Dishonest stuff going on in the Board Only Sales Area Forum...Sad. 5 5

[1Cool]

On 1/22/2020 at 5:09 PM, october said:

Sounds incredibly stupid. 

How so?  For the buyers of the spots or the people breaking the law to run a for profit raffle?  If its run correctly and on the up and up it is a great way for people with little money to possibly win a big book - basic lotto mentality.  You do pay a 20% vig to be part of this fun process which should make most people pause but it is probably less house vig then doing keno or scratch offs.

[1Cool]

But since I believe I am the one who tried to run a raffle on the boards which prompted the outright ban - I may be biased.

[october]

48 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

How so?  For the buyers of the spots or the people breaking the law to run a for profit raffle?  If its run correctly and on the up and up it is a great way for people with little money to possibly win a big book - basic lotto mentality.  You do pay a 20% vig to be part of this fun process which should make most people pause but it is probably less house vig then doing keno or scratch offs.

It's great for the people running them, stupid for the people playing them....and it get dumber the more they play. 

The expected value of a one chance in ten $40 slot for a $300 book is $30. Even if you win, mean reversion eventually makes you a loser. If you play ten raffles at $40 each, each for a $300 book, you are likely to win one $300 book after spending $400. The more you play, the closer to that average you get. 

People suck at math, which is why the lottery, raffles and Las Vegas exist. If it's pure entertainment, that's cool, but don't expect to come out ahead....and from my experience most people do.  

Edited January 24, 2020 by october

[shadroch]

1 minute ago, october said:

It's great for the people running them, stupid for the people playing them....and it get dumber the more they play. 

The expected value of a one chance in ten $40 slot for a $300 book is $30. Even if you win, mean reversion eventually makes you a loser. If you play ten raffles at $40 each, each for a $300 book, you are likely to win one $300 book after spending $400. The more you play, the closer to that average you get. 

People suck at math, which is why the lottery, raffles and Las Vegas exist. 

You end up with one $300 book AND nine others. Assuming the raffle wasn't one good book and 99 smurfs, you will probably end up with $400 worth of books.

[october]

4 minutes ago, shadroch said:

You end up with one $300 book AND nine others. Assuming the raffle wasn't one good book and 99 smurfs, you will probably end up with $400 worth of books.

I am not sure what this means. The raffles I've seen on Instagram have been for one book. You either get it or you get nothing. 

Obviously variations on this make it either a better or worse deal. In the end, the odds will favor the house...otherwise why waste time running them?

Edited January 24, 2020 by october

[shadroch]

I've run perhaps a dozen raffles and every one of them was one hundred percent square. Been involved in many charitable ones and only one gave the appearance of being fixed.

On the other hand, I have seen numerous casino raffles that certainly seemed fixed.

It's a shame people aren't more honest, but more of a shame people are so suspicious.

[shadroch]

1 minute ago, october said:

I am not sure what this means. The raffles I've seen on Instagram have been for one book. You either get it or you get nothing. 

Obviously variations on this make it either a better or worse deal. In the end, the odds will favor the house...otherwise why waste time running them?

1) they are a lot more fun to do than listing hundreds of books to sell

2)they are a source for moving mid level stock.

[1Cool]

19 minutes ago, shadroch said:

You end up with one $300 book AND nine others. Assuming the raffle wasn't one good book and 99 smurfs, you will probably end up with $400 worth of books.

Different kind of raffle then the Facebook kind that are popular.  Your kind is more of a blind box and you don't know what you will get but you are guaranteed to get something pretty good for your $50 (some better then others).  This kind of "raffle" was around for quite a while but just called mystery box.  The raffle on IG or Facebook is for 1 high price book with a bunch of people ponying up a small amount to win the book.  I typically did mine for 10% over GPA since I could sometimes find big ticket books for 10% - 15% under GPA and when you don't have to give 10% to E-Bay I can handle 20% - 25% profits on big books and this made selling spots easier since people only have an inherent loss of 10%.  Still a pain in the butt to do and ended up not worth it to me but I can see why people do it.

Edited January 24, 2020 by 1Cool

[october]

14 minutes ago, shadroch said:

1) they are a lot more fun to do than listing hundreds of books to sell

2)they are a source for moving mid level stock.

This is not typical of the raffles I've seen. In fact, I've never seen one like this. Are you on Instagram? Take a look at those and let me know if you think they are all on the up and up and a great deal for the players. 

Edited January 24, 2020 by october

[adampasz]

On 1/22/2020 at 12:47 PM, KryptoSpidey said:

Yeah it was a Frank aka Muscleshark / Frankenstein disaster over a CGC 8.5 Avengers 57 he cracked and tried reselling as a 9.2 back to me that i sold slabbed to him, then every excuse under the sun....mixed up books, mixed up scans, ect... I don't even know if he's still lurking around the boards. At the end he regraded it after having it cleaned, it came back a CGC 9.2 and he acted like he hit the lottery for the $400 profit he made. All the while i had just sold the White CGC 9.6 for $5,000 that i bought on eBay for $385 so i still chuckle at his "success" as i was getting rid of all the "low grade" books like this 8.5 i had obtained. I think i paid $20 for the 8.5 originally and he bought it for $150 from me...

I was about to read 86 pages of posts. Thanks for saving me some time today.

[Callaway29]

Only played an instagram raffle once, and it was because the book being offered wasn't available anywhere else...and hadn't been for quite some time. I hated myself from start to finish because I know math, but I was also foaming at the mouth for the book. Obviously I did not win...

[joeypost]

Wow. Ten years. 

[Dale Roberts]

8 minutes ago, joeypost said:

Wow. Ten years. 

We're really old.

[joeypost]

1 minute ago, Dale Roberts said:

We're really old.

And injured. I haven’t shaved in 2 weeks. My beard is all gray. 

[1Cool]

Couple of the really old timers are quickly approaching 20 years of being on the boards.  There are high school seniors that were born on the year the boards started up.

[Dale Roberts]

50 minutes ago, joeypost said:

And injured. I haven’t shaved in 2 weeks. My beard is all gray. 

[THE_BEYONDER]

1 hour ago, Dale Roberts said:

We're really old.

But still the youngest we’ll ever be....

[Oskywalker]

[Transplant]

27 minutes ago, Dale Roberts said:

Shut up, noob!

[entalmighty1]

3 hours ago, october said:

I am not sure what this means. The raffles I've seen on Instagram have been for one book. You either get it or you get nothing. 

Obviously variations on this make it either a better or worse deal. In the end, the odds will favor the house...otherwise why waste time running them?

Don't forget the "mini" spots Andy.  A lot of these clowns will run mini-raffles to get into the big raffle.  So the main raffle is 20 spots at $50 bucks for a book worth maybe $750, then they'll have a couple of mini raffles where you have 20 spots at $5 each for another entry.  I've seen as many as 20 mini raffles for one book.  The only people making money off these things are the ones raffling the books. 

It's criminal, and the mouth-breathers that are participating deserve everything they get (usually nothing).