I'm interested in the odds of winning the top prize. On the face of it, it would seem the odds of rolling a 10,000 would be 1 in 10,000; however due to the way the hash is converted into a five digit number, I suspect this may not actually be the case. But I am not proficient in the math to be able to understand how the hash is converted anyway, so I cannot figure it out myself. (Side note, with the number of rolls this site gets per day, if 1 in 10,000 of them were winning $200, I don't see how the site could generate enough money from ads to stay in business.)
So basically, I'm looking for the odds of rolling in each tier when taking into account the conversion from the hash to a 5 digit number.
0001 - 9885, implied odds: 98.85%; actual odds: ?
9886 - 9985, implied odds: 1.00%; actual odds: ?
9986 - 9993, implied odds: 0.08%; actual odds: ?
9994 - 9997, implied odds: 0.04%; actual odds: ?
9998 - 9999, implied odds: 0.02%; actual odds: ?
10000, implied odds: 0.01%; actual odds: ?
Are the implied odds and the actual odds the same?From the site:
How are rolls calculated?
Two strings are created :
STRING1 = "[NONCE]:[SERVER SEED]:[NONCE]"
STRING2 = "[NONCE]:[CLIENT SEED]:[NONCE]"
For your last roll :
STRING1 = "5250:1464797785-lIL61ZFZyuaDg8Bb1dxq42CbphyIyos2YUL9itCr3WKIdps1P7ns71eWWcuMjJDa-96.95.116.29:5250"
STRING2 = "5250:3EkoE4cLHBBrGCnx:5250"
Then HMAC-SHA512 is used to hash STRING1 with STRING2 as the secret key, giving us a 128 character hex string.
The first 8 characters of the hex string are taken and converted to a decimal.
This decimal is then divided by 429496.7295 and rounded off to the nearest whole number.
This whole number is used as your roll, with the maximum possible value being 10,000.
Emphasis added.
I think that converting the string to a decimal, dividing the string by 429496.7295, and rounding to the nearest whole number probably makes the odds that the result is 10,000 far less than 1 in 10,000.
Does anyone know?