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Ask HN: what do you think of our idea?

6 points by gdhillon ↗ HN
Hi All,

Could you please provide feedback and let us know what do you think of our idea? Also, provide feedback on the design?

http://jackpotbuddy.com/index.aspx

Thanks for your help in advance.

16 comments

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saurabh
>Playing lottery in groups can increase your chances of winning by 4000%

Can you explain why?

gdhillon
Why? You buy one lottery ticket by yourself then you only have 1 chance of winning. If you play in a group of 10-20 friends, then your chances just went up by 100's of percentage. Hope this help?
kls
I think you have a good niche, I don't think it will be huge but it could definitely provide a good income to a small team.

That being said, there are some trust issues that you will have to deal with and you should address them right up front. Basically right after a prospective users knows what you do, the next question in their mind is going to be how do I know I wont get screwed? you will have to solve for this problem.

I looks like you are letting them form their own groups, but I would assume for it to be truly powerful, users will eventually have to group up with people they don't know. Some people are going to want to pull in large number groups and their network will not be able to support that.

You should also track winnings if it is possible, so that you can build a winner rating for people. While it may not be a relevant state gambling is based of a lot of emotion so emotionally people with a winning record will be looked at as having a badge of honor and will be sought out to pool with.

You should research the laws to see if you can be a purchasing entity for tickets, that you then hold in pools for groups. You should check with state lotteries to see if you can become a retailer of tickets, if so you could build a revenue stream by selling tickets into a trust for pools. I would disclose any quick pick type numbers selected by the pool before the lottery drawings so their can be no question as to transparency of what is being purchased by the pool. Further, a system where you can estimate winnings would be valuable, basically taking the payout of the lottery and splitting it by the amount of people in the pool that way people get a good view of what joining a pool will return if it wins. I would use real immediate payout dollars and not the funny math the states use for advertisement.

anonhacker
Also since one person is getting paid and then paying others, you will lose a lot of money in taxes on every payment. Are you planning to deal with that and how?
gdhillon
I'm thinking to let users pay the overhead of each transaction or setup a monthly plan that will allow only certain # of transaction per month. Regarding taxes, I havn't thought about that yet, maybe I can have group users directly pay the person who formed the group.
gdhillon
Kls, Thank you for the great feedback, we really appreciate it. We will definitely look at your suggestions.Regarding trust issues, everyone will get a copy of the ticket before the draw. Also, group will have name of each user who participated and the numbers they selected. I have looked at the state laws and there are few where lottery tickets cannot be purchased online (which we are not).
jnorthrop
On the issue of trust. You are asking people to give the site their personal information, but you have no privacy policy -- a big no-no. And, given your statement above, anyone could join a group and then collect the information of the other participants -- another no-no. Technically, in the US, there is nothing illegal about that but you really should at least disclose that to users before they sign up.

Briefly, best practices would suggest you let anyone signing up know exactly how you intend on storing, sharing and using the information they provide. You should also get explicit consent to do so when they sign up.

My email is in my profile. Feel free to contact me directly if you want a clearer explanation.

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joshontheweb
Wouldn't it be more beneficial overall if you threw everyone into the same pool. Then the win chance as high as possible and anytime anyone wins, everyone wins? I don't really gamble, but if I did I'd try it as long as I felt sure I could trust the service.
gdhillon
Throwing everyone in a same pool could be a problem. One lottery cannot cross state-lines. Also, It would get complicated to claim the prize when 100's of people are involved.
connor
The ideas is little weak- playing the lottery in a group does increase the chance you will be a winner, but the risk/reward ratio remains the same. I'm not sure I get it.

The design is a good start, keep pushing it.

gdhillon
Connor, actually your risk of loosing too much money is also reduced. Because In a group you will not be pooling as much money as you would if you play alone. For example, if you play alone you might buy $10 worth of lottery. But if you play in a group of 10, you can get away with playing with only $2 and still have double with chances of winning. I'll add this to the landing page and hopefully it will make sense?
CyrusL
I think connor is referring to the expected value of the returns, not just the odds of winning.
AznHisoka
Yep, There's no free lunch. Rephrasing it to make it sound sexier still won't improve anything. It's the same as the Martingale strategy - there's no free lunch.