Bitcoin Forum

Hey everyone! Thought it would be a great time to make a bitcointalk thread about our lottery, Lottobtc.org. This lottery is transparent, verifiably fair, and the blockchain will be keeping a record of this draw and every draw to follow. If you have any questions or requests, leave a comment and we'll see what we can do. There is a draw every 1000 blocks, and entries are just 0.00000001 BTC each!

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More than half a million entries already? How many individuals are those? Prize pool is 0.0065 so that means the actual prize is only 50k satoshi. I suppose it's not a bad amount for a +EV lottery, or am I missing something out? Where's your profit come from if +EV? I'll send some dust there, only for fun. Never won lotteries before even when I had >50% of tickets.

Each 'entry' is just 1 satoshi, so I guess it's just a fun way of saying it. As a first draw there have been 7 different deposits though, ranging from 50,000 entries to 100,000 entries each.

The "prize pool" is just the lottery address balance, and the amount going out to the winners would be 95% of this, or about 0.006175 BTC as of now, 617500 satoshi. Our profit comes from the static 5% rake each draw

Thanks for inquiring :) and no problem, even dust gives you a chance.

you have just one winner for the amounts of under 0.05 bitcoins

https://i.imgur.com/UBT5jhAh.jpg

but that would be the majority of your draws,realistically,at least the first ones
I suggest you adjust that to have at least three winners,this way more people might be tempted to play
generally,this idea is so not new,I have seen plenty of lottery projects
yours is simple(its good in this case,no fancy roll overs,wintables etc.) and with only 5% house edge,which is low for any lottery (again-good  ;D  )
you do not need a bankroll as it is always paid by the participants
all in all,if marketed properly,this could be a popular game,where people with 10-100k satoshi could have a shot at a large prize
and hope you do not run away with the money if the pot is big enough  :D

5% is really quite surprising for a lottery based games and i agree on the thing you had suggested that they should make atleast 2-3 winners for the bracket of below 0.05btc which would really be more appealing to possible bettors. 1 satoshi isnt a bad promotion but i do rather believe most people will always deposit on the amount which would be more than on the amounts of current network fees.

I agree. Since you can't pay less than 225 satoshis for a transaction right now if you don't want it stuck in the mempool for indefinite period of time, it would be pretty stupid to buy only one ticket. So, imo it would be better to make the price of one ticket 1k sats. $0.06 is still not a big deal for the participants, but the prize pool can become bigger that way. Also I agree with the above poster that having at least three winners would be better.

Yes you can. You can actually still set very close to zero if you use manual fee, but even if it is set to 1 satoshi/byte like on my wallet, this is actually only 120 satoshi or so. Also, there is an exchange wallet I use that only charges 5 satoshi (but minimum 10,000 satoshi), so yes your point is still valid in that nobody would spend 1 satoshi ticket, unless the purpose is to spam the lottery with 1 satoshi transactions that cost 0 fees (actually, this is possible to do now with the free network).

Ticket price 1 satoshi is fine, it is up to the person how much they want to buy.

I agree, there was a debate on the payout structure for a while - and ultimately we decided that splitting up such a small pool (sub 0.05) would want less people to join, however this has been amended right before the first draw, and the payouts are set in powers of 10 instead now - so a 10mBTC prize pool will allow two winners. I feel like this is enough, as our first draw has already 70% of this.

Thanks for the input though! The payout structure is definitely something we wanted some feedback on.

7 different deposits but already got 600k entries? What does it means? Exactly the same person keep on sending it again and again? Btw I just checked your site and you got pretty simply design there and to have 0.0065 btc jackpot in just 2 days is pretty amazing, I do hope there will be more participants and it will give us big jackpot to be drawn. I will send something there too since it is start from 1 satoshi

it could mean that some players sent under 100k satoshi to the pot
could be OP himself too,why not-its a way to promote if none is playing
there is nothing wrong about it,but I feel like this lottery can be profitable if advertised properly
its cheap to play,its provably fair and has only 5% house edge
the only thing that the way it is played doesn't let the creators to offer promotions like free tickets etc.
and they are limiting themselves with bonuses because 5% is marginally low to add any
other than that,one of the few new lotteries that looks somewhat promising

We are considering offering 100 'free tickets' to sign up via email for notifications on future draws.

We would take 100 of our own satoshi with a minimum fee and send it in and attach that address to the email provided, and if won we would contact them by email. Does that sound viable?

Also DRAW 1 has concluded! The winner was entry #345524 of 700000, the full drawing process can be found over at the Reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/LottoBtc/comments/8sjal0/draw_0001_block_529000/).

 

Congrats with your first draw and congrats to the winner!

Some people might say that 0.005575 BTC is not all that much, but imo it is still a good amount to win in a lottery. (I intentionally have written 0.005575 BTC  instead of 0.006575 BTC which you actually transferred to the winner because, as far as I understand, he/she bought 100,000 tickets worth 1 satoshi each, so I subtracted 0.001 BTC from the win amount.)

Overall it's a good start. Good luck in the future!

indeed,congratulations on the first draw!
557.5 k satoshi is 34$,not a bad win and it was the first one,next ones should have a bigger pot
as to the OP's idea of a promotion,yes it does sound viable,you can open a separate topic in Games and rounds and advertise there as well
what you can do is offer 100-1000 tickets per every post of a bitcointalk member,whose account is > than a member/senior member (maybe any account even newbies,its up to you)
this way you can advertise your lottery without breaking the bank
and,of course,find alternative ways to promote
an affiliate programme of a kind etc. be creative and good luck!

Bigger pot would always vary on how many people would join it up but i agree in to your idea that admin should really take focus on marketing his site giving out 100-1000 tickets wont hurt out their pocket and also with that traditional affiliate program.
This would increase exposure even more and will get some players when they do already test it out with those free tickets that they do earned and deposit later on.

Thanks guys for the input! We decided on a twitter giveaway funded by our wallets.

Check it out here for more details and feel free to enter! (https://www.lottobtc.org/promotions)

900 Blocks until Draw #002

This is a good promotion overall, but I think you should specify this


in your tweet, because many people have more than 1k followers and your tweet says "How about 10 entries for every follower you have!".

Like I said earlier, it's a good promotion and for a new site you are doing pretty good imo: 2.5k followers on twitter, 10 retweets of your tweet in less than 1 day. Keep it up! Good luck!

Definitely, I really do wish there was an option to edit tweets :(. The free entries are also given retroactively, and as we are funding it with our own wallet, have already deposited all 1,000,000 entries into the draw. The prizepool for draw #0002 is now at 0.012 BTC and counting! - 750 blocks to go if anyone would like to partake in getting some free entries to try!

So far we have given away over 10,000 of the free entries. 990,000 to go!

While the website looks good, paying 1 satoshi for a game is actually stupidity. First of all, I am not sure whether it is possible to send 1 satoshi to any address or not. Secondly, I will end up paying more than 500% in transaction fees or else the transaction will never get confirmed. The minimum payment should be increased to a real feasible level.

You aren't required to send 1 satoshi only, this is just for people that want to send dust, so 0.00012487 is worth more in entries than 0.00012199 or something, so you dont feel like you're getting less than someone else for sending a little bit more. Also this is future-proof, as no matter the price of bitcoin, this lottery will function the same. Currently, the average transaction is buying around 100,000 entries.

Who do you mean that are profitable? OP or players? Because there is no way it is profitable for both of us, how are you going to expect people to keep on playing with such a low amount to get that huge amount of payout? OP must have some pretty huge bankroll to offer this, and not depends much on players bought. To think that they have 5% house edge on big payout is really good if they have good promotion and may be doing some more of advertising

Like which ones?

Just 500 blocks left until Draw #002 - Get your entries in for your chance to win!

If you do try to read up correctly they dont need a big bankroll they are risk free on their side and do get 5% no matter what would be the amount of the pot. Only win situation on their side and less chances for those people who do bets.
Just like a casual lottery you would need extreme luck for you to be chosen or selected. Properly marketed or not but usual thing happen on these sites would still end up on not good situation.

its totally risk free for them,they do not risk their own bankroll at all
this one you can buy as many tickets as you like and you are not limited by the min cost
some lotteries set it 10k or higher ,this one is very affordable,you can buy 5000 or 100.000 tickets or even 1000 (although the tx fee to send it would be higher :)  )
wonder where admin is,if I were him I would be posting every round result and promote like crazy

Draw #002 has concluded, and well that was a rollercoaster

With our free entry promotion, someone with the maximum amount of free entries (10000), equivalent to 0.0001 BTC, ended up winning the 1st place of the lottery, taking home 75% of our 0.012 BTC prize pool
2nd place also was won by our free promotion address, so the full 95% was sent back to the 1FREE[...] btc address, and from there the 75% was forwarded to the winner, and the 20% second place  prize was retained by us.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg_0Q6OWsAAlgMf.jpg:large

If you want to see the drawing process, check out the DRAW 002 reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/LottoBtc/comments/8thvn3/draw_0002_block_530000/)

Draw #003 entries are now currently being accepted at https://www.lottobtc.org

Draw 0003 is currently underway with 750+ blocks left to go!

Feel free to subscribe to our reddit thread at www.reddit.com/r/lottobtc for breakdowns on draws, and updates on promotions and the current draw!
Or follow us on twitter or instagram @lottoBTCorg

75% should be consider as second tier which have 0.05-0.25 btc as their payout mean while you said it here that he won 75% and only 0.012 btc as their first prize? I do not understand how do you calculating it so if I may know the details may be it will be good to have. And for second players as well he won it by using free promotions and he only got 75% yet got retaining their 20% prize? Is this how free promotion works?

So if the prize pool at the time of the draw is <0.01 BTC, the 1st place winner gets 95% of the prize pool, if at the time of the draw the prize pool is between 0.01 and 0.1 BTC, first place receives 75% of the prize pool, and second place receives 20%. In both cases, 5% is sent to our rake address

https://www.lottobtc.org/uploads/1/1/9/7/119769401/payout1_orig.png
Here you can see a breakdown of the payout structure which is available on our website. This was changed around prior to the first draw after some feedback on this thread.

For draw #002, the prize pool at the time of drawing was 0.012, so first place was sent (0.75*0.012), or 0.009 BTC, and second place received (0.2*0.012), or 0.0024 BTC, the remaining 0.0006 BTC was sent to our rake address.

Does that clear it up, or is there still something I can help with or fix?

Ok then, it is so clear that you can give the explanation but still wondering why put the rest on your rake address, are you saying that it will not be on the pot? I think with the rest pun on the pot it will go up the last tier easily then you guys will have more spare. If this keep on cycling, then it will be easily for you guys to make some profit too so both player and banker will have some win

I'm not sure i'm fully understanding what you are asking. Are you asking why we need a rake in the first place? At the moment the 5% is helping cover the costs of promotions that we will be doing, website upkeep and development costs, as well as profit. Thats why 5% is taken and sent to the 1RAKE[...] address at the time of each drawing.

500 blocks remaining until draw #003!

Nope, I am not asking how the rake is used, instead I am asking why 5% are not in your balance left, because consider your pot will be empty all the times after players win. But if you put X% on your pot then there is always some balance left. So it will be quick to fulfill the tier as well. Let say if 2.5 btc tier hits them you have 5% left which is around 0.125btc, although there is only little people play on the next block, as players we still can play on 0.125btc tier with, so it will make the site always alive

The 5% rake is sent to our rake address after. If the 5% was left in for people to play on the next block, then the 5% would not be 'ours' and would still be a lottery prize, therefore having a 100% lottery prize, which is unsustainable as a business. If there was a 2.5btc pot, and we left the 0.125 btc for the next draw to play with, what would we run the website on?

It does not matter if 5% go into your account or not but at least there should be something on the pot to make sure people will keep on playing instead of just stay on zero balance and it will not attract peolle to play. Anyway you still have your own bankroll to maintain your site or even improving it because this not something like investment program so you do not need that 5% rakeback actually

We are giving out ANOTHER free MILLION entries for draw #0005 - find out more at https://www.lottobtc.org/promotions.html

Draw #5 happens in 920 blocks!

800 blocks remaining in Draw #0005 - feel free to grab some o our free entries, or enter yourself for the winnings to be directly sent to your address!

Although you give this is free and everyone just using their own prize, how are you going to manage to get some payout? Are you saying that you are going to fund the draw with your own money? You need some bigger promotion at least to attract big player or at least many small players to boost your site wagered or even profit

They do charge 5% of the total prize pool it seems, so that's probably enough to keep everything running.
Don't mind that at all, I like the fact that the tickets are cheap and love to see bigger prize pools.

Out of a lottery game 5% deduction is just fair enough and i had read up conversations above about that 5% deduction usage. Its been cleared out that this is used for further promotions and maintenance of the site which is just really a normal thing for a site to charge on. Tickets are indeed cheap but i agree on the suggestion that there should be some pot that do also deduct 5% on the prizepool and add up as the rounds goes by and a particular draw should be done to win up that prize but well this is indeed part of promotion or feature if admin will add up or not.

I tried for a while to make a way for the prize pool to spill over onto the next prize pool, but that created some problems with how our lottery functions as that bitcoin could then also 'win' the jackpot and it would be confusing as the 'sender' of that bitcoin that spilt over should not be eligible to win in the following draw from that previous deposit, etc. But the idea of taking an additional 5% and adding it to a 'jackpot' address that keeps filling up until someone wins a 'jackpot' is a very interesting idea and I wouldn't mind seeing how that plays out. As for now however, I feel like the jackpot would be too insignificant and I think we will have to wait until the site grow a little more before the 5% really even means anything.

640 blocks until Draw #005, I really encourage you guys to deposit a few hundred satoshi / retweet our tweet for your chance to win the 0.01 BTC [so far] this draw :)

250 blocks until Draw #005! More than 50,000 free entries have been registered, join in before block 533000 for your chance to win!

~10 hours until the next draw! Get your dust/entries in for your chance to win your share of the 10mBTC+ prizepool for draw #0005