Topic: Looking for feedback on new coin idea (Read 506 times)

Excellent question.  I've only got some ideas at the minute rather than a firm answer.

I think there are two parts to this. Firstly is the part of getting the tickets chosen numbers on the blockchain.
This will be the easier part , as when the ticket is purchased the numbers they've chosen can be coded into the transaction on the blockchain.

The second part is getting the Powerball numbers onto the blockchain.

One possible idea is using a consensus model similar to what Augur (and I think Gnosis) are planning on doing. Users confirm winning numbers. However to me this is open to fraud, especially when there are low numbers of ticket sales.

An easier (and better?) option would be that we pull the winning numbers from the Powerball website and create a transaction that is entered onto the blockchain. This could be combined with manual human verification.

We could also pull the powerball winning numbers from the state lottery websites that sell Powerball tickets e.g. http://www.txlottery.org/export/sites/lottery/Games/Powerball/Winning_Numbers/details.html_1130671244.html and http://louisianalottery.com/powerball/tab/winning-numbers/2017-06-21 etc.

This would make it more secure, as somone who hacked the Powerball website (unlikely but possible) would also need to hack all the state run lottery websites if they wanted to input false numbers.

Thoughts?

How do you plan on attaching a Powerball number to a particular purchase on the block chain?

Any more thoughts?

This thread has been read 200 times and only two people have commented 

I'm not looking for people to say this idea is either good or bad - just initial reactions.

thanks earlz for your constructive question.

my proposed solution is that the lottery doesnt use the blockchain to generate numbers, but instead uses the winning numbers from a current lottery (e.g. the Powerball lottery in the US)

This means that the founders couldnt fake the winning numbers.

Here's a simple example.

Say $100 of lottery tickets were sold for the week ending 06/17/2017

All ticket sales for that week would be visible on the blockchain - so for simplicity 100 transactions of $1 each.

The lottery prize fund would then be say $95 for the week (if e.g. $5 is to be used for marketing the lottery, paying the founders to run it etc)

Then on 06/17/2017 the Powerball lottery does the draw and publishes the winning numbers  http://prntscr.com/flsy7l

The $95 is sent to the winning ticket. This too is viewable on the blockchain.

My idea is that although the tickets are bought on the blockchain, the winning numbers are generated by a real world lottery, so that nobody could fake the winning numbers.

Sounds great, let me know if you need any help creating the Coin!

How are the results of the lottery authenticated on the blockchain? What stops me from publishing fake lotto numbers and rewarding myself as a winner?

I once tried on one of the cryptocurrency lottery websites. The curiosity that begins to follow the lottery. But I feel it. The final result is zero.
Make me no longer trust because there is no certainty to be profitable.

Any opinions from anyone?

I'm considering starting a new crypto lottery. I know this has been tried many many times before but hear me out!

To me, crypto lotteries have not had any success for three main reasons


   1. People don't trust the winning numbers (ie the founders could easily just fix the ''winning'' numbers to tickets they bought.) I think this is the main reason
   2. People don't trust that winning tickets will actually be paid out, nor do they trust the prizes will be for the correct amount of money
   3. They arent continually marketed (either because the the people that set them up hoped they would grow organically) or because they didnt have the money to actually spend on marketing

To combat these problems I propose a lottery that does the following

   1. The draw will use the numbers from a real life government run lottery e.g. Mega Millions http://www.megamillions.com/ or Powerball http://www.powerball.com/pb_home.asp. These are the two biggest lotteries in the USA which operate in most states so at least players will not the draw will not be rigged by the founders of the crypto. So although people buy tickets to the lottery using the new crypto coin, the winning numbers will be from a real life lottery.
   2. Winning tickets will all be paid out on a publich blockchain - ie could be viewed on etherscan. Purchased tickets will also be viewable, so people can see if prize fund is correct (ie make sure the founders arent't scamming players)
   3. A set percentage of the lottery revenue will be used for marketing e.g. 3-5%. This should help increase the chance of long term success of the lottery.

Some government run lotteries only pay out 50% of revenue in prizes (I at least know this is the case in the UK) . I'm proposing paying out around 93%, with the rest being used for marketing and being profit for the founders (e.g. 1-2%)

Before you say it - yes I know there are crypto gambling sites where the house edge is less. E.g. Satoshi Dice I believe was/is 1%. However this lottery wouldnt be competing with these casinos - the target market would be people that play nation government lotteries were the payout is like 50%.

The bitcoin / ethereum lotteries which claim to pay out 99% etc are all shady operations which nobody trusts.

I'm interested in peoples feedback.

Thanks