

Ask HN: what do you think of our idea? - gdhillon

Hi All,<p>Could you please provide feedback and let us know what do you think of our idea? Also, provide feedback on the design?<p>http://jackpotbuddy.com/index.aspx<p>Thanks for your help in advance.
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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.

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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?

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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.

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

Can you explain why?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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CyrusL
I think connor is referring to the expected value of the returns, not just the
odds of winning.

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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.

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vertr
The design looks like a standard wordpress template. And it looks like it
actually is based on your gallery images here:
[https://img.skitch.com/20120128-1gbrkerrmatub6d6c461xku3ht.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20120128-1gbrkerrmatub6d6c461xku3ht.jpg)

As far as the idea goes, it seems like you could come up with something that
finds a better niche in the market than this.

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gdhillon
Click-able: <http://jackpotbuddy.com/index.aspx>

