Is Blockchain-Based Lottery to Intervene the Online Gambling Market?

The Fire Lotto project, founded by Russian entrepreneurs in Cyprus, has launched an online lottery platform that is built on Ethereum smart contracts. Despite its relatively recent emersion on the online gambling market, Firelotto has already started four lottery games on its website and reported to Cointelegraph that initial guaranteed prize pool exceeds $1 mln.

Decentralizing the chances

Selling lottery tickets for no more than $2, the Fire Lotto platform is going to solve the transparency issue on the entire online lottery market. “Fire Lotto can operate as a global Blockchain protocol, but can also be offered to governments of specific countries as a solution to challenges to ensuring a fair lottery,” states the project’s white paper.

According to the Amiko research company's recent marketing report, by 2018, the market size of gambling and lottery online games will grow to €52.98 bln (about $65 bln), as people continue to adapt to technology and online entertainment activities. And of course, the main driver of the industry is a rapidly growing mobile segment.

In total, the lottery industry holds a 29 percent share of the global gambling revenue and is facing challenges due to the growth of the digital economy.

Although the fairness of the game still remains questionable. Is the jackpot winner real? Is lottery truly random? Is the money really accumulated in one pool? The Firelotto team believes that the Blockchain decentralized protocol can offer answers to all these questions.

Fair enough!

According to the startup’s statement, winning numbers are chosen by RNG (random number generator) based on Blockchain technology of Bitcoin, so they are impossible to fake. “The global lottery industry is moving closer to cross-border, high-technology lotteries, and Blockchain technology can be the stepping stone needed for this innovation,” says the project’s team in the paper.

As all lottery parameters are released in open source (GitHub open code), they are accessible and fully transparent 24/7, the company states. And, finally, the decentralized platform provides full autonomy for winners and independence.

The Fire Lotto platform runs on both mobile and PC versions. As for now, four popular lottery games are available for users. Instant lottery Roger’s wheel has a fortune wheel with 21 numbers. It offers bets from 0,007 ETH with coefficient from two to 20. If a user guesses the right number, then he receives his bet multiplied by a chosen coefficient.

There are also three types of draw lottery: 4 of 20, 5 of 36, 6 of 45. “You pick one, buy a ticket and mark numbers. Lotteries are held every six hours. Your winnings are based on the amount of numbers that you’ve guessed,” states the project’s website. According to the company, the minimum guaranteed Prize fund of draw lotteries is over 450 ETH at the moment and it keeps enlarging till it reaches 1,100 ETH.

In March 2018 the Fire Lotto team runs its ICO campaign. The project lures its investors with transparent referral program and 15 percent cashback for each ticket sold. According to the project’s paper, 10 percent commission payments to FLOT token holders provide an endless source of crypto income. The team plans to use the White Label affiliate program bringing up to 50 percent share from the tickets sales revenue to affiliate partners.

Soft cap is $2,000,000 (7,000,000 FLOT tokens) and hard cap is $15,000,000. “In case the soft cap will not be reached all investment payments will be returned to investors wallets,” states the white paper. According to Fire Lotto, the soft cap has been reached within the first week of pre-sale in January 2018.