ArrowOutlet Info


Hello. We are 5th year Mathematics PhD students at UCSD. As part of a project in human game theory, Penny Auctions were studied at ArrowOutlet.com. If you do not know what a Penny Auction is, [click here] before proceeding.

During November and December 2011, the behavior of every user was monitored and the bidding history of every auction was recorded. Our computers worked over 2000 hours and analyzed over 500 Megabytes of data! Sadly, this work can not be used to study human behavior because the majority of users at ArrowOutlet.com are in fact robots.

We have decided to make this data public and anyone who would like to use this information can. In November and December 2011, the majority of bids at ArrowOutlet.com were placed by robots and the majority of auctions were won by robots. As a result, 95% of all humans who participated at ArrowOutlet.com in November or December 2011 lost money overall. In these 2 months, human net loss totaled over $260,000.00.

November and December 2011 statistics at ArrowOutlet.com [separate months]
-TotalRobotsHumansLinks to data
Users4,8023,0341,768[How we detected Robots]
Bids Placed7,694,6326,007,0391,687,593[All Bid Histograms]
Auctions Won33,97823,59510,383[All Completed Auctions]
Money Lost--$262,071.30[Individual Net Earnings]
-[Who are these robots?]


UPDATE:
After publishing this data in Feburary 2012, ArrowOutlet updated their website and the Attorney General asked us to study the new site. During April 2012, the behavior of every user and the bidding history of every auction was recorded and analyzed. Sadly, the majority of users at ArrowOutlet were still robots. The April data and methodology is published [here].

In 2012, ArrowOutlet shut down.
In January 2013, ArrowOutlet was fined by the Washington Attorney General. The press release is posted [here].
In June 2014, ArrowOutlet was fined by the Florida Attorney General. The press release is posted [here].