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  1. #23
    Player
    Lux_Rayna's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Posts
    911
    Character
    Vynce Walker
    World
    Sargatanas
    Main Class
    Miner Lv 50
    Quote Originally Posted by Rogue View Post
    are you serious? i suggest you think about this a little longer..
    I am serious. But its because ppl believe the opposite that they get suckered into things like casinos and lotteries. I can easily explain why it doesn't improve your chances: you are not playing by yourself.

    Let's take a lottery for example. Ppl believe that if you buy a bunch of tickets, you have a higher chance of winning. True and false. For every ticket you buy, there's another person buying a lottery ticket..heck there are probably another 3 or 4 ppl buying a ticket. While statistically you have a higher chance than any other individual (in terms of probability), the increase of participants negates your probability of winning vs anyone else winning. Hard to explain in words so lets use numbers.

    Take a lottery, for example. What would happen if, for every ticket you buy, 5 other ppl bought a ticket?

    You buy 1 ticket. 5 other guys buy 1 ticket. 6 tickets total, your probability of winning is 1/6.

    You buy 5 tickets. 25 other guys buy 1 ticket. 30 tickets total, your probability of winning is 1/6.

    You buy 20 tickets. 100 other guys buy 1 ticket. 120 tickets total, your probability of winning is 1/6.

    Get it now? Statistically, more attempts does not mean you have a higher chance of success. It depends on how many other guys are jumping in on the pool for every attempt you make. How many runs do you think happens in the time it takes for you to do one? Take a guess. Just think about it. What if the number of runs increased for every attempt you did? Your chances would actually start decreasing.

    Let's go back to the lottery example. Let's say 5 more ppl buy a ticket than last time, for every ticket you buy.

    You buy 5 tickets, (5+10+15+20+25) 75 other guys buy a ticket. 80 tickets total, your chances are 5/80, or 1/16

    See how that compares to the above example? A lot worse right? What if you bought 1 ticket? It would be 5 tickets total, so your chances would be 1/5. Much better yeah?

    Its important to remember that this was just an exercise in theoretical probability. The point was that more attempts =/= higher success rate. That entirely depends on how many attempts go on around you for every attempt you add to the pool. Of course it won't conspire against you like in my examples, but at times it just might. Theoretically its possible that less attempts = higher percentage chance of winning. Thats the problem with probability, *anything* can happen based on what everyone else decides to do. So really, I suggest you think about it a little longer. Three things can happen based on increasing your output:

    1) Chances increase
    2) Chances decrease
    3) Chances stay the same

    Your chances entirely depend on what everyone else is doing at the time. Sure more attempts is never a bad idea, but it doesn't mean it will really help you in practical terms.
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    Last edited by Lux_Rayna; 04-13-2012 at 03:13 PM.