The 2020 WSER Lottery will be conducted this Saturday December the 7th @ 8:30 am Pacific Time. If you are not present at Placer High School for the action you can watch a live feed of the selections on the WSER facebook page.
The Race Director has released statsitics ahead of Saturday’s drawing. This a fun read and goes into the nitty gritty of the odds of selection. As expected, the number of entrants into the race continues to rise year over year. The growth of ultra running within the past decade is impressive and is highlighted by the increased competitiveness for entry into one of its crown jewels. Heading into this year’s lottery are 6,666 hopeful runners. The growth of the WSER lottery (and maybe the sport itself; that’s another post for another day) appears to be entering exponential growth. If the growth continues at this rate, expect application totals to rise by thousands year over year as opposed to hundreds.
Of these 6,666 runners, 264 will be offered a place at the starting line. An additional 50 will be selected to go onto a waiting list. Many of these runners will eventually be offered entry.
The odds of selection by number of tickets are laid out nicely in the race director’s write up. Be careful to note that the odds shown are for entry into the race or the wait-list. If you are only interested in the odds of immediate entry into the race (non-wait-list), they are actually slightly lower than those presented. The odds for immediate selection are shown below.
And finally, the fun part. A list of the 6,666 applicants was published by the WSER here. Use the tool below to simulate Saturday’s lottery. Click “Simulate Lottery” to generate a hypothetical list of the runner’s selected in order of selection. The 50 wait list runners are shown on a separate tab. The third tab shows a simulation of the summary by ticket group, and the fourth tab gives a look at the potential age distribution of the lottery field.
Didn’t see your name in your initial simulation? Run the simulation again and again. Eventually your name will be among those selected (yes even those with one ticket)! Think positive, and good luck to those in the lottery!