**Please note: This is taken from a Vegas sports book write up with the main theme being the Vegas Golden Knights. I took their info out of this as it was originally written in 2017 but the same info still applies.**
To truly understand the odds you must first grasp the actual process the league uses to conduct the lottery. The lottery takes place at the SportsNet TV studios in Toronto. **The NHL uses a 14-ball, 1001 combination system. This means they place ping pong balls numbered 1-14 into one hopper. They are drawn one at a time to create a four digit sequence (i.e 2-4-5-11 or 8-2-11-4).** There are a total of 1001 possible outcomes using 14 balls to draw a four digit sequence.
Using the odds above, a chart is created to indicate which team wins on each of the 1001 combinations. To simplify the process, the combo of 11-12-13-14 is not assigned to a team leaving 1000 total outcomes. The worst team is assigned 179 of the 1000 outcomes.
Each combination is assigned randomly, so each teams winning combos will be all over the map. They could have 1-2-3-4, 14-9-11-1, and 2-7-1-3, it could be any 179 of the 1000 available combos.
**But that’s just the first lottery.** There is then a second and a third lottery to determine the next two picks. Once a team wins, they obviously cannot win again. So, say the worst team wins, their 179 combinations are now null. If the team with the best record wins, only nine combinations become null. The league draws until they have an acceptable combination for the second pick, and then again for the third pick.
[Understanding the NHL Lottery System](https://sinbin.vegas/understanding-the-nhl-draft-lottery/)
The link below is if you want to have some fun and get depressed on how hard it still is to get the first overall pick even in the ducks position.
[Tankathon – Randomizer](https://www.tankathon.com/nhl)
by _5GOLDBLOODED2_
3 Comments
Everything you wrote is still correct except for the three drawings part. Since last year it’s only two drawings for the top two spots. I also broke down the mechanics of the lottery to try and explain why it isn’t rigged, cause there’s been a lot of fans who have been accusing the NHL of conspiring against the Ducks when that’s just not true at all https://www.crashthepond.com/articles/no-the-nhl-draft-lottery-isnt-rigged-and-this-is-why
Didn’t know this… Thank you!
But it’s still fucking rigged!
/s
And how do we know that the 4-digit sequence drawn actually belongs to Chicago instead of Anaheim? It seems like an obvious way to cheat if we’re not given the legend in advance.