E: 30/9/05 Win Ipod With Walkers Crisps (MERGED)

zodiac

http://www.winwithwalkers.com/ImproveYourChances.aspx

It gives the "low down" on how the entries are..... dont know how true it is tho
Give it a few days and it should die down a bit, I hate crisps so i'll be giving them to my brother and his friends :rotfl: (after the code has "gone" of course :P )

DEVILFISH

I think Walkers have got this one down. I have spoken to lots of people convinced they're gonna win an IPOD if they collect 30 pkts of crisps and bundle them all in an entry early one morning when no-one is up in a few weeks when everyones forgotten about it. Just think how many Britons buy and eat Walkers in the course of just one day and are now buying extra packets and texting like crazies thinking there's an easy IPOD to be won. Walkers are making a fortune.......tut tut tut!!
Anyhow I've got 52 pkts and counting with the 0505 slot earmarked on the 19th of September. Touch that date at your peril moneysavers.

marka87uk

How are you going to enter all 52 codes; your name, phone number, and a security code 52 times; and tick the boxes 52 times... within 5 mins?

bs7

marka87uk wrote:

How are you going to enter all 52 codes; your name, phone number, and a security code 52 times; and tick the boxes 52 times... within 5 mins?

i suppose he could open up 52 windows (or 52 tabs in firefox) with all the numbers already entered and just waiting on him hitting the final submit button

DEVILFISH

Exactly. 52 separate windows and one trigger happy finger. I'm not sure if it'll work. I might give it a trial run in the early hours!

NickC_4

So, what is the best strategy? Most people seem to be aiming for an early time slot in the morning assuming that there will be few other people entering at the time, and then entering as many times as possible. This was my first instinct, but the more I thought about it I wasn’t so sure, so I tried to work it out: [Skip to the bottom if you don’t want to be bored]

Lets say you are able to get 10 entries in in your five minute slot:

i) If there are very few entries, say 30 in total, you have a one in three chance of winning or 0.3.

ii) If there are more entries, say 100 in total, you have a one in ten chance of winning, or 0.1.

iii) If there are even more entries, say 1000 in total, you have a one in one hundred chance of winning, or 0.01, and so on.

Lets now consider putting your entries into ten different slots at a similar time, with a similar number of entries from your “opponents”:

i) With 20 entries, plus yours, your chance of winning is ten times one in 21, (~1 in 2) or 0.47. (Much better)

ii) ten times one in 91, (~1 in 9) or 0.11. (Slightly better)

iii) ten times one in 991, or 0.0101. (Better, but not significant)

So it would seem that you are better off spreading your entries around, only putting one in each time slot, but the bigger the ratio of opponent entries to yours, the less it matters. I suspect that unless you are very lucky, this ratio will always be big. If you do aim for multiple time slots, you are also more likely to hit a low one.

Taking this example to the extreme (to give an indication of the trend as much as anything) assume you have 12 entries and between 0200 and 0300 hours only one other entry is made in each 5-minute slot. If you put all your entries into one slot, you are almost guaranteed to win. If you put one entry into each slot, you have a 50% chance each time. You would therefore expect to win 6 times on average! :j

Anyway – my suggestion is to spread your entries around instead of putting “all your eggs in one basket”. If you read through instead of jumping to this para, please let me know if you agree.

Nick.

bs7

NickC wrote:

Anyway – my suggestion is to spread your entries around instead of putting “all your eggs in one basket”. If you read through instead of jumping to this para, please let me know if you agree.

But you can't add the probabilities of winning if you spread them since they are all totally separate and completely independent, i.e. a 1/100 chance in one 5 minute period, followed by another in the next period does not equal 2/100. It's simply two 1/100 chances.

So the choice would be 50/100 (or 1/2) or fifty 1/100 chances.

--

Here's a link to the raw data from the "Improve Your Chances" page - http://81.29.80.207/draw_entry_counts.xml - as you'll see the number of entries currently seems to fluctuate between about 400 entries and upto several thousand (the last figure in each line is the number of entries).

Alltheloginsaretakenappar

Hmm, interesting. I don't mean to be rude, but I disagree: the differences arise from the very small number of entries you are using as examples! Entering 1x instead of 10x is making a huge difference to the the total number of entries, but in reality this wouldn't be so


So, to follow your example with these different numbers of entries (the actual average numbers of entries for the 5 min slots in these time periods!)

5:00-6:00 250 entries
11:00-12:00 850 entries
21:00-22:00 1400 entries


10 entries to one five minute slot:
i) If there are very few entries, say 250 in total, you have a 0.04 or 4% chance of winning

ii) If there are more entries, say 850 in total, you have a 0.0117 or 1.2% chance of winning

iii) If there are even more entries, say 1400 in total, you have a 0.0071 or 0.7% chance of winning


Lets now consider putting your entries into ten different slots at a similar time, with a similar number of entries from your “opponents”:
i) With 241 entries, including yours, your chance of winning is ten times one in 241 = 0.41 0r 4.1% chance of winning

ii) With 841 entries, including yours, your chance of winning is ten times one in 841 = 0.012 0r 1.2% chance of winning

iii) With 1391 entries, including yours, your chance of winning is ten times one in 1391 = 0.0072 0r 0.72% chance of winning


But, for those who don't want to do any calculations, your best bet is to enter between 5am and 6:30am
The actual numbers of entries have been:

1 1/10/05 0:00:00 784
2 9/1/05 0:05:00 1062
3 9/1/05 0:10:00 943
4 9/1/05 0:15:00 841
5 9/1/05 0:20:00 779
6 9/1/05 0:25:00 735
7 9/1/05 0:30:00 685
8 9/1/05 0:35:00 639
9 9/1/05 0:40:00 592
10 9/1/05 0:45:00 585
11 9/1/05 0:50:00 543
12 9/1/05 0:55:00 547
13 9/1/05 1:00:00 521
14 9/1/05 1:05:00 510
15 9/1/05 1:10:00 560
16 9/1/05 1:15:00 533
17 9/1/05 1:20:00 524
18 9/1/05 1:25:00 508
19 9/1/05 1:30:00 451
20 9/1/05 1:35:00 462
21 9/1/05 1:40:00 473
22 9/1/05 1:45:00 460
23 9/1/05 1:50:00 440
24 9/1/05 1:55:00 499
25 9/1/05 2:00:00 423
26 9/1/05 2:05:00 431
27 9/1/05 2:10:00 449
28 9/1/05 2:15:00 457
29 9/1/05 2:20:00 440
30 9/1/05 2:25:00 438
31 9/1/05 2:30:00 423
32 9/1/05 2:35:00 417
33 9/1/05 2:40:00 414
34 9/1/05 2:45:00 435
35 9/1/05 2:50:00 437
36 9/1/05 2:55:00 403
37 9/1/05 3:00:00 455
38 9/1/05 3:05:00 445
39 9/1/05 3:10:00 452
40 9/1/05 3:15:00 447
41 9/1/05 3:20:00 442
42 9/1/05 3:25:00 471
43 9/1/05 3:30:00 463
44 9/1/05 3:35:00 429
45 9/1/05 3:40:00 483
46 9/1/05 3:45:00 457
47 9/1/05 3:50:00 460
48 9/1/05 3:55:00 480
49 9/1/05 4:00:00 475
50 9/1/05 4:05:00 494
51 9/1/05 4:10:00 483
52 9/1/05 4:15:00 448
53 9/1/05 4:20:00 443
54 9/1/05 4:25:00 464
55 9/1/05 4:30:00 443
56 9/1/05 4:35:00 442
57 9/1/05 4:40:00 440
58 9/1/05 4:45:00 433
59 9/1/05 4:50:00 387
60 9/1/05 4:55:00 328
61 9/1/05 5:00:00 274
62 9/1/05 5:05:00 274
63 9/1/05 5:10:00 242
64 9/1/05 5:15:00 250
65 9/1/05 5:20:00 248
66 9/1/05 5:25:00 243
67 9/1/05 5:30:00 224
68 9/1/05 5:35:00 227
69 9/1/05 5:40:00 231
70 9/1/05 5:45:00 206
71 9/1/05 5:50:00 238
72 9/1/05 5:55:00 224
73 9/1/05 6:00:00 261
74 9/1/05 6:05:00 257
75 9/1/05 6:10:00 262
76 9/1/05 6:15:00 263
77 9/1/05 6:20:00 305
78 9/1/05 6:25:00 284
79 9/1/05 6:30:00 338
80 9/1/05 6:35:00 353
81 9/1/05 6:40:00 336
82 9/1/05 6:45:00 366
83 9/1/05 6:50:00 370
84 9/1/05 6:55:00 390
85 9/1/05 7:00:00 392
86 9/1/05 7:05:00 413
87 9/1/05 7:10:00 465
88 9/1/05 7:15:00 434
89 9/1/05 7:20:00 460
90 9/1/05 7:25:00 449
91 9/1/05 7:30:00 442
92 9/1/05 7:35:00 485
93 9/1/05 7:40:00 487
94 9/1/05 7:45:00 502
95 9/1/05 7:50:00 530
96 9/1/05 7:55:00 537
97 9/1/05 8:00:00 514
98 9/1/05 8:05:00 457
99 9/1/05 8:10:00 518
100 9/1/05 8:15:00 506
101 9/1/05 8:20:00 511
102 9/1/05 8:25:00 512
103 9/1/05 8:30:00 500
104 9/1/05 8:35:00 522
105 9/1/05 8:40:00 463
106 9/1/05 8:45:00 538
107 9/1/05 8:50:00 554
108 9/1/05 8:55:00 546
109 9/1/05 9:00:00 565
110 9/1/05 9:05:00 565
111 9/1/05 9:10:00 586
112 9/1/05 9:15:00 556
113 9/1/05 9:20:00 592
114 9/1/05 9:25:00 574
115 9/1/05 9:30:00 570
116 9/1/05 9:35:00 545
117 9/1/05 9:40:00 525
118 9/1/05 9:45:00 576
119 9/1/05 9:50:00 585
120 9/1/05 9:55:00 584
121 9/1/05 10:00:00 585
122 9/1/05 10:05:00 535
123 9/1/05 10:10:00 559
124 9/1/05 10:15:00 595
125 9/1/05 10:20:00 651
126 9/1/05 10:25:00 848
127 9/1/05 10:30:00 923
128 9/1/05 10:35:00 954
129 9/1/05 10:40:00 921
130 9/1/05 10:45:00 885
131 9/1/05 10:50:00 869
132 9/1/05 10:55:00 895
133 9/1/05 11:00:00 813
134 9/1/05 11:05:00 927
135 9/1/05 11:10:00 882
136 9/1/05 11:15:00 884
137 9/1/05 11:20:00 911
138 9/1/05 11:25:00 906
139 9/1/05 11:30:00 873
140 9/1/05 11:35:00 928
141 9/1/05 11:40:00 896
142 9/1/05 11:45:00 890
143 9/1/05 11:50:00 888
144 9/1/05 11:55:00 855
145 9/1/05 12:00:00 855
146 9/1/05 12:05:00 892
147 9/1/05 12:10:00 909
148 9/1/05 12:15:00 869
149 9/1/05 12:20:00 910
150 9/1/05 12:25:00 935
151 9/1/05 12:30:00 923
152 9/1/05 12:35:00 982
153 9/1/05 12:40:00 973
154 9/1/05 12:45:00 970
155 9/1/05 12:50:00 1011
156 9/1/05 12:55:00 1024
157 9/1/05 13:00:00 1004
158 9/1/05 13:05:00 1006
159 9/1/05 13:10:00 1034
160 9/1/05 13:15:00 1078
161 9/1/05 13:20:00 1071
162 9/1/05 13:25:00 1037
163 9/1/05 13:30:00 975
164 9/1/05 13:35:00 960
165 9/1/05 13:40:00 1014
166 9/1/05 13:45:00 1001
167 9/1/05 13:50:00 976
168 9/1/05 13:55:00 564
169 9/1/05 14:00:00 916
170 9/1/05 14:05:00 1082
171 9/1/05 14:10:00 1060
172 9/1/05 14:15:00 1089
173 9/1/05 14:20:00 1074
174 9/1/05 14:25:00 985
175 9/1/05 14:30:00 992
176 9/1/05 14:35:00 1017
177 9/1/05 14:40:00 939
178 9/1/05 14:45:00 958
179 9/1/05 14:50:00 968
180 9/1/05 14:55:00 914
181 9/1/05 15:00:00 945
182 9/1/05 15:05:00 935
183 9/1/05 15:10:00 900
184 9/1/05 15:15:00 913
185 9/1/05 15:20:00 862
186 9/1/05 15:25:00 891
187 9/1/05 15:30:00 921
188 9/1/05 15:35:00 853
189 9/1/05 15:40:00 872
190 9/1/05 15:45:00 838
191 9/1/05 15:50:00 834
192 9/1/05 15:55:00 867
193 9/1/05 16:00:00 871
194 9/1/05 16:05:00 811
195 9/1/05 16:10:00 835
196 9/1/05 16:15:00 811
197 9/1/05 16:20:00 838
198 9/1/05 16:25:00 753
199 9/1/05 16:30:00 756
200 9/1/05 16:35:00 806
201 9/1/05 16:40:00 768
202 9/1/05 16:45:00 757
203 9/1/05 16:50:00 762
204 9/1/05 16:55:00 766
205 9/1/05 17:00:00 745
206 9/1/05 17:05:00 770
207 9/1/05 17:10:00 641
208 9/1/05 17:15:00 528
209 9/1/05 17:20:00 738
210 9/1/05 17:25:00 771
211 9/1/05 17:30:00 776
212 9/1/05 17:35:00 763
213 9/1/05 17:40:00 736
214 9/1/05 17:45:00 1015
215 9/1/05 17:50:00 893
216 9/1/05 17:55:00 1083
217 9/1/05 18:00:00 1083
218 9/1/05 18:05:00 1070
219 9/1/05 18:10:00 1044
220 9/1/05 18:15:00 1081
221 9/1/05 18:20:00 1056
222 9/1/05 18:25:00 1072
223 9/1/05 18:30:00 1133
224 9/1/05 18:35:00 1079
225 9/1/05 18:40:00 1056
226 9/1/05 18:45:00 1104
227 9/1/05 18:50:00 1045
228 9/1/05 18:55:00 1038
229 9/1/05 19:00:00 1029
230 9/1/05 19:05:00 980
231 9/1/05 19:10:00 1076
232 9/1/05 19:15:00 998
233 9/1/05 19:20:00 997
234 9/1/05 19:25:00 986
235 9/1/05 19:30:00 974
236 9/1/05 19:35:00 1008
237 9/1/05 19:40:00 1006
238 9/1/05 19:45:00 939
239 9/1/05 19:50:00 1042
240 9/1/05 19:55:00 998
241 9/1/05 20:00:00 952
242 9/1/05 20:05:00 1039
243 9/1/05 20:10:00 1114
244 9/1/05 20:15:00 1043
245 9/1/05 20:20:00 4573
246 9/1/05 20:25:00 8111
247 9/1/05 20:30:00 8013
248 9/1/05 20:35:00 7759
249 9/1/05 20:40:00 7071
250 9/1/05 20:45:00 7092
251 9/1/05 20:50:00 6023
252 9/1/05 20:55:00 1287
253 9/1/05 21:00:00 1650
254 9/1/05 21:05:00 1504
255 9/1/05 21:10:00 1441
256 9/1/05 21:15:00 1484
257 9/1/05 21:20:00 1337
258 9/1/05 21:25:00 1238
259 9/1/05 21:30:00 1332
260 9/1/05 21:35:00 1356
261 9/1/05 21:40:00 1120
262 9/1/05 21:45:00 1107
263 9/1/05 21:50:00 1234
264 9/1/05 21:55:00 1276
265 9/1/05 22:00:00 1315
266 9/1/05 22:05:00 1347
267 9/1/05 22:10:00 1341
268 9/1/05 22:15:00 1305
269 9/1/05 22:20:00 1294
270 9/1/05 22:25:00 1262
271 9/1/05 22:30:00 1247
272 9/1/05 22:35:00 1244
273 9/1/05 22:40:00 1173
274 9/1/05 22:45:00 1125
275 9/1/05 22:50:00 1114
276 9/1/05 22:55:00 1117
277 9/1/05 23:00:00 1174
278 9/1/05 23:05:00 1057
279 9/1/05 23:10:00 1031
280 9/1/05 23:15:00 1037
281 9/1/05 23:20:00 1027
282 9/1/05 23:25:00 973
283 9/1/05 23:30:00 908
284 9/1/05 23:35:00 978
285 9/1/05 23:40:00 991
286 9/1/05 23:45:00 892
287 9/1/05 23:50:00 824
288 9/1/05 23:55:00 785
289 9/2/05 0:00:00 860
290 9/2/05 0:05:00 892
291 9/2/05 0:10:00 887

bs7

Huh, NickC and you (Alltheloginsaretakenappar) have made the same mistake - if you are entering the competition at different times then you cannot add the probabilities together since they are independent of each other.

For example, if you toss a coin the chances of getting heads are 1/2 or 0.5, now according to your calculations if i toss it twice then i'm certain of getting heads - since 0.5 x2 is 1. But it isn't a certainty. In that example the probability of getting one head from the two tosses is still 0.5.

Alltheloginsaretakenappar

LOL it's been a while since I did probability at school! Was merely following Nicks method but using the real number of entries to provide a more realistic example, or so I thought. How about showing us the correct probability calculations for one time slot versus spread out?

bs7 wrote:

Also i'm not sure why you decided to post some of the data on the actual number of entries when it's available on the website i posted above

Well, if you're going to be pedantic, perhaps you should look at the times of both our posts - as I was busy typing I wasn't aware that you had provided a link. No harm in that! Also its much easier to read the times as I've posted them in the thread than it is in the link.

Anyway, thanks for the welcome :j