Patent ID: 8429001

Claim:
A method for conducting a lottery for at least one item comprising: for each of a plurality of buyers: receiving a buyer's declared valuation for each of at least one item being offered in a lottery by a seller, the item having an assigned non-deterministic probability of being allocated to the buyer; and calculating, by a computer processor, insured prices for outcomes of the lottery which are a function of the buyer's declared valuation of the at least one item, the insured price p i , for each item being based on an equation which incorporates: an average price p for the respective item i, the probability z i , of being allocated the item i, the buyer's declared valuation v i , for the item i, and corresponding probabilities z j and the buyer's valuations v j for items other than i offered in the lottery; randomly drawing an allocation of each of the at least one item to a respective one of the buyers, based on its assigned non-deterministic probability; and allocating the insured prices to the buyers based on respective outcomes of the random drawing.