About Mini-Cactpot Odds

hello. does it seem the odds to hit 7,8,9 and 1,2,3 are the same? they seem the same to me. i've hit both an equal amount of times now. so i ask... why give one more a reward then the other?

in fact... i fail to understand the entire system for this. for getting anything like 1,2,3 has the same odds as even 4,5,6... or practically anything else.



am i missing something here? i sure hope so! like i would assume there is some kind of scramble system that actually offsets the odds between getting something 1,2,3 and 7,8,9... but it just doesn't seem that way to me. :/

Someone with more time could explain this better than I, but certain totals have lower or higher probability of happening, it's not a matter of odds of sequence such as 1,2,3 or 7,8,9. For sequence, all combinations have equal odds of appearing (1,2,4 has the same odds as 1,2,5 and 1,3,7, etc.)

However sums don't have the same odds. There are 84 sum possibilities.

I made a quick excel on the odds of each, hopefully this pastes well:

Outcome | Number of times | Odds of Outcome
6 1 1.1905%
7 1 1.1905%
8 2 2.3810%
9 3 3.5714%
10 4 4.7619%
11 5 5.9524%
12 7 8.3333%
13 7 8.3333%
14 8 9.5238%
15 8 9.5238%
16 8 9.5238%
17 7 8.3333%
18 7 8.3333%
19 5 5.9524%
20 4 4.7619%
21 3 3.5714%
22 2 2.3810%
23 1 1.1905%
24 1 1.1905%


Also note that in a 3x3 grid, you get 7 of these rolls, some of them exclude the others as each value can only appear once. That would also affect these possibilities, but I'm too lazy to factor them in. This gives a good overview though.

right. but once you learn the system it is fairly easy to almost always make 1k+ MGP on the mini-cactpot. there really doesn't seem to be much a gambling aspect to it. then getting 6 has the same odds as getting 24. and there is only one combination for those numbers and that is 1,2,3 and 7,8,9. but yet the payout greatly varies between the two results. same odds / different payouts. it just doesn't make any sense to me.

i would say there is some sort of hidden factor that scrambles these odds. but i have not experienced anything of the like. it is just like you said, getting any combination has the same odds as any other combination. while getting a specific sum total has different odds. (even that is wrong when we talk about something like getting 6 or 24.)

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Originally Posted by BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY

right. but once you learn the system it is fairly easy to almost always make 1k+ MGP on the mini-cactpot.

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Don't know about that. I have played it everyday since it came out. With only a handful of times having max payout over 1k. Once at over 3k, and I have yet to have one hit 10k.

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Originally Posted by BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY

right. but once you learn the system it is fairly easy to almost always make 1k+ MGP on the mini-cactpot. there really doesn't seem to be much a gambling aspect to it. then getting 6 has the same odds as getting 24. and there is only one combination for those numbers and that is 1,2,3 and 7,8,9. but yet the payout greatly varies between the two results. same odds / different payouts. it just doesn't make any sense to me.

i would say there is some sort of hidden factor that scrambles these odds. but i have not experienced anything of the like. it is just like you said, getting any combination has the same odds as any other combination. while getting a specific sum total has different odds. (even that is wrong when we talk about something like getting 6 or 24.)

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You can't, because you must have a card with such a combination. 90% of my cards got 108-180 max win. Sure, IF you got a card with a good combination, it's not very hard to find it.

A lot of cards have under 200 mgp regardless of which line you choose.

Its not always 1k+

I've done this everyday since release, I always check every combination on the card after I have picked my line to see "what I could have won" I have hit a 789 once and had a card with 123 but only uncovered one of the 3 digits leaving me with a 50/50 chance of picking the right one and I picked wrong :(

I have a total of 14088 MGP from the mini cactpot, Feb 24th was release of Gold Saucer, I may have missed one or two days but not a significant amount that's a maximum total of 37 tickets at 100 a ticket that's a cost of 3700 leading me to a profit of 10388 MGP so far. Average ticket win before cost of ticket is ~380 for me.

Stats are great and all, but...
1 + 2 + 3 = 6

In Japanese, 6 is a lucky number,
4 = shi which also means death,
7 = shichi which starts with shi.
These numbers are so unlucky, that they even have an alternate words for these numbers, 4 being yon, and 7 being nana

You're missing a very important detail. This minigame let's you pierce the veil. You get to look at some of the numbers before making your final decision. While 1-2-3 has the highest payout, the other low numbers are relatively poor paying. By contrast, the high sums have a much higher value on average. Therefore, given the option between picking a 1-2-? line, and a 9-8-? line, you have much more risk, clicking that 3+ point line. If you DON'T get that 10k pay out, you're not looking at a lot of gil at all.

^good point.
Also, Robin and Kalandros are right, i always check which rewards i could have gotten at the end and often 180 is the max. However, when there is a 1-2-3 i get it most of the time.

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Originally Posted by BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY

... then getting 6 has the same odds as getting 24. and there is only one combination for those numbers and that is 1,2,3 and 7,8,9. but yet the payout greatly varies between the two results. same odds / different payouts. it just doesn't make any sense to me.

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If you could see either all the numbers or none of them when you made your choice, then it wouldn't make sense. As it is, you're choosing between possibilities. Do you go for the line that has the most chances to win a significant amount or the line that has one possible chance to win the biggest amount?

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Originally Posted by BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY

i would say there is some sort of hidden factor that scrambles these odds. but i have not experienced anything of the like.

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If you haven't experienced it, why would you think there's some other hidden factor? I'm pretty sure it's just nine digits randomly scattered across a card, with each combination just as likely as any other. Which ones you get is luck, and which of those you choose is a combination of luck and the probability deductions you can make from limited information.

if one combination is just as likely to occur as another combination but yet has a different payout... well that just doesn't make sense. too bad REAL lottery tickets aren't like this. i would be filthy stinking rich. anyhow, is whatever. i am not complaining about. it is just a game, and having it like this ensures people can always win something with a relatively high rate. it just isn't very logical for a lottery system.

It wouldn't be logical for a regular lottery system where what you get is pure luck. This isn't one. Here we get to reveal portions of the card and then choose, so we're working with probabilities. Some people will choose to go with the line that has high numbers, as that gives the greatest chance to get a return in the thousands. Some will go with the line that has low numbers if that has a chance of giving the 10,000 prize. The difference lets you choose between higher payout in one case or higher success chance in the other. While it's true that a sum of 24 is no more likely than 6, that's countered by the fact that 24 isn't the only good result you can get from high numbers.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

If you haven't experienced it, why would you think there's some other hidden factor? I'm pretty sure it's just nine digits randomly scattered across a card, with each combination just as likely as any other. Which ones you get is luck, and which of those you choose is a combination of luck and the probability deductions you can make from limited information.

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Because each mini cactpot card has a number on the top right. I believe there are 9! possibilities for a 3x3 grid and there's no way that SE put in that many variations (~330k iirc) of the different mini cactpot cards. The numbers only seem to be 3 digits, so there probably a few hundred "random" cards it chooses from.. Even if there is an equal chance of pulling one card over another, there's no telling what those few hundred cards look like in terms of payout distribution

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Originally Posted by Gillionaire

Because each mini cactpot card has a number on the top right. I believe there are 9! possibilities for a 3x3 grid and there's no way that SE put in that many variations (~330k iirc) of the different mini cactpot cards. The numbers only seem to be 3 digits, so there probably a few hundred "random" cards it chooses from.. Even if there is an equal chance of pulling one card over another, there's no telling what those few hundred cards look like in terms of payout distribution

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It would be ridiculously inefficient to waste that much data on storing hundreds of card possibilities (not to mention all the effort to come up with them in the first place) when all they need is a single simple rule about how cards are put together in order to have all 9! possibilities. I just can't see them putting that much extra effort into making it bad when the better version is far far easier.

So while I'm not sure what if anything that number in the corner is, I'm pretty sure it's not an identifier of which card we got. (Not to mention the fact that if the system actually had identifiers like that of which card is which, it's certainly not something they'd show us in advance. It would pretty well wipe out the whole process of displaying a few numbers and choosing a line from that.)

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Originally Posted by Gillionaire

Because each mini cactpot card has a number on the top right. I believe there are 9! possibilities for a 3x3 grid and there's no way that SE put in that many variations (~330k iirc) of the different mini cactpot cards. The numbers only seem to be 3 digits, so there probably a few hundred "random" cards it chooses from.. Even if there is an equal chance of pulling one card over another, there's no telling what those few hundred cards look like in terms of payout distribution

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Isn't that just the number of the current Mini Cactpot drawing?

Yes, as the previous poster said. It's round number that increases daily. Skip a round and it's increased by two. That is, it indicates the current day/round played.

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Originally Posted by Jambalaya

snip

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I'm pretty sure you did this correctly, but it only solidifes the question OP began with: it is the exact same percentage for a 6 as a 24, so what constitutes there being a different payout? Maybe there is a hidden factor built into the algorithm that, regardless of your graph, will offer a 6 less than a 24 just by bias input into the system? I'm not sure, all I know is I have seen, hit and won 10k 10 times since it has came out and I've only seen 24 happen 3 times. I missed 1 of them trying to bait a 6 :p

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

I'm pretty sure you did this correctly, but it only solidifes the question OP began with: it is the exact same percentage for a 6 as a 24, so what constitutes there being a different payout? Maybe there is a hidden factor built into the algorithm that, regardless of your graph, will offer a 6 less than a 24 just by bias input into the system? I'm not sure, all I know is I have seen, hit and won 10k 10 times since it has came out and I've only seen 24 happen 3 times. I missed 1 of them trying to bait a 6 :p

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well like i previously mentioned, it does help to increase the players average payout. it is just like Niwashi said at post #13.

opening this topic has really helped me see this from a new perspective. however, i don't think every prize should be MGP. sure it is nice to have the higher average payout, but it is also supposed to have risk involved. and the risk of getting a payout lower then 1k... or heck, even the risk of getting a payout lower then 100MGP (the card costs 100MGP) is pretty darn low.

i just think the high average payout isn't the kind of risk you would expect from gambling. i think at the very least they could make some number(s) not award any MGP at all. now don't get me wrong... i certainly do enjoy earning that MGP. :P but i also think there should be a little more risk involved. or maybe more variety in prizes.

Odds that you will have a possibility of 6 on your card is about 9.5%
Odds for a 24 are the same

Just make sure you pick so that there is only one selection that can have 6 seeing what you uncovered. If what you uncovered shows no chance at a 6, shoot for something else.