Politician Archive
Thread: Anyone ever had a successful lottery?
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zyxxyz
Sun Sep 05, 2004 8:20 pm
#1
I'm still working on getting elected as mayor of Tyronet on Wanderhome. In the meantime, however, I want to make sure the city does not start to decay. While we have plenty of cash in the treasury, it never hurts to have a little more.
I've started a lottery to try and earn money for the city. I am hoping a 20 million credit payout will be enough to attract a few gamblers, but we'll see. People didn't exactly flock to my ticket vendor the moment I posted that message...
Anyone ever tried this in their city? How did it work out? I would love to be able to fund the city with weekly lotteries rather than rely upon donations.
I've started a lottery to try and earn money for the city. I am hoping a 20 million credit payout will be enough to attract a few gamblers, but we'll see. People didn't exactly flock to my ticket vendor the moment I posted that message...
Anyone ever tried this in their city? How did it work out? I would love to be able to fund the city with weekly lotteries rather than rely upon donations.
Message Edited by zyxxyz on 09-05-2004 08:21 PM
Jaspor
Sun Sep 05, 2004 11:31 pm
#2
We ran a very successful lottery once.
But the prize wasn't just cash, it included a whole lot of donated items. Multiple prizes. Including Wookiee Life Day Orbs. And it actually was one of many events as part ofa Wookiee Life Day event celebration. And probably about 75% of the tickets sold were purchased on the day of the event.
A weekly lottery might be a bit too often. Maybe monthly? And have the drawing an actual live event that coincides with some sort of social gathering. And having multiple prizes also helps, as people seem to believe they have a much better chance at winning if there's more than one prize. 
Good luck.
Kyorlana
Mon Sep 06, 2004 1:19 am
#3
Had a look at your thread and I would also make the following suggestion...
For those that don't know you, how do they know you aren't going to walk off with 20 million yourself? Those are some damn expensive raffle tickets! The people who can afford to buy them probably don't need more millions anyway.
Instead, put up say 100 tickets at a range of prices from 1000cr through to 1 000 000cr and leave it to people to buy what they can afford. That way you will get more entries. As Jaspor said, you will also fare better if you have a range of donated prizes rather than just one large cash prize. Though the cash can be used as a supplement.
Hope that helps
For those that don't know you, how do they know you aren't going to walk off with 20 million yourself? Those are some damn expensive raffle tickets! The people who can afford to buy them probably don't need more millions anyway.
Instead, put up say 100 tickets at a range of prices from 1000cr through to 1 000 000cr and leave it to people to buy what they can afford. That way you will get more entries. As Jaspor said, you will also fare better if you have a range of donated prizes rather than just one large cash prize. Though the cash can be used as a supplement.
Hope that helps
Message Edited by Kyorlana on 09-06-2004 09:22 AM
Sawako
Mon Sep 06, 2004 11:14 am
#4
Would you walk up to me and give me 1,000,000 Credits because I *say* I'm going to give it back?
:/
Deepcore
Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:15 am
#5
What did you use for tickets ?
..and did you ever have aproblem with one person buyign all the tickets to ensure they take the entire prize fund ?
Message Edited by Deepcore on 09-07-2004 10:08 AM
Laeren
Tue Sep 07, 2004 6:44 am
#6
We just had a party in Rauha, Naboo (Starsider) this weekend, where we ran a pulltab event. A vendor was stocked with "pulltab" backpacks, each of which contained some kind of item (prize, useful item or booby prize) and a lottery ticket. At the end of the night we had a fun, dramatic dice-roll for the winner (there were 100 tickets in all, and so I just used a 100-sided dice and dramatically "rolled" the die across the floor). The suspense was a lot of fun and I think people enjoyed it
In addition to the very fine items in the pulltabs (some of the 400k+ loot kit items like Gong backs and Rug dyes, a Wookiee Life Day Orb, 3x80% armor pieces, etc), we also gave away 3rd and 2nd prizes of a full suit of 3x80% armor, and an AV-21 as1st prize.
We started the night with each pulltab being bought at 75k each, so that someone didn't just swoop in and buy them all. As the night went on we lowered the price to 25k, and then eventually to 5k so that people could buy them up. I also gave a few free ones to the band that we had commissioned, and ironically, one of them won the AV-21.
We've done this form of lottery/pulltab before and it's been very successful. We made 3mil in sales that night, and even though that doesn't cover the cost of the prizes we put in, obviously it was for fun and that's all that counted.
We also put on a rockin' fireworks display with our live band dancing up a storm Here's a short vid clip of that part of the party:
Here's a short vid clip of that part of the party:
Gunslinger74
Tue Sep 07, 2004 9:06 am
#7
Deepcore wrote:
What did you use for tickets ?
..and did you ever have aproblem with one person buyign all the tickets to ensure they take the entire prize fund ?
Message Edited by Deepcore on 09-07-2004 10:08 AM
We used packs as tickets with prizes inside (I suggest using only 1 item per pack to prevent snooping and cheating). Multi-part and cash prizes were represented by a "token" (chance cube).
What does it matter if someone buys up all of the packs? Our lottery was a fund raiser. If someone had come in and spent 30 mil on getting 10 mil in prizes, then they need some help with math, but their creds spend just like everyone else's.
Message Edited by Gunslinger74 on 09-07-2004 11:07 AM
Gunslinger74
Tue Sep 07, 2004 12:04 pm
#8
Everyone here is definitely on the right track...
The Servants of the Shrub just had a very successful lottery (we gave away over 10 millioncredits in cash and prizes) where we sold our entire inventory of 1000 packs.
You can't be greedy. We charged 30k per pack. Only 1/4 of the packs were empty (had a special "please try again" token - that will eventually be used in another game). The rest had prizes of varying worth, a special prize token, or a token for a cash award.
We made over 20 million credits for the city and the PA.
No one is going to pay much more than that unless the prize package is super high and there's a very high probability of winning. It was honestly the high probability of winning that kept people coming back. When you have a lottery where 3/4 of your packs have prizes, then people are more willing to come play.
It also helps to have a good reputation for honesty and integrity on your server. The SoS are well known and overcame some bad press we were getting (about the lottery being a scam) simply on our reputation for being honest.
We didn't make 100 million, but we were out to have fun, make it fun for everyone else, and still make some money for the city.
If you keep those goals in mind (especially the fun for the people playing), then you should do fine.
zyxxyz
Tue Sep 07, 2004 7:39 pm
#9
Thanks for the suggestions. No tickets sold yet, so I guess maybemillion credit tickets wasn't such a hot idea That's what I get for thinking more about fund-raising than fun.
That's what I get for thinking more about fund-raising than fun.I'll keep this one going for a while but start planning something a little more festive next time around. Good to know that it can be done, tho!
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