There are 87.000 active players (according to eRepublik).
Let's assume that each has 10 raffle tickets (2 were given free and most likely 8 were gained through activities).
So there are 870.000 tickets and 8.800 prizes so for each draw you have 0.01 chances of win.
But if each player will have 20 raffle tickets the winning chances decrease to 0.005.
Now remember how fortunate you were in spinning the wheel and imagine that there the chances of winning a big prize were 0.125 per spin.