Randomization that will stand up in court

raffle drawing tickets from a bowl

It’s not as simple as it sounds to choose things at random. How can you prove after the fact that a choice was random?

If you’re raffling off a turkey at a school fundraiser, you can just have someone pull a ticket out of a bowl. But what if you giving away a $100,000,000 lottery jackpot rather than a turkey? What if you are selecting employees for random drug testing? Or drafting soldiers? In high-stakes randomization, you not only need to be fair, you need to be able to prove that you are being fair.

Randomization produces unexpected results; that’s what it’s supposed to do! If someone wins the lottery twice, they might believe they’re lucky. But if they’re picked for random drug testing two or three times in a row, they might believe they’re being discriminated against rather than just being unlucky.

If someone is upset over being chosen for drug testing, or upset over not being chosen for a lottery, they could sue. Could you convince a judge or jury that your randomization procedures are fair?

We have helped companies with developing defensible randomization procedures, and we’d welcome the chance to help your company. If you have randomization procedures in place, we could audit your procedures and possibly make suggestions for improvement. If you have not developed randomization procedures yet, we can help you develop procedures that are statistically valid and defensible from close scrutiny.

Call or email now to get started.

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Trusted consultants to some of the world’s leading companies

Amazon, Facebook, Google, US Army Corp of Engineers, Amgen, Microsoft, Hitachi Data Systems