I've looked and looked, and I don't see any rules against it, so why not.
I'm going to start a lottery!
Big prizes, small costs, fair house cut, and taxes will be paid!
To start off with, I'm unveiling the "low entry" version of the lottery, appropriately called "Beginner's Luck" because it's accessible to even the lowest level players!
Beginner's Luck
Total Tickets: 100
Cost Per Ticket: 0.25
Gold 
a ticket, buy 4 get 1 free. (Maximum 8+2 Tickets per Player)
1st Prize: 10
Gold (40x payout)
2nd Prize: 5
Gold (20x payout)
3rd Prize: 3
Gold (12x payout)
Update: 3rd prize increased from 1 gold to 3 gold. Yay!
In the spirit of openness, you should realize your odds of winning any one of the three prizes are 1:33. If a ticket is drawn that was not purchased, the house will either pick the next drawn ticket or claim the prize itself, at the house's discretion, and depending on the number of purchased tickets.
Please donate your gold to
Mitschu along with the number of tickets you'd like to buy (ticket numbers are assigned randomly.)
You may buy tickets up to four hours before to the drawing time. (20:00 Server Time, Saturday.) Winners and prizes will be announced immediately after the server reset.
Update: 0 / 100 Tickets Remaining. Time for an Early Drawing!!
You can watch the drawing occur -
here - this Sunday at 00:00 CET (Server Reset).
Update: The lottery will be drawn early if all 100 tickets have been sold before the time of the official drawing. Thanks for asking, I forgot to clarify that.
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11:48 19-5-2013
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Premium account
(1 year ago)
So "at my discretion" can be read as "This game will always be fair, /except/ when it tips the scales so that the house doesn't win a grand prize."
In the words of Bob Barker, "Oh, close enough. I'm giving you the prize anyway, now get off my Showcase!"
That's the kind of attitude I'm trying to bring to this.
(1 year ago)
NathanP, at my discretion essentially means:
If only 5 tickets are bought, that's a 95% chance that the winning ticket will be one of the numbers left unpurchased.
By default, that money would go back to the house. If I were to scroll through until I found three purchased tickets down the line, I'd be paying out 16g for 1g worth of ticket sales (and losing 15g because nobody bought tickets.) I don't want that to happen. Likewise, I don't want the house winning the prizes. So consider:
Alternatively, if 99 tickets were bought, and through some fluke the top prize drawn was the unpurchased ticket, I would naturally just move everyone up one slot and pick the 4th ticket drawn as 3rd prize.
(1 year ago)
If a ticket is drawn that was not purchased, the house will either pick the next drawn ticket or claim the prize itself, at the house's discretion, and depending on the number of purchased tickets.
That part is going to push people away.
(1 year ago)
I await my 10 goldz.
(1 year ago)
Tell your friends, hope they win! Tell your enemies, hope they lose! 85 tickets remaining!
(1 year ago)
Looking forward to winning this ;D