Bitcoin Forum

CURRENT POT: 0.5 BTC - Paid Out!

NOTE: This lottery is limited to the members of the TripleMining pool.  If you are not a member of the pool, you can join by clicking the link in my signature.  Only active members of the TripleMining pool are eligible to win.  

Why a Lottery? With some rounds being longer than others for the TripleMining pool to find a block, sealkid had the idea of placing bets on when the next block will be found by the pool.  To make this interesting, I propose we make a game out of it and place a few wagers.  

Rules: In order to participate in this game, please send me a PM stating your interest to participate (or just post interest in this thread).  I will send reply giving you a payment address where you will send 0.10HrMnSd BTC where Hr is the hour, Mn is the minute and Sd is the second GMT that you believe the block will be found.  Use the 24 hour clock for the hour so we can differentiate between AM and PM.  Bets are good regardless of which day the block is found.

Example: If you believe that the block will be found at 2:36PM and 20 seconds GMT you would send 0.10143620 BTCs to the address provided.  

To keep the times people bet secret (to prevent people from betting 1 second above or below them) I will provide unique payment addresses to all participants.  Please reply to the PM after your bet is sent with a payment address for you in the event you are the lucky winner.

Winning: The person who bets closest to the actual time the block is found will be declared the winner and will receive 0.1 BTC for each entry.  (Ten entries will result in a jackpot of 1 BTC, with the additional decimals being kept by the operator).

Final Note: Any bids submitted within a 30 minute window before the block is found will not be counted and will be returned to the bidder.

Questions?  Feel free to post below, and enjoy the game!

Keeping the bet a secret won't work with this system, as anyone can look up the payment address in Block Explorer.

Good to know!  In that case, I can provide a unique bidding address to each bidder.  I'll update the original post.

This idea is awesome, added it to the site !

If anyone has any ideas or coding experience that would help somewhat automate this lottery, it would be very much appreciated.  

The winner of the lottery for the 3rd Block is EskimoBob, claiming a Pot of 0.5 BTC!

I'm in hook me up with an address.

I know you want to keep the bets secret but I'd suggest making them into a list and then hashing it. That way you can't be accused of changing or adding a bet that wins. Then by releasing the hash as the list is updated people can be sure that the bets didn't change just before the winner is announced. The more details you have in the list the better. Another thing to consider is https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_timestamp . To avoid anyone trying to alter their computer time to better their chances you could add that the block has to have a time between the block timestamp before it and the one after it? Usually that is the case anyways. That would prevent a block that's way out there and obviously altered the timestamp to increase their chances. That way the most they could alter the time would be the time between two blocks timestamps.

WOW! This is another reason why I love this community. I was only suggesting a sweepstakes thingy because I was bored waiting for block #3. I never thought it would become so real so quickly. If only I had some BTC to afford to gamble! (My £££ poker bankroll exists but is small, need at least 10 BTC before I'd consider gambling 1% of it).

Kudos! And good luck! 88

You own triple mining?

The first bid has been confirmed!  Lets make this exciting with more bids . . . just post your interest in the thread or send me a PM and I'll provide you with your unique bidding payment address for this and all future TripleMining lotteries.  The more people who participate, the bigger the pot and the more fun the game!

Yes he does.

I am in, send me the BTC address or you can PM me in IRC

I'm in!
Please send me the address! =)

By the way, I can code the system in PHP, if needed ;) .

I'd definitely be interested in exploring that for future lotteries, SilverLeaf.  Do you know how to do the hashing for security that BitLotto above mentioned? 

Sure, it's only a matter of MD5-hashing a string with the bets so far and updating it as a new bet comes in ;) .

I'll have to learn how to do that for the 4th block.

Something like, foreach bet received:

$string .= $btc_addr_sender . $amount;

...

$md5 = md5($string);
print $md5;

We've got four bids confirmed, anyone else want to throw their hat into the ring and make the pot an even 0.5 BTC?

Wow, this was confusing me, and I didn't even realize it.  So, to put it in other words:

The lottery ticket price consists of:
+ 0.10 000000
+ 0.00 120000 hour of day in 24 hr clock (in this case 12 noon)
+ 0.00 003400 minute of the hour (in this case 34)
+ 0.00 000056 seconds of the minute (in this case 56)
-----------------
T  0.10123456 purchase price.

HOWEVER, only the 0.10 goes to the pot, the rest of the bits stay with the lotto operator.

I think I will pick the time 00:01:01!  J/k.

Correct! 


Correct!  And you're more than welcome to . . . but keep in mind that someone else might do the same thing, so you might be shooting yourself in the foot by bidding really close to someone else.

And how would I know what someone else bid, huh?  ;)


EDIT:


We found our block, who was closest?

According to the information available to me, Block #135556 was found at 2011-07-10 03:18:03 GMT. 

While it was a fairly close contest, the winner is Eskimo Bob with a bid of 03:55:00! 

http://www.ausp.org/storage/Block%203%20Lottery.jpg

If the winner would be so kind as to post a payment address, I'll process your winnings shortly. 

Thanks everyone for playing, and if the kinks can be worked out of the TripleMining pool I'd be happy to run additional lotteries like this in the future.

Congrats to Eskimo Bob.  (I was the 2nd closest time. darn)

seems the server has crashed shortly after finding the block.

i linked the idea and had 700 Mhash working on it, I'm diversified again.

I have another 300 mhash card idling due to heat issues.

Its up again.

WOW! Good news!  :)  :)  :)

The Pot of 0.5 BTC has been sent to EskimoBob @ 1Kae8NWf1pKsadDu53E9GeRo6pN9c4hrgy !!  Please confirm on this thread once payment has been received.

Thank you, I have the coin.