Filling Panini World Cup sticker book estimated at £773

[leicsmac]

31 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

£700 is a load of bollocks. That's probably the calculation of how many packs it would take you to complete it without swapping a single one.

 

I still think 80p a pack is a joke, mind.

It's an average without swapping, yes. Swapping with 10 friends still costs you around 250 quid.

 

These maths boyos do, in fact, know what they're doing regarding the probabilities here.

[Dan]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

It's an average without swapping, yes. Swapping with 10 friends still costs you around 250 quid.

 

These maths boyos do, in fact, know what they're doing regarding the probabilities here.

Never said they didn't, it's just a sensationalist headline that's all.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Dan LCFC said:

Never said they didn't, it's just a sensationalist headline that's all.

Oh yeah, no doubt. It's really not likely anyone collecting these wouldn't be swapping them about, after all.

250 notes if you've got ten mates to swap with is still a pretty big chunk of change, though.

[Guest Col city fan]

14 hours ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

My young lads bugging me to get this for him.

 

At £750 he can fvck right off.

Are you gonna tell him that?

[Guest MattP]

You can order individual stickers for 22p each. No one is going to still be buying packs when they need less than fifty.

 

Sensationalist bollocks.

[Guest MattP]

11 hours ago, Charl91 said:

It's really not. I have enough duties to deal with, without adding negotiator-of-sticker-trades to my list. If kids want to swap stickers, they can do it out of school.

Teachers actually get involved in stuff like this now? My word we have become a weird country.

 

No wonder half the kids are growing up snowflakes.

[sylofox]

17 hours ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

My young lads bugging me to get this for him.

 

At £750 he can fvck right off.

Father of the year candidate  

 

 

[sylofox]

This really is beyond a joke. Like the magazines build the titanic first issue 99p then £9.99 for the next 200 editions. 

 

The government should make these company's tell you the total price. Obviously panini can't give an exact figure but should be made to explain this could cost £770.

[Samilktray]

I dare say the majority of people who buy this realise they're gonna have to buy a fair few packets to fill it. Don't understand the moaning tbh 80p is a bit steep but it is what it is 

[Beliall]

filling these will be a lot cheaper, mums on facebook are always swapping stickers for their kids, and there's ebay too, get cracking, ill be buying 2 for my kids

[Voll Blau]

Did the last two when I had mates who were also doing them to swap with, but can't help wondering if it's the fact it's so popular among grown men that's caused the price hike on packets? Swear it was 50p last time.

 

If the people most into it are adults with disposable income rather than 50p-odd pocket money a week (good for a couple of Merlin packs in the mid-90s if I recall correctly), then Panini are probably gonna take advantage of that. Poor kids.

[CosbehFox]

3 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

Did the last two when I had mates who were also doing them to swap with, but can't help wondering if it's the fact it's so popular among grown men that's caused the price hike on packets? Swear it was 50p last time.

 

 

Brexit. Italian Panini hitting where it hurts

[MC Prussian]

17 hours ago, leicsmac said:

It's an average without swapping, yes. Swapping with 10 friends still costs you around 250 quid.

 

These maths boyos do, in fact, know what they're doing regarding the probabilities here.

Well, either I'm incredibly lucky or the math's way off with these so-called experts.

 

I'm running low on costs and look at completing the remaining 130 stickers by swapping them with others.

 

I don't know what the deal is in the UK, but here in Switzerland, you can buy whole Panini sticker boxes (100 packets or 500 stickers in total) for cheap (around the £60 mark).

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

Well, either I'm incredibly lucky or the math's way off with these so-called experts.

 

I'm running low on costs and look at completing the remaining 130 stickers by swapping them with others.

 

I don't know what the deal is in the UK, but here in Switzerland, you can buy whole Panini sticker boxes (100 packets or 500 stickers in total) for cheap (around the £60 mark).

From what I can tell the model that results in 750-odd quid is based on buying your stickers at 80p per five, which is the going rate in the UK.

 

So, a basic calculation reveals that if you were so incredibly lucky to not get any duplicates and fill the lot, as the original article says you're going to spend (682/5)*0.8 = about 109 pounds.

 

But, of course, it's not that simple, and I quote:

 

“The first sticker you buy is absolutely guaranteed not to be a duplicate. The second sticker you get has a 681/682 (99.85 per cent) chance of being a new sticker.

“The third sticker you get has a 680/682 (99.7 per cent) chance of being a new sticker, and so on.”

 

Prof Harper then added up all of the probabilities of getting a new sticker to obtain a formula, which he adjusted using conditional probabilities because the stickers come in packs of five.

 

This model shows that rather than buying just 682 stickers to complete the set, the average amount you'd need based on standard probability distribution is 4832 - over seven times as many, giving (4832/5)*0.8 = about 774 quid. As you get closer to completion, the odds of getting a sticker you need get higher and higher - indeed, to get the last 19 stickers you would need to buy as many stickers as you had done to get all the ones before (2416), on average. Of course, if you get lucky you can buy many less to complete, but that's the average - the top of the probability bell-curve.

 

TBH I could probably model this in the same way that the maths prof did it - it's not a difficult formula to express - but I'm reasonably sure he's right on this one.

[MC Prussian]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

From what I can tell the model that results in 750-odd quid is based on buying your stickers at 80p per five, which is the going rate in the UK.

 

So, a basic calculation reveals that if you were so incredibly lucky to not get any duplicates and fill the lot, as the original article says you're going to spend (682/5)*0.8 = about 109 pounds.

 

But, of course, it's not that simple, and I quote:

 

“The first sticker you buy is absolutely guaranteed not to be a duplicate. The second sticker you get has a 681/682 (99.85 per cent) chance of being a new sticker.

“The third sticker you get has a 680/682 (99.7 per cent) chance of being a new sticker, and so on.”

 

Prof Harper then added up all of the probabilities of getting a new sticker to obtain a formula, which he adjusted using conditional probabilities because the stickers come in packs of five.

 

This model shows that rather than buying just 682 stickers to complete the set, the average amount you'd need based on standard probability distribution is 4832 - over seven times as many, giving (4832/5)*0.8 = about 774 quid. As you get closer to completion, the odds of getting a sticker you need get higher and higher - indeed, to get the last 19 stickers you would need to buy as many stickers as you had done to get all the ones before (2416), on average. Of course, if you get lucky you can buy many less to complete, but that's the average - the top of the probability bell-curve.

 

TBH I could probably model this in the same way that the maths prof did it - it's not a difficult formula to express - but I'm reasonably sure he's right on this one.

It just baffles me that mathematicians spend their time on fantasizing on Panini stickers.  Somebody must've been bored.

 

The probability calculation works pretty well in theory - in reality, the chances are skewed because of the distribution of stickers in each pack. It throws the whole equation out of the window. Some get lucky, some have to work harder on completing the album.

My own sticker album most definitely won't cost me 774 quid, let alone a sixth of that.

 

On a sidenote, do Panini sell their stickers in South Korea, too?

Edited 29 March 2018 by MC Prussian

[leicsmac]

45 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

It just baffles me that mathematicians spend their time on fantasizing on Panini stickers.  Somebody must've been bored.

 

The probability calculation works pretty well in theory - in reality, the chances are skewed because of the distribution of stickers in each pack. It throws the whole equation out of the window. Some get lucky, some have to work harder on completing the album.

My own sticker album most definitely won't cost me 774 quid, let alone a sixth of that.

 

On a sidenote, do Panini sell their stickers in South Korea, too?

That would depend on whether or not an even number of stickers have been made for each player/team/badge, which I'd assume they were. And yes, luck does play a serious factor here - it's what the maths fellas would call "high variance".

 

I'm not sure if Panini stickers are popular in SK tbh, but I'm sure they're looking forward to the World Cup as much as we are.

[Mark 'expert' Lawrenson]

Got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, got, NEED! 

[fazzyfox]

One way to complete for less is to swap your Deli Alli sticker and draw a p**** in its place (I've just been banned from WHSmith).

 

Alternatively buy a World Cup squad preview magazine, cut out the pictures (hoping they match up double sided) shuffle them up and put them in envelopes. Hide them around the house whilst anebriated and spend weeks trying to find them all. 

 

Just want to know the funniest player name this time, a  Bummholle Schniffer or Eimaar Coksuc would be worth ten standard swapsies. Waiting to see if they got my letter about including some pages of the Columbian fan Totty, now there's something worth collecting (self adhesive too).

[Strokes]

14 hours ago, MC Prussian said:

Well, either I'm incredibly lucky or the math's way off with these so-called experts.

 

I'm running low on costs and look at completing the remaining 130 stickers by swapping them with others.

 

I don't know what the deal is in the UK, but here in Switzerland, you can buy whole Panini sticker boxes (100 packets or 500 stickers in total) for cheap (around the £60 mark).

Yeah they are £68, £119 for 200 packets.

[AyewJoking]

I think I used to spend £90 completing the Merlin premier league albums in the 90's/00's.

Order stickers by the box load and then send off the form to fill the remaining 50 or so stickers.

 

[The Blur]

I have just signed up for online version.  Far more cheaper

 

In all seriousness though,  I was thinking of making it more challenging this year as it used to be far too easy to swap spares with faceless fellow collectors as you can set the search parameters way too wide.  

 

The online app has a feature where a private collector group can be set up for 10 collectors.  I was thinking if there are nine other interested FTers then we could set up a group and only swap stickers with each other which would mirror our younger school swapping days far more accurately.  It also would be fun to see who will finish the album first!

 

PM if you are interested and I can look at creating a group if there are enough interest.