Official launch of *BitLotto* at bitlotto.com

[bitlotto]

As mentioned before in the forum stating my plans, my website should now be up at bitlotto.com. I'm hoping for the first month someone will win at least 40 BTC and grow from there. It just takes a small risk of 1 BTC. Check out the website for all the details.  

Thank you, theymos (Details at website. He has 40 BTC for the winner if BitLotto doesn't pay) for providing a person I can use to help build trust with this community with my lottery showing that I have no intention of faking it all and not giving the winnings and to wobber for designing the logo! (check your account )

I hope over the years I can provide some fun for you all and make some of you rich! Good luck!

[1713565092]

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[1713565092]

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[1713565092]

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[danf]

How exactly will you pay me if I win? You won't have my Bitcoin address if all you have is a payment from me, right?

[Mahkul]

How exactly will you pay me if I win? You won't have my Bitcoin address if all you have is a payment from me, right?

He does have your Bitcoin address thanks to blockexplorer.

[bitlotto]

How exactly will you pay me if I win? You won't have my Bitcoin address if all you have is a payment from me, right?

He does have your Bitcoin address thanks to blockexplorer.

Thanks. That's exactly why I say they must be running their own software and not a shared service. The deposit is proof who won AND who it should go to.

[theymos]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

I am holding 40 BTC in escrow for the next BitLotto drawing. If BitLotto fails to pay by May 12, I will distribute the 40 BTC according to the rules.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iF4EAREIAAYFAk2ccwMACgkQxlVWk9q1kefaGQEApdkJ8RoEQUla4+GO2eOzCUg0
R0+SoqMJGLPD0wp5YU8A/iDtBPwXzQp8JOQi+rgJ4ai8+i+B469TM+lr0Nb3BITB
=rVd2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[beala]

Sounds like a neat idea. I'm in.

[bitlotto]

...so far 13 BTC is up for grabs with about a 1 in 13 chance of winning. I'm hoping the jackpot hits over 50 the first month...It would be cool seeing someone win a decent amount. Especially if they were from this forum!

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Why rely on an external lottery, instead of using some form of cryptographic commitment scheme? Before the round begins choose a random string (a combination of a PRNG with some human-generated entropy will work well) and hash it. Keep it secret, but post a hash of that publicly. When round ends, publish the original hash and use it to find the winner.

[theGECK]

Are the bets placed on your original thread counted in the above 13 BTC?

[bitlotto]

Are the bets placed on your original thread counted in the above 13 BTC?

Yes same account. Running total until the draw. Then another account is used.

[bitlotto]

Why rely on the Canadian lottery, instead of using some form of cryptographic commitment scheme? Before the round begins choose a random string (a combination of a PRNG with some human-generated entropy will work well) and hash it. Keep it secret, but post a hash of that publicly. When round ends, publish the original hash and use it to find the winner.

All lotteries COULD use computers to get a random number. TRUE randomness is barely understood by many and hard to do and prove without people having doubts how it works. They may think your faking the number or manipulating it. That's why lotteries use balls bouncing in a big drum and balls fall out. Everyone understands it. You don't have to explain that it's not rigged. They see it. Your idea may work for the technical crowd but to be a really successful lottery the part were the winner is picked has to be simple and understood.

[nanaimogold]

OK, I'm in.

The way you have displayed the bitcoin addresses to spend to, as anchors, makes it difficult to select to copy to the clipboard. Really difficult.

You might want to re-think that.

> Why rely on the Canadian lottery

LOL, you cloistered dumfuks never fail to amuse me. How would it sound if I referred to a lottery in your country as if it were the only one? Especially if that country were the second largest on earth?

lol

[LightRider]

Is there a contingency in case Blockexplorer is down?

Do you have any code or pseudo-code for your Transaction ID -> Lotto string -> Winner determination algorithm that you are relying upon so that others can independently verify the winner? I understand the process as described, but if you're doing the process manually, it could be subject to human error. And having an archive of the code can help disprove accusations of tampering or revision of the process on your website at a later date.

Referring to the discussion about the simplicity of the bouncing balls, all we really see is that part of the system, but behind the scenes there is a great deal of technical and randomization processes taking place to ensure that the outcome is as fair and random as possible. The measures they take are really interesting if you ever investigate the idea in any depth.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Why rely on the Canadian lottery...

LOL, you cloistered dumfuks never fail to amuse me.

I resent that.

How would it sound if I referred to a lottery in your country as if it were the only one? Especially if that country were the second largest on earth?

You would sound perfectly legitimate, as there is just one lottery in my country (or at least, one that is called what I take to be the translation of the word "lottery"). I assumed that the "Canadian Lotto 6/49 numbers" were ubiquitous enough to deserve being called "the Canadian lottery", and I apologize if I missed the nuances. As this is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, I changed the wording.

[Anonymous]

There should be a way to come up with something tied to bitcoin for the draw 

[Meni Rosenfeld]

There should be a way to come up with something tied to bitcoin for the draw  

You could make it the Merkle root of the first block found after the exact time entries are closed, XORed with a hash of the block hash. The time needs to be known some time in advance, of course.

[theymos]

Is there a contingency in case Blockexplorer is down?

Hopefully BBE will not ever be down for too long, but you can get the same information by looking at the blocks locally. One way to do it is to output all getblock dumps to a single file and search this file for all instances of the lotto's address in hash160 format.

[nanaimogold]

Why rely on the Canadian lottery...

LOL, you cloistered dumfuks never fail to amuse me.

I resent that.

How would it sound if I referred to a lottery in your country as if it were the only one? Especially if that country were the second largest on earth?

You would sound perfectly legitimate, as there is just one lottery in my country (or at least, one that is called what I take to be the translation of the word "lottery"). I assumed that the "Canadian Lotto 6/49 numbers" were ubiquitous enough to deserve being called "the Canadian lottery", and I apologize if I missed the nuances. As this is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, I changed the wording.

I'm sorry. That was not called for. Sometimes I let my frustration get away from me.

[bitlotto]

There should be a way to come up with something tied to bitcoin for the draw  

I'm sure it's possible. BitLotto is in no way set PERMANENTLY to a specific lottery for numbers. Obviously if it did change plenty of notice would have to be given. As long as everyone agrees that the numbers are in fact just as random as balls in a drum. The numbers determine where millions go so they (Lotto 6/49) are quite careful to be fair. One day BitLotto may change where the random numbers come from. The way the lottery is run though will probably stay the same for a long time....

[bitlotto]

Is there a contingency in case Blockexplorer is down?

Worse case, it can be done manually.

I hope one day to pay someone to make a really simple program that can sit in the Bitcoin directory, only READ the blocks, and create a really simple interface for seeing all the lottery accounts,  all entries, and a simple interface to enter the random numbers and find the winner....one day. 


Theymos: Your website makes things way simple! You are awesome! If I ever come up with some money, I'd offer you the job first if you wanted it!