General Forum

What are the odds that the three random trades that i have ready to go are all going to guys in the great state of Pennsylvania?  Just a weird anomoly i thought i would share.  Any one else notice any weird trends when trading?

pa is a large state...

by trade, do you mean actually card for card or "hey i'll sell you things on your wantlist for retail cost"?

https://mapfight.appspot.com/texas-vs-us.pa/texas-pennsylvania-us-size-comparison

Its the size of a few of our counties...

Yay!  Nerd question!

OK, Pennsylvania, according to the 2017 numbers, had a population of 12,805,537 (2017 Census estimate).  The United States as a whole has a population of 325,719,178.  

So, if we assume that the members here are randomly distributed across the US, the chances of any single trade partner being from Pennsylvania is 3.93% (about 1 in 25.4), and the odds of all three being from Pennsylvania would be 3.93% x 3.93% x 3.93% = 0.006%, or about 1 in 16456.

But wait, we also have members from Canada.  Not sure how many or what percentage, but that means we need to add in the 35,151,728 Canadians, So that means that Pennsylvania has 12.8 million out of the combined population of 360,870,906, and the odds of a single trader being from PA is 3.55% (1 in 28.2) and the chances of all 3 is 0.0045% or 1 in 22380.  

Of course, all of this assumes that the members here are evenly distributed across the US and Canada and it ignores the possibility of members from other countries, so without having the actual demographics of the membership, it's all guesswork, but I'd suggest that 1 in 20,000-25,000 seems like a reasonable guesstimate.

you would be great to have a beer with.  It was like hitting the lotto.  

So pretty close to the odds of pulling a superfractor 1/1   1:34k

More like winning $100 on a $2 lottery ticket.

But I think there were some pretty big assumptions used in calculating that number.  Namely, the equal distribution between US & Canadian populations is a bit far fetched.  Secondly, and this one I have no proof for, but I think Philly and Pittsburgh fans on this board are far greater than 4%.

I think you would also have to weight the state populations differently since there are 50 states and 30 teams and not all states have a home team so you might have to multiply California by 4, NY by 2, PA by 2, etc and then maybe divide Canada by half or just take the population of Ontario. 

You mean like lbs VS kgs ?!?!? =P