Queue positions do not tick down one by one, because the site does not admit people one by one. It admits them in batches, a few hundred at a time, when capacity opens up. Your position jumps when a batch is released, and it sits still between batches. The pattern looks broken. It is the system working as designed.
Batch release, in plain terms
A site under drop-day load cannot admit one person at a time. It admits a batch, a few hundred people, when capacity opens up, then waits while the batch checks out. Your position jumps when the batch releases, because a few hundred people just left the queue ahead of you. It sits still between batches, because nobody is leaving. The pattern is the release schedule, not a bug.
The batch size is set by the site's capacity. A site that can handle a thousand checkouts a minute admits batches of a thousand. A site that can handle a hundred admits batches of a hundred. The jumps get smaller as the batch gets smaller, and the wait gets smoother, but the mechanism is the same.
FIFO vs randomized: two ways to pick the next batch
Queue-it runs two modes, and the choice changes who gets in. FIFO admits in the order people arrived, so arriving early is the whole strategy. Randomized mode shuffles the pre-queue pool at T-0, the moment the sale opens, and admits in the shuffled order, so arriving early earns nothing. The pre-queue shuffle is the fairness mechanism: everyone who arrived before the sale opens has the same chance, and nobody is rewarded for camping the page for hours.
The two modes also behave differently under a bot attack. FIFO rewards the fastest bot. Randomized rewards the bot with the most entries, which is why randomized queues pair with identity checks and entry limits.
Why your position jumps past thousands at once
Position 45,000 and 5,000 units of stock sound like a contradiction, until the batch math is clear. The queue is not a line of 45,000 people waiting for 5,000 items. It is a pool of 45,000 people, and the site admits batches until the stock runs out. The jump from 45,000 to 5,000 is not a mistake. It is the queue skipping the people who left, the duplicates that were removed, and the entries that were flagged, and landing you in the batch that is about to be admitted.
The number that matters is not your position. It is the stock divided by the batch size, and the rate at which batches are releasing. That rate is the real estimate of your wait.
What the jumps tell you about your odds
A study of queue rules against lotteries found the trade-off that every drop team has to make. The queue rule wins on allocative efficiency: the people who want the item most, and arrived first, get it. The lottery wins on productive efficiency: it wastes less of everyone's time. And behavior under the queue rule is bimodal: people either commit fully and wait, or leave immediately, with few in between. The jumps are the visible part of that trade-off. A queue that jumps in big batches is a queue that chose allocative efficiency, and the people in it chose to wait.
Keep reading
Related guides on this site: how virtual waiting rooms assign your position how leaked presale codes give away queue spots the multi-tab trick and one-person-one-place More from Bot Protection For Ticketing.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my queue position jump by thousands at once?
Because the site admits people in batches, a few hundred at a time, when capacity opens up. Your position jumps when a batch is released, and it sits still between batches. The jump is the batch, not a glitch.
Does refreshing the page change my position?
No. Refreshing does not change your place, and in most queues it does not lose it either, because your position is tied to a token, not to the page. Opening the queue in a second tab can cost you, because the system may treat the second tab as a second person and flag both.
What is the difference between FIFO and randomized queues?
FIFO admits people in the order they arrived. Randomized mode shuffles the pre-queue pool at the moment the sale opens, then admits in the shuffled order. FIFO rewards arriving early. Randomized rewards nobody for arriving early, which is the point when the pre-queue opens hours before the sale.
How do I know if my queue position is real?
Check whether it moves in batches and whether the estimated wait updates with it. A real position jumps when batches release and the wait estimate changes with it. A fake position ticks down on a timer, smoothly and constantly, whether or not anyone is being admitted.