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DIY Lottery

Define your own lottery and publish it to the web
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Set up a lottery using any odds and payout scheme you wish. Then invite the world to come play.

Implementation is through a web site like eBay, which keeps time, counts the money, and enforces the rules. You define the odds and the payout scheme when you set up the lottery, and while you want to keep a percent or two for yourself, you have to make it attractive or you won't get any takers. You can even designate a charity for some portion of the proceeds. Then it's up to you to market it. Folks buy tickets online. A lottery definition might look like this:

70% goes to the winner. 28% goes to my charity, Hair Club for Wombats. 1% goes into my hot little pocket, oh yeah. 1% goes to the web site

luxlucet, May 08 2006

Numbers Racket http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Numbers_racket
Now taken over by the government. [Galbinus_Caeli, May 08 2006]

[link]






       How is "set up an on-line lottery" a new idea?
DrCurry, May 08 2006
  

       A) Users establish them at will and define the operating parameters, unlike government-sanctioned lotteries where players have no control over the terms of the game. Just as the web allows everyone to play at being publishers/writers, a web lottery would allow everyone to play at being a gambling mogul.   

       B) Placing lotteries in a central web site/clearinghouse opens up possibilities for browsing and searches: list all lotteries ending today that benefit poor folks where payout is greater than $1m.   

       C) Sex sex sex! and time travel!
luxlucet, May 08 2006
  

       Stupid wombats don't need any more help than what they already get. Prima donnas of the low end of the zoo is what they are.
methinksnot, May 08 2006
  

       Okay, so the idea is really for a central lottery clearing house web site. As GC intimates, you will have to pay a *lot* of attention to the laws on this thing. The government doesn't like competition.   

       Still gets my fishbone. There are altogether too many "build it and they will come" web sites out there already, and the people I know who make their own lotteries on a regular basis have no need of the Internet to run them.
DrCurry, May 08 2006
  

       If all the DIY lotteries are on the same website, the best odds would be obvious to all. Wouldn't the shrewd investor spurn all but the one best?
Texticle, May 09 2006
  

       This interests me. As [Text] says, it would often be a case of people looking for the best odds. But on the other hand, like eBay, you would also be likely to find people who will go for the first lottery that crosses their path, and the odd person who will awste their money on something completely ridiculous.
hidden truths, May 09 2006
  

       I've often thought that opening up my own casino is a good idea, but perhaps a lottery would be even better than that. Hey, it's free money going into my pocket, and the idiots that play the games think it's the other way around.   

       Note: Also, you could win even more money by counterbetting people that they aren't going to win the lottery when they think they will.
quantum_flux, Nov 19 2007
  
      
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