BOTB & Odds of Winning?
The first thing to understand is that BOTB odds do not exist per se, but one can greatly affect one’s ‘BOTB odds’ of by playing well. It’s almost the same as if one were to ask: What are the odds of hitting the bullseye in darts? Well – depends how good you are at darts! And also how good the other players you are up against are in darts – and if you were to allowed to throw more darts than your competition! (i.e. buy more tickets to gain an advantage)
But if you were to close your eyes and choose one point completely randomly in the picture, this would translate roughly to a 1 in 6 Million odds that you would get the correct coordinate – but then of course there would be other players too so the odds of winning BOTB by playing completely randomly are worse than 1 in 6 Million. But of course it doesn’t work like that.
There are ALWAYS obvious areas were the ball will be in the picture. And the better you get at spot the ball, the smaller that obvious area will be for you – and the better your BOTB odds will be!
Main factors affecting your BOTB winning odds
- Your own ability to define the area of where centre of the ball should be like the judges will
- Amount of tickets purchased and played
- How many other players play any given week, and how well they are playing
BOTB & Hypothetical Odds
Even if BOTB doesn’t have real or fixed odds as a skill based game, we can still visualise and roughly calculate (completely hypothetically) through the following examples what the ‘odds’ would be for getting the coordinate correctly. In the following examples the picture & results of Week 9‘s Dream Car Competition are being used. There’s a red square drawn to visualise a certain size of an area of coordinates, and as you will see: Your ability to narrow this area of where the ball might be (and where it will be) increases the hypothetical odds greatly!
Note: You can click on the pictures below to make them bigger.
Picture 1 – 10 x 10 pixel area
| Tickets Placed at Random (n) | Odds |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1% |
| 5 | 5% |
| 10 | 10% |
| 50 | 50% |
| 100 | 100% |
| 150 (Max) | (Only 100 needed) |
The red square in the picture above is just to visualise what a 10 by 10 area would look like, and it does look fairly small on the picture. Although in some easier pictures it may not be impossible to define. To 100% fully cover the area you would need to buy 100 tickets (10*10) and the limit is 150 per game for a player – so this is still doable.
So completely hypothetically if you were able to define a 10*10 pixel area, you could pretty much be a 100% winner – assuming the judge’s decision would hit in one of the pixels in the middle of your area: Because even if someone would have the same exact pixel, you would most certainly have the second closest, etc pixels unless the other person(s) were also playing 100 tickets in a tight cluster – which is not likely.
Picture 2 – 30 x 30 pixel area
| Tickets Placed at Random (n) | Odds |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.11% |
| 5 | 0.56% |
| 10 | 1.11% |
| 50 | 5.56% |
| 100 | 11.11% |
| 150 (Max) | 16.67% |
As the area gets larger, so do the number of coordinates in the area exponentially. So, when for a 10*10 you needed 100 tickets, 30*30 area is already 900 possible coordinates! And as the maximum number of tickets you could buy for one game was 150, you will not be able to be a “100% winner” even if you were to able to narrow the area down to 30*30 pixels.
But, completely hypothetically once again: If you are able to play the 150 tickets in a 30×30 area (and would place the tickets at random in this area), there would be a 16.67% chance of you getting the exact coordinate right. However, usually the winners of the competition don’t get the exact coordinate right, so most of the time being close enough is enough to win. (And you don’t need to be ‘bang on’ with the coordinate!)
Picture 3 – 100 x 100 pixel area
As we get to a 100*100 area, there are already a total of 10 000 coordinates available to choose from. But at this point the area is so large, that if you play the maximum of 150 tickets and place them at random in this area; this would translate into 1.5% chance of getting the correct coordinate.
Picture 4 – 100 x 100 pixel area (With results)
But then again if you are able to get the spots into the 100*100 area, you are almost pretty certain to be able to hit the ‘Zone 1’ as well, meaning you will get 100% of the ticket price paid back to play for the next game in case you didn’t win this time. (Note: This only works for tickets you have paid for, so if you hit Zone 1 again with the free credit, you won’t get free credit for that – but you might get your new car!)
| Tickets Placed at Random (n) | Odds |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.01% |
| 5 | 0.05% |
| 10 | 0.10% |
| 50 | 0.50% |
| 100 | 1% |
| 150 (Max) | 1.5% |
BOTB Odds – Only as good as you are
Even if there are no real odds, you can still increase your BOTB ‘odds’ of winning by getting better at spot the ball. Just make sure you define the potential area where the center of the ball would be as accurately as possible, then play your tickets in as small of a cluster as possible, and be sure to buy enough tickets to increase your odds! Do you need 100 or 150 tickets to win? No of course not. People win all the time with just one ticket – but if you decide to make a real go for it and not just play casually and maybe hope for the day to come when Christian surprises you; then you need to spend more!
Finally: Make sure you read all the tips and tricks available for spot the ball on our website, and then by practicing your skills in our FREE Spot the Ball Quizzes!
