Anyone know if it is possible to get or calculate the PPLNS Pool Luck via the API?
I spoke with eleuthria and the local math wizard organofcorti and they both confirmed there is no easy way to precisely confirm the pool luck, which is a deal braker for me.
I guess it is just a psychological barrier for me to join a pool, where I cannot verify one of the main factors that determine how much I earn.
Ok, so a quick check of coinbase signatures shows that BTC Guild solved 3218 blocks since October 26th (the earliest date on the chart and the date from which I assume the average "luck" is being calculated).
The probability density of average luck:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=erlang+distribution+3218%2C+3218which is clearly closely centred on 1.0, with little deviation.
The average "luck" from the chart is 103.24%. I'm assuming that this equates to 100/103.24 d1 shares / network difficulty. If you calculate the CDF of this:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=CDF%5BErlangDistribution%5B3218%2C+3218%5D%2C+0.9686168%5Dyou get 0.0364 - that is only 3.64% of the time would you get luck as good as (or better than) this. However, it's still not that unlikely and it's within a 95% confidence interval.
Edit: I know this doesn't address your main concern being that "luck" is not easy to check for yourself, I just thought you and others might be interested to know how likely/unlikely it was.