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I don't quite understand the conclusion formed in the first half... that your odds increase as more friends join. I would think it would actually decrease for e

I don't quite understand the conclusion formed in the first half... that your odds increase as more friends join. I would think it would actually decrease for every friend that joined with an asymptote at 50%. Assuming you are the only one in the competition, you have 100% chance to win. Invite one friend and you now have a 2/3 chance to win (2 entries for you, one for him). Invite another friend and you now have 3/5 chance (3 entries for you, 2 for your friends). Invite another and you have a 4/7 chance to win (4 entries for you, 3 for your friends). The general equation is (n +1)/(2n + 1), which approaches 50%. Am I wrong with that?

petercooper 14y ago
Haha, I just posted the very same comment on the blog. The only thing I could think of is that you win if one of your referrals wins too (like AppSumo does with their MacBook Air contests).. but then in the hypothetical "only you + friends" scenario, you'd have a 100% chance of winning(!) I'm no statistician though so I suspect I'm missing something.
- doomslice 14y ago
  I think the author messed up. Logically I was thinking "wait... it should go down", and then when I started to do the math I _started_ doing the same mistake that the author made in the calculations until I realized I wasn't adding 2 entrants to the total pool for every friend invite (the bottom term). Easy mistake to make, but I fear the article's conclusion is wrong. Instead, the answer should be a resounding no (assuming you don't gain some marginal utility for seeing your friend win instead of some random stranger).