Topic: BTC Lottery - First drawing ~ Tomorrow night at midnight (block 125001) (Read 1677 times)

now that is a nice signature banner!

Alright guys.
I have updated the website:

- I have posted an update to the news section (top of page).
- I have posted an ugly text version of the results from last night's drawing:  http://btclottery.com/results/week1.txt
- I have implemented a Target Block countdown (as requested by AltPluzF4).
- I have responded to your vocalized (and unvocalized) requests to remove the billboard from my sig 

New block numbers are up.  The bet addresses are still the same.  All games are on round two, and now I'm off to bed.

Thanks for all your suggestions and patience!

I agree, that is an annoying jpg.  I'll adjust

No offense, I think it's fitting that you're the lottery guy and your signature is a giant bilboard. I find it funny right now, but it will be annoying tomorrow.   

Spam eh... I probably used my throw-away yahoo. I always use it when I'm not sure where my message will go ;-)
Gmail is my primary.

Anyway, I wasn't expecting you to switch over to BC Math, I understand that would cause more trouble than it's probably worth... just a thought for future projects I guess.

Thanks for taking the time to keep us informed. I look forward to the outcome of this site.

Hey AltPluzF4,

Just found your email in the spam folder lol.  Sorry about that. 

1) BC Math.  That's new to me.  While I do think that may do the trick, I think I would run into more problems.  first, I've already announced that there are no winners this week, and redoing the check with a new methodology would change those results.  Some could see that as unfair.  Also, I don't want to start messing around with PHP configurations on my server.  A smarter man than me might be able to make this work, like, tonight.  But for now I think my solution above works, keeps the "10" theme (the nerd in me likes that), and since there are no winners with this change, no one can claim that I changed the method in order to give someone a winning number.  I really do appreciate the suggestion though!

2) Displaying number of blocks until the target block:  I love it!  Great idea, thank you!  I will implement that as soon as I have the code ready.

Glad to hear an update rather than just waiting for something to happen.

About the numbers, couldn't you use BC Math? It's been a long time since I used it, but my understanding was that it allowed for numbers as strings, so insanely high values could be computed.

Also, I emailed the 'support', but never heard anything back.. I just had a small idea, could you implement a small counter for each drawing to show how many blocks until the draw? I'm lazy (or stupid, however you prefer to pronounce it) and instead of looking at the current block number via blockexplorer/my rpc and doing a quick subtraction, it'd be much quicker to just glance at your page and get the number of blocks in one step.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this, and for filling us in on what you're doing in the background!

Hey everyone!

I'm working on php/sql code to display the results, but I also don't want to leave anyone hanging.

There were no winners in any of the games today!  This means that now I will return all incorrect bets (wrong amount, there was one this week in the Match1 / .1 btc game), and also late bets (no late bets this week).  All games will continue onto Round 2.  All bets will remain in place, and all Game Addresses will stay the same.  I will also put up new Target Blocks soon.  When you see the text at the top of the page change to "Week 2" you'll know I made the updates.  For the time being, if you would like to continue betting, please feel free, as bets are still going to the same addresses.

One thing I need to mention though.

I really really don't want to piss anyone off by changing things up a little bit, but I found a snag in the game methodology and I have to change something to make the system work.  Let me explain.

- Players tickets are their bet's transaction numbers.
- Each game's winning number comes from the games target block, the transaction number of the transaction where the block's solver is paid the 50 btc.

To keep odds relatively low, I decided to use a base10 number instead of base16.  The transaction numbers are all base16 (hexadecimal).  So my idea was to convert the entire transaction number to a decimal number.

The snag I ran into today:  The number resulting from that conversion is astronomical and beyond the bounds of the integer variable.  And thus, I don't have a reliable method of getting a true decimal number from converting the entire hexadecimal transaction number.

SO, my implementation is changing to this:  Instead of using the entire transaction number for the players ticket numbers and winning number, I am using JUST the last 10 digits (to keep with the theme of 10).

So, as an example, lets use this week's MATCH2 game for 1 btc bets (there was only one ticket sold):

----- PLAYER 1 bets 1 btc in the Match2 game
- The Player's transaction number (hex):  4baa76c33ca7f98753f276b32be735ccc1f5c8cc59dbc6f3f196ecd448a3c18d
- The Player's transaction number to use:  d448a3c18d (just the last 10 digits from above number)
- The Player's number converted to decimal:  911751758221
- The Player's ticket number:  2-1 (last two digits of the above number)

----- The WINNING TICKET NUMBER for this game:
- Target Block:  125002
- Transaction number of the 50btc solve payout:  8549e135fc5b68d9a55456cdc5c7704a3bc0b0bff5b198e44e619e01632bf3b5
- Transaction number to use (last 10 digits):  01632bf3b5
- 10-digit hex converted to decimal:  5958792117
- WINNING NUMBER (last two digits for Match2):  1-7

Player1 had "2-1" and the winning number was "1-7".  No match, so the game moves on to round two.
The player's ticket numbers will stay the same, but a new target block will be chosen (typically will be one week in the future).
When the new target block is solved, we will get a new winning number to compare to all previous and new bets.

Long explanation, but again, I'm being careful not to upset anyone.  I know changing things after the bets are made is not a good thing to do so early on, but like I said, I found the snag only today, so it was clear I needed to do something. 

I think this is fair, and, nobody matched this week, so it's not like anyone's getting paid out by this change.

What do you guys think, does this sound fair? 

Will check back later for feedback.  Gotta go bury my head back into the code   Results display links coming soon.

I was going to try and figure out the 1 in a million one but got lazy half way through. I'm just going to say no one did! 
I also just noticed that for the games that don't have a winner the tickets carry over. So, guess some are getting another chance...

Who won?

First "week" was a low turn out... hope you keep it going though, could become interesting.

Blocks are being sold at a pretty fast clip now, so it's looking like the estimated time of our drawing has been pushed up to around 6pm EST..

Remember, all bets must be submitted at least 10 blocks before the target blocks, so get your bets in before block 124991!  Good Luck!

Alright that sounds weird right?

Well, we have 5 games, and the winning numbers will be taken from blocks 125001, 125002, 125003, 125004, and 125005.

We use the transaction number from the transaction which pays the block's solver their 50btc as our winning number.  To knock out any cheating, we also only accept bets that arrive in a block a minimum of 10 blocks before the target blocks (125001 - 125005).  Thus, noone can possibly know what the winning number will be, and we are not in control of drawing that number.

Blocks have been getting solved much faster as of late, so the approximate date of our drawing will be around midnight EST, Wednesday night (tomorrow night).

So make sure you get your bets in before block 124992, and good luck!