Bitcoin Lottery

[Embeddeddownloads]

Anyone interested in starting a bitcoin lottery? Are there any problems with this legally?

[MartinL]

In many countries operating a lottery requires a gaming license. In some countries the state even has a monopoly on lotteries, making it impossible to privately operate a lottery.

[semobo]

Bitcoin is not being regulated as an official US currency. Because of that fact alone, I don't think there can be any legal ramifications. What'd you have in mind?

[MartinL]

Bitcoin is not being regulated as an official US currency. Because of that fact alone, I don't think there can be any legal ramifications. What'd you have in mind?

This is just as silly as the misconception that income in Bitcoin is not taxed.

Also, for all we know Embeddeddownloads is in another country where US law would not be the primary concern.

[semobo]

Bitcoin is not being regulated as an official US currency. Because of that fact alone, I don't think there can be any legal ramifications. What'd you have in mind?

This is just as silly as the misconception that income in Bitcoin is not taxed.

Also, for all we know Embeddeddownloads is in another country where US law would not be the primary concern.

He's talking about gambling. I've read the IRS release on virtual currency and they treat it as real property, not currency. They suggest that you treat it as such, but there are no laws in place, that I can find. If you receive payment for goods or service, they suggest you pay due tax. There are 100's of other Bitcoin gambling sites operating with no problem, in the US. I say go for it. If done right, it's a lucrative business.

[MartinL]

He's talking about gambling. I've read the IRS release on virtual currency and they treat it as real property, not currency. They suggest that you treat it as such, but there are no laws in place, that I can find. If you receive payment for goods or service, they suggest you pay due tax. There are 100's of other Bitcoin gambling sites operating with no problem, in the US. I say go for it. If done right, it's a lucrative business.

I know that he is talking about gambling. Claiming that the law does not apply because "Bitcoin is not being regulated as an official US currency" is just as silly as claiming that income in the form of bitcoins is not taxed, which is an often-repeated misconception.

How the IRS treats Bitcoin has little to nothing to do with the legality of gambling, including both casino games as well as non-casino games such as lotteries and raffles. Similarly, whether US dollars or some other medium is used to transfer the value being gambled with has little bearing upon the legality.

Most Bitcoin gambling sites are rather secretive regarding their legal structure. Of the biggest ones, only SatoshiDice appears to hold an (offshore) gaming license. BitDice.me and bustabit seem to be incorporated in Costa Rica, which does not regulate online gambling. I am not aware of a single Bitcoin casino that is incorporated in the US, however.

I suspect that the majority of Bitcoin casinos are not operated legally and rely on being too small to appear on law enforcement's radar.

[crazyivan]

How would this exactly work? How would you promise fairness of the entire process? You cannot expect us to bet money so you could select your own numbers every day and pay yourself or not pay at all.

[MartinL]

How would this exactly work? How would you promise fairness of the entire process? You cannot expect us to bet money so you could select your own numbers every day and pay yourself or not pay at all.

While it has some limitations, it is possible to make a lottery provably fair. See PevPot (now defunct) as an example.

[mia_houston]

Anyone interested in starting a bitcoin lottery? Are there any problems with this legally?

Yeah im very excaly and sure interested that..but i dont know what problems legally or not..Totally i agree with your idea

[Embeddeddownloads]

I think the best way to make this fair and transparent is to setup a smart contract:

1. A ticket costs 0.01BTC and all Bitcoin get added to the draw pot
2. User can select his lucky numbers
3. Once the time has run out for the draw, draw numbers gets generated and winners gets paid.

It can be made even more complex - How can we get started to setup a smart contract like this.

[~Bitcoin~]

I think the best way to make this fair and transparent is to setup a smart contract:

1. A ticket costs 0.01BTC and all Bitcoin get added to the draw pot
2. User can select his lucky numbers
3. Once the time has run out for the draw, draw numbers gets generated and winners gets paid.

It can be made even more complex - How can we get started to setup a smart contract like this.

I think smart contract can be implemented only on ethereum so you may have to develop whole lottery in ethereum and not in bitcoin however i don't know is there any service to do it for you and haven't heard of smart contract implemented to do payments on bitcoin.

There is one dice site which claim to run over ethereum based smart contracts https://vdice.io but it is dice site not lottery one. Lottery itself is popular around the world but it will only be successful if you can get lots of members, lots of deposits and big prizes with highly fair way of selecting winners and have better security of all the lottery funds.

[Kakmakr]

Starting a Lottery is easy, making it truly provably fair and getting this community to accept it, is going to be your biggest hurdle. We have seen a lot of suspect Lottery systems coming and going, and in the end people stop using them, because most of them turn into scams.

The regulated National Lottery systems are being audited, so building trust is easier for them. The legal implications for Lotteries differ from country to country, so you will not get one answer that would address your question.

[Slark]

Op, creating bitcoin lottery is not a big problem. The flavour of the month of bitcoin gambling are now blockchain block lotteries. 
Where player pick a number (0-9) or a letter (A-F) and hash of mined bitcoin block will determine if it is a win or not.
You can go this way. It is easy system to implement, and no one will have problem with fairness of it.

[scooterking]

Regardless of gaming laws,  I would go for like a pick 4 or 5.  Based on the hash of the next block, if the next block contains your letters/numbers together or not is up to you..  But, I would start with it not together, get people hooked, every block could be 1 or 10 or whatever, that's fun, especially since we do not know when the block will be solved.


sky

[SparkedDev]

Bitcoin is not being regulated as an official US currency. Because of that fact alone, I don't think there can be any legal ramifications. What'd you have in mind?

Well my state has it listed as a legal tended.

But yeah id like to hear what you had in mind there is plenty of countries you could host in that don't require you to have a license.
Mixed with cloud flare it makes it really hard to find the operator even if he/she is in a country your required to have a license.

It would need to have a probably fair model.
Would it use numbers or would it have tickets more like a raffle.

[MafiaCoin]

In many countries operating a lottery requires a gaming license. In some countries the state even has a monopoly on lotteries, making it impossible to privately operate a lottery.

if you bitcoin - no need license..
because is not official currency.

[scooterking]

get a cheap vm in Panama, under a corporate name..

[MartinL]

if you bitcoin - no need license..
because is not official currency.

In which jurisdiction is this true? Please tell me how people keep coming up with this idea.

(…) Claiming that the law does not apply because "Bitcoin is not being regulated as an official US currency" is just as silly as claiming that income in the form of bitcoins is not taxed, which is an often-repeated misconception.

How the IRS treats Bitcoin has little to nothing to do with the legality of gambling, including both casino games as well as non-casino games such as lotteries and raffles. Similarly, whether US dollars or some other medium is used to transfer the value being gambled with has little bearing upon the legality.

It is true that by using Bitcoin a casino or lottery can easily stay under the radar, but please stop spreading the false claim that Bitcoin is a magic bullet to all regulatory requirements.

[SparkedDev]

It is true that by using Bitcoin a casino or lottery can easily stay under the radar, but please stop spreading the false claim that Bitcoin is a magic bullet to all regulatory requirements.

Yeah seems like if people keep following this fake info their going to end up in prison.