Introducing: The Amazing Anonymous Bitcoin Lottery

[FreeMoney]

No...... pick3 is gone!

I liked how it went off frequently. Maybe put just 1BTC in for seed and 100% of all entries? This would actually make every bet the tiniest bit +EV, and I could justify buying pretty much any amount I desire.

Oh, I guess there is a problem with that, I could buy all tickets and snap up that 1 coin constantly. You could cap it though at 3000 tickets or something, it would be won within 3 rounds of hitting the cap for sure so no one would be locked out for long.

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[nelisky]

No...... pick3 is gone!

I liked how it went off frequently. Maybe put just 1BTC in for seed and 100% of all entries? This would actually make every bet the tiniest bit +EV, and I could justify buying pretty much any amount I desire.

Oh, I guess there is a problem with that, I could buy all tickets and snap up that 1 coin constantly. You could cap it though at 3000 tickets or something, it would be won within 3 rounds of hitting the cap for sure so no one would be locked out for long.

Ha, there were only 3 people actively betting on pick 3, hardly justifying the cost it had to me

If eventually we get enough people on board, there's a lot that can be done, but for now, while pots are small...

And capping, that I cannot do for 2 reasons:
- Against my principles
- Completely impossible, you can open as many accounts as you want

Please go ahead and try the pick4, I'm sure that if the bets get high enough it will be really frequent too. And maybe I'll find a way to do a super seed!

But if enough people request it, I'll drag Pick3 back, with either seeds completely gone and bets at 100%, or smaller seeds and smaller cuts. But really, I think a Pick4 with a 1000BTC starting pot would rock

[FreeMoney]

I get it.

To be clear, I meant selling at most 3000 per draw total, not per person, instead of 4096 just to avoid the unaesthetic (to me) situation of a guaranteed win.

[nelisky]

Ok, thanks to TTBit for showing me the math stating "there's no way I can not loose" with the BitPick as I had it. Pick3 and Pick4 are just too easy to win, and not enough people bet on it fast enough, so we are moving to Pick6!

Also, the pot seeding + 50% for the house on bets is also something that will only work when I have a lot of coins to seed this. As that's not the case, I'm dropping the seed completely for now and moving the house cut to 5%. C'mon people, get it while it's hot!

[TTBit]

Ok, thanks to TTBit for showing me the math stating "there's no way I can not loose" with the BitPick as I had it. Pick3 and Pick4 are just too easy to win, and not enough people bet on it fast enough, so we are moving to Pick6!

Also, the pot seeding + 50% for the house on bets is also something that will only work when I have a lot of coins to seed this. As that's not the case, I'm dropping the seed completely for now and moving the house cut to 5%. C'mon people, get it while it's hot!

I like the idea. Hope everyone ships a few coins to the lottery. The concept of the Pick X is a lot of fun.

Good luck to all, but I'm on a hot streak!

[FreeMoney]

Okay, the pick4 went off faster than average. I understand not wanting to love money, obviously.

But if you aren't going to seed it why do you want it to take so long?

A pick 6 with 1000 tickets will be won after 10k blocks only 45% of time. That means (roughly) that with 100 tickets it will take 100k blocks on average.

[nelisky]

Okay, the pick4 went off faster than average. I understand not wanting to love money, obviously.

But if you aren't going to seed it why do you want it to take so long?

A pick 6 with 1000 tickets will be won after 10k blocks only 45% of time. That means (roughly) that with 100 tickets it will take 100k blocks on average.

I'm following TTBit's clues and formulas. I don't want it to take long, but I do want the pot to grow so as to attract more betters, and when these get closed so fast you can't really raise much interest.

If the site ever gets very busy, or I get to put the auto bet feature, then maybe it's ok to have 4 picks close in the same day.

Would a Pick5 be more to your liking?

[FreeMoney]

Okay, the pick4 went off faster than average. I understand not wanting to love money, obviously.

But if you aren't going to seed it why do you want it to take so long?

A pick 6 with 1000 tickets will be won after 10k blocks only 45% of time. That means (roughly) that with 100 tickets it will take 100k blocks on average.

I'm following TTBit's clues and formulas. I don't want it to take long, but I do want the pot to grow so as to attract more betters, and when these get closed so fast you can't really raise much interest.

If the site ever gets very busy, or I get to put the auto bet feature, then maybe it's ok to have 4 picks close in the same day.

Would a Pick5 be more to your liking?

I'm not interested in a pick 5 or 6.

I don't think it's going to get any more action than the smaller ones did, I mean over the same time period.

I don't think people are coming to the site and saying "oh, just 100BTC, I'm not interested" I think they are just not coming to the site at all. Mostly because there aren't that many bitcoiners yet. I like to check all the time and see if someone (or myself) has won. I'm not going to lock money in to something that could take 4 months and also get less enjoyment from being able to constantly check it, and maybe buy a few more tickets since I'm on and checking it anyway.

You can't do much about the small universe of customers. But you can keep them interested by giving them something to check on and do frequently.

 

[nelisky]

The whole TAABL ecosystem right now is composed of 25 accounts, of which 3 (this including myself) are actively betting

Not much to see here, really. I know this will change someday, I'll keep things running until it does. In the mean time we keep bouncing coins amongst each other and hope others won't grow tired of the process.

I think the lottery framework is pretty good now, it only needs, ya know, people betting. The BitPicks... well, there's the automatic better feature that would really increase usability, so I guess I'll do that and move back to Pick4 or even Pick3. In fact, removing the seed and adding the auto better (where I'm a seeder in the form of bets) is a great plan that was hinted by TTBit. I'll try and cook something up this weekend.

[TTBit]

Okay, the pick4 went off faster than average. I understand not wanting to love money, obviously.

But if you aren't going to seed it why do you want it to take so long?

A pick 6 with 1000 tickets will be won after 10k blocks only 45% of time. That means (roughly) that with 100 tickets it will take 100k blocks on average.

wife's car broke down, have to leave. quick message. 1000 bets will take 11664 blocks to be 50% in picks 6. So, at least my math agrees with yours. This is 80 days at 144 blocks/day.

From my understanding, the lottery was more about large paydays few and far between, not 100 coins 2-3 times a week. A 2500 lottery appears to be 50% to hit once a month. The way it stands now, I check the TAABL every couple days and see if I have credits and if the lottery was won. Turns out I won the last 3 by the way.

I want to articulate more, but cannot. Good work nelisky, I am behind whatever you do.

[TTBit]

nelisky was kind enough (by surprise) to implement my lottery. If you have an acct registered on the forum before this post, post an address and I'll ship 4 btc to you for you to put in the lottery. Honesty counts. giving away 100 btc total, 25 total.

will credit in 12 hours.

GOOD LUCK!

[FreeMoney]

Maybe we'll get 1000 tickets eventually, but right now what is being offered is a smallish pot that is won very infrequently. I trust you and I have a long time horizon and I still don't want to lock coins up for months. I am guessing that newish people will be even more wary of doing this, I could be wrong though.

 

[vess]

Okay, I'm getting you current problem: it's volume.

Typically what lotteries do to drive volume is advertise the winners:

As in, "Hey everyone, SO and SO just won 100 BTC with a 2 BTC bet. In fact, everyone who bet one since there are so few bettors! Come try your luck!"


You could also advertise it more generally and allow people to buy BTC from you on the TAABL site at say a 50 or 100% markup over Mt. Gox, if they aren't inclined to go open an account and download the client. Then you could advertise the lottery more generally.

I'll bet more later, promise. Although for now, I'm down about 11 BTC. Sigh. : ).

[nelisky]

Okay, I'm getting you current problem: it's volume.

Typically what lotteries do to drive volume is advertise the winners:

As in, "Hey everyone, SO and SO just won 100 BTC with a 2 BTC bet. In fact, everyone who bet one since there are so few bettors! Come try your luck!"


You could also advertise it more generally and allow people to buy BTC from you on the TAABL site at say a 50 or 100% markup over Mt. Gox, if they aren't inclined to go open an account and download the client. Then you could advertise the lottery more generally.

Yeah, you're right. And I really like the idea of allowing people to buy BTC directly from the lottery, but that could get messy. It's not an exchange site, and all logic is bound to the bitcoin client, so I don't really want to get into that right now

I could build an EUR based exchange client, hook it up to mtgox with automated transaction sharing, and people could just send the coins to the taabl address. Or they could do that right now from mtgox site!

In the end, volume is the key, but I can't advertise winners and call the lottery anonymous, now can I?

I'll bet more later, promise. Although for now, I'm down about 11 BTC. Sigh. : ).

I stopped counting my losses, but I can tell you the grand total of losses I suffered in the state lottery to date are embarrassing. I guess that when the pots get to 5K you say "I only lost 100 so far but I can still get rich"...

[nelisky]

We are just about crossing the 300BTC pot on Pick6! Woohoo...

So, statistically speaking, what is the correct bet char size to have an average of one pick per day, at 1000 bets per pick?

[FreeMoney]

We are just about crossing the 300BTC pot on Pick6! Woohoo...

So, statistically speaking, what is the correct bet char size to have an average of one pick per day, at 1000 bets per pick?

The pick 4 would be too fast and the 5 too slow. Maybe pick 4.5? ;-)

Getting 1000 daily is still pretty optimistic though, so the 4 is actually going to give you a few days at any likely volume, the first one just happened to go quickly.

You cannot have huge pots in relation to the size of bets without having tons of bettors or a wealthy backer. I think it is best to be content to run 2 on different time scales and let it grow over time as bitcoin grows.

Is this 500 draw a guarantee?

[nelisky]

We are just about crossing the 300BTC pot on Pick6! Woohoo...

So, statistically speaking, what is the correct bet char size to have an average of one pick per day, at 1000 bets per pick?

The pick 4 would be too fast and the 5 too slow. Maybe pick 4.5? ;-)

Getting 1000 daily is still pretty optimistic though, so the 4 is actually going to give you a few days at any likely volume, the first one just happened to go quickly.

Yeah, I know that, but just assuming... All numbers aside, I have this gut feeling things winners will be found more likely than not in a shorter timespan that that which is statistically calculated, so I'd rather err on the upper side. But what I really want is to have an average time span per pick on the order of 1 day, as multiple picks per day will probably not allow many people to bet, with timezone differences and all. Actually, maybe 2 days would be perfect. I don't have the head to run the numbers (weekends and beer, not good for number crunching ) but what I need is something that gets a comfortable pot and gives time for people to see the pot and get attracted, but doesn't take that much time that people loose interest.

This whole thing with being anonymous, and thus not being able to send notifications is kind of a bugger in this respect...

You cannot have huge pots in relation to the size of bets without having tons of bettors or a wealthy backer. I think it is best to be content to run 2 on different time scales and let it grow over time as bitcoin grows.

Run 2 on different time scales? What do you mean?

Is this 500 draw a guarantee?

Again, I don't follow. Sorry if I'm just being dense. Are you asking if we are going to have 500 block intervals from now on? I'm experimenting, it feels like 1000 is just too long.

[FreeMoney]

Run 2 on different time scales? What do you mean?

Sorry, I mean run two that will take different lengths of time, a pick4 and a pick6 or a pick3 and a pick5

Again, I don't follow. Sorry if I'm just being dense. Are you asking if we are going to have 500 block intervals from now on? I'm experimenting, it feels like 1000 is just too long.

Previously I read something about doing a special that would empty the cumulative pot, it's too soon I think, I was only verifying that.

[nelisky]

Run 2 on different time scales? What do you mean?

Sorry, I mean run two that will take different lengths of time, a pick4 and a pick6 or a pick3 and a pick5

Aha, ok. Well, haven't thought about that possibility... in fact have coded the thing in a way slightly incompatible, but can fix. It's a great idea, certainly worth trying. I just hope I'm not diluting the (3) betters too much

Again, I don't follow. Sorry if I'm just being dense. Are you asking if we are going to have 500 block intervals from now on? I'm experimenting, it feels like 1000 is just too long.

Previously I read something about doing a special that would empty the cumulative pot, it's too soon I think, I was only verifying that.

Yes, the idea as I remember (I didn't read back the thread) was as soon as the side pot reached 500, but can also do on the first prize reaching 500, or whatever.

I also intend to change the draw to get rid of the bounty and instead get a cut for the house, probably the same 5% I take from the pick. I need to get a little stash so I can seed a bit jackpot not too far away from now You guys cool with that?

[FreeMoney]

I also intend to change the draw to get rid of the bounty and instead get a cut for the house, probably the same 5% I take from the pick. I need to get a little stash so I can seed a bit jackpot not too far away from now You guys cool with that?

For sure, gotta pay the bills.