I'm entering a weird auction: the lowest, unique bid wins. Maths/ psycholgcally, how can i up the odds of win

Question

I need to know how probability and pschology plays a part and how to up the odss? Thanks.

Answer 1

People say to avoid the obvious, like a penny. Well, if everybody knows to avoid that then nobody will actually bid it, making it the BEST possible choice! When something is so obvious that nobody will do it then you should be unique and give it a shot. Mathematically it's the only certain winner, and psychologically it's actually a pretty good bet as well. In a similar auction a bar of gold bullion was won with the bet of a single pence because everybody thought it was too obvious.

I think mathematically the number picked vs. probability of winning would be a logarthmic decay. The psychological graph would be a bell curve. You want to make your bid where the lines intersect. Obviously this is an art rather than a science. The number of entrants, how many times you can bid, and whether you know if you're winning or not are all variables that will affect your strategy. Take a look at the paper I'm citing, they do a very good analysis of this exact problem. Good luck.

Answer 2

I've seen that type of auction before. You probably want to avoid all the obvious amounts like 1 penny, and 1.01, and 1.99.

Probability... well, it would help if you had some idea how many people were entering the auction. And the value of the item might also have a bearing. People would probably be inclined to offer substantially less than they perceive the item to be worth. If you have a large number of people playing you can expect every amount under ten bucks to be covered. This is interesting. I had never really thought it through before.
You probably want to avoid amounts that could resemble birthdates too.

Answer 3

PROBABILITY

SINCE .O1 IS GOING TO BE THE LOWEST MOST WOULD BID, LOGICALLY ANYTHING LOWER IS NOT THOUGHT ABOUT BECAUSE WE ARE INGRAINED WITH MONETARY VALUE.

GO AWAY AND USE ANCIENTS WEIGHTS AND MEASURES AND DO A GRAIN OF WHEAT AS YOUR BID OR A GRAIN OF RICE.

Answer 4

well vote low!