/text option too) as the comp runner are not making a profit from it. Though I do know there were loads of itv winners who entered online when that used to be allowed.

Should and almost certainly does make no difference but if there is a choice of Phone/text/postal entry routes only a very small minority will be postal entries so there is much less chance there will be a postal winner than a phone or text one - when it was web there will have been a large number of web entries and as expected there was a significant number of winners from it.

Once an entry has been made there is no gain to the promoter to risk getting caught favouring any particular entry route, the persuasion needs to come before the entries are made hence the switch to postal from web entry for the ITV comps which has increased their income from competitions by millions of pounds as well as slashing the number of free entries.