Guild Raffles.. how's it really work?

GreenhaloX · August 2016

I'm just curious. Does anybody actually win? I'm asking because I have tried and entered several times in guild raffles. I mean, normally, in a real raffle, you pay for the tickets, and you actually get those tickets, whether physically or electronically. Then, when the raffle is drawn, and the winning ticket is announced, you can physically check if you actually have the winning ticket, because you have those tickets on hand. However, in ESO and within its guilds, you don't get any ticket, electronically or otherwise. It states whatever the price of the raffle ticket may be, i.e. 5k and buy 5 and get one free, etc., and drop the gold in the guild bank or send the gold to the guildmaster or raffle creator. You do so, but get nothing in return. No electronic tickets (if there is even such as thing) or confirmation of how many you have purchased. You then make several attempts to contact the guild owner or master (whatever you want to call him or her) or the raffle point of contact, but get no response whatsoever. Finally, the raffle draw comes and pass, and then you see on the Guild's note page the next day or so that such guildmember or members have won.. then you happen to check the roster/rank and appears those winners are seemingly higher ranking members of that guild.

I'm not directly insinuating anything. Those may have outright won the raffle, and maybe others have also won a raffle and not a higher ranking member of such guild, but how are you supposed to know if it is being done fairly, if you don't have any tickets or the likes on hand. Maybe ZOS needs to take a look into this in-game raffle thing and implement a better way that would seem to be more fair. Currently, this in-game guild raffle is a bit fishy to me. Oh, I'm ok with donations to the guild here and there, and I do that, but seems I'm raffled out. Dropping 25k to upwards of 50k on a raffle is no joke, even if it is just a game. It is like you just dropping those gold into the void or something, though.

starkerealm · August 2016

It depends on the guild. There are independent sites that allow you to run raffles or random number generators, and keep everything above board. If your guilds aren't using one of those, then... yeah, there's reason to be suspicious.

Reverb · August 2016

Your guildmaster or the officer running the raffle should be able to clearly explain the method being used to track and select raffle numbers. Don't give money to any guilds that don't have transparency about it, and don't respond to your questions.

I've been in multiple guilds that did raffles, and all had the data posted somewhere, in some form. In all of those cases, the high ranking members gave much more gold for tickets than most other members. The deposits are listed on the bank history for all members to see. Naturally this increased their odds of winning. That's likely what's happening in your guild too

Defilted · August 2016

My guild makes you deposit between 6001 and 6501 and then they randomly draw a number out of 6001 to 6501. Sometimes people win and sometimes no ones wins. I personally have never won it yet. It is a million gold so it is fun to try. They do it every week.

GreenhaloX · August 2016

Reverb wrote: »

Your guildmaster or the officer running the raffle should be able to clearly explain the method being used to track and select raffle numbers. Don't give money to any guilds that don't have transparency about it, and don't respond to your questions.

I've been in multiple guilds that did raffles, and all had the data posted somewhere, in some form. In all of those cases, the high ranking members gave much more gold for tickets than most other members. The deposits are listed on the bank history for all members to see. Naturally this increased their odds of winning. That's likely what's happening in your guild too

Hmmm.. yes, no data posted anywhere whatsoever, as I can recall, except showing the amount of gold was deposited in the guild bank with a certain guild. I had actually left a couple of those guilds, but one has been in some good spots for its guild store, and selling have been good. So, hard to leave this one, but I have been really deterred from doing any more raffles.

JKorr · August 2016

Depends on the guild. I've won 74,000 gold in one raffle, nirncrux in another. The one guild sends a list of the ticket numbers, and posts winners on the website, so I'm okay with it.

newtinmpls · August 2016

Depends on the guild.

I've won in one guild, and in that guild, the person who collects the tickets/money makes a list of all the people, scrambles it, then goes online and asks for numbers from 1 to whatever, then awards the prizes. Very fun and participatory.

Elsonso · August 2016

Yup. Depends on the guild.

The right way to do it is with accounting at each step. Tickets purchased by mail, not deposit. Mail receipt from tixket collector when received. All ticket purchases posted online at a guild website so you can make sure your name is there. Each entry nunbered and the list randomized before the draw, with each ticket and number posted. Drawings done in a public venue that can be observed and recorded, like http://rollz.org and anyone can watch the rolls. No rolls done without non-officer observers. Eaxh roll verified against the list of tickets by all observers. The results posted on the guild web page and in the guild notification. The latter, for at least a day, better two days.

AntMan100673 · August 2016

If you don't trust the guild you're in to run an above board raffle I think you need to ask yourself if you should be in that guild.

I'm sure there are some guilds out there who just pocket the gold but I'd say they're few and far between

phairdon · August 2016

Yes they do. At least in the trading guild I'm part of. Won a percentage of gold back, as well as my choice of purple armor in another raffle, although the armor received was white.

starkerealm · August 2016

lordrichter wrote: »

Yup. Depends on the guild.

The right way to do it is with accounting at each step. Tickets purchased by mail, not deposit. Mail receipt from tixket collector when received. All ticket purchases posted online at a guild website so you can make sure your name is there. Each entry nunbered and the list randomized before the draw, with each ticket and number posted. Drawings done in a public venue that can be observed and recorded, like http://rollz.org and anyone can watch the rolls. No rolls done without non-officer observers. Eaxh roll verified against the list of tickets by all observers. The results posted on the guild web page and in the guild notification. The latter, for at least a day, better two days.

Agreed. You can skip one or two of these steps. For instance, it would be possible to skip the mail receipt, and simply add them to a spreadsheet on the guild's site. That said, this is a best possible route, and a few of the elements, like the raffle being visible to anyone who wanted to observe, are far more important to establishing the raffle's veracity.

GreenhaloX · August 2016

lordrichter wrote: »

Yup. Depends on the guild.

The right way to do it is with accounting at each step. Tickets purchased by mail, not deposit. Mail receipt from tixket collector when received. All ticket purchases posted online at a guild website so you can make sure your name is there. Each entry nunbered and the list randomized before the draw, with each ticket and number posted. Drawings done in a public venue that can be observed and recorded, like http://rollz.org and anyone can watch the rolls. No rolls done without non-officer observers. Eaxh roll verified against the list of tickets by all observers. The results posted on the guild web page and in the guild notification. The latter, for at least a day, better two days.

I was definitely missing something or was seemingly in such guilds that were not doing it the correct way. There should be information like the website you mentioned and how raffle works also posted somewhere within the guild page.

starkerealm · August 2016

GreenhaloX wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Yup. Depends on the guild.

The right way to do it is with accounting at each step. Tickets purchased by mail, not deposit. Mail receipt from tixket collector when received. All ticket purchases posted online at a guild website so you can make sure your name is there. Each entry nunbered and the list randomized before the draw, with each ticket and number posted. Drawings done in a public venue that can be observed and recorded, like http://rollz.org and anyone can watch the rolls. No rolls done without non-officer observers. Eaxh roll verified against the list of tickets by all observers. The results posted on the guild web page and in the guild notification. The latter, for at least a day, better two days.

I was definitely missing something or was seemingly in such guilds that were not doing it the correct way. There should be information like those websites you mentioned and how raffle works also posted somewhere within the guild page.

To be clear, a guild could use whatever method it chose. Right down to the guild leader sitting alone at their desk rolling a few physical D10s.

What @lordrichter is talking about is a method designed to provide as much transparency as possible at each step along the way.

idk · August 2016

Entering into a small number of raffles and not winning would be normal. Odds are your not going to win unless your the only one entering.

Elsonso · August 2016

I want to point out that the whole need for transparency is not due to a lack of trust, but to eliminate the appearance of impropriety. If some disgruntled guild member starts making accusations, no matter how honest and above-board the raffle is run, there is nothing to demonstrate that it is. It can ruin the raffle, and the guild.

So, yeah, if you trust your guild raffle person to do this, fine. If you are giving them 1000 gold per week and you consider that throw-away gold and you don't care if you lose it, also fine.

The measures I list above are for the protection of the guild and person doing the raffle, not just for the guild member playing in the raffle. Yes, steps can be skipped. The two important ones are "did the guild member's ticket get recorded" and "were the winners picked randomly and honestly". Additionally, I suggest randomizing the list of ticket purchases to prevent "blocks" of tickets, which is mainly to project that the raffle is honest. It is the digital equivalent of shaking up the ticket entries before drawing names.

GreenhaloX · August 2016

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Entering into a small number of raffles and not winning would be normal. Odds are your not going to win unless your the only one entering.

@Giles.floydub17_ESO, I am not fussing over whether I win or not. Heck, I have a lot of gold accumulated from sales that my selling prices on the guild stores are basically lower than most, because I don't really need the money (in-game.. lol). It is the method of the raffle which I have experienced so far, that is seemingly not so fair. When you give money or gold (such as in-game) for a purchase on something, you are normally supposed to get something in return. Like in a physical raffle, you get the tickets with the numbers. If electronically, like in ESO, you should at least get some kind of electronic tickets or numbers, and when the winning ticket or number is drawn, that winning number or ticket should be posted on the guild page as well, so you can see whatever number or ticket you should have on-hand is the winner or not.

What has been happening with my raffle experiences, is I get nothing as a verification of my numbers or tickets of that raffle that I had purchased. After the draw, there is no winning number or ticket posted, as I can recall.. just the name or names of guildmember or members that supposedly won are posted. How would I know if certain raffles are rigged or schemed and that guild is just posting names or actually had held a legitimate drawing? That's it.. it is not about winning the money or not. So, I may have been with some fishy guilds.

Robbmrp · August 2016

The guilds that I am in assign out numbers based on tickets sold. Those are updated to a spreadsheet that are on the guild web-site so we know what our numbers are before they are drawn. Then they use a RNG to choose the winners. I've won some pretty decent prizes from them.

Cously · August 2016

I'm part of a 500 member trading guild and won their raffle several times during the past months. I've also won buying just the standard 10,000 Gold Tickets and lost with 50,000 Gold Tickets. In this guild the raffles are recorded and done in real time in a website where everyone can follow the dice rolls. I also used to do raffles for my RP guild. Of course all inputs and results depend on human actions so it is open for corruption. It's fairly safe to trust large and older trading guilds, if they were dishonest they wouldn't be around for that long.

xilfxlegion · August 2016

GreenhaloX wrote: »

I'm just curious. Does anybody actually win? I'm asking because I have tried and entered several times in guild raffles. I mean, normally, in a real raffle, you pay for the tickets, and you actually get those tickets, whether physically or electronically. Then, when the raffle is drawn, and the winning ticket is announced, you can physically check if you actually have the winning ticket, because you have those tickets on hand. However, in ESO and within its guilds, you don't get any ticket, electronically or otherwise. It states whatever the price of the raffle ticket may be, i.e. 5k and buy 5 and get one free, etc., and drop the gold in the guild bank or send the gold to the guildmaster or raffle creator. You do so, but get nothing in return. No electronic tickets (if there is even such as thing) or confirmation of how many you have purchased. You then make several attempts to contact the guild owner or master (whatever you want to call him or her) or the raffle point of contact, but get no response whatsoever. Finally, the raffle draw comes and pass, and then you see on the Guild's note page the next day or so that such guildmember or members have won.. then you happen to check the roster/rank and appears those winners are seemingly higher ranking members of that guild.

I'm not directly insinuating anything. Those may have outright won the raffle, and maybe others have also won a raffle and not a higher ranking member of such guild, but how are you supposed to know if it is being done fairly, if you don't have any tickets or the likes on hand. Maybe ZOS needs to take a look into this in-game raffle thing and implement a better way that would seem to be more fair. Currently, this in-game guild raffle is a bit fishy to me. Oh, I'm ok with donations to the guild here and there, and I do that, but seems I'm raffled out. Dropping 25k to upwards of 50k on a raffle is no joke, even if it is just a game. It is like you just dropping those gold into the void or something, though.

dont buy raffle tickets unless you absolutely trust the guild leaders.

i have entered in a bunch of them, and have won in three different guilds -- guilfoyle, lunacy, and i cant remember the name of the third one. either way --- it is a test of faith in the guild leaders.

AlnilamE · August 2016

My guild that does raffles will send a mail back with ticket numbers and publish the winners each week on the MotD. I won third prize once in my trading guild, and a friend who's also in that guild has won as well.

Another guild that I'm in where I don't tend to participate in the raffle will send an email out after the draw announcing who the winners were.

CasNation · August 2016

Some guilds will send you a mail with your ticket numbers, but many do not. You may want to request that feature for added transparency.

DurzoBlint13 · August 2016

the guilds that I am in that do raffles usually will show screen shots of the app that does the selection process. Just a basic RNG system. 1 shot of the number of tickets each person bought. 1 shot of the "selection in progress". 1 shot of the winner once selected. Can you just re-run the raffle several times to get a winner that you want to win? sure, but most guilds want people to enter so manipulating the results will only get you so far. If the same people seem to win every raffle you might want to change guilds. Unless you are going to show the whole process in a youtube stream or something this is about as open as you can get....which actually might not be a bad idea

GreenhaloX · August 2016

lordrichter wrote: »

I want to point out that the whole need for transparency is not due to a lack of trust, but to eliminate the appearance of impropriety. If some disgruntled guild member starts making accusations, no matter how honest and above-board the raffle is run, there is nothing to demonstrate that it is. It can ruin the raffle, and the guild.

So, yeah, if you trust your guild raffle person to do this, fine. If you are giving them 1000 gold per week and you consider that throw-away gold and you don't care if you lose it, also fine.

The measures I list above are for the protection of the guild and person doing the raffle, not just for the guild member playing in the raffle. Yes, steps can be skipped. The two important ones are "did the guild member's ticket get recorded" and "were the winners picked randomly and honestly". Additionally, I suggest randomizing the list of ticket purchases to prevent "blocks" of tickets, which is mainly to project that the raffle is honest. It is the digital equivalent of shaking up the ticket entries before drawing names.

Seems you're spot on, @lordrichter. If something like this happens in real-life raffle, where the participants don't get the tickets or numbers, then the drawing happens and someone is claimed the winner, whereas there is no way to physically verify such number or ticket is the winning draw, there would be an uproar, the venture shut-down and investigated. In here (ESO), it's just a game, and you have so many people/players from different facets on, that there are always that possibility of schemers and shady people. I guess I could have reported those guilds or guildmasters to ZOS, but I took the latter and just left those guilds.

NoMoreChillies · August 2016

i won 200k from my trade guild when i bought just 1 ticket
then also have not won when i bought 25+ tickets.

transparency was available for the ticket drawing.

kamimark · August 2016

The trade guild I'm in gives 1 ticket per 500g deposited, there's a Google Docs spreadsheet you can see with the tickets, and the raffle results are posted in the MotD. I've only won once, just some extra cash, but I'm confident it's a legit process. And of course, it's not actually about the raffle, it's collecting money to get our guild trader.

I'm sure some guilds are not that transparent, and maybe even run it as a fraud.

It would be a huge improvement for ZOS to implement their own raffle system, but they haven't shown a lot of interest in improving the guild tools.

hingarthuub17_ESO · August 2016

I don't expect to win. In my guild each ticket is 1k gold. I figure my gold goes to help maintain the guild trader and it's enough for me to have access to a guild trader.

Easily_Lost · August 2016

The Guild I am in list all entries on a web site. I thought the winners were always the ones that bought the most tickets, but I was wrong. When I look t the web site, sometimes people that only bought 5 tickets won, and bought a large amount ( 50+ ) never won. Talk about a RNG that is actually fair. LOL
Oh and BTW once I won 50,000g, only bought 5 tickets.

DenMoria · August 2016

Seems like you're putting an awful lot of trust in people you don't know.

Apparently, the guild administrators do know that there's a sucker born every minute.

Acrolas · August 2016

They're not raffles. Raffles are state-regulated approved fundraising events for registered nonprofit organizations.

Guild events have a prize, a chance to win, and consideration required to enter. They're lotteries.
States regulate lotteries. If you're participating in any lottery system that is not regulated by a state governing administration, you are doing so at your own risk.

Expecting transparency is more than a little bit silly when the same activity in the real world is illegal. Lotteries are right up there with stealing and killing innocents. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't include it in your play style. Spend the time earning gold and items in a way that you're comfortable with.

Elsonso · August 2016

Acrolas wrote: »

They're not raffles. Raffles are state-regulated approved fundraising events for registered nonprofit organizations.

Guild events have a prize, a chance to win, and consideration required to enter. They're lotteries.
States regulate lotteries. If you're participating in any lottery system that is not regulated by a state governing administration, you are doing so at your own risk.

Expecting transparency is more than a little bit silly when the same activity in the real world is illegal. Lotteries are right up there with stealing and killing innocents. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't include it in your play style. Spend the time earning gold and items in a way that you're comfortable with.

I doubt that there is an issue so long as the prizes are gold or in-game items. These are not valuable prizes. If they are Crowns or ESO Plus time, that would probably be different. I would expect to run afoul of the ToS for trading Crowns through an in-game arrangement, first.

starkerealm · August 2016

Acrolas wrote: »

They're not raffles. Raffles are state-regulated approved fundraising events for registered nonprofit organizations.

Guild events have a prize, a chance to win, and consideration required to enter. They're lotteries.
States regulate lotteries. If you're participating in any lottery system that is not regulated by a state governing administration, you are doing so at your own risk.

Expecting transparency is more than a little bit silly when the same activity in the real world is illegal. Lotteries are right up there with stealing and killing innocents. If it makes you uncomfortable, don't include it in your play style. Spend the time earning gold and items in a way that you're comfortable with.

Actually, you're confusing raffles for lotteries. The terms aren't completely synonymous. Lotteries are highly regulated, except, of course, lotteries aren't actually lotteries these days, since no one's actually drawing lots.

Raffles and lotteries refer to the method of random selection, or did originally, at anyrate. With raffles you're mixing some sort of identifying tags and picking the winner from the list there. A lottery was, traditionally, a kind of random selection, where the participants would draw lots (think of these as pieces of straw). If you've ever heard the idiom, "drew the short straw," or any variation of it, that's actually referring to a traditional lottery. Now, that's just the etymology of the term, modern lotteries tend to use a random number generation system.

Generally speaking, in the US, all forms of gambling are tightly regulated. Ironically, raffles (because of their ad-hoc nature and small pots) are actually one of the least regulated.