Bitcoin Forum

The winning picks were: 46,9,26,39,8,47 ---> d,9,0,7,8,e
The winner's transaction hash: d9283e...
Ticket payment date: April 25 06:07:09 UTC.

Still not sure if that's you? Don't worry! Payment will show up in your account automatically.
If you (winner) can, telling others of your win, online in the Bitcoin forum or on your blog, will help the next jackpot be even bigger! Perhaps you'll win it again!

Anyways, congrats to whoever the winner is and good luck to all those playing in the June 1 draw!!!  ;D
See bitlotto.com if you want to enter.

Yes congrats, enjoy my coin :D Better head over and sign-up to try my luck for the next draw ;D.

Good luck! At least it's better odds than most lotteries around.

Dang it maybe next time. 200 BTC would be nice a month from now. who knows they could be worth a bit more.

Suggestion: Put the "send to" address in the header, and make it large and visible.

Congratulations to whoever won, seems like I didn't :P

Also, why so much text all on the front page? I think it would be better with less text and instead add some faq or "how it works" page for those interested...  :)

Thanks guys. I updated the website to be a little better!

There's one characteristic of this lottery that makes it different from other sites ... winnings are returned only to the exact same bitcoin address from which they were sent.

This means that if you were to send your wager using an eWallet service, such as MyBitcoin, and then won -- someone else will get your winnings.
  - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/EWallet

Additionally, ... you want to make sure your wallet.dat is backed up because if before the draw occurs you were to lose your wallet and then won BitLotto, you couldn't spend your winnings.

That said, if you are going to wager, I know of no other Bitcoin-related gaming that provides better odds than BitLotto.  BitLotto pays 99% and the operator keeps 1% -- a payout that is better than any other Bitcoin-related wagering service that I know of.  And because all wagers and payouts are visible in the block chain, there's no cheating.  That's why BitLotto doesn't provide the ability for each wager to provide a separate bitcoin address for payouts.

There might be one area where I might be concerned.  The amount BitLotto takes in isn't placed in escrow before the draw or as part of the payout.  At just 128 BTC wagered, I wouldn't be terribly concerned but at some point the total for a BitLotto draw will possibly be enormous much larger and well before that point security will become paramount.  As a for-instance, the site does not yet operate with an SSL certificate ( https:// ).

And to be clear -- the laws regarding participation in an online lottery vary based on jurisdiction.

Yup, I mention it pretty plainly on the site, so I'm hoping no one makes the mistake! (I'd just hate having to add one jackpot to the lost coins list!!!) Just run Bitcoin on your computer and you are good to go! I also link to a site for securing and backing up your wallet. But ya, doesn't hurt mentioning it again!

THANKS A LOT!!

Agreed! No matter what, you have to trust someone with the money. And by me putting it somewhere else it just adds more people that need to be trusted. I'm working on ways that people can verify that the address is an official one. Not everyone knows how to verify a PGP message. Somehow, I'll set it up so people can also see the addresses at a https site for the time being. As far as securing the jackpot, I have set up procedures on my computer to encrypt and backup the wallet. I'm very paranoid as just ONE missed payment and BitLotto is done. (Even if people can see the money never move, proving a lost wallet, trust would disappear) I also keep a fairly secure computer with full disk encryption so if my computer was stolen no one can take the jackpot.

I've had ample time to check it over many times and haven't had to deal with a single complaint so....
Payment sent:
http://blockexplorer.com/tx/818c317608af45aa22972ee77627c11a5be17e0a3cd7e152536d2628abb1f38b (http://blockexplorer.com/tx/818c317608af45aa22972ee77627c11a5be17e0a3cd7e152536d2628abb1f38b)
Congrats!  ;D

For those who play, I'm curious. Would you be more inclined to play if the September draw changed to 0.5 BTC per play? Or would you prefer it stay at 1 BTC?  ???

And, coming soon: BitLotto will have a little python script that will read only your local block chain to figure out jackpot size/valid tickets/and check winner. It will also be able to verify BitLotto draw addresses/messages using the PGP signature.

I'm surprised that the fee paid for the transaction was 0.23.  That's an $0.87 USD fee (at current market exchange rate levels).

I wonder if going to 0.5 per ticket might nearly double the amount of fees then.

Would it be possible to just allow any payment amounts, and calculate it so that every 0.01 = 1 chance?

Then people could pay say 1.23 btc for 123 chances out of the final total.

I don't know if that would fit in with the way you've set things up.

If all of the above is no good, I'd say keep it at 1 btc for now.

Ya, that would be hard to do. The best way to increase your chance is to make more payments. Each single payment adds to your total chance of winning. It's set up so each payment is the "chance".

So far, for the June draw, it's reached 39 BTC or about 180 USD!

So how do I play?


Which address do I send the one BTC to?

http://www.bitlotto.com/addresses.html

15N88gCoJU2pHguHPqFNCapXKvke7UCzr3 is the address I used (the one listed for the June 1st drawing).

However, I noticed there is a discrepancy between the balance of the address (52) and received (67).  There have been 15 BTC sent _from_ that address.  Can you please explain this?

When I spot checked a few of the spend transactions I see that they were used as part of the payout for the May 4th draw.  When the May proceeds were forwarded to the winner, the Bitcoin software chose which coins to use when spending that transaction.

If you notice, the address for wagering on the May 4th draw still shows a balance even though all 128 BTC were forwarded to the BitLotto winner: http://blockexplorer.com/address/18dts6fXXA7jVKfYMBpsFqx7iZCELCfDpk

Adding up the balances for each of the draws shows a total slightly higher than the outstanding total wagers yet.  Thus at this point in time the wallet holds enough coins to payout all coins wagered so far.

Ya pretty much it. When I first set it up I used multiple addresses with the same wallet. For the prize amount you JUST look at the received amount. Each ticket is the 1 BTC deposit. Right now when I pay a winner it comes out of any of the accounts. Future unpublished draws will not do this to prevent confusion. The draws will just have the payments and the winner will be paid from that specific address at the end. 

On the BitLotto website for the jackpot amount I link to: http://blockexplorer.com/q/getreceivedbyaddress/15N88gCoJU2pHguHPqFNCapXKvke7UCzr3

That gives the total amount. So 73 BTC at time of posting gives about a 1/73 chance of winning the 73 BTC or about 470 USD.

Holy crap! Bitcoin almost reached $10 - if that happens, the June 1 draw, could be worth $1000!!

Makes me wish I could play, that's just enough for my trip home...

Glad I double-checked the instructions before entering for the June 1st drawing, or I would have been too late and wasted the coin.

?

If you're referring to: "BTC must be in a Bitcoin block dated prior to Wed 00:00 UTC of the draw date.", I'm pretty sure you have until the last block on 5-31.

...aha, yeah you're right, thanks.  I misread it and thought there was a 1-week dead period between yesterday and the drawing.  Reading comprehension fail.

Would you suggest I fix the writing to be more clear. (My writing style is sometimes not the most clear) Or was it just tired reading?

Yea definitely fix it. I almost didn't enter becuase I wasn't 100% sure also. Can't be to clear when dealing with people's money  ;)

Fixed. Hopefully it's clear now...

Just a reminder for those who are planning on entering the June 1 draw to not wait till the very last minute! AND the time is UTC not the time of your home obviously!!!  Last month had two late payments. Good luck to all those you are entering!

So far the winner is taking over 110 BTC!! or about 968 USD. I think we'll probably hit 1000 USD though.

How long does it take before what I send shows up in

http://blockexplorer.com/address/15N88gCoJU2pHguHPqFNCapXKvke7UCzr3

?

10-15 min usually.

I sent 1 in but don't see it on there.. ummm

Does your client say 'confirmed'?

And do you know for sure from which adress it is sended? Remind that Bitcoin sends it from the adress where you recieved it.

I got 33 confirmations.  I can show you a screenshot.

I know the address is correct as I copy and pasted it.

I'm just not sure if I'm missing something on this. 

I mean your sending adress.

If you sent to the right address and you got confirmations then it worked. Sometimes when you look at the tickets you may not actually see what you think is your address. Sometimes the "FROM" will be from an address you don't see in your address book. As long as you sent the BTC using bitcoin running on your computer, the winning will go to your address. 

You mean "the winning will go to one of your addresses" -- but it's hard to predict which address, right?

Essentially you have at least 100 or more addresses your client could sent the money from. Only a few are known to you probably. When you sent the money one/or more of those addresses will show up in the account for the draw. You may not recognize your address but as long as you show confirmations it's in there somewhere. When the winner is determined and it's you, I send money to that SAME address it was sent from, and when you run bitcoin it will show up as a payment. I've seem some pay a unique amount if your not sure what's going on. (It can't be a lower amount of course) So if you paid: 0.250001 or something else unique it would be easier if you wanted to know for sure what ticket was yours. Or just go by date and follow the address back in blockexplorer till you see one that you recognize as yours.

Ultimately though, if you don't keep track of anything or know what's going on behind the scenes, your money will still go to you if you win. You don't really have to do anything. There are many people watching making sure I don't make a mistake!

but what address do you choose when there are multiple inputs that went into the 1 btc spend?

for instance, here there were three inputs: http://blockexplorer.com/tx/6eb7c67f2f94e01606bef45ce64425e41ef9987863b00628b5a55bf0dc362ec7

Any would work.  I'd probably pick the oldest address just so there is more likelihood they have that address backed up somewhere.