I think my biggest concern with this is that if I won the lottery (lol) that it's the person who actually holds the physical ticket that has the rights to claim it. Since the user doesn't hold the physical ticket how can you assure this doesn't happen?
@jeshalom Hey Jack, totally understand the concern. As with any new service we have to earn the trust of users, so we are more than happy to physically mail the tickets to any customer that requests that to alleviate any anxieties around claiming your winnings.
@jeshalom That all boils down to trust at the end of the day. We firmly believe that as our users win $$, we'll be able to capitalize on their success stories to grow the business. You're more than welcome to swing by our office if you want to grab coffee with us and make sure we're good guys ;)
Hey Guys, I'm the other co-founder at Lottomatic. Thanks so much for testing out the service and we welcome any feedback on how we can make the service better. And a quick heads up, tomorrow's jackpot is $301M so now is a good time to give it a shot :)
@sidviswanathan Hey there! I'm CEO of Jackpocket which is available in NY at jackpocket.com and would love to connect at some point :) Love that you're trying to change the lottery market as well!
@pjsullivan3@sidviswanathan I also highly advise you to watch out with for the $1 processing fee. Nearly every jurisdiction will see this as an additional fee for the ticket and thereby illegal!
Reminds me of JackPocket (http://www.producthunt.com/tech/...) I'm a big fan of invisible apps, but this is one where I think I would prefer an app.. I'm the classic "play twice a year when it's over 400M" kind of lotto player, so I'm hoping JackPocket is in CA by the next big one (They've said coming soon for quite some time now...)
@dhulser That's interesting because I would typically have thought that twice a year scenario would definitely be better suited for an invisible app? Would love to hear more about how you think through this for your own use?
@sidviswanathan You're right! An invisible app probably makes more sense for someone like me that only plays a couple times a year -- that said, there is a trust issue w/ lotto numbers that I think is improved with an app vs invisible app. But I'm glad you're avail in CA, so I think you've got the advantage there. I'll probably give it a go next big one =)
@dhulser Yea totally agree. We deal with that for now by just issuing Quick Pick numbers and sending you a photo of your physical ticket so nothing too complex over SMS. But we'll definitely be working on a native app to offer the more advanced features soon.
Curious to know how this is would compete against JackPocket. I think JackPocket is pretty interesting in that you can buy the ticket in the app, and then it lets you know if you won and how much, and then subsequently deposits your winnings into your bank account (supposedly)
@jeshalom We actually have the same redemption options and we also notify winners proactively as well via SMS when the winning numbers are posted. You can take the winnings as credit for future play, deposit in your bank account and even as a mailed check (minimum win amount for this option). We deliberately chose to go the SMS route for starting off as we feel that the barriers to getting folks to download native apps is getting higher these days. It also allowed us to get to both Android and iOS devices from day 1 without huge development costs.
@sshah1983@jeshalom Hey Samir, CEO of Jackpocket here. Love that you are trying to change the lottery space too but have a ton of questions here. How you guys are dealing with compliance and regulation. How are you doing age verification? How are you confirming location? How are tying a user to a ticket? How are you performing phone verification?
@jeshalom We've disbursed over $50,000 in winnings so far. Over $1500 in winnings last night! Shoot me a note at peter@jackpocket.com if you have any issues.
@pjsullivan3@jeshalom Hey Peter, glad to see you join in on the conversation. We're just getting started on a similar journey as Jackpocket and definitely share a similar vision as you guys. To answer some of your questions: (1) We're using credit cards for age verification and we ask each user to confirm that they are above the age of 18 and a resident of CA during account creation (2) Since our service is based on 2-way SMS conversation, we have phone number verification (3) Each user gets a scanned copy of their exact/real ticket (we'll even write the customer's name on it if they want extra confirmation) (4) Location verification is coming in the next day or so (we'll be using mobile web location sharing/GPS for that).
@sshah1983@jeshalom Cool you guys have to realize that just having a debit or credit card does not verify you are over 18 anymore. Be very careful with the state about this. They take it EXTREMELY serious. We go through state and local records to ensure identities match. I'm also assuming this is only for QuickPicks at the moment?
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It seems most studies indicate that lotteries disproportionately harm lower-income individuals and families. Not to hate on the product itself as it obviously facilitates a 100% legal and state-sanctioned 'game', but it would be good to help spread education to some of these negatively affected players.
I've never played the lotto and not sure how to accomplish that, but worth thinking about in the development of this.
@nelson_keating We hear you. We've implemented a cap on the number of tickets anyone can buy for a given draw but we definitely plan on building a more robust algorithm to detect if someone is playing a bit too much. We could then direct them to resources and applicable treatment programs.
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