[BITLOTTO] Mar 1 draw over $2000 or 50BTC! Tickets now 0.1 BTC for Apr 5

[finway]

And for those who can read Chinese:
http://bitlotto.com/ch.html

Can you check th ip address or browser language and switch to Chinese automatically?
Thanks.

[bitlotto]

And for those who can read Chinese:
http://bitlotto.com/ch.html

Can you check th ip address or browser language and switch to Chinese automatically?
Thanks.

Yup, I'll look into that. For now though all the different languages are on a single html page. So the Chinese one will be at ch.html for some time. French is fr.html. Etc.

And thank you finway for the translation!! You are great!

[Stephen Gornick]

We are thinking of ideas. Anything in particular someone would like to see?

SSL.  Seriously ... it's getting to be about time that you have to support SSL.

[bitlotto]

We are thinking of ideas. Anything in particular someone would like to see?

SSL.  Seriously ... it's getting to be about time that you have to support SSL.

Ya, I keep trying but it seems every time they don't approve it. I would like to remain anonymous and they require real stuff for validating it. I could create a self signed one but I think the warnings on firefox and chrome would scare too many people away.

[Stephen Gornick]

Who is "they"? 

I see that BitcoTalk.org has a Class 1 cert with StartCom.  Free:
 - https://www.startssl.com/?app=40

[bitlotto]

Who is "they"? 

I see that BitcoTalk.org has a Class 1 cert with StartCom.  Free:
 - https://www.startssl.com/?app=40

I'm pretty sure that's who I tried a while ago. No worries though, I'm having someone just get it for me and it should be up on my site soon! Thanks for reminding me, I have been meaning to get to that for some time!

Oh, and you'll noticed I tried github and cloned your repo!

[MyBitcoinMint]

Just some interesting stats on NY State lottos I pulled together:

1 in 63,504 odds WINS $1,000 - Bingo Doubler
1 in 13,000 odds WINS $150 - MegaMillions
1 in 126,000 odds WINS $1,000 - Cashword
1 in 396,900 odds WINS $500 - NY Instant
1 in 526,400 odds WINS $2,500 - Win For Life

Current BitLotto odds: 1 in 800 WINS $1,000 (approximated)

[Stephen Gornick]

Current BitLotto odds: 1 in 800 WINS $1,000 (approximated)

Your math is off.  It would read like this:
BitLotto odds: 1 in 1000 WINS $990 (not approximate, exact)

or
BitLotto odds: 1 in 1010 WINS $1,000 (not approximate, exact)


As far as the other odds, recalculating so that the payout is the same for comparison purposes that shows that:

1 in 63,504 odds WINS $1,000 - Bingo Doubler
1 in 86,667 odds WINS $1,000 - MegaMillions
1 in 126,000 odds WINS $1,000 - Cashword
1 in 793,800 odds WINS $1,000 - NY Instant
1 in 210,560 odds WINS $1,000 - Win For Life

I'm not sure what those odd are indicative of though.  Since those lotteries have payouts as little as $5 and such they aren't really directly comparable to each other.  I've seen reported that MegaMillions pays out about 60% of ticket sales in winnings.

so that would be
1 in 1,667 odds WINS $1,000 - MegaMillions

Of course, the odds of winning just the Megamultiplier for the MegaMillions jackpot are much much higher:
 1 in 175,711,536
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Millions#Winning_and_probability

[bitlotto]

Current BitLotto odds: 1 in 800 WINS $1,000 (approximated)

Your math is off.  It would read like this:
BitLotto odds: 1 in 1000 WINS $990 (not approximate, exact)

or
BitLotto odds: 1 in 1010 WINS $1,000 (not approximate, exact)


As far as the other odds, recalculating so that the payout is the same for comparison purposes that shows that:

1 in 63,504 odds WINS $1,000 - Bingo Doubler
1 in 86,667 odds WINS $1,000 - MegaMillions
1 in 126,000 odds WINS $1,000 - Cashword
1 in 793,800 odds WINS $1,000 - NY Instant
1 in 210,560 odds WINS $1,000 - Win For Life

I'm not sure what those odd are indicative of though.  Since those lotteries have payouts as little as $5 and such they aren't really directly comparable to each other.  I've seen reported that MegaMillions pays out about 60% of ticket sales in winnings.

so that would be
1 in 1,667 odds WINS $1,000 - MegaMillions

Of course, the odds of winning just the Megamultiplier for the MegaMillions jackpot are much much higher:
 1 in 175,711,536
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_Millions#Winning_and_probability

When you guys but it that way it sure shows how good of a deal BitLotto is!

BitLotto just hit 200 BTC for May and there is about half the time still left!!

[Technomage]

I approve of BitLotto. My soon to be launched Bitcoin portal is considering becoming a BitLotto affiliate. This concept is just fool proof and brilliant. I love it.

[bitlotto]

I approve of BitLotto. My soon to be launched Bitcoin portal is considering becoming a BitLotto affiliate. This concept is just fool proof and brilliant. I love it.

Thanks for the compliment. Hopefully one day there will be many affiliates and the jackpot will get even bigger. Each affiliate gets to keep the profit with very little work.

The other advantage is making it distributed. BitLotto is designed in such a way that even if the domain, servers, etc are all shut down or seized the raffle can still continue. There really is no way to stop it unless you actually prevent us from going on line. The only thing that people need is a Bitcoin address, which one day they'll get from many different sites. We just need access to the Bitcoin network.

[bitlotto]

Minor fixes to the details page on BitLotto.com. The most significant:

In the extremely rare event that no block dated after 00:00 UTC is announced on the Bitcoin network and received by BitLotto prior to 02:30 UTC the lottery numbers will come from the Mega Millions draw on Friday night rather than Tuesday night. A blockchain re-organization that changes the lucky block and occurs after the Mega Millions draw will cause the lottery numbers to come from Friday's Mega Millions draw. If a re-organization occurs prior to to the Mega Millions draw changing the lucky block the new block will be used.

[Stephen Gornick]

Minor fixes to the details page on BitLotto.com. The most significant:

A blockchain re-organization that changes the lucky block and occurs after the Mega Millions draw will cause the lottery numbers to come from Friday's Mega Millions draw.

The timestamp in the block accurate enough to be used for determining this so how is "when the re-organization occurs" determined?   Is it based on the local clock when the BitLotto node first learns of any reorg blocks?   

If so, then the configuration of the BitLotto node can cause it to end up with different results than other nodes.  To correct for this, specifically, the node should not allow any incoming connections and it should explicitly connect to certain well-connected nodes (e.g., DeepBit or other pool).

Do the Bitcoin.org client logs keep this information with a timestmap so it can be determined from the log when the blocks were received by the node?

[bitlotto]

The timestamp in the block accurate enough to be used for determining this so how is "when the re-organization occurs" determined?   Is it based on the local clock when the BitLotto node first learns of any reorg blocks?   

If so, then the configuration of the BitLotto node can cause it to end up with different results than other nodes.  To correct for this, specifically, the node should not allow any incoming connections and it should explicitly connect to certain well-connected nodes (e.g., DeepBit or other pool).

Do the Bitcoin.org client logs keep this information with a timestmap so it can be determined from the log when the blocks were received by the node?

The block timestamp is inserted by the miner creating the block. From the wiki:

A timestamp is accepted as valid if it is greater than the median timestamp of previous 11 blocks, and less than the network-adjusted time + 2 hours. "Network-adjusted time" is the median of the timestamps returned by all nodes connected to you.

The mega millions draw occurs no sooner that 3 UTC. It's sometimes 4 UTC.

The potential for something funny happening is  VERY VERY rare but I guess it's possible even if VERY slim. I just have to think of a way of mentioning what will happen in that case. Even if it probably won't happen. I have thought about doing something like:
-the lucky block has to have a timestamp over 00 UTC *BUT* under 01 UTC
-this will guarantee that the block comes before the draw because of the "+2 hours" thing
-I could also mention that ANY reorg after 01 UTC (timestamp) changing the block will cause the lottery numbers to come from Friday
-the results will be official after 120 confirmations

All miners have very accurate clocks. The only person with a wrong time would probably be the attacker.

I think that would work and cover any extremely rare weird event. The only thing that will cause delays will be the odd times no blocks occur in that hour. It does happen sometimes and I guess in that case people would have to wait till Friday for the results.   

The the attack would have to be no blocks for 3 hrs, wait for mega millions, create fake block with time over 2hrs wrong time and get it accepted by the network....


I think that is an impossible scenario?

[bitlotto]

Sometimes with security when things are getting complicated a more simple solution is often better.

After we at BitLotto had a discussion we have decided to make a change that we've wanted to do for a while anyways. (Works better with all our schedules) Instead of the tickets being due the first Wednesday of the month, after May, it will change to the first Friday! We'll make sure to make it prominent on our site that it's Friday instead of Wednesday.

-the due date will be 00 UTC Friday and the lottery numbers will come from the Mega Millions draw on Friday night local (That means it will be actually Saturday UTC when Mega Millions occur)
-this eliminates all worrying about block reorgs etc and sets all the tickets with more confirmations before the draw - it makes it way more simple

That means Junes draw tickets are due June 1st 00:00 UTC. May draw will remain the same for May 2.


Good luck everyone who has entered for May. The jackpot up for grabs is over 215 BTC!!!

[Stephen Gornick]

the due date will be 00 UTC Friday and the lottery numbers will come from the Mega Millions draw on Friday night local (That means it will be actually Saturday UTC when Mega Millions occur)

So you are simply ensuring there is a bigger time buffer (over 24 hours) between the deadline and when the Mega Millions draw occurs.  That is simpler and does solve the problem!

[bitlotto]

the due date will be 00 UTC Friday and the lottery numbers will come from the Mega Millions draw on Friday night local (That means it will be actually Saturday UTC when Mega Millions occur)

So you are simply ensuring there is a bigger time buffer (over 24 hours) between the deadline and when the Mega Millions draw occurs.  That is simpler and does solve the problem!

Simple and more secure is the way to go!

[baldrick]

As promised, here is a program to find the winner (unless the rules have changed in the last few weeks while I haven't been paying attention):

https://github.com/baldrickv/BitLottoVerify

A compiled download is available here:

https://github.com/baldrickv/BitLottoVerify/downloads

Here is what the output looks like:

(Validating last month's drawing)
$ java -jar jar/BitLottoVerify.jar 14avxyPW5PgA68kGkDkY1mCGPP8zqkywEx 000000000000042c91c9de46f802524ab1c2296923a72b55fac2d2c6fd7f4741 113538415240

Draw address: 14avxyPW5PgA68kGkDkY1mCGPP8zqkywEx
Mixer: 000000000000042c91c9de46f802524ab1c2296923a72b55fac2d2c6fd7f4741113538415240
Mixer hash: 1e3c407515124ef4c674f1f997342cb882063f013b19b95184511ef196985b70
Transactions: 527 BTC: 288.751 tickets: 1155
Total tickets: 1155
0023da9af152f9dd17501b060df7d5dbd762ca880cb3e731e40c391af34aadf7: Transaction: 277a5da2a46b0ba9ddaa33fa374bd9acd4a0ea227badf5d3e3d14d9a05238c81 sha256(tx+mixer_hash)
00397274f95b78993d489f1ac330dcf765f532eda7f2af93860ee6c181952df3: Transaction: 71599cc9375aef02271486acce76dc7059af5e27919429aa3ee62c915bf613f0 multi:81 sha256(sha256(tx+81)+mixer_hash)
006fd30e0eb3b85e2b3d0b679665df710f4dc371c799ea0c9603905587b27c4a: Transaction: 71599cc9375aef02271486acce76dc7059af5e27919429aa3ee62c915bf613f0 multi:74 sha256(sha256(tx+74)+mixer_hash)
0095fa502da11709bf17d47b034705bd193ec68a4480efa712586167b68f2643: Transaction: 0fe78f915237de55378fd59a225c1f3e1c3c40f32da770924a7bcab3b67d548a multi:2 sha256(sha256(tx+2)+mixer_hash)
...

[bitlotto]

As promised, here is a program to find the winner (unless the rules have changed in the last few weeks while I haven't been paying attention):

https://github.com/baldrickv/BitLottoVerify

A compiled download is available here:

https://github.com/baldrickv/BitLottoVerify/downloads

COOL THANKS! The rules haven't changed for how the winner is found. I don't expect that to change again.

It's really neat. Perhaps the output is a little confusing though?

0023da9af152f9dd17501b060df7d5dbd762ca880cb3e731e40c391af34aadf7: Transaction: 277a5da2a46b0ba9ddaa33fa374bd9acd4a0ea227badf5d3e3d14d9a05238c81 sha256(tx+mixer_hash)

Perhaps:

0023da9af152f9dd17501b060df7d5dbd762ca880cb3e731e40c391af34aadf7 <---End Hash
277a5da2a46b0ba9ddaa33fa374bd9acd4a0ea227badf5d3e3d14d9a05238c81 <---Bitcoin Tx Hash

I really appreciate it. This will allow anyone to calculate the winner and verify the results.

Assuming it's opensource?

[baldrick]

COOL THANKS! The rules haven't changed for how the winner is found. I don't expect that to change again.

It's really neat. Perhaps the output is a little confusing though?

0023da9af152f9dd17501b060df7d5dbd762ca880cb3e731e40c391af34aadf7: Transaction: 277a5da2a46b0ba9ddaa33fa374bd9acd4a0ea227badf5d3e3d14d9a05238c81 sha256(tx+mixer_hash)

Perhaps:

0023da9af152f9dd17501b060df7d5dbd762ca880cb3e731e40c391af34aadf7 <---End Hash
277a5da2a46b0ba9ddaa33fa374bd9acd4a0ea227badf5d3e3d14d9a05238c81 <---Bitcoin Tx Hash

I really appreciate it. This will allow anyone to calculate the winner and verify the results.

Assuming it's opensource?

Yeah, MIT license.  I just updated it with that.

The only ways I can think of to make the output cleaner involve going to multiple lines per ticket.  I was trying to avoid that so people could grep for their transactions easily if they were so inclined.

I guess I could truncate the end hash a bit.

Yeah, that is pretty decent:
0023da9a: Transaction: 277a5da2a46b0ba9ddaa33fa374bd9acd4a0ea227badf5d3e3d14d9a05238c81 sha256(tx+mixer_hash)
00397274: Transaction: 71599cc9375aef02271486acce76dc7059af5e27919429aa3ee62c915bf613f0 multi:81 sha256(sha256(tx+81)+mixer_hash)
006fd30e: Transaction: 71599cc9375aef02271486acce76dc7059af5e27919429aa3ee62c915bf613f0 multi:74 sha256(sha256(tx+74)+mixer_hash)
0095fa50: Transaction: 0fe78f915237de55378fd59a225c1f3e1c3c40f32da770924a7bcab3b67d548a multi:2 sha256(sha256(tx+2)+mixer_hash)
00b6d9ba: Transaction: 296d34b48f099d83a500b58bc7d411c23a8fc36bc5bb64fa7a34c789b6a2565a multi:2 sha256(sha256(tx+2)+mixer_hash)
00c42aff: Transaction: c9604c6144f4c12d585891e9b507cf7781d36ae6fcf3ccf4aef198fae754ca36 sha256(tx+mixer_hash)
00cf0b5e: Transaction: a1ea664b8d1acc35adc92bb38066beeb60b18063dc04a7485cacff772d2e0779 sha256(tx+mixer_hash)