The maths of the Wheel (probability/odds)

arturo_soldatini wrote:
Totally agree... We have other 26 days to win the prizes on the wheel, I can't see the reason to spend money to buy coins. Maybe last days, but not now. Is part of the update, so if I have all the prizes now, I'll get bored in a week of the new content. Is better waiting in my opinion. And if I have to be honest, this is the less expensive update of the year, not many items purchasable with donuts, almost everything can be unlocked with the wheel and the personal/community rewards.

+1

My strategy is to see how many prizes I get over the next almost four weeks and then spend donuts on tokens if there are prizes that I haven't won by then.

I have been playing for almost a year - started last year around Christmas and had 9 Christmas lights.

barcaboyz34 wrote:
Have you actually tried to get the last prize thread creator??? The wheel is without doubt RIGGED, it speeds up and slows down to stop you getting that last prize. The number of times I spun that wheel and could see I was going to land on the prize dead on, only for the wheel to splutter to a grinding halt prematurely, almost had me launching my tablet against the wall.

Your probability model would work fine if the wheel spun FAIRLY at a consistent speed all the time, but it doesn't. It took me 73 spins to get the last prize, my gf took 65 spins. Are we really just the unlucky 1% or is it plainly obvious the wheel is rigged?

Nope.

Whether you win the prize or not has already been determined a long time before the wheel stops spinning.

Heres how these kind of things work.

When you set the wheel in motion, it will make a call to a random number generator, for the purpose of this example, lets say the generator returns a number between 1 and 100.

If the number returned is:
1-10 - You win prize one (money)
11-20 - You win prize two (money)
21-30 - You win prize three (money)
31-40 - You win prize four (money)
41-50 - You win prize five (money)
51-60 - You win prize six (money)
61-70 - You win prize seven (money)
71-80 - You win prize eight (money)
81-90 - You win prize nine (money)
91-100 - You win prize ten (the last non money prize)

This number is returned the instant you start the spin, what happens after that is just for the benefit of making the wheel be an actually wheel, rather than an arbitrary value that determines whether you won or not.

What is likely occurring is that depending on the number returned by the random number generator, it chooses a 'wheel animation' to play for you.

I don't know how many different animations there are, for the sake of this example lets say there are 3.

If the random number generated is:
1-45 - The wheel animation lands nowhere near your prize
46-90 - The wheel animation gives you the impression you are going to win, but you don't (tease animation)
90-100 - The wheel animation lands on the prize you want.

As I said, thats just an example, there could be many more than three wheel animations, but the point of my post here is that the random number that determines whether you won the prize or not will have been returned the instant you set the wheel in motion, what happens after that is all for show.

Hello all,
I am not going to say that this is rigged, but I will relate my experience. Let's just say I have been playing this game for awhile and have everything in the game. Let's also say that I have seen the slow changes to make sure EA makes a lot of cash from this game, which begs my curiosity how the profit margin stacks up to other games.

Enough with my opine. So out of 20 spins, it landed on the exact same pie 12 times out of 20, yes the same cash one. 4 times on a second pie, another cash one. A third pie 2 times. And then two seperate pies.

I don't know the mathematical probabilities, but 14 out of 20 spins on the exact same pies, even when I changes starting points of the wheel. But, I am a little suspicious from my experience.

I believe where you start the spin affects the outcome also. So if you try to start your spin on a different piece every time and spin the wheel with the same amount of force every time you can see a pattern. For me it's 3 or 4 pieces from the piece I started the spin on. I hope this makes sense.

jfcal2005 wrote:
yes.
I don't have any christmas lights, nothing and on my wheel, i can't see a single cash section.
http://s24.postimg.org/z1fzot7ut/Screenshot_2013_12_12_19_48_22.png

The cash and extra vouchers will replace the items already on your wheel, once you have won them.

If you really hate the wheel, then the worst thing you could have possibly done is to blow through so much money/donuts on it on the first day.

Pouring so much into a low probability game without a second thought, based on some bizarre urge to gather a months worth of prizes in a single day, has likely made the Christmas wheel a very profitable venture for the developers.

Given how well this has gone (for them, not the unlucky donut investors), its probably a safe bet that we will be seeing a lot more of these low probability games in future, which will continue to extract donuts from those people who simple must have everything NOW.

Per spAnser from another thread...

spAnser wrote:
I will just chime in here but from looking at the files the Wheel is nothing more than a glorified mystery box.

It has chance numbers associated with each section of the wheel.

Claus Co                 1.56%
Decorated Houses #1     20.22%
Snow Monster             1.68%
Decorated Houses #2     20.22%
Helter Shelter           2.25%
Decorated Houses #3     20.22%
Ice God                  2.25%
Mr. Plow & Plow King     5.05%
Simpson Family Snowmen  13.48%

Yes I am aware that is adds up to more than 100%

I think the addition of spAnser's odds goes a long way toward explaining people's frustration with the wheel. I was playing last year and have all of the Christmas lights and none of the premium content, so when I made my first spin, I was looking at a wheel with premium items, and 2 cash locations. I used my free spin, and then purchased 10 more. After seeing these numbers I am shocked at how I did. Out of 11 spins, I hit the cash twice and it was each time replaced with gold, then silver gift cards. I got 3 different Simpson's family snowmen, Claus Co., Mr. Plow, Plow King, Skinner House Lights, a couple of other things I can't recall right now. I can see now it will be a long time before I hit Helter Shelter or the Snow Monster. I guess I just was lucky and lacking in last year's premium items.

fastdan1 wrote:
Per spAnser from another thread...

spAnser wrote:
I will just chime in here but from looking at the files the Wheel is nothing more than a glorified mystery box.

It has chance numbers associated with each section of the wheel.

Claus Co                 1.56%
Decorated Houses #1     20.22%
Snow Monster             1.68%
Decorated Houses #2     20.22%
Helter Shelter           2.25%
Decorated Houses #3     20.22%
Ice God                  2.25%
Mr. Plow & Plow King     5.05%
Simpson Family Snowmen  13.48%

Yes I am aware that is adds up to more than 100%

Using the odds spAnser got out of the files, this is how the wheel should really look like:
http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/ag145/DJDK-ec/Unbenannt_zps93e0062b.jpg

I have only tried it once (right now actually) and I got the claus building, thought that was what everyone got on their first spin, guess not. How come some of you already have been able to spin it many times, can I get coins besides from the bar and/or using donuts?