Difference between revisions of "BitLotto"

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(Add warning due to non-payment of March 2013 lottery. Remove from category Gambling.)
 
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A lottery style gambling site with 99% payout of a monthly jackpot to an almost always sole winner.
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BitLotto was an online lottery.  <font color="red">It failed to distribute the payout from March 2013 so further wagering is not recommended</font>.
  
The winning selection of lottery numbers for determining the winner or winners are the results of the Western Canada Lottery Corporation draw.
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==History==
  
The Bitcoin transaction hash of the 1 BTC purchase is used as the "pick" and to see who sent it, and therefore know where the winnings should go. The algorithm for converting the winning lotto numbers to the characters in the entrant's Bitcoin transaction hash is documented on BitLotto's site.
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The service was launched on April 6th, 2011<ref>[http://www.bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5458.0 Official launch of *BitLotto* at bitlotto.com]</ref>. An extended outage occurred for most of the month of December, 2011 after the site was forced to move to a new server hosting provider<ref>[http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=54397.0 Why is bitlotto down?]</ref>.
  
The service was launched on April 6th, 2011<ref>[http://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=5458.0 Official launch of *BitLotto* at bitlotto.com]</ref>.
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The April 4th, 2012 lotto was the first to accommodate multi-ticket purchases (i.e., send an amount that equals the number of tickets times the per-ticket price)<ref>[http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34007.msg806114#msg806114 Next draw is April 4! March Jackpot was over 100 BTC!]</ref>.
  
==Criticism==
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On March 17th, 2012 an affiliate program was introduced which allows ticket purchases using an address assigned to the affiliate.  The affiliate earns a 1% commission on all ticket purchases made towards that affiliates address<ref>[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34007.msg806114#msg806114 Next draw is April 4! March Jackpot was over 100 BTC!]</ref>.
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The method for choosing a winner was revised using an improved method beginning with the April 6, 2012 and subsequent draws.  BitLotto uses a public processes that selects the winner but a an independent party built an open source tool to verify the results<ref>[http://github.com/baldrickv/BitLottoVerify BitLotto Verify on GitHub]</ref> (Java).
  
When a winner is paid, the funds are sent to the Bitcoin address that bought the winning entry. This method is not compatible with [[EWallet]] services and payouts will not go to the intended recipient.  The site does warn about this but some users who use an eWallet might not realize the issue. The site clearly states many times, that as long as you run Bitcoin software on your own computer, you will not run into a problem.  
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The March 2013 winner has not been paid out.  The site's operator has not provided an explanation.
  
==External Sites==
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==Criticism==
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When a winner is paid, the funds are sent to the Bitcoin address that bought the winning entry. <b>If the user buys the ticket using an [[eWallet]] service</b> those funds are lost as any winnings will then go to someone else.  The site does clearly provide a warning about this, however.
  
* [http://bitlotto.com BitLotto] web site
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Unlike other [[:Category:Gambling|gambling]] sites, BitLotto requires Bitcoin payments in this specific manner because of how tickets are tracked and winnings paid out. BitLotto has chosen to operate in this way to increase the transparency of the lottery.
* [http://www.wclc.com Western Canada Lottery Corporation]
 
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
 
<references />
 
<references />
 
[[Category:Gambling]]
 

Latest revision as of 12:00, 26 March 2013

BitLotto was an online lottery. It failed to distribute the payout from March 2013 so further wagering is not recommended.

History

The service was launched on April 6th, 2011[1]. An extended outage occurred for most of the month of December, 2011 after the site was forced to move to a new server hosting provider[2].

The April 4th, 2012 lotto was the first to accommodate multi-ticket purchases (i.e., send an amount that equals the number of tickets times the per-ticket price)[3].

On March 17th, 2012 an affiliate program was introduced which allows ticket purchases using an address assigned to the affiliate. The affiliate earns a 1% commission on all ticket purchases made towards that affiliates address[4].

The method for choosing a winner was revised using an improved method beginning with the April 6, 2012 and subsequent draws. BitLotto uses a public processes that selects the winner but a an independent party built an open source tool to verify the results[5] (Java).

The March 2013 winner has not been paid out. The site's operator has not provided an explanation.

Criticism

When a winner is paid, the funds are sent to the Bitcoin address that bought the winning entry. If the user buys the ticket using an eWallet service those funds are lost as any winnings will then go to someone else. The site does clearly provide a warning about this, however.

Unlike other gambling sites, BitLotto requires Bitcoin payments in this specific manner because of how tickets are tracked and winnings paid out. BitLotto has chosen to operate in this way to increase the transparency of the lottery.

References