TL;DR: If you or a loved one joined the Global Chat raffle on or after 2021/08/23, you may be entitled to coinancial compensation. https://bit.ly/raffle-analysis also has some new stuff if you're curious about which players tend to raffle together.

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We've finally got something actually useful out of the Global Chat Raffle Analysis: a true crime story!

Our story begins on May 25, 2021, at 3:25 PM in Central Europe. On that day, a new player- nonolet (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=68138926223), who'd joined only 5 weeks earlier on 04/19- got his first taste of the raffle. He joined and won his very first raffle, beating 5 other entrants to win 5 coins and a Supercharge Mine raffle.

Over the next 3 months, nonolet would go on to win 61 more raffles, earning 413 coins, 1 Fog Buster power, 19 Free Cache powers, 2 Inspire Mercenaries powers, 2 Market Raid powers, 9 Supercharge Army Camp powers, 7 Supercharge Mine powers, 11 Time Warp powers, and 5 poor artifacts- altogether, a combined value for $35.93 in raffle winnings. But this wasn't enough!

Enter the criminal instinct!

On August 23, 2021, nearly 3 months after his first raffle, nonolet created his second shot- unoturbo, later #Uno, and now JennyA (https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=31141482252). Almost immediately, at 10:02 PM Central European time, unoturbo entered and, like nonolet's main, won its first raffle, beating 15 other entrants to gain 3 coins and a Free Cache power. Setting the stage for the future, nonolet also entered the same raffle on his main, nearly doubling his odds from 1/15 (6.7%) to 1/8 (12.5%).

Over the next month, 768 raffles would give away 5,576 coins and an additional 38,050 coins' worth in non-coin rewards.


During this time, exactly a quarter of raffles not only had nonolet enter but had nonolet enter on two accounts- tainting 1,615 worth of coins and another 9,360 worth of non-coin rewards. With his second chance, nonolet increased his expected winnings during these double-raffles by a whopping 73%- and he managed to win 476 coins and another 1960 in coin-equivalent value from non-coin rewards during this time. His double-raffle winnings wildly eclipsed what he got from playing fair- by a factor of 6.

nonolet couldn't help himself- he double-joined 192 raffles over the course of a month.

The Victims

But for nonolet to gain better odds, someone had to pay... those 1,070 expected coin-equivalents gained from entering raffles twice came out of others' fair chances.




The bulk of them came from just 9 players- JK_3, krinid, awaythro, John Smith, Gunk, Kcebnroh, faxfox, Shin, and Lefty. The 4 "Raffle Kings" alone lost 306 expected coin-equivalents to nonolet's double-entries.

How to (almost) get away with raffle fraud

Warzone, as many of you know, has its own alt detection system, which uses device fingerprinting (see https://www.amiunique.org/fp) to detect accounts that play not only on the same network but on the same device. That's right- Warzone doesn't just keep track of where you play from; they also try to track your device. So how, for all this time- up to now, even (nonolet and JennyA still double-raffle, and John Smith's report against this cheating is still in review)- did he hide it?

It's simple: He plays from an iPhone! Apple phones have anti-fingerprinting measures that make them considerably harder to fingerprint than desktop-based Web browsers and other mobile devices, stumping Warzone's rudimentary device fingerprinting. Per an inside source, even today the system doesn't authoritatively flag nonolet and JennyA as the same person.

But he didn't cover his tracks...

nonolet's fatal mistake? He didn't bother disguising his activity. Even today, JennyA and nonolet log on at roughly the same times. :O

Once he started double-raffling, he didn't control himself. When his second chance came onto the scene, nonolet joined the vast majority of his raffles on both accounts:


As a result, JennyA and nonolet had obviously the same activity pattern:



When the players noticed, it became painfully obvious that nonolet and #Uno/unoturbo/JennyA are the same person.



When Jenny's active, nono's active. You can predict over 90% of JennyA's activity schedule just off of nono's. Line them up and it's almost hilarious:


Even playing in the same time zone doesn't come close to explaining this. I checked activity correlations between all frequent RaffleBot players in the dataset, combining #Uno and unoturbo (same account, different usernames, so they show up separately) into one "JennyA" entry. Unlike the earlier graph, I didn't restrict to only weeks when both accounts were active, so the correlations here are weaker.

The strongest correlations?

Players                        | r^2
-------------------------------|-----
JennyA and #Uno                | 0.70
JennyA and unoturbo            | 0.67
JennyA and nonolet             | 0.61

That's right- the only comparison point for the nonolet & JennyA correlation are correlations between JennyA and JennyA under a different username. No other correlation even cracks 0.5. The strongest activity correlations between players are only between nonolet and his alts.

Once nonolet's activity raised red flags, it became obvious nonolet and JennyA are the same person playing from the same location, on the same network, likely using the same iOS device. riskboy88 even recorded him in the act (and cheating in an Idle Battle on top): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF6S_dPVqrQ

Some measure of justice...

nonolet's report is still in the system and, if past handling of alt abuse is anything to go by, the most likely outcome is a warning (and that's if Warzone can overcome the apparent technological limitations in its device fingerprinting).

Meanwhile, at least 141 other players were impacted by nonolet's double-raffling (and that's only during the time period in the Global Chat Raffle Analysis dataset). What happens to them and their lost 1070 coin-equivalents?

For now, I've stepped up to the plate myself to thank nonolet and Warzone.com's rudimentary device fingerprinting for generating this level of entertainment value. It would cost 1,364 coins to make nonolet's victims whole, so I've only provided coin restitution to the 32 victims (excluding myself) who have lost over 1 expected coin to nonolet's raffle cheating. This restitution requires a much more modest sum of only 172 coins to enact.

Were you impacted? How much did you lose? You can find an incomplete list of the victims and their precise expected losses at https://bit.ly/nonolet-victims.

Let us all thank nonolet for creating this level of entertainment value by stooping to alt-cheating on a Global Chat raffle, all to gain illicit winnings worth at most $19.60 in a month. Was it worth it?

In a poetic twist, nonolet's biggest victims are the two active moderators on Global Chat.

Edited 10/14/2021 02:37:14

wow, amazing work lav, I hope some action is taken. warzone's fingerprinting limitations for iOS users puts android people in a disadvantage as to how they are treated in terms of alternate accounts. I hope some moderation changes can be made in this regard.

Edited 10/14/2021 05:27:14

In a poetic twist, nonolet's biggest victims are the two active moderators on Global Chat.

Too funny.

11/10

I think this only helps to support that the coins should be equally distributed instead to who ever happens to be online at the time.

1) Dividing equally among all who are present would just mean more people would put more alts in, b/c that's even more _guaranteed_ coins for them.

2) How you equally divide 2-8 coins among 5-20 players?

3) What about the WZI powers/artifacts?

Update: uno and nono got warned, and changed their name

Well l4v already "rectified" the situation so maybe a warning is sufficient?

(Not all being sarcastic, I promise).

@krinid
using alts would be against the rules just like it is to participate in the raffle

@Cacao
Oh you meant based on the initial discussion ... to just divide the coins evenly, not based on the nono/uno stuff.

Ok, Q1 cleared.

2) How you equally divide 2-8 coins among 5-20 players?

3) What about the WZI powers/artifacts?

@krinid

2. Don't create a raffle until there is at least one per participant

3. Artifacts should be given at random, only coins should be close to equal

A 5% chance of winning $100 and a 100% chance of winning $5 have drastically different impacts on human behavior even though they have the same expected value.

WAITTT

WHAT ON EARTH IS RAFFLE?

DID I MISS OUT ON A PROFITABLE GAME MECHANISM FOR MONTHS?

a decade

(disclaimer: this post is tongue-in-cheek and in response to krinid's and my realization yesterday that these raffle logs could also be used to find the real "raffle tyrants")
TL;DR: Every raffle entry is a crime against Global Chat. You can find out how you were personally victimized by going to https://bit.ly/raffle-tyrants, https://bit.ly/raffle-enmity, https://bit.ly/raffle-theft, and https://bit.ly/raffle-victims

Friends, I have a shameful confession to make: I too am a raffle thief! You see, between April 13, 2021, and September 25, 2021, I entered 48 raffles, earning 27 coins by winning 6 of them. Had I not engaged in such shameful and selfish behavior, those chances I cruelly stole from others would have stayed in the hands of my fellow entrants. In a world where I had not entered the raffles, others would have expected nearly 44 more coins! If I had not won any of those 6 criminal raffles and my winnings had simply been distributed to the other entrants, 27 coins would today be in the hands of others.

But it's not just me. We are all guilty of raffle fraud, a serious coinancial crime.

Every coin is a crime
Every time someone wins a raffle, others must necessarily lose. We join for free, and we take and take and take without consideration. Those 1486 coins krinid won could have gone toward nobler causes: funding Shin's gambling addiction, paying Z to stop waiting for RaffleBot at the cost of delaying his bedtime, even helping Parsifal afford the toilet paper he so urgently needs. Instead, krinid grabbed them for himself!

What would have happened if krinid had been so kind as to not win any raffles? We can model the expected values for how his winnings would have been fairly distributed to the other players who joined the raffles a player won. In the matrix below, the value in the box indicates how many additional expected coins the player in the row would have if the raffle coin winnings of the player in the column been evenly distributed to other entrants, with the "Impact" values representing total coins taken (by column) or lost (by row):


You can check the spreadsheet at https://bit.ly/raffle-tyrants to know exactly how much each other player took from you by having the audacity to win raffles.

No... not just that- every entry is a crime!
Suppose 5 players joined a 6-coin raffle. They would each have 1.2 expected coins won from that raffle... but then a sixth player sees the raffle. Lacking even the tiniest morsel of social courtesy, they join. The instant they do, those 5 other entrants each lost 0.2 expected coins! Unfortunately, Warzone Rules say nothing about this... but surely we can all agree this is a brazen, despicable, criminal act. We can also see what would have happened had each player demonstrated the general sense to simply stop entering raffles.

In the matrix below, the value in the box indicates how many additional expected coins the player in the row would have gained had the player named in the column not been cruel enough to join the raffle, with the "Impact" row summarizing the damage each raffler did to their enemies (aggregated by column):


You can find the full version at https://bit.ly/raffle-enmity to see how much others cost you (and how much you cost others).

Now, you might notice that these are largely symmetrical- the expected coins faxfox cost JK_3 are the same expected coins JK_3 cost faxfox- because each of them hurt the other by joining the same raffles! The only exception to this comes from single-entry raffles, where that single-entrant hurt the innocent players who signed up for raffles after theirs but did not get hurt by them back...

We all hurt one another by joining these raffles. There is no ethical coinsumption under raffitalism.

Who costs whom more?
If you look at our raffle tyranny matrix (the first image in this post), you'll notice that it's not symmetrical. By winning raffles, John Smith took 146 expected coins from awaythro... but awaythro only took back 125. How grotesquely unfair!

We can look at these differences to find raffle thieves, those who took more from others than they took from them, and raffle victims (the opposite of raffle thieves). In the matrix below, the boxes represent the net expected coins the player named in the column snatched from the player named in the row, with the impact row aggregating the total net crimes of the perpetrator and the impact column aggregating (by row) the total net losses of the victim:


We can now see the asymmetric side of that faxfox-JK_3 relationship. JK_3's wins cost faxfox nearly 12 more coins than faxfox's wins cost JK_3. How shameful! Give them back, JK! You can look at the full version and see how you fit in by going to https://bit.ly/raffle-theft.

Adding it all up...
So who are the greatest enemies, tyrants, and thieves?

Well, my friends, I have sad news: the answer has always been hidden in plain sight. The Raffle Gods are the Raffle Tyrants. There's some noise in the data because I only looked at what happened between the players who joined the raffles at least 36 times... but you can see it below:


Raffle Tyrants take coins away by winning raffles. Therefore, the greatest Tyrants are simply those that won the most coins. The impact of their tyranny is just what would happen if their winnings were evenly distributed to those that joined at the same time as them. The greatest Raffle Tyrant? None other than krinid, who won the most coins.

Similarly, the worst Raffle Enemies? They're just the players with the greatest expected coins won, because the impact of being someone's raffle enemy is just what would happen (on average) if you hadn't joined any raffles and instead had your expected winnings distributed evenly to everyone else:


The greatest Raffle Enemy of the Public? John Smith, who had nearly 1600 expected coins!

What about Raffle Thieves and Victims?


Remember a while back when we looked at who overperformed at the raffles?


This is the same idea:


Raffle Theft is just your actual winnings distributed to other players minus others' actual winnings distributed back to you based on your expected winnings. So the biggest Raffle Thieves? Simply the players who overachieved the most: Ocean0.1, Gunk, Splat, Hodop, and the like.

Who hurt you?
But that's not important. How are you personally victimized here? You can check at https://bit.ly/raffle-victims to find your:
- Raffle Nemesis: the raffle enemy whose raffle entries took the most expected coins from you
- Raffle Oppressor: the raffle tyrant whose raffle wins took the most expected coins from you
- Top Thief: the player whose wins took more expected coins from you than you did from them, by the widest margin
- Top Victim: the player who you took the most expected coins from, by winning, relative to how much they took from you

Here it is for the top 30 raffle participants:


And here's how often some players are others' nemeses, oppressors, top thieves, and top victims:


There you have it, folks!
No one's hands are clean. All of us have evaded justice so far, but no one can evade the righteous public shaming. Let the lynching begin. We must have mob justice! Get to it, then- start sending itemized receipts to those who have hurt you, coinancially.

Thats an awesome addition lavrov!

Oh my, just read this now.

Going to hang my head in shame.

Lmao

Some people play warzone, some people phd warzone.

I'd like to raise a point about the distribution of which entry wins. I'd like raise an argument against the belief of first or early entry gives better chance.

I think the first-second-etc entry wins distribution are biased by number of participants:
When there is only one entry, the first one wins 100%
when there are 2 the first one has 50% chance to win, and 50% for the second
...
So the statistical error here is that we are not comparing same sized raffles to each other.

Frequent players has better chance to win for the first entry because they participate more often in smaller raffles. Casual players plays raffle more likely in bigger raffles.

I think my theory can be checked if we are seeing what is the percentage of the _last_ entry win, the second last, etc, and I predict similar distribution, so we should see there is better chance to win as last entry and frequent players will will more often with their last entry as well.