It's no secret that buying components is basically a bloodsport at this point. In an attempt to let real people, rather than bots and scalpers, buy components, retailer Newegg instituted the Newegg Shuffle to create a lottery for a chance to buy parts.
What are your chances, though? Newegg told PCMag that 100,000 people tend to enter the raffle, setting your chances at 0.01% to win any individual Shuffle. That number, of course, disregards that many people take a chance on every item in each Shuffle, and there are multiple GPUs, motherboards, and other components available each time. And when there are multiple items or bundles, you could submit multiple 'entries' each day.
Newegg may have dozens of each potential combo as well, so perhaps your actual odds — if you try for every single combo on a given day — are much higher. Still, that's 100,000 people entering almost daily for the chance to buy expensive and overpriced PC parts. Prices on Newegg, however, are (or at least were) often better than what scalpers are putting up on eBay.
That number could be worse. For instance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your chance of getting struck by lightning is roughly one in 500,000, so you're more likely to win the Newegg Shuffle than to have electric current blast down from the sky and run through your body.
Another lottery, Mega Millions, places its odds at winning the jackpot at one in 302,575,350, while the chance to win a million bucks is one in 12,607,306. That's far less likely than winning Newegg's drawing. Even if you have to enter the Newegg Shuffle multiple times to win, at least you don't have to pay for a ticket each time.
It's not impossible, however. One of our editors recently won a chance at winning a GPU (though ultimately passed on it), while PCMag reporter Michael Kan needed 13 attempts for the chance to buy an RTX 3070. Still, many on Twitter and other social networks have tried far more and claim to not have won just yet. Actually, our GPU guru Jarred has entered many Shuffles, probably close to 150 now, selecting every item and potential bundle. So far, he's been selected four times, but three of those were for extreme GPU bundles costing well over $2,000. Narrowing it down to just the sub-$1,000 GPUs, it seems his odds so far of getting selected are about one in 1,000.
lets goooo pic.twitter.com/Wa1u6wNoZDApril 26, 2021
Going for 0-29. #neweggshuffle #neweggshufflestreak. Always in for everything!April 26, 2021
Some have criticized Newegg's practice of putting bundles in the Shuffle, which forces winners to purchase other items, like motherboards or monitors, when they finally get the chance to buy one of the best graphics cards or best CPUs. But for many, this is their best shot, other than constantly monitoring sites or checking in daily with local big box stores. But on the internet, that line is 100,000 people long.
We've also tracked a marked increase in Newegg's bundle prices over the past six months. At present, GPUs in the Newegg Shuffle often cost more than buying the same GPU off of eBay. Who's the scalper now?
