If the purpose is to give some advantage to "old timers," I don't see how this accomplishes that objective very well. It seems to me that the people who deserve rewarding are the folks who've been attending for a lot more than the last five years, the folks who attended before the days of the sellouts. If I weredesigning the process, one difference would be that I would exclude the last three years, and go back farther than five years. I'd exclude 2000 and 2001 because they were oversold. Many of the people who got tickets were themselves lottery winners and to give them an advantage in the next lottery seems unfair to me (or to put it differently, to put the losers in the first lotteries in a disadvantageous position in the next lottery seems unfair). 1999 was an aberration because of location. I'd guess many "old timers" simply couldn't afford to go to California. Now you can argue that if they were really that devoted, they would have raised the funds, but that smacks to me of "classism." Personally, this benefits me. I lost in the Providence lottery, but "bought my way" into Albany via the 2000 Regionals/2001 Finals package deal. I'm happy I have the advantage, and I won't refuse the tickets if I win, but I don't think that this is a fair process. Nathan Eric Hampton wrote: >>[. . . ] If you are one among 10,000 applying for 7,000 seats in this limited, special lottery, your odds are no better than if you are one > among 19,000 applying for 15,000 seats. This sounds good if you are an > oldtimer, but I am not yet convinced that it is good.<< > While the odds may be no better in the first lottery than the second, the advantage to the "old timer" is that a single "lottery ticket" enters them in both lotteries. Also, one of the things that's not clear is whether or not the "oldtimers" can also enter the general lottery. If so, not only do they get the advantage of a single lottery ticket entering them in both lotteries, but they also have doubled odds in the second. >>And if it is good for the oldtimer, then the newcomer will be shorted.<< Yah, this is a zero sum game. Any advantage to oldtimers is a disadvantage to newbies. I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you object to giving an advantage to oldtimers? I'm not arguing one way or the other, just want to understand what your point is. If you were designing the ticket application process, what would you do differently? Oh, and BTW on the point that started this thread, I live in eastern Massachusetts and the tickets hadn't arrived as of yesterday. Thanks, Sara, for posting and making me feel a bit less anxious. Clay