Hold up, they did the room lottery already?

When is it usually? Did I miss it or did it not happen yet

Usually between September and October, if memory serves.

The room lottery is typically done before pre-registration opens. A bit of a backwards setup, if I may editorialize: Anthrocon has pre-registration before the room blocks open, so they have a smaller block of rooms opening up for the supersponsors before the main block is opened for the general feeding frenzy.

The MFF room lottery is one ticket per 'group,' with groups of 4 getting a second ticked, to encourage room packing in the partner hotels (with the pandemic still not over (my work is going back to 'high risk' starting Monday, mandatory masking) room packing seems like just a way to make the con a superspreader event, if I may editorialize again.)