Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
How would one go about setting up a for fun betting pool? Say you had a family reunion with some competitive games, and you wanted to set up betting so people could bet on outcomes.
Where I get stuck is don't real betting places also take into account how many people will bet either side into their odds calculations to make sure they get enough money to cover all the payouts?
If I had something that was 50/50, and there was 10 people betting $10 on each side, the winners would get $20 each (their original $10 and the won $10). Because the bets were equal it pays for itself.
But what if everyone bet one side? The payout should be $20 each but there's only enough money in the pot for $10 each.
The only way I could think to set it up to account for this is not having any odds at all. Then everyone who wins gets their stake back and the stakes of the losers gets divided evenly among the winners. I mean there'll be intuitive odds (that team has Cheryl, they'll obviously lose), but it seems like it wouldn't be much fun.
Am I missing something?
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I've seen situations where the initial games give "raffle tickets towards the combined pots". The winners of each game get bragging rights, get to keep their own ticket for the draw but also receive an extra ticket from each loser that has shared odds with everyone they won with.
For instance:
Game 1: 2 vs 5 (5 wins vs 2)
Game 2: 1 vs 5 (1 wins vs 5)
Game 3: 3 vs 4 (4 wins vs 3)
There will be 15 tickets that are only 1 name: Winners from game 1-3 and the sole winner of game 2 will not have to share odds with anyone else when they won the tickets from the other 5.
There will be 5 tickets with joint odds if drawn: 2 that is split 5 ways if drawn (game 1) and there are 3 tickets that are split 4 ways if drawn (game 3).
If it was $10 per bet, then you have 20 bets for a total pool of $200. You can do multiple draws rather than all or nothing, kinda like sports pools.
By doing the raffle aspect, it may encourages people to play in more than one game to spread the odds vs stacking all their their entries in the same game. Another thing that can be done is a minimum buy in at a carnival. If you are required to join in on at least 2-3+ games/bets, then everyone plays at multiple and each game can be a little more exciting because it has more bets in it.
The thing about this raffle design is that you can also design games that are "closest to" vs all or nothing. You can design games that are the closest 1-3 out of everyone that played and you can even cap the ticket payout if you so wished. So if you had a game that tracks score (ie: Skeeball, video games, poker, guess the number, darts etc.) top highest X scores of the day will get individual tickets each or shared odds tickets or whatever. This could mean that kids can join in on the fun as well and draws odds can be adjusted in games where it's adults vs kids (ie: two age categories in the closest wins games. Top winners over certain age receive split odd tickets with the other winners. Winners under certain age would get a fixed amount of tickets that are not split odds).
The biggest headache of this whole thing is establishing the "payout" for each game and tracking winners/losers to prepare joint odds and individual odds tickets for the final draws. In one I attended, it was immediately rigged so that grandma won 50% of the pot by default (She didn't even play and it was a surprise for her) and then there were two draws for 25%. It's your call on how to do that. It was almost awkward when they had physical prizes and a joint name ticket was drawn. Luckily the winners sorted it out themselves quickly, but yeah, unless it's cash, be careful how split winning tickets are done. Maybe split odd tickets are automatically cash pool and individual tickets can be cash or physical items?
The other is figuring out how much money to expect. If you do this and no one bothers or the reunion is too small, then it's kinda awkward and pointless. I think that's why the pot was rigged for grandma. It gave more incentive for the adults to bet themselves and give their kids bets because they secretly knew a bunch was going to the patriarch(s)/matriarch(s). A good trash talker who pressures the participants of games to bet on their own outcomes helps to make it fun as well.