Cryptocurrency lotteries aren't as popular a they should be, but I wanted know if anyone would be interested in a lottery system that accepted Decred. I'm interested in creating one, and I've been following Decred for a while. I think the exclusivity could help. Basically, the lottery tickets would each cost something like 2 or 5 DCR, and the jackpot would build up. 10% of the jackpot would be taken out; I'd like to have 5% donated to devs, and 5% would be kept as a sort of tax (edit: Which means it is my profit. It's a little obvious but just added this for clarity) The jackpot would be held in a third party wallet, and would have a computer generated passphrase that I wouldn't know. Bi-weekly drawings. Depending on the jackpot, the lottery numbers would be one of these three difficulties; low (6 numbers 1 letter) medium (5 numbers, 3 letters) and high (five letters). When a participant purchases a ticket, they enter their wallet address. The winners address will be displayed upon winning, as well as the winning numbers (And the transaction ID's for the 90% and 10%). If enough people are interested, I'll post again when I'm done. I'll do a trial one that starts with a 20 DCR jackpot with 1 DCR tickets.
Of course, I thought that was obvious? Websites, especially non-real-money gambling, require upkeep and licensing. Is that clear now?
Personally, I'm not a big fan of them. Any lottery really. That's the problem with being a mathematician, you can't enjoy games of chance because you know just how hard you're being screwed. But a few questions for those who do: 1) Who would be the third party? Who would know the passphrase? Obviously someone will have to or you won't be able to get the funds out to the winners. 2) Who are you? You are asking people to send you DCR. These sorts of enterprises require a lot of trust from your users. I like your idea of posting winners and numbers, but what about the backend? How can you prove you don't have access to the wallet? How can you prove the authenticity of this third party? Who do people contact for disputes? 3) In the event of a hack and loss of coins, what is your plan? Will you reimburse from your profit? How can you prove you were hacked and not just using it as an excuse to siphon funds? *cough*Mt Gox*cough* 4) Will payout occur only for a jackpot (all numbers/letters correct) or will you be using tiers? 5) What will happen to coins in the lottery? Will you be using them for PoS? If so will the rewards be put back into the jackpot or do they become your profit (on top of the 5%)? How long will it take for a winner to receive their payout? For those who are interested, here's the odds: low (6 numbers 1 letter) - 1 in 1,000,026 medium (5 numbers, 3 letters) - 1 in 117,576 high (five letters) -1 in 11 881 376 You might want to rethink that middle one.
1) The third party would have to be a trusted member or developer willing to do this, because there is currently no escrow or reliable service of the sort. 2) No matter what I say here, there will always be skeptics. Can't really make anyone happy with this one can I. 3) If the jackpot is hacked, I may insure ticket purchase up to a relatively small amount. Keep in mind that exchanges (like bleutrade and bittrex) have no insurances in place in case of a hack. 4) The payout is only released for the jackpot winner. 5) I thought about PoS, but that isn't really an option (if the winner matches the code while coins are PoS locked, things may get messy). If the jackpot was staked, I would add it to the winnings and it would still be considered part of the jackpot. Regardless, it looks like very few people are interested. I'll think of something else to spend my time on. Hopefully something useful.