We are giving away three Mackie Showbox amplifiers. To win, all you need to do is:
1. Have a premium account on our website
2. If you’re in the UK: post a photo to Instagram or Facebook of you performing with your busk.co sign displayed, tell your followers what you love about The Busking Project and tag us (@buskingproject).
3. Be in either the USA, the UK or Australia.
That’s it. We’ll pick social media posts and premium accounts at random, and send you an amp if you win.
I’ve done the maths below, to see if you should enter. Here’s the prize:
What is the probability of winning?
There are an average of about 50 buskers on our platform with premium accounts in each of the UK, USA and Australia. They are your competition.
The probability of winning an amp in each country, if no more buskers sign up, would be roughly 1/50.
What is the prize value?
Premium accounts come with a lot of benefits:
• Your own URL (e.g. busk.co/nick)
• Access to our database of hundreds of festivals
• Event bookers in your area will be more likely to see your profile
• And in 2024, premium accounts earned roughly 7% more in tips
There are real financial benefits for having a premium account on busk.co. However, we’re only going to include the value of the Mackie Showbox, which is selling online for around $800 US, £700 UK and $1,600 AUD (prices vary from shop to shop, but these are the averages)
How to work out whether you should enter
The maths of lotteries is pretty simple. You should only enter if the “Expected Value” is higher than £0.
Expected value = (Prize Value x Probability of Winning) — Cost of Ticket
The probability of winning currently is 1/50 in each country.
The cost of a ticket is how much it costs to upgrade your account on busk.co: £5 GBP / $6 USD / $9 AUD
So, the UK Expected Value = (£700 x 1/50) – £5 = £9 GBP
In the US, the Expected Value = ($800 x 1/50) – $6 = $10 USD
In Australia, the Expected Value = ($1,600 x 1/50) – $9 = $23 AUD
What happens if more buskers enter?
How many people can enter before the expected value drops below £0?
If we set the “expected value” at “0”, we can then find out how many buskers can apply (B), then the maths is:
In other words, if there are fewer than 140 buskers in the UK with premium accounts, you should probably enter this competition.
Here’s the results for all three countries, based on the expected value above:
UK = 140 buskers max
USA = 130 buskers max
Australia = 170 buskers max
If there are fewer than that many buskers who enter our competition, it’s worth entering!
The bottom line
Statisticians would say that you should not expect to win (at most you’ll have about a 1/50 chance of winning), but the cost of entry is low enough, and the prize is big enough, that it’s worth the risk.
Also, of course we are doing this competition not just to give you a high quality product to use, but to make a bit more money ourselves as well.
We’ll put your money to good use: we’re a nonprofit organisation that uses our revenues to develop new features, which, in turn, should earn you more money.
You can get your premium account here: