Sulim Malook: Everything You Need to Know About Decentralized Lotto on the Blockchain
Human behaviour and patterns are always changing, however the pandemic has greatly accelerated a shift in human behaviour and trends with regards to digital usage and consumerism. More people are doing more online, including buying goods, ordering food, working patterns, communicating with loved ones, entertaining themselves and more. The blockchain has facilitated this new trend with its many use cases and utilities, while promoting security, lack of human intervention and honesty.
No area least likely to benefit from these advantages is the lottery. The original shift in lottery usage saw the buying of lottery tickets move to online and now in the next major shift, players can use digital currencies and take part in lotteries around the world, which jurisdictionally, they have never been able to participate in before.
We spoke to Sulim Malook, the founder and CEO of Crypto Millions Lotto, to establish everything you need to know about digital lotteries.
What is a digital lottery?
Think about it like this. If you go to a casino, you have to buy chips from the cashier to play. We are a digital lottery, so as you would imagine our games are played with a digital currency. In our case it’s bitcoin. Think of bitcoin as the chips you have to buy to play Crypto Millions Lotto. That’s how we’ve merged crypto and lottery.Crypto Millions Lotto is a digital lottery that allows people to play eight of the world’s biggest lotteries, entirely online using bitcoin.
How do people play?
It’s very simple really. Once they’ve registered, people simply deposit bitcoin to play. After that it’s like any lottery, except instead of buying a physical ticket in a shop, they are selecting the numbers online and the tickets are saved to the player’s account.
Players can take part in any upcoming draws for any of the eight lotteries we offer. We notify all winners by email immediately. Payment of winnings is made within minutes of each lottery draw ending and winnings are all paid in bitcoin. The only exception is when someone is lucky enough to win the jackpot. When this happens, we give them the option to take their winnings in bitcoin or a local currency of their choice.
Does a digital lottery get played on the blockchain, rather than in the traditional manner?
Although we play entirely using bitcoin, our use of the blockchain is limited. We only make use of it when players want to deposit or withdraw bitcoin, to or from their accounts. We don’t use it for anything else.
What problems does the Bitcoin lottery seek to solve?
There are two problems using bitcoin solves. The first is that if you play games across borders using a credit card or any other traditional form of payment, then there are complications and frustrations around whether the payment can be made or if it will be blocked, the exchange rate and payment periods. Using bitcoin removes all of that because it knows no borders.
The second reason is that by operating digitally using bitcoin we avoid a lot of infrastructure costs, including payment processing charges. Having a low cost base allows us to offer bigger jackpots. Our jackpots are bigger than the majority of state-run lotteries and bigger than any of our online competitors.
Does the volatility and insecurity surrounding Bitcoin affect your wins?
No, it doesn’t. Our prizes are not related in any way to the price or performance of bitcoin. In addition, although we pay prizes immediately from our ticket sales, larger jackpots are insured with the world’s leading prize indemnity specialist, before each draw starts. So, whatever is happening with bitcoin, we are able to guarantee that our winners receive bitcoin commensurate with the value of the prizes advertised.
What is a digital lottery affiliate program?
We offer people to promote our lottery and to get amazing rewards for bringing new players. We believe we have an affiliate program that is more attractive than anything on offer anywhere else. Not only does our program offer very attractive commissions, but significantly, it also offers an industry-first commission bonus of 5% of the jackpot won by any player that is referred to the program by an affiliate.
In addition, we support our affiliates by offering any new players they introduce, their first six plays for free (one on each of six international lotteries). There is no requirement to make a deposit first. We believe that is more generous than any other affiliate program, worldwide. Our payout to affiliates is next day, another industry first. The potential for an affiliate is huge with our program. We make payouts in bitcoin, daily for the lottery and 48 hours after the month end for casino games.
The Bottom Line
The world is moving fast, those who are resistant to change, are missing out on some spectacular opportunities only afforded to those who use the internet and the blockchain. This includes for finance, loans and earnings, for gaming, for tokenizing real world assets and prediction markets. A product like the digital lottery opens up the globe to players and is only available to those using Bitcoins.