I was considering starting something like a "real time lotto", but wanted to probe the community first.
How would everyone here feel about a lotto that works as following:
I, or some third party, would choose a random number and keep it a secret, and put several bitcoins into the pot to get things going.
People begin to guess numbers at 1btc each guess. Each bitcoin goes into the pot.
This continues until someone guesses the number, at which point 3 things happen:
80% (or some other number, it's up to how people react) of the pot goes to the winner.
1% goes to me (very modest, I should say)
19% stays in the pot to get it started for the next one, and a random number is chosen again.
This could be automated, as a (potentially) very fast paced lottery.
So:
What numbers should I use above, or are the values I've chosen reasonable?
Would you prefer the "already guessed" numbers be shown? Hidden? Shown after they've been guessed multiple times?
Any other ideas/suggestions?
What about the following:
Have a lottery for N people (this can be varied from 2 to 100 -- maybe start with 2 for fun)
Each enters 1 BTC and chooses one of the remaining numbers from 1 to N.
Once N people are hit, take a timestamp. Then run that timestamp as a seed in a random number generator.
This picks the winner.
I'd suggest to start with all funds returned to participants at parity because:
1. legal in most US states
2. fun to get things going ...
Later on you can add a rake, bonus system, jackpot etc, like poker sites do.