Groupon has launched a Wheel of Fortune-esque marketing gimmick that lets users log into Facebook and spin a virtual wheel for the chance to win deals with select Groupon merchants.

It’s called Clicky the Clickable Value Wheel,” and it has kind of a creepy (in a Peter Gabriel video kind of way) face.

I haven’t had much luck with it so far:

At least Groupon is up front about your chances of actually winning.

“The chances of winning are slim, but not impossible,” says Mike Bennett, the lead developer on Clicky. “We designed the wheel to spin in a way that appears random – like you could potentially win on any given spin – but it’s not actually random, it’s programmatically predestined to ‘win’ 1 out of 1,000 times.”

The win ratio was determined to ensure the lifetime value of the new customers attracted to Groupon by Click will be greater than the total cost of the program, Groupon says, “thus making the program a practical and sustainable investent for Groupon.”

“Literally, most people will not win anything,” the company says.

You have to hand it to Groupon for its honesty. Another example of this comes from the company’s press release about Clicky, which says:

Clicky, the Clickable Value-Wheel, is one of several potential marketing instruments Groupon has and will continue to test over time, some of which will be successful while others will not.

Here’s the “story behind Clicky”:

Groupon will start promoting Clicky gradually over the next few months in over 170 markets in North America.

What do you think of Clicky?