Meet the Ontario stats prof who claims he can’t stop beating Roll Up To Win
For most people who play Roll Up To Win at Tim Hortons, the winning happens once in a while.
For Michael Wallace, a statistics professor at the University of Waterloo – it’s a different story.
“This year when I played my rolls at the best time, I won at almost 80 per cent of the time” said Wallace.
For Wallace, Roll Up is the convergence of two passions: statistics and contests.
Back in 2020 when Roll Up moved from a cup to online, Wallace saw an opportunity.
“When the contest is on a physical cup, there is not actually a lot you can do. When they moved it to a digital app, that opened up a lot of interesting avenues of thinking about how the contest was designed and how you as a player might be able to take advantage of that,” said Wallace.
Wallace said he read the rules, did a little research on online contests and came up with a theory.
“Basically I took a gamble. I gambled that they hadn’t thought of a few things that I thought of and I bought a bunch of coffees and saved a bunch of rolls and played them at the very end of the contest and managed to win at about 98 per cent of the time.”
After a winning streak in 2020, Wallace said Tim Hortons made some changes and the winning rate fell back to earth in 2021.
In 2022, Wallace made some changes and achieved a 40 per cent win rate.
This year Wallace says Tim Hortons sent him an unintentional life line in the form of real time data.
“This year, one big difference I noticed was on their website, they starting posting the number of prizes people were winning as the contest went along, so these numbers are telling you roughly how many people are playing and by recording the data I was able to plot and figure out when the best time to play and when was the worst time to play, based on when other people were playing in the contest,” he said.
His theory is simple, play when others are not to improve your chance of winning.
While some may be able to reasonably guess a good time to play, Wallace was able to determine the best minute to play in his time zone, using data.
“What I found was the best time to play was 3:16 a.m. and the worst time to play was 11:46 a.m.,” Wallace said.
When he was playing at 3:16 a.m. he won roughly 80 per cent of his rolls. When he played at 11:46 a.m., he won around 15 per cent.
For Wallace his fascination, bordering on obsession, with Roll Up To Win is not just a pursuit of free caffeine and sugar – Wallace also uses his research as a teaching tool.
“I knew even if my strategy didn’t pay off, I would at very least get a good story out of it, show my students, try to get them interested in statistics” Said Wallace.
Wallace said experiments like this are incredibly rewarding.
“You can actually use real world data and see how people are behaving through those numbers, so it’s that interpretation of seeing the real world, through numbers, that I find really exciting,” he said.
As for Tim Hortons, in years previous they have not seemed to mind Wallace’s experiments with their beloved game.
An attitude he said he hopes they keep.
“I am always a little worried that I’m going to get a letter banning me from my local Tim’s,” he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
Fewer medical students going into family medicine contributing to doctor shortage
As some family doctors are retiring and others are moving away from family medicine, there are fewer medical students to take their place.
'My stomach dropped': Winnipeg man speaks out after being criminally harassed following single online date
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Competition bureau finds 'substantial' anti-competitive effects with proposed Bunge-Viterra merger
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.