2019 Tesla Model X.
Cash prize option $75,000.00.
Tickets $100, or 4 for $300. 2500 tickets max.
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If they are as profitable with their solar as they are with this raffle, where can one invest? 
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Is this an example of what NOT to use your money to get wealthier?
Assuming you take the cash option (an asset not depreciating quite as fast as the car), you’d only gonna get $56k after tax.With odds of 1/2500, that means each ticket is worth $22.4 and you pay $75 or $100 for it. So the house edge is way worse than just about any casino game.
I guess there’s hoping that they sell much fewer than 2500 tickets (break even is around 750 tickets sold) but in that case, you probably do not want to advertise the raffle hehe.
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Each ticket costs $100. It may win $0 or it may win $75,000 or a Tesla.
You have a chance to make 750 times the fee, and the money goes for a good cause.
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There’s an annual raffle here in WA for Special Olympic. I thought about buying ticket before
I like these type of raffles b/c even if you lose it’s for a good cause.
Are there any others that have "good " odds. Compared to FWF we won’t have as many people jumping in 
http://store.illinoissolar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ISEA-Tesla-Raffle-Rules-2019.pdf
is there a way to see how many tix have sold?
Argyll either doesn’t understand the concept of ‘expected value’ or is so gung-ho on the green movement that he doesn’t care. See his previous thread where I tried to explain it to him in vain:
It may be hard to tell that he didn’t get it because he deleted most of his posts, but he definitely argued my claim about the expected value just like he did with you here.
At least the organizations he’s shilling for this time aren’t as overtly partisan as last time.
I don’t think they’ll disclose current number of tickets sold but the raffle runs for a very long time so they’ll probably get a large number.
Either way, rules are pretty clear on what your odds will be. The Tesla or 75k won’t be given out unless they sold a minimum of 2000 tickets and the max number of tickets they’ll sell is 2500. So odds will likely be 1/2000 to 1/2500. Best expected value (4 tickets bought at $300 so $75 each) for 2000 tickets sold becomes $28.12 after-tax.
Below 2000 tickets sold, you’d get 50% of the proceeds which interestingly may be better odds. In this case, exact number of tickets sold doesn’t matter for expected value, so let’s pick 4 tickets sold for simplicity, expected value would be $37.50-50 (lowest 50% of $300/4 = $37.50, highest 50% of $400/4). Now factor in 25% tax on those earnings, the after-tax expected value becomes $28.12-37.50 which is interestingly better than if enough tickets are sold and you win the $75k prize.
It doesn’t make sense to declare an “expected” value for a ticket of $20 when it will never be worth $20. No one should “expect” $20, as this is one thing we know for certain cannot be the case.
You can make a better case that each ticket is worth $75,000 until the day of the drawing, Or it’s worth $0 until the day of the drawing. Either way, it’s not worth $20.
You win either $0 or about 750 times the value you paid for it.
A relevant statistic is the odds of winning: For a single ticket it’s .0004%.
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That is how statistics work though. Think about median household income in your city? No single household may actually earn the exact median value but it still holds very meaningful information about how much people earn around you.
In the case of the raffle, basically expected value is a measure of how much are you gonna lose on each ticket you buy or how reasonable the ticket price vs. the prize money with the expected odds of winning.
It’s fine to not care about expected value but some statistic nerds use it to compare things. Like in the case of the two raffles mentioned above, if money goes roughly to similar causes (so you have no preference if you lose), I’d much more likely participate in the one with the higher expected value.
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There are relevant statistics and irrelevant statistics.
Median household income is not a raffle, so there’s no comparison there.
The ticket you buy will never be worth $20.
You either win a lot or win zero.
Was going to write further explanations on the significance of expected value, but reading meed18’s comment, it clearly seems unnecessary in the light of such an insightful counter argument. Thanks for posting the raffle info.
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Although I hate roulette, I prefer the chances of winning a straight bet on that wheel.
I’ll take a shot.
Let’s say, for simplicity, there are 2,000 raffle tickets they will sell - no more, no less.
If you buy all of the tickets, you are guaranteed to win. You will spend $150,000 to win $75,000.
If you buy half the tickets, you will spend $75,000 for a 50% chance to win $75,000.
So the value of owning all the tickets is the full value of the prize.
The value of owning half the tickets is half the value of the prize.
This is why expected value is important. It’s the easiest way to determine whether the purchase is worth it. Compare the expected value to the cost of the ticket.
Sometimes you may decide to spend more than the expected value for various reasons. But to say that the value of a single ticket is the value of the prize is absurd. Then you would just buy all of the tickets… Which, as you can see above, no one would ever do.
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