"EX-Raids seem to have turned into a luck of the draw situation beyond the limitation of sponsored locations."

#PokemonGO: I am from a smallish suburban town from the Philadelphia region. We have 200+ pokestops and 50+ gyms, of those gyms we have 2 sponsored locations (both Starbucks & roughly 10-15 minutes away from each other). We have had already 4 Ex-Raids, with 2 more in the works.September 21 :: 7:00 - 8:00 PM (Starbucks #1) (60-75 Attendees)October 20 :: 12:00 - 1:00 PM (Non-Sponsored Location) (60~ Attendees)October 27 :: 12:00 - 1:00 PM (Starbucks #2) (60~ Attendees)November 3 :: 12:00 - 1:00 PM (Starbucks #2) (60~ Attendees)November 11 :: 1:00 - 2:00 PM (Starbucks #2) (<10 Attendees)November 18 :: 4:30 - 5:15 PM (Starbucks #1) (too early to tell, but looking like <10 Attendees)The only one I consider earned is the Non-Sponsored Location.The November 3rd raid was definitely not earned, you got this raid pass for completing the ex-raid from the week prior.The November 11th raid was the same thing, except with a twist. It seems Niantic has added a random factor to it. (1/6 of the people were picked)The November 18th raid also had a randomness factor added to it. I did raids here in big groups, 15 people one day, 10 another and that was just in the last week. BUT I seem to be the only one from those groups to have received the pass.Anyways the point of this post is to find out if anyone has figured out the randomness factor. My raid group has eliminated a couple theories.Theories debunked:Niantic is favoring people who do not already have a mewtwo.There's quite a few people who don't have mewtwos who should have been invited to the November 11th and 18th raid.Niantic is eliminating people who have 3-4 mewtwos already.No new people were added to the equation for November 11th raid, it was just people who completed the last two ex raids at that same location. Few of these people who have 3 or 4 mewtwos already.My 2-cents:Stop doing sponsored locations, both of your US sponsors are trash. Has anyone actually switched to US' slowest network just for pokemon go, seems counter-intuitive tbh.Throw the randomness factor out if there is one. Picking from a pool of people randomly is just going to exclude people who haven't gotten mewtwo yet even more.I would rather you exclude people who have mewtwo if you need to limit the number of passes given out for whatever reason that may be.Non-Sponsored locations add the thrill of getting your raid pass. From personal experience I can tell you that I was definitely more excited about the non-sponsored than Starbucks. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2jho70s