Last night when I made the 'rounds' of all five housing zones to place my bid, I found the following:

- Dozens of plots that had 2, 3 or 4 bids on them, at the very end of the entry cycle.
- The maximum number of entries on a plot was 58. I avoided that because...
- ...identical plots in other wards had less than ten bids on them.

In the end I picked a plot that had three other bids on it, mine being the fourth.

I guess participation varies wildly based on server? That's fine, I can understand that. Stating things like '150-1 odds or much worse' is hyperbolic, though. Did you even look around? Places like Empyrium were rife with open plots and low participation. I visited some two dozen open plots in one ward there, and at least half of them had fewer than ten bids. At the tail end of the cycle (2am-ish, PDT, six hours before entries closed.)