Topic: [BITLOTTO] Mar 1 draw over $2000 or 50BTC! Tickets now 0.1 BTC for Apr 5 - page 19. (Read 55082 times)

$1K USD worth of winnings gets into the "that would be nice"

But larger numbers -- much larger, like in the $100K range, are more likely to be a topic of conversation and, for now, with bitcoin, would be the only way for someone to get a 10,000:1 or better payoff on a jackpot that pays out 99% of wagers.


Are you considering adding pool teams?

That would work if you had a kind of setup similar to how you have affiliates now, just call them pool teams.  So I wager on one of the pool teams addresses.  If there is any ticket from the pool that is a winner, then everyone in the pool gets paid proportionate to the amount wagered.

Good idea. Done.

Put it up for a vote at the top of the thread?

I prefer winner take all.

The BitLotto raffle will always pay out at least 99% but we have been toying with a new idea.

Instead of ONE person taking the 99%, how about we split it up a bit. Such as:
-main winner takes 80%
-next winner takes 10% (or two people 5%)
-9 people get 1%
Something like that?

We just wanted to see what others thought. 80% is still quite high for the main winner.
We aren't set on what the %'s should be.

For the people who play, would this be something you would like? Or do you play BitLotto for the chance of getting the whole thing? Having more winners means your chances of winning are higher.

And like I said, we'll always pay out the 99% so the odds for the players will remain excellent. If we did change it, we would do it for a draw in the future. People may have bought their tickets for getting the 99% all by themselves.

It's updated. The 101 BTC tx was one of the first ones for the month. I think the next biggest was 34 BTC... so far.

Oh, my bad. I was unaware of the change. That's cool! Makes it a lot easier for people. I guess the ticker does not automatically update yet. Thanks for the heads up!

Not sure if you are serious - multiple ticket purchases are supported now.  Did I miss some sarcasm?

Did they not catch the fact that they are suppose to make one tx per ticket?

WOAH! someone bought 100btc worth of tickets!
http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Cbz6PF7ks85M4zmeWzotX12WUE14JZ29

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)

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?

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)
...

Simple and more secure is the way to go!

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!

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!!!

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

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

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.