Bitcoin Forum

As mentioned before in the forum stating my plans, my website should now be up at bitlotto.com. I'm hoping for the first month someone will win at least 40 BTC and grow from there. It just takes a small risk of 1 BTC. Check out the website for all the details.  

Thank you, theymos (Details at website. He has 40 BTC for the winner if BitLotto doesn't pay) for providing a person I can use to help build trust with this community with my lottery showing that I have no intention of faking it all and not giving the winnings and to wobber for designing the logo! (check your account ;) )

I hope over the years I can provide some fun for you all and make some of you rich! Good luck!

How exactly will you pay me if I win? You won't have my Bitcoin address if all you have is a payment from me, right?

He does have your Bitcoin address thanks to blockexplorer.

Thanks. That's exactly why I say they must be running their own software and not a shared service. The deposit is proof who won AND who it should go to.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

I am holding 40 BTC in escrow for the next BitLotto drawing. If BitLotto fails to pay by May 12, I will distribute the 40 BTC according to the rules.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF4EAREIAAYFAk2ccwMACgkQxlVWk9q1kefaGQEApdkJ8RoEQUla4+GO2eOzCUg0
R0+SoqMJGLPD0wp5YU8A/iDtBPwXzQp8JOQi+rgJ4ai8+i+B469TM+lr0Nb3BITB
=rVd2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Sounds like a neat idea. I'm in.

...so far 13 BTC is up for grabs with about a 1 in 13 chance of winning. I'm hoping the jackpot hits over 50 the first month...It would be cool seeing someone win a decent amount. Especially if they were from this forum!

Why rely on an external lottery, instead of using some form of cryptographic commitment scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commitment_scheme)? Before the round begins choose a random string (a combination of a PRNG with some human-generated entropy will work well) and hash it. Keep it secret, but post a hash of that publicly. When round ends, publish the original hash and use it to find the winner.

Are the bets placed on your original thread counted in the above 13 BTC?

Yes same account. Running total until the draw. Then another account is used.

All lotteries COULD use computers to get a random number. TRUE randomness is barely understood by many and hard to do and prove without people having doubts how it works. They may think your faking the number or manipulating it. That's why lotteries use balls bouncing in a big drum and balls fall out. Everyone understands it. You don't have to explain that it's not rigged. They see it. Your idea may work for the technical crowd but to be a really successful lottery the part were the winner is picked has to be simple and understood.

OK, I'm in.

The way you have displayed the bitcoin addresses to spend to, as anchors, makes it difficult to select to copy to the clipboard. Really difficult.

You might want to re-think that.

> Why rely on the Canadian lottery

LOL, you cloistered dumfuks never fail to amuse me. How would it sound if I referred to a lottery in your country as if it were the only one? Especially if that country were the second largest on earth?

lol

Is there a contingency in case Blockexplorer is down?

Do you have any code or pseudo-code for your Transaction ID -> Lotto string -> Winner determination algorithm that you are relying upon so that others can independently verify the winner? I understand the process as described, but if you're doing the process manually, it could be subject to human error. And having an archive of the code can help disprove accusations of tampering or revision of the process on your website at a later date.

Referring to the discussion about the simplicity of the bouncing balls, all we really see is that part of the system, but behind the scenes there is a great deal of technical and randomization processes taking place to ensure that the outcome is as fair and random as possible. The measures they take are really interesting if you ever investigate the idea in any depth.

I resent that.
You would sound perfectly legitimate, as there is just one lottery in my country (or at least, one that is called what I take to be the translation of the word "lottery"). I assumed that the "Canadian Lotto 6/49 numbers" were ubiquitous enough to deserve being called "the Canadian lottery", and I apologize if I missed the nuances. As this is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, I changed the wording.

There should be a way to come up with something tied to bitcoin for the draw  :)

You could make it the Merkle root of the first block found after the exact time entries are closed, XORed with a hash of the block hash. The time needs to be known some time in advance, of course.

Hopefully BBE will not ever be down for too long, but you can get the same information by looking at the blocks locally. One way to do it is to output all getblock dumps to a single file and search this file for all instances of the lotto's address in hash160 format.

I'm sorry. That was not called for. Sometimes I let my frustration get away from me.

I'm sure it's possible. BitLotto is in no way set PERMANENTLY to a specific lottery for numbers. Obviously if it did change plenty of notice would have to be given. As long as everyone agrees that the numbers are in fact just as random as balls in a drum. The numbers determine where millions go so they (Lotto 6/49) are quite careful to be fair. One day BitLotto may change where the random numbers come from. The way the lottery is run though will probably stay the same for a long time....

Worse case, it can be done manually.

I hope one day to pay someone to make a really simple program that can sit in the Bitcoin directory, only READ the blocks, and create a really simple interface for seeing all the lottery accounts,  all entries, and a simple interface to enter the random numbers and find the winner....one day. 


Theymos: Your website makes things way simple! You are awesome! If I ever come up with some money, I'd offer you the job first if you wanted it!

I'd be interested in making that program for you, no charge.

That would be FREAKIN AWESOME! I'll have to pay you some BTC that I have in my name though!

Since you mentioned it I'll share a thought I was thinking:
-the program would be able to verify an official account since it would have a deposit from an older account, having some type of visual cue showing that the account is official would be useful -with the little program the user would be able to quickly see that an account is indeed official and not from someone's fake scam site - just in case someone creates a fake site etc....

THANK YOU!!

If you could write up a specification of how everything should work and what features it should have that would be great. The more descriptive you are the more I can focus on just the programming.

Deal. I'll think about it and reply tomorrow

I think for people to trust it with their Bitcoin stuff it would probably be wise to be open source. Since all the information is in blocks there is no need to access their accounts/wallet.
The interface would be pretty simple. One button "Block Location" would open an Open dialogue to pick the folder where the block data is. (The user may copy just the block data to another folder for reading) Then a "Draw Numbers" button. Here you can enter up to but not always 6 numbers. Could be five. Anything over 16 would get reduced as per website.

Then right underneath would be a drop down address bar kind of like a web browser with an "Add" button beside it. (Opens dialogue to enter/paste address) And a "Remove" button.  Left of the address bar would be "BitLotto account:"

If by following the addresses deposit history it traces back to 18dts6fXXA7jVKfYMBpsFqx7iZCELCfDpk you know it's a legitimate official account. And then "Official" would show up a little to the right of the address.

Underneath the address bar is a window with a scrollable grid. Three columns. One labeled "Hash" for transaction hash. Another for "Converted Pick" (Just displaying the hash turned into numbers), and then "Sender". This would show all people who sent in BTC. (The first two transactions can be ignored because they are me moving BTC coin around to make the account official.) If the account is over then at the bottom below the grid will be the winner listed with "Winner" displayed. (It will be first big payout transaction)

Now the user can pick accounts from the drop down address bar and see all entries. If there is a winner it will show. And if the user enters some numbers, the software finds the winner and or winners. It will work even if there already is a winner as the user may want to verify the results!

Hopefully I described it good..

So, bitlotto.com is down?

Up for me.

Yeah, just noticed that it was down a few minutes ago. Seems to be back up now.
I also send a coin their way. Is there a way to see the current number of players for the upcoming draw?

Check the balance :
http://blockexplorer.com/address/18dts6fXXA7jVKfYMBpsFqx7iZCELCfDpk

20 BTC : 20 players.

It looks like you are under the impression that this suggestion requires you to be trusted. Under some assumptions it does not, and if those assumptions are invalid the method can easily be fixed.

See my other thread about BitLotto. I'm working on getting random numbers from the Bitcoin network. I was wrong. Using computers and Bitcoin for the numbers is better than using balls. It's a whole new Lottery and should use the technology available.

If it keeps up BitLotto is on track to being about 100 BTC with a 1 out of 100 chance of winning!

I think this is fine. People can see the 6/49 draw live from anywhere in the world. The results are published across all the web -all the news.

It's a good way to get draw numbers with no way to argue interference.

I'm in for the next 4 draws.

My fingers are crossed!

Check:
http://bitlotto.com/new.html (http://bitlotto.com/new.html)

It's quite dependable, as to cheat you would essentially have to be able the break the hashes. If that was possible Bitcoin would be in trouble not just BitLotto. This new way is a little more 'international' and quite fitting for Bitcoin I think.

GOOD LUCK! I kind of wish I could enter myself! Would be nice to win 100 BTC. (I won't because if I won, no matter how hard to cheat the system someone would still think I did)

BitLotto just reached a jackpot of 75 BTC. I'm predicting a jackpot of 120 BTC for the May 4th draw. Good Luck all those who entered!

bitlotto.com (http://bitlotto.com/) doesn't seem to have an A record, and www.bitlotto.com (http://www.bitlotto.com/) give an NXDOMAIN.  SOA record is dated 2011042901.  Did something change?

Cheers,

Ya, me goofing up trying to switch hosts...