Initial Research into a Player Run Lottery System

I have created what I would call the backbone of a Lottery System that I would be interested in brining to EcoCityCraft. There are many issues with this including the possibility of it being a scam, or a money maker for any administration of the system.

In approaching Andrew, he is okay with players creating such systems. The rules stated by him are:
It must not make the owner/s mega rich
Must always have a winner.
Must be accountable to the owner/s.
Cannot be endorsed by or supported in anyway by ECC.
It is owner risk and player risk to use such a system.
This will be treated as a gambling situation, in which there is no insurance to the buyer or the owner/s.

How will it work?
Players choose to purchase one ticket consiting of four numbers between 1-9 with no duplications. Each ticket is 500 dollars, and can only purchase a maximum of 50 tickets per player.

Posting their interest in a special location they can wait till the end of the week (Saturdays) or pay instantly the required funds for their ticket purchase.

Sunday in game, using a location yet to be determined and built, the lotto draw will commence and and choose four lucky numbers. Any players matching those numbers win their share of a grand pot.

Match 3 numbers and win a portion of a "Match 3" pot.

But Match 2, 1 or no numbers and, I'm sorry you are out of luck for this draw.

Why would I care about this?
Everyone believes that the more money you have the better chance you have at winning. And while this will always be true, because this system uses a number generation system, and has a maximum of tickets being able to be purchased players are not able to brute force a win from this lotto system.

The odds to win is 126 to 1.
(Note: I said 162 before, but the correct odds is 126 to 1 - sorry for the misunderstanding!)

Who will run it?
Myself will run it, and depending on the scale this takes, any employees I find to be required.

WARNING Because this is a gambling game and I am staff, doesn't mean you will always win. Nor does it mean I will favour one over another. Like all gambling games in EcoCityCraft (often called casinos) there is no guarantee you will win, nor any insurance if you lose.

I have more questions? Can I ask you something?
Yes, but please post them here, as I will not respond to them in game or in private messages on the forum.

I believe in a fully open, honest and direct Lotto system, and any questions comments or the like will be treated the same as the system I wish to create - so please ask here!

Thanks all!

 

More data

I've been reviewing every idea I have with this Lotto System, from how things work, to how it could be exploited and ways to prevent/prove that never took place. Here are a few Questions and Answers I have developed to help you and myself ensure this system is protected.

How will this really work - the FULL Process
Buy in
Players opt in to purchase a maximum of 50 tickets. Each Ticket chooses four number from a possible draw of nine. Each ticket costs 500 dollars.

Selecting player numbers
Players will state in a location yet to be finalised how many tickets they want. Using a link similar to this one players are given four numbers from a possible selection of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.

Selecting the Winning Combo
This is the hardest part, how do we prove to you these numbers where chosen, from random, and had different numbers from 1 to 9.

In short, using a system (hopefully with redwire) a dispenser and bridge system will allow us to display, sort into a group and prove each number was present, and what the winning/losing numbers where.

(Hopefully the system will be redwire, but this is subject to change) From a push of a button, the dispenser will fire one number into Chamber A, for a few seconds, Chamber A will display this number and from the first button press will trigger a bridge to open then close to drop that number into Chamber C.

This is repeated till we get to see all four winning number, Push button, display the number, drop the number into Chamber C.

Selecting the Losing Combo
The access to Chamber C is then closed (by use of a secondary bridge). Using the same process above we now display the remaining numbers using this new process:

Push the button, display the number, drop the number into Chamber B.

This then, display all numbers separately (for evidence) proving it was numbers 1-9 in the dispenser and that there was no 'rigging' to cheat players or to cheat admin from any cash prizes.


Selecting Winners
There will be three pots, two of which are winnable by players.

Match 4 numbers - Division 1: Win 70% of the Pot Amount
Match 3 numbers - Division 2: Win 25% of the Pot Amount

Pot A - Non winnable: 5% of the Pot Amount is given to Pot A

From the winnable pots any player/s who receive the correct amount of Matched numbers will share an equal (or close to equal) share of that pot. Two players will receive half each of Match 4, Five players will receive one fifth of the pot and so on.

Why can't I win 'Pot A'?
One of the things that I have to think about is how and why players will want to come to these games. And the first idea is that they need to create a short of fun.

How can a game that is 'old' remain fun? The answer is complex and to make it less complex the simple answer is "future proofing the game".

How does this work then?
The first rule from Andrewkm is quite clear, It must not make the owner/s mega rich. From this Pot A isn't excatly owned by the owners/Admin of the system. We are accountable, and required to put any money that is not part of any fair fees on the games.

This means Pot A is simply held to ensure we can fund other ideas and games.From Pot A comes funds that has to be put back into the Lotto Games in some way.

For example the invention of another game.

One idea I have floating around in my mind is "Lucky Last". That is from the numbers drawn from the dispenser the last number drawn will win the player (for example only) 500 dollars for a $1 buy in.

Another idea is a "Mega Draw", that is any money not spent within a period of time is injected into a special draw on top of the normal lotto, where that money is then included in the pot, as well as the extra tickets that players buy.

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So in short, I really want to create a fully visible and transparent system. I want to be open, honest and forth right with any information, including any mistakes I or any admins of the game/s make.

Thanks to Dropbox I have created publicly accessible files that players can review. That is all documentation for the Lotto will be publicly accessible at all times.

These files are to Demo the Lotto system. They are old there is information that is no longer needed, or changed in some way.

One clear change I will make obvious is that "Match 2" is no longer possible and that the prizes in Match 2 is now what is used in "Pot A" to help future proof this system and help games that may come later.

Each Game will come with a updated budget. This budget proves what funds where received, for what purpose it will be used for, and any expenses paid out - for example, if/when I run out of Redwire, the lotto system will need to cover these costs of buying redwire. Perhaps wood, glass or other resources are required and Owner/Admins don't have enough resources to cover it.

Provided the REAL reason is for lotto and that it is proven and shown to players, this money can help create new games and is always accounted for.

DemoDraw 1
DemoDraw 2
DemoDraw 3
DemoDraw 4
DemoDraw 5

Budget DemoDraw 5

Would this information change your vote above? Would you be willing to make that public? Let me know your views so far!

 

@z1967
This would be cool. Could players set this up?
I recently talked with Andrew about this topic again. I will need to make sure we both understand what the other is implying but my current understanding is that if town owners want something small in their town they are allowed to create town lotteries.

The same rules would apply, you would have to create a system that proves your every action. I do warn you, it is a LOT To setup and control - I almost gave up because the of the formulas needed to even say if a player got a single number correct ^.^

Now my understanding is that anything bigger isn't acceptable. Again this is my understanding of what was said in the small communication update with Andrew - so I may interpret it differently.

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Comment 1:
Also on a side note, anyone who thinks this is a bad idea, one Anok is a mod, witch means he is trust worthy, and two, Andrewkm thought it was a good idea.
Response
just because someone is in a position of authority and power in a server, doesn't mean they are always honest

My two cents:
This is one reason I will make it fully public, the PDF files above are example of what will be available for every draw. Players are able to ensure if I said they had XYZJ numbers they really got that number

Every ticket purchased is visible and sorted by how many winning numbers the ticket has. Each ticket is always named regardless if it was winning or not, the winning numbers of course, and information related to that draw.

There is also a "Budge" PDF that will be made. While the initial building costs are funded by my own cash source, future games if suitable can use Pot A funds. Anything that uses this money is declared. I personally am responsible for those funds.

This doesn't safe guard players, I just hope that I can earn that trust so that all these safe guards are worth it

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@Gwism
I'm wondering how the numbers will be chosen
Like you stated with the question, Andrew wont allow any support for other lotto systems in the ECC Client. For this reason, a fair for all system was sought.

For this I turned to Google, Google knows everything and gave me many links like this:
Lotto Generator

This isn't the link I use, however is the one I make public and will use to demo how numbers are created. The main reason why I didn't want it public is at first I was also going to use the similar link to generate the winning numbers. This was changed however and is now done in game to remove all bias on Owner/Admin part.

While there is currently no reason I can think of to hide the actual link, I am still hesitant to provide it simply because I don't any sort of the "Backbone" of the system to be public - seen is one thing, public interaction is another thing.

So how are numbers given to players?
Well lets say you want to buy 20 tickets, you would pay 10000 and I would sit at the pc all day making the numbers for you using the link above the above information would need to be changed to the following settings:

Lottery Numbers: 4/40
Tickets to Generate: 20
Change the range from 1 to 9

This will then produce the results, this time 20 tickets got:
1 - 1 4 5 9
2 - 2 4 5 7
3 - 1 2 3 5
4 - 1 2 6 9
5 - 2 6 7 9
6 - 1 4 5 6
7 - 2 4 6 8
8 - 3 4 7 9
9 - 1 2 8 9
10 - 2 4 6 9
11 - 1 5 6 9
12 - 4 6 8 9
13 - 1 2 4 6
14 - 5 6 7 9
15 - 1 4 7 9
16 - 4 5 8 9
17 - 1 5 6 9
18 - 2 4 6 9
19 - 6 7 8 9
20 - 1 2 6 8

Next person, same again these are the results:
1 - 2 3 5 6
2 - 1 5 8 9
3 - 1 2 6 9
4 - 1 3 5 6
5 - 1 6 7 8
6 - 1 4 6 7
7 - 4 5 8 9
8 - 3 6 7 8
9 - 4 6 7 9
10 - 1 3 5 6
11 - 1 2 3 9
12 - 1 5 7 9
13 - 5 7 8 9
14 - 2 5 8 9
15 - 1 5 7 8
16 - 1 2 3 8
17 - 3 5 6 8
18 - 1 3 6 7
19 - 4 5 8 9
20 - 2 4 7 8

For now, there is no means of choosing your own tickets, but I do aim at developing a easy way of doing that in the future if it is required by players.

 

This is for sure possible, but all data is public knowledge. This means, the tickets a player has for any draw is visible to anyone that wants to read it. The winning numbers are displayed with the tickets and the number of matches they have.

In the same document that will be public for every draw, is how much each winner will get, and what the total is.

So yes, this is possible, but the evidence will mount against the [lotto] administration if this ever did happen. I personally wouldn't let this happen and would personally pay for any damages done.

It's illegal for any [lotto] administration to directly purchase lotto tickets.

We are unable to stop lotto administrators from purchasing lotto tickets that are part-paid with other people. However in stating this, there is no real reason to believe this would happen. "Lotto Gangs" are better to purchase tickets to their own max, rather than pool tickets into one account. This is another reason why there is a max ticket purchase, and that the max is under a 50% guarantee of winning.

But it does favour those who puts more tickets into the pot. So it does have a bias, and one that is never going to be attempted to be fixed.

The lotto I propose literally does everything possible to remove all bias, and with the critea that all draws are proven each time, means we cannot rig the draws.

We can't change our human nature, that is totally true. But we can make it so that if we act on this bias or otherwise act unfairly, that it is blaring obvious that this happened. And if it does happen, not only will I be pissed, I will close the lotto down. I don't want to make mega money from this, I don't want to lose reputation myself, I want a good balanced and fair lotto system that ECC isn't able to provide (and this isn't trying to dig at or belittle ECC!)