Bitcoin Forum

Hello Fellow Bitcoin Addicts,

I've been using Bitcoin for a little over two years, almost exclusively for personal purchases.  

I've decided to do a side project for fun to help promote Bitcoin at http://bitcoinraffle.co/ (http://bitcoinraffle.co/).  The idea is to give others a chance to easily get their hands on some Bitcoin without having to install any malware, fill out endless surveys, or max out their GPU trying to mine their own coins.    

The first raffle will be for at least 10 BTC.  I say at least 10 BTC, because the drawing will be held at midnight (UTC) on the day the prize pool reaches 10 BTC.  Tickets are 0.10 BTC each, so 100 tickets need to be sold to meet the minimum prize pool. All transactions posted before midnight (UTC) on that day will be counted in the drawing, so the prize could likely be more than 10 BTC.  I'm keeping the ticket price low so it's easier for people new to Bitcoin to participate.

I will only keeping 0.5% of the take to help with overhead, so they payout will be 99.5% of whatever is collected.  So on a 10 BTC prize pool, I will make a whopping 0.05 BTC.  So you can see I'm not in this for the money, I'm doing it for fun and to help promote Bitcoin.  

I've taken some steps to ensure the system is cheat-proof.  Each ticket is made up of the following data elements:

Daily3 mid-day numbers from MichiganLottery.com from the day the prize pool minimum is met
Bitcoin address that sent the payment
number 0001 thru number of tickets you purchased (if you sent 3x the ticket price, your tickets would be: 0001, 0002, 0003)
The first Bitcoin block number with a timestamp after midnight on the day the prize pool minimum is met

SHA256 hashes are calculated for the data string (made up of the four elements listed above) for each ticket sold, then sorted (0-9,A-Z). The winner is the ticket at the top of the list.

The transactions/tickets can easily be viewed using the Bitcion Block Explorer at http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Hxjf7yzS8C5obUBcVKxFNSFVCeaVhmTeA (http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Hxjf7yzS8C5obUBcVKxFNSFVCeaVhmTeA)

Still, I know this will require some level of trust.  That's another reason why I'm keeping the ticket price and prize fairly small right now.  I want people to see that it will actually work and they are not being lied to.  

I think it will be fun.  I hope some of you will try it out!

http://bitcoinraffle.co/ (http://bitcoinraffle.co/)

I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. ;)

Looks VERY similar to BitLotto. I guess your tickets are cheaper and the jackpot smaller. I do have the "Pirate Pool" that takes 0.1 BTC or above payments.

For the bitcoin address in the hash you should also consider that sometimes there is multiple from addresses.

Wow.  I honestly don't know what to say.  I just thought about this yesterday and decided to implement it. 

I'd be happy to put a link to your lotto site and mention the considerably higher payouts.

My idea was to have raffles as often as every day if possible, but obviously it needs to be more popular first. 

Thanks for the tip on from addresses.  Perhaps using the transaction hash would make more sense?  Is that what you use?

I don't know if I believe you! ;) I'm just surprised you didn't see what already existed for Bitcoin lotteries or hear about BitLotto?

Anyways...
I use tx hash. If the payment is for multiple tickets I just do txhash1 txhash2 adding numbers at the end and hashing it.  Once the lottery numbers come out I create a "mixer hash" with them and block data, and this is applied to every hash created. The results are sorted you have the winner.

I did see RaffleBit and CoinRaffle, but they didn't do what I had in mind.  Yours definitely does, except for only happening once a month with very large prizes.  Either way, I'm just excited more people are using Bitcoin.

By the way... I put a link to your lotto on my front page.

THANKS! I really appreciate it.

Ya, it would be nice to have BitLotto draws more often. One day we will, when it's bigger. For now, I think one a month is just enough to make the pot big enough to encourage more players. Slow and steady...

Oh, and you should have a warning about shared wallets. Not every Bitcoin tx can be returned to the sender!

Thanks.  There is a warning about that on the site. 

It costs too much!
0.01 would work...

Sorry.  I figured 0.10 was low enough for most people, but I guess if you're brand new to Bitcoin even that much seems like a lot. 

I could lower the price and give people who already bought tickets 10x the number they originally bought, but I'd rather not change the rules after I've already sold tickets.  It just doesn't seem honest. 

I'll consider lowering the price for the next raffle if enough people ask for it. 

Perhaps you could team up with other people to pool your money...?  I don't have any built-in support for automatic ticket pools yet, but that wouldn't stop people from doing it on their own.

Only 67 66 65 tickets left at 0.10 BTC each!

Our next drawing will have an even lower ticket price  ;D  

Your sendto address is a hyperlink that jumps you to the blockchain.info  This makes it inconvenient for us copy&paste people.  Not a big deal.  Hurry up everyone, I've got that 35th ticket already spent ;)

Thanks for the feedback.  I changed it a bit to make the address more obvious and easier to copy & paste.

Only 62 tickets left at 0.10 BTC each!

Okay so if I buy all 62 tickets right now ... can you end the raffle?  I have a pretty good shot at winning lol

Lets hope I win!  If I don't, I am never gambling again LOL

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Status: 0/unconfirmed, broadcast through 7 nodes
Date: 5/22/2012 00:05
To: RAFFLE -- 1Hxjf7yzS8C5obUBcVKxFNSFVCeaVhmTeA
Debit: -6.20 BTC
Transaction fee: -0.0005 BTC
Net amount: -6.2005 BTC
Transaction ID: 38ed471583e4ba3b9c161b50f4cb979a14877865a226055d59cc5d9ffc999127

Yeah... something tells me you have a pretty good chance =)

The countdown clock is started on the site now.  People have approximately 9 hours left to purchase tickets if they want to.  (The prize increases by 0.10 BTC for every additional ticket sold)

Oooh, im in! 

 ;D

The first drawing will end tonight at midnight UTC!

101 tickets have been sold so far, which means the prize is 10.1 BTC.  You can still still get in on the action if you purchase a ticket before midnight. 


The Daily3 mid-day Michigan lottery numbers are: 360

http://www.michiganlottery.com/

Looks very cool, am definitely going to try and remember to get in on this when I get home today, hopefully the jackpot continues to grow.

I bought two tickets a week ago and have been refreshing the page EVERY DAY waiting for more tickets to be purchased.  Glad to see that someone finally kicked in the other 6 bitcoins.

PS, if you put some google adsense or something on your page that paid per impression, I would have generated some income for you. 

Keep buying guys!  This is rad!

Payment was just sent to the first winner  ;D

Yes, yes it was!

:)

Hey guys,

The first raffle was a big success.  A huge thanks to everyone who bought a ticket!

I decided to try something a little different this time.  A new raffle is now open.  This one is a 50/50 raffle with 50% of the prize going directly to the winner and 50% going to a charity of the winner's choice.  Until I can set up a system to allow easy verification of payment, the winner will be asked to choose from a charity or non-profit that already accepts Bitcoin like the ones listed here: http://bitcoinsforcharity.org/charities (http://bitcoinsforcharity.org/charities)

The total prize will be at least 20 BTC (10 BTC for the winner and 10 BTC for charity).  The ticket price has been lowered to just 0.01 for this raffle, so it will end after 2000 tickets have been sold.

Good luck!

Lots more tickets left in the 50/50 charity raffle!

A special thanks goes out to Spend Bitcoins (http://spendbitcoins.com) for agreeing to help out by providing unique Bitcoin addresses for donations to charities that do not currently accept Bitcoin.  (Thanks Jeremy!)   Winners, and everyone else, will be able to verify their donation (50% of the prize pool) was sent to the correct address.  So, if you don't see your favorite charity listed at BitcoinsForCharity.org (http://BitcoinsForCharity.org), you will still be able to donate to them! You just need to tell me the name of the charity.

Lots more tickets left in the current drawing!

There are 1446 tickets left in the 50/50 raffle (0.01 BTC per ticket).  Winner walks away with at least 10 BTC and another 10 BTC goes to the winner's favorite charity.

 

For everyone that thought .10 was too expensive and for those that think .01 is taking too long, maybe the next raffle should be .05 ;)

Yeah, it's a little depressing.  I got a shitload of emails during the first raffle saying 0.10 was way too expensive.  Maybe I'll give away free tickets next time.  \_(o.O)_/

Whoever is sending fractional payments (0.001, 0.005) to the current raffle address.... ummmm, thanks for donating to the prize pool.  I guess.   :-\