Draft Lottery Odds Maker

kq76 · 09-10-2023, 09:17 PM

I noticed OOTP24 is rather limited in its draft lottery odds options (basically you can create equal odds or MLB "balls" cut off at your # of teams), so I played around with a Draft Lottery Odds Maker.

It doesn't simulate lottery picking / balls being drawn (that might be another interesting SS to make), it simply assists you in coming up with odds that make sense to you. It has 3 methods: A - set # of balls, B - worst record, best chances, C - top # teams equal chances. The way I envision using it is playing around with method B or C, which both use a user-adjustable algorithm to determine the odds, and then, if you want, refining it with method A, which simply has you input a set # of balls.

Green and yellow cells are usable. If a cell turns red, which is unlikely, that means you entered something that caused a later pick to have higher odds than earlier picks.

It even has presets for the latest MLB, NBA, and NHL lottery systems in case you want to emulate one of those. (The NFL doesn't have one.)

I know, it won't be of interest to most people, but I wanted to see what I could come up with.

kq76 · 09-10-2023, 11:05 PM

EDIT: Skip this post, unless you really like math and/or want to make this spreadsheet even better.

My math skills aren't what I wish they were so I wonder if someone might be able to assist in something.

The way I made the spread in methods B and C is to calculate the midpoint (not counting any set top %), assign it a value, and then each spot above or below it would be greater or lower by a user-adjustable % (say 25%). That works rather well. The problem comes when you don't have a single midpoint, but a shared midpoint (like with an even # of teams and no odd # of set top %). What I did in that case was to simply give the midpoints the same value, but obviously that's not ideal. If you have say an 8 team draft, you probably wouldn't want the odds of picks 4 and 5 to be equal (some top # of teams sharing the same odds to disincentivize tanking, sure, but there's no reason for the midpoints sharing the same odds). So what to do? Well, you can just go to method A and set the exact # of balls you want to use, but surely I can improve methods B & C when it comes to this scenario.

So in v2 (not yet shared), I tried creating a higher midpoint and a lower midpoint and then separate them by half of that same user-adjustable %. And that's better, but it's not quite perfect either. To explain, say the midpoint is assigned a value of 1. If we're using a user-adjustable % of 25, the next higher pick would normally be assigned a value of 1.25 (and the next lower pick .75). If there were 2 midpoints, we would assign the higher midpoint 1.125 (1*(1+.25/2)) and the lower midpoint .875. But the problem is 1.125 isn't exactly 25% greater than .875 (it's 28.6%), like the rest of the odds would be. For 25% exactly, you'd give the higher midpoint a value of 1.11111 and the lower .88889 (that might be a clue as to how to solve this, 1/9=.11111). But what if the % you're using isn't 25%, but 23%, how do I figure it's ".11111", not through trial and error, but via a formula?

There must be some math that can easily solve it, but I don't know it.

EDIT: Silly me, I just realized 1 isn't 25% greater than .75 like 1.25 is to 1. So I guess my v2 solution isn't as bad as I thought since v1 wasn't as good as I thought. I'll think some more on it.

kq76 · 09-11-2023, 05:45 AM

Since I've come to the conclusion that v2 is still better than v1 and that there's no real necessity to make it better at this time, I'm switching the link to v2.

I took a closer look at the "spread" the pro leagues use and theirs weren't as elegant as I was trying to make mine anyway. In fact, MLB's spread is all over the place (increase by X, increase by X-Y, increase by X+Z) and my v2's is actually already closer to the NBA's than I was trying to make it. That is, the % change between odds gets higher the further down the draft you go, just like mine does. And with v2's double midpoint adjustment, that % falls in-between the upper and lower %s. The NBA has been refining theirs for decades (since 1985) so if mine is similar to theirs, and I'm pretty sure they start from method A instead of an algorithm, then mine is probably plenty good.

09-10-2023, 09:17 PM	#1
kq76 Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 10,775	Draft Lottery Odds Maker I noticed OOTP24 is rather limited in its draft lottery odds options (basically you can create equal odds or MLB "balls" cut off at your # of teams), so I played around with a Draft Lottery Odds Maker. It doesn't simulate lottery picking / balls being drawn (that might be another interesting SS to make), it simply assists you in coming up with odds that make sense to you. It has 3 methods: A - set # of balls, B - worst record, best chances, C - top # teams equal chances. The way I envision using it is playing around with method B or C, which both use a user-adjustable algorithm to determine the odds, and then, if you want, refining it with method A, which simply has you input a set # of balls. Green and yellow cells are usable. If a cell turns red, which is unlikely, that means you entered something that caused a later pick to have higher odds than earlier picks. It even has presets for the latest MLB, NBA, and NHL lottery systems in case you want to emulate one of those. (The NFL doesn't have one.) I know, it won't be of interest to most people, but I wanted to see what I could come up with. __________________ My OOTP Wishlist Your Recommended Team Nicknames, By City (A Crowdsourced Project) Last edited by kq76; 09-11-2023 at 05:46 AM. Reason: changed link to v2

09-10-2023, 11:05 PM	#2
kq76 Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 10,775	EDIT: Skip this post, unless you really like math and/or want to make this spreadsheet even better. My math skills aren't what I wish they were so I wonder if someone might be able to assist in something. The way I made the spread in methods B and C is to calculate the midpoint (not counting any set top %), assign it a value, and then each spot above or below it would be greater or lower by a user-adjustable % (say 25%). That works rather well. The problem comes when you don't have a single midpoint, but a shared midpoint (like with an even # of teams and no odd # of set top %). What I did in that case was to simply give the midpoints the same value, but obviously that's not ideal. If you have say an 8 team draft, you probably wouldn't want the odds of picks 4 and 5 to be equal (some top # of teams sharing the same odds to disincentivize tanking, sure, but there's no reason for the midpoints sharing the same odds). So what to do? Well, you can just go to method A and set the exact # of balls you want to use, but surely I can improve methods B & C when it comes to this scenario. So in v2 (not yet shared), I tried creating a higher midpoint and a lower midpoint and then separate them by half of that same user-adjustable %. And that's better, but it's not quite perfect either. To explain, say the midpoint is assigned a value of 1. If we're using a user-adjustable % of 25, the next higher pick would normally be assigned a value of 1.25 (and the next lower pick .75). If there were 2 midpoints, we would assign the higher midpoint 1.125 (1(1+.25/2)) and the lower midpoint .875. But the problem is 1.125 isn't exactly 25% greater than .875 (it's 28.6%), like the rest of the odds would be. For 25% exactly, you'd give the higher midpoint a value of 1.11111 and the lower .88889 (that might be a clue as to how to solve this, 1/9=.11111). But what if the % you're using isn't 25%, but 23%, how do I figure it's ".11111", not through trial and error, but via a formula? There must be some math that can easily solve it, but I don't know it. EDIT: Silly me, I just realized 1 isn't 25% greater than .75 like 1.25 is to 1. So I guess my v2 solution isn't as bad as I thought since v1 wasn't as good as I thought. I'll think some more on it. __________________ My OOTP Wishlist Your Recommended Team Nicknames, By City (A Crowdsourced Project) Last edited by kq76; 09-11-2023 at 06:31 AM.*

09-11-2023, 05:45 AM	#3
kq76 Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 10,775	Since I've come to the conclusion that v2 is still better than v1 and that there's no real necessity to make it better at this time, I'm switching the link to v2. I took a closer look at the "spread" the pro leagues use and theirs weren't as elegant as I was trying to make mine anyway. In fact, MLB's spread is all over the place (increase by X, increase by X-Y, increase by X+Z) and my v2's is actually already closer to the NBA's than I was trying to make it. That is, the % change between odds gets higher the further down the draft you go, just like mine does. And with v2's double midpoint adjustment, that % falls in-between the upper and lower %s. The NBA has been refining theirs for decades (since 1985) so if mine is similar to theirs, and I'm pretty sure they start from method A instead of an algorithm, then mine is probably plenty good. __________________ My OOTP Wishlist Your Recommended Team Nicknames, By City (A Crowdsourced Project)