Chances of success in tickets decided by lotteries (BBC, sporting events)

[malumbu]

In my younger days I used to go to quite a lot of radio shows. Started doing this again a few years ago (the Now Show, News Quiz and on one lucky occasion - obviously telly - Later with Jools Holland).

In the last two years I have had zero success for anything (all popular programmes). I similarly had no success for the Euros both in France and Poland and very lousy for the London Olympics. Yet Wimbledon always come up trumps.

Is it truly totally random? A poll of contacts who went for Euro 2016 showed that none of us within the M25 were successful. Is this a conspiracy?!

Interested to know of others' experiences. Hopefully this is a tame question to ask.

[TheArtfulDogger]

Lol, nope I've never won the euro lottery either

Oh hang on you don't mean winning loads of cash now do you 🤓

[rendelharris]

It be that there internet to blame I reckon, like you I used to find it pretty easy to get tickets for Radio Four shows (the News Quiz when Alan Coren was on, wonderful!) but now the effort required to get on the waiting list is so minimal there must be considerably more applicants. I believe they (the BBC) also sort for demographic balance as well, so possibly if one is of an age/class/race/sex etc which has a lot of applicants one's chances are reduced?

[Robert Poste's Child]

I got tickets for the News Quiz recently but nothing for the Now Show. With the really popular ones I average maybe one success a series.

A few weeks ago I took 6 old lottery tickets to be checked and 3 were winners. Only small prizes, but still. Have also won ?25 on the premium bonds about 8 times so far this year.

[DaveR]

Random distribution is more likely to be 'lumpy' than evenly spread out. If the outcome of a lottery looks scrupulously fair it's more likely to be fixed.