Lotteries

Tee Time Lotteries

Lottery Algorithms

INTRODUCTION

Buz Club Software’s tee time reservation system, offers the ability for clubs to assign tee times by way of a lottery. The intent of the lottery is to equitably allocate tee times, using algorithms which the club can construct in an effort to be fair to their members.

The process is as follows:

• Members submit ballots online or by calling the golf shop. All ballots are displayed online as soon as they are submitted.
• At a prescribed time, the golf shop runs a lottery which assigns tee times to the members.

THE PROCESS

All lotteries are executed by the golf shop staff using the Lottery Wizard by the following these steps:

1. Select the Lottery Algorithm
2. Match groups which are less than maximum size (optional)
3. Run the lottery and preview results
4. Finalize lottery

LOTTERY ALGORITHMS

There are several different lottery algorithms which a club can use to assign tee times. They are described below.

Random

As the name suggests, the Random lottery algorithm selects groups at random and assigns the closest available time to the one requested. The principle of the Random algorithm is to treat all members the same for each lottery, with the outcome being basically the luck of the draw. It is expected that after a number of lotteries have been run, the results should average out for most golfers.

Lottery Variance

Each group is assigned a score based on the average of past lottery results for each player in the group (operator selects the number of past lotteries to evaluate.) Tee times are assigned, starting with the group with the highest score. The principle of this algorithm is to favour groups which had the poorest past outcomes.

Category Priority

If this algorithm is to be used, every golf category will be pre-assigned a value between 1 and 1000.  Each group is assigned a score based on the total of the priority for each player in the group. Tee times are assigned, starting with the group with the highest score. The principle of this algorithm is to favour members in higher rated member categories based on financial or other considerations as determined by the club.

Rounds Played

Each group is assigned a score based on the average number of rounds for each player in the group in the past ‘X’ days  (operator selects the number of past days.) Tee times are assigned, starting with the group with the lowest score. The principle of this algorithm is to favour members who have played the least on the premise that they should have access to the tee before players who play more often.

Number of Players

Each group is assigned a score based on the number of players in the group. Tee times are assigned, starting with the group with the highest score. The principle of this algorithm is to favour groups with the largest number of players on the premise that more golfers will be accommodated, if all of the groups are full.

TIE BREAKERS

Each algorithm can have a secondary algorithm to break ties. If there is no secondary algorithm, ties are broken randomly.