Bitcoin Forum

The original Bitcoin lottery is back!

And though it didn't go away in the first place, there was no actual public interest shown during 2014 and we didn't push for it as there were a bunch of backend changes that we wanted to get done, but now that much is complete and we're back in business.

For those of you that played in the previous version of the lottery, the changes are subtle; no more paying dust values to the bets that didn't win and the crypto currencies supported have changed.

For everyone else;

The Amazing Anonymous Bitcoin Lottery (http://taabl.net) (TAABL for short) was the first automated bitcoin lottery, one of the first bitcoin games and almost certainly the longest running game in bitcoin history.

The rules are simple:

 - Choose your game amongst the available crypto currencies, currently supported are BTC, LTC, NMC and DRK. From here there are multiple Pick sizes, and these differ in the number of characters that need to match on a block hash to become the winning bid.
 - Place your bids by sending funds to the address advertised for the game. Make sure you send from a wallet you control all addresses for, as the winning bid address is taken from the sent transaction address.
 - Wait for a block to match a bet on that Pick, hopefully it will be one of yours :)

 All the details about the game can be read at How To Play (http://taabl.net/howtoplay).

 We have seeded all BTC games and will proceed to seed all the other currencies too, to make things a little more interesting.

All running TAABL games seeded with 10 bets each! The BTC bets took a long time as the transaction failed to be included in a lot of blocks (but then again it had no fee attached).

No Pick will find a winner as long as there is a single transaction placing bets, regardless of the number of bets, so the seeding by itself will not be matched until new bets come in.

And of course, good luck!

if there was no interest in the past, I think that if you haven't changed anything there won't be much interest now

I agree mate..I dont think ppl r interested in BTC lottery..to me it generally just looks like im spending money to get nothing in return. Good Luck anyways.. once it catches up some popularity n see ppl winning..It might become a hit.

Agreed with you guys. People seem to try set lotteries or raffles up every now and again but they never get any interest or maybe one or two to show a little but they never bite and put the money in, but maybe this might be different seeing as you're a Legendary Member. Most of the others I've seen are from much lower ranks.

instead of lottery , people like ponzis better because lottery is so old fashion with nothing to gain there, basically you are like throwing off money for other people, ponzis give better chance to win if you are faster

Ponzis are to win fast or loose fast without waiting. This lottery can attract players if it is marketed well and is more safer than ponzi.

actually, it looks that there is still no interest in bitcoin lottery, try to work in a new dice site

Ponzies are fucking shit, they are made for you to loose fast, anyone that ''invests'' in ponzies should get banned

I really like the idea of a Bitcoin lottery, but this seems a bit confusing (pardon the pun).

I'll read the instructions again, but my first attempt to understand how it works was unsuccessful.

TT

But ponzis are gambling scams, not exactly fair. At least this is. Ponzis have their place but it's not here.


What's the pun?  ???

A bit confusing.

Let me try to explain then. You send funds to one of the games, placing bets there.

What are the exact bets you are placing? In order for us not to cheat and for the lottery to be completely provable we can't just assign you random bets, so there is a confusing algorithm that takes place but lets assume for now you don't care what the bets are, just how many.

Every time a new block is found the hash of that block is used to see if there are winners. So if the block hash is "00000000000001d164de39e85839b49d68d55604415b264820de242cb3863f0e" the last X digits will be the winning bet.

Say you are playing a Pick 3 and have placed a bet for "f0e", you'd win that round assuming the bet was placed at or before block 200002.

If you have any specific doubts let me know and I'll try harder.

That's harsh...

The games aren't played on merit alone, unfortunately. There's a lot that is publicity and we haven't done any, at all, ever, other than post in a single thread here and the odd plug here and there.

This game was an experiment a long, long time ago and it did have a lot of interest back then, and then again in the second incarnation. Right now the bitcoin game scene is ridiculously filled with newcomers and copycats, but TAABL is not only original but also old. We actually had one BTC Pick 5 running for just short of a year and still paid it out, so while the past is no proof of the future, I'd say we earned some trust which is an issue with a lot of new sites.

I'm sure that if we had 1000 regular bettors that would make the EV so good for the odd player that the game would be highly alluring, but it's just me at the moment, so it might simply not spur any interest, always a risk we take.

Funny you should say that :)

We did, back in 2012 -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120239.0

But again lack of publicity may have been a bad idea. There isn't lack of new stuff over you average dice site too, so innovation isn't the issue for sure :)

I'm getting an error on the site:



How about a signature campaign to promote the sites? Isn't cheap, but may be worth it. You can start with a small campaign and see how it goes. Use ref links to know where traffic to the sites come from. If all goes well then expand the campaign with better pay and more people.

Thanks for the heads up, we had a runaway log that nuked the server's disk space, all fixed now.

As for the signature campaign, that could work but I have a hard time convincing myself to take that road. It's just too... commercial, I guess. I don't mind spending money to make money but it just feels like I'm advertising my sites the same way most scams/schemes are, just feels gooey.

And if we must take down taabl we will, though it is a shame to do it since this is as much of a piece of bitcoin history as you'll ever get, and any profit that comes out of it will be to pay for other more important projects we have going, like DividendRippler (https://dividendrippler.com).

Bump for awareness... There are 10 bets placed on each game on each currency, and if I do win any of these bets I'll be sure to reseed the game.

So I placed a bet of .005 and then another for .01. Both on Pick 2.

The first bet gave me bd on the board, and the second is still not confirmed, so don't know hat picks I'll get.

So I guess with a single bet, you get the first two characters of the tx id, but when placing multiple bets with one transaction the picks are calculated By the system?

How will I know my picks for the second bet?

What happens if someone sends .012 BTC?

TT

The bet determination works as follows:
 a) first choice is number of satoshis sent trimmed to max bet size. For Pick 2 there are 256 possible values (0x00 to 0xff, or 0 to 255) so since you sent no satoshis the default bet is 0x00
 b) if (a) is taken (it was) try the the first 2 characters from the bet transaction id (as it is a pick 2), in your placed bets case that's [bd]0f60...
 c) if (b) is taken add 1 to it (so 0xbd would become 0xbe)
 d) if (c) is taken go back to (c), wrapping as needed
 e) if there are more than one bet in the transaction step (c) will move to the next X characters (it would be bd[0f]60... in your case, but you only sent one)

This way you can always verify that the bets are real and we're not cheating, even though it sounds a bit confusing at first. As for your 0.01 bet the numbers will be calculated like this:
 a) 00 is taken
 b) [55]cef7... is free, first bet 55
 b) 55[ce]f7... is free, second bet ce

Unless of course another transaction get included in a block before yours (or first in the same block) and it just happens to cover one or both of your predicted bets, in which case for each one c) would add 1 to the bet until an empty slot is found.


That, as well as an explanation for the bet placing algorithm is explained in the How To Play (http://taabl.net/howtoplay) page, but I'm aware it is a little vague and needs much improvement. In theory sending .012 is the same as sending .01 plus 200000 satoshis for bet selection (which is still 00 for a Pick 2).


So if you send 0.012 you get two bets and we get a 0.002 donation (Thanks! :) ), but if you send it by mistake just get in touch with us and we'll get you the extra funds back.


Hope that answered all your questions but if not just let me know. Oh, and good luck!

AAAAND...

I won. Tsquared second bet wasn't in yet so it got pushed to the new Pick 2 and I've proceeded to seed this new game with the same 10 bets.

Now, if it keeps just being the two of us and I keep pushing all my earnings back it is pretty much certain eventually Tsquared will win. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but here's hoping others join the action :)

These Pick 2 games are really fast, they'll easily hit multiple times a day, whereas Pick 3 are still fast, but a bit less so. Pick 4 will likely run for multiple days/weeks unless there's a lot of placed bets.

Well, I won again.

Reseeding the Pick 2, this time with 12 bets. C'mon guys and gals (and things?), place your bets!

Good luck.

Another bump for awareness, there are many bets just waiting to be won :)

If we keep winning the Pick games, we keep betting on them with the funds won, so it is just a matter of time until someone takes the cake!

I'm not the brightest bulb on the string, and still don't completely understand, but sent another bet on the Pick 2.

Tell me again please how the bet selection works. I send more than the required bet(s) and the remainder goes to the house. I think I understand that part, but how to actually make the selections once the bet is confirmed?

TT

Edit: i get it now. It's based on the remainder amount. Please disregard the question. Your instructions explain it well enough.

While it is still TAABL vs Tsquared, we won again and all the proceeds were once again placed as bets on the new lottery. We'll keep this betting scheme going until someone else wins, of course :)

Well, that just won't do. I'm uping the ante. Gonna win this Pick 2 eventually.

TT

Heh, yes, if it keeps being just you betting you are sure to win eventually. Right now you'll have an almost 50% chance, so good luck!

While we're at it I'm going to place a personal bet on Pick 3 of 0.1 BTC. Since this is the 2nd transaction on that Pick the game will start following blocks and a match will close the game, so this is everyone's chance of getting in the action for as low as 0.001 BTC!

That was fast. I won the Pick 3 and placed the 10 seed bets again. Also placing a new personal 100 bets, but this time on Pick 4, which should take a little longer to match, although the Pick 3 was only 2.7% filled and still matched way faster than expected.

Another Pick 2 that was won by yours truly, another reseed.

Good luck!

Giving the Pick 2 another shot.

Never saw a guy so bummed about winning so much. Gonna try to cheer you up a bit.

TT

Hehe, the real win would be to get people betting on the site, but you being the only one simply means you'll end up in profit, no matter what :)

For those distracted, I won the BTC Pick 2 again, all proceeds are back as bets.

I know, just bumping. Planning on putting it back in when I win. Have to win one pick 2 and then maybe split the bets on the other games.

Would be great to get some dust to let players know the round is over and they didn't win. I think I read something about this in the documentation and it used to be done but no longer?

TT

Yeah, dust is no longer possible, most servers will refuse transactions below 0.00005460 BTC (specific to bitcoin). To pay above that value for signalling losses plus the tx fee would mean we'd lose more than what we were getting with the house fee, not a sustainable business model :)

After thinking a bit about the feedback on bet lost issue, and even though that's going to take a large stab at the potential profit the house makes, I do think it is something that is needed otherwise people will just forget about the picks they've placed bets on.

I've made the following change to the payout system; If more than X bets are placed from the same address (same transaction always counts as 1 address, but multiple transactions using coin control and the same base address will also work) a feedback amount will be sent so signal a lost bet to that address.
The amount will depend on the currency, for BTC it is 5500 satoshis plus the number of digits matched in the particular pick, so 5502 for Pick 2.

I have only enabled this for Pick 2 in BTC, and the minimum bets is 4. This number makes sure we don't end up paying more than it was collected on the Pick.

All the other Picks will be updated to include feedback payments and you'll know that is enabled by the new column in the main page Pick list, left to the Complete column.

I think that's a good add. I'm obviously not a good gambler, so I don't expect to win, but will be good to have some confirmation when I lose. Just threw down on the Pick 2 again. Really playing because of the history behind this game, and I think it's cool being able to say I did.

It seems to me that quite a lot of thought and work has gone into creating this game. Surprised more are not playing. I wonder why?

TT

It was very popular when it first appeared, and kept being popular for a long time.

Part of the problem was that we never advertised outside the basic forum thread, and when we started we were alone, or almost. It was a novel idea and that has a pull.

But then the dice game fever came, TAABL kept on being popular but most people prefer the rapid feedback games. We also did our own dice game, but since we don't like to clone, we prefer to try new things, we did an automated strategy dice site, which is currently being updated and upgraded. But again we never advertised outside the forum threads.

So, if I had to guess, the problem is not the game itself but the fact 100 new games come out every week, clones of clones of clones, with shiny logos and add campaigns... wonder if we'll have to do the same thing?

Anyway, great to see you haven't given up on getting your bets back :). I didn't bet the full bankroll on the last Pick2 by mistake, still have 11 bets to push, so I'll do that now. This time around you should get a transaction if winning (of course :) ) or losing, the latter of 5502 satoshis.

Yep, you definitely don't have the "Vegas Flash" going on with this game. Although that's why I like it, it's not what catches people's attention. You're right though, with so many other mindless games out there, one really needs to study this one to appreciate what it is.

Maybe the .35 BTC pot on the Pick 2 will entice some more players?

TT

Almost 0.37 BTC up for grabs at TAABL (http://taabl.net/?chain=btc)!

Just placed my bet. Only waiting for it to be included now. Don't need to do anything else right? Wish me luck. :)

All you need to do is click refresh every once in a while :) We don't have auto updates to the pages (yet) and you will not receive a feedback transaction if you lose, since you placed less than the minimum bets for feedback on that particular game (4).

Also, if you lose, don't be discouraged as we'll keep betting all proceeds from this initial seeding we did until someone else takes the cake!

EDIT: And, of course, good luck!

Starting to catch on.

I missed the last round, but I see the second tx as well as the post above, so I know there were two players. Was thinking maybe the new player comes in and wins the pot on his first bet, but by looking at the details I see how much was bet and what numbers were assigned to each bet. On the completed game I see a box around the number that won. Therefore I know that the new player made a .005 bet and got one number, and the other, much larger bet, won the pot.

Got the 5502 satoshi. Nice touch. Heard the coins sound and got a little rush for a second, but not the jackpot. It's a little like roulette, where there's that moment between when the ball drops and when you see what number hits. I was at the office and couldn't make another bet right then, but just realized it's the same address each round, so now I've made an address book entry for TAABL.

Takes a while to get it, but when you do it's actually really cool, and the fact that it's all automated is impressive.

I'm first one in on the next round.

TT

It is true, I won once more. Bets on the way, good luck!

"Amazing" is an understatement.

.2 this time.

This is becoming a healthy pot. If someone puts a little BTC and gets lucky it would be a nice payday for them.

TT

I'm thinking about jumping in on this. You never know when your luck will change for the better :P

This is starting to get interesting, that much is granted...

We should, however, probably move to the Pick 3 or even Pick 4, since I'm placing over 30% of the bet space for the Pick 2 with the accumulated seed and that'll likely match as soon as someone places a second bet (or in this case I'm the second bet).

With a Pick 3 there is a total bet space of 4096, and the 0.445 that I'm placing as bet will represent a little over 10% of the possible bets, slightly better. On top of that bets are cheaper.

A Pick 4 has a total bet space of 65536, so 0.445 will represent less than 1% AND there are 100 bets I already placed there previously (as a personal bet, no reseeds if I win from those :) ).

Since Tsquared is responsible for almost all the extra seed I'm betting back I'll delegate to him to decide if we should move to another game (assuming I win again, otherwise it's moot).

EDIT:
Nope, I had forgotten I already won the Pick 4 and reseeded with 10 bets. Ok, if we move to either Pick 3 or Pick 4 and that won't raise objections I'll add 100 personal bets on either, but if I win I'll keep the profits :) Full disclosure on the seed transactions so everyone always knows if the house wins.

you should try some games where its easier to win then because in lotteries its really hard

Yep, we should move to the Pick 4. Been hoping to win one of the Pick 2 rounds so I'm not putting in all fresh money. Let's let this last Pick 2 finish then move to Pick 4. We'll get a nice pot going on that one and maybe entice some new players. It'll take longer for a number to hit, but shortly the seed bets on the Pick 2 will cover all the picks so we can't continue on that game anyway.

With 50% of the picks covered, this Pick 2 round should be over shortly.

TT

Well, they say we should respect everyone's opinion... But I'm curious, why do you say this lottery is really hard to win? Are you basing that on math (where any bet on the Pick 2 has 1 in 256 chances of winning) or just saying what you heard others say without really paying attention?

Lotteries are incredibly hard to win... state lotteries, that is. The odds are just crazy small, and the only reason prizes are anything to look at is because lots and lots of people bet on them. Of course, the only reason people bet on them is because the prizes are huge... full circle :)

But not our lottery, the odds are fair and the prizes are relatively low, but that shouldn't make it lose interest, it is a fun way to gamble.

Pick 2 ended with me winning again, I have sent the resulting 0.638 to the Pick 4.

I'll wait for others to bet before I do any personal betting of my own, to avoid winning before people had a fair chance of placing their bets.

I know the odds are in your favor with the higher bets, but geeze!!! After so many rounds, I'm convinced that you're pretty lucky also.

Once my 0.2 BTC bet clears, the pot on the Pick 4 will be over 0.8 BTC. That's not chump change!! One bet of .001 BTC could win it, and the winnings are about the same as 6 months pay for a sig campaign. Time for some other player to jump in and get the pot over 1 BTC.

So how about some simplified rules:

1 - Choose your game.
2 - Send BTC to the address listed.
3 - If the minimum bet is .01 and you send .05, this will count for 5 bets.
4 - BE CERTAIN TO SEND FROM YOUR WALLET, NOT AN ONLINE SERVICE OR EXCHANGE.
5 - You have a chance to win every time a new Bitcoin block is found. If no winner based on the block then the pot rolls over to the next block.
6 - Winnings are automatically sent to your wallet if your number hits. If someone else wins the pot you'll get about 5500 satoshi to let you know the round has ended.

(Please correct me if I'm mistaken nelisky)


TT

Yeah, the simplified rules sound correct, Tsquared.

As for me being lucky, I must say there's a first for everything... I usually lose my shirt on luck based games, to be honest, but maybe it's because I'm playing as the House, not as myself :)

I'll send the promised 100 bets now to Pick 4.

how to play! do u just send btc to game address and random winner take the pot?

The site looks rough and after 5 minutes' viewing I can't still understand how to play. Please make it clearly on the OP.

I honestly thought the rules were simple enough, so sorry if it seems complicated.

Choose your game, you'll probably be looking at the Pick 4 in BTC since that's the one having a large pot. The address for the game is right next to the game name: 1Amn26jeimKzM22F66MHxYG3Q8hjE8XTCC

Each bet costs 0.001 (on Pick 4 specifically) so just send that or a multiple thereof to the address.

It really is that simple...

If there is something you don't understand it would help me if you could state exactly what you don't understand so I can fix that on the OP

.

What do you mean "the site looks rough"? (honest question) Is is the plain looks or is the organisation of the information misleading?

Besides the OP here, there's also the How To Play (http://taabl.net/howtoplay) page that has a very indepth explanation of the site's workings. That is confusing if you don't know what you are looking at, granted, so any help in making a simpler explanation is greatly appreciated... Should I put Tsquared rules in the OP? Would that help?

It looks like it was just me and Tsquared again, but lo and behold... I did not win this time around!

Congrats to the winner of almost 1 BTC (though if that's really Tsquared most of it came from you anyway ;) ), and lets get this ball running again, shall we?

Wood Woot!

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Hit the Pick 4 with a pot of just under 1 BTC!

Place your bets boys and girls and get a piece of the action.

Very interesting.  My .1 BTC bet on Pick 2 hadn't finished confirming when the block was found matching an existing bet, so my bet just rolled into the next round. This is a very smart, auditably fair game.

TT

It is always a good a game when you are on a winning side of it. But indeed it is something new and fresh. I like new ideas like that and am tired of just another dice game site. Possibilities are endless with online bitcoin gambling, why operators are making the same types of games over and over again?

Snorek, that's an easy question. Dice websites have already proven themself to be a good way to get people's money. Why try something else? You never know if it works. So people and companies play it safe and create yet another dicing website.

I'm going to try out this website once I get home. Looks different and I like it.

Well, first off I'd like to thank everyone for the kind words. But I feel there's some disclosure lacking; this is one of the first bitcoin games created, and granted the original rules were different but still it hardly is a novelty. The problem is our skill lay on the technical development, not on the UI or advertisement, so the game lost all visibility when others began creating copies of copies of copies of games.

We also run a dice site, one that suffers from the same issues as TAABL, as in UI is less than perfect and we don't do any organised advertisement. On the other hand it is not a copy of any other dice game and has the needed edge to make it separate from everyone else (and yes, it is also several years old). We're finishing an upgrade on that one and you'll hear about it soon ;)

No lack of disclosure with TAABL, nelisky. Everything about it is an open book and it has a great history. I just finished reading the introductory thread from 2010, and it's really interesting to see how this game came to be. It's a good read, even just to skim over, because it brings you back to a different time in Bitcoin history. Crazy seeing you guys talking about betting hundreds of BTC, and this one: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=896.msg17739#msg17739 where you say "just a quick note that someone just won the 2250 BTC pot". That's great stuff!

I look forward to seeing your dice game.

TT

Unfortunately I just found a bug in our chain processing code (not the game code, but the one that stores all the blockchain data for use in our multiple services).

Nothing really major but still needs to be fixed asap, and given the volume of information it is going to take a few hours to do. All bets will be processed once that's done.

Sorry about that, but it really must be done now.

Just my luck, I just sent a small bet, hahaha. I can totally understand your reasoning though. Good luck!

Never worry! It will be processed as if nothing had happened, only a bit later. Good luck!

So is everything working normally nelisky?  No hits on any of the games in the last couple days, but it looks like that's because mine is the only bet on the Pick 2, and a game won't have a winner unless there's at least 2 players, right?  And the Pick 3 and Pick 4 because there just hasn't been a block with the correct last 3 or 4 characters?

TT

Everything is still in full lock down mode, apologies to everyone. The time scale involved forced me into hardware and system upgrades, and damn, the bitcoin blockchain is huge!

Hopefully this resync will complete tomorrow, but since my estimates have failed miserably thus far I'll just have to ask for a bit more patience. The problem is that the further we go into the blockchain, the more transactions there are to process which basically means my time estimation was biased towards smaller blocks of data. And we are supporting 5 different blockchains...

I will let everyone know once we return to normality, and again sorry for this mishap.

Having trouble nelisky?

Not a big deal, just wondering.

TT

Oh where to start... We're really close but we've had a few mishaps, including failed hardware in the process. This has been the most ridiculous database resync I've ever experienced, ever!

So close now...

I have just seen this and will be making a few bets when you get back on track so i will keep an eye out, good to see you are doing that as we speak so won't be long before i can do it. Unlucky on the mishaps am sure you will sort them soon enough.

Great to see a legendary member creating a game it will become popular in time most of the other games out can be very boring except poker so even if it is not a lot i will be making bets.

Good luck  8)

Thanks for the update.

We are back!

And not a moment too soon, this little software bug fix turned into a full blown hardware update due to some unexpected failures... But we're back and better than before underneath the hood.

All running games have been matched against all blocks that passed since we went down, and of course all of them ended. I'm pleased to say I didn't win everything :)

Thanks for everyone's patience, and let the betting begin... again!

Best of luck to all.

I have now seeded all BTC games again.

Good luck!

Thinking something isn't working right, or I'm missing something.

Sent .05 BTC bets on each game last night. I got the 5502 SAT from Pick 2, and won the Pick 3, receiving .099 BTC. Everything seems to be working, but none of this is reflected on the website and it still reflects only your initial bets.

TT

Tsquared: Yes, something was wrong. The web frontend and the processing system are separate for security and the backend side experienced a bunch of network outages from late last night to this morning (UTC).

But all bets were processed and handled and the web UI is once again linked to the processing side of things.

Awesome. Yes, looks like everything is back to normal now. Cool. Got new bets on Pick 2 and Pick 3 now.

TT

Almost 0.15 BTC on the Pick 4...

And... it's gone. Congrats to the winner! There's still very little volume around TAABL but slowly and surely someone's getting the higher hand (and it isn't me, honest :) ).

Damn. Should check my wallet more often because I think I'm that someone.

Just sent more bets.

It's nice to win, but would be awesome to have more players. Come on folks, place your bets and take my BTC.

TT

There's almost 0.25 BTC up for grabs in BTC's Pick4 at TAABL (http://taabl.net/?chain=btc) right now!

It's going up, 0.30 BTC now