Show HN: Jackpocket- Buy your $586M Mega Millions ticket right from your phone | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Jackpocket- Buy your $586M Mega Millions ticket right from your phone

jackpocket.com

27 pointspjsullivan329 comments

How does this work? It's my understanding that you must have a physical ticket to claim your lottery winnings. How does that work with a mobile app? And what's to prevent Jackpocket from using my winning ticket to claim the winnings themselves?

Not really clear on the legality of anything here. I'm trying to "imagine the possibilities", as the site says, and I'm coming up with a lot of questions that aren't addressed. Where's a FAQ?

FAQ isn't available quite yet, we'll be adding one soon. Jackpocket buys the lottery ticket on your behalf, and actually sends you a digital image of it. Your trust, and a whole bunch of fancy legal docs are what prevents us from cashing in your tickets. If you do happen to win, we retrieve the money for you, credit your Jackpocket account, and allow you to withdraw the money directly into a bank account of your choosing. Happy to answer any other questions you might have.

Hey there,

Just wanted to offer some feedback that you may want to address this issue more clearly. Being frank, I would not feel comfortable gambling the (insanely unlikely) $500+ million jackpot with a relatively faceless entity, especially without confronting this issue of trust directly. Although the terms page is quite readable and free of legalese, the idea of allowing someone to purchase such a high-value item on my behalf makes me skittish.

Yeah, that's not cool. I wouldn't trust anyone with a $50 million piece of paper that I won, contract or not.

Good luck, though.

Many people wouldn't trust themselves with a piece of paper worth that much. At least with Jackpocket the evidence is digitized before the drawing. What's interesting is that currently that piece of paper is the only thing linking lottery players with their numbers. Jackpocket actually creates a layer that makes it more secure.

And I should trust you -- someone with direct access to the database -- to not change the user_id on that row in the DB that says that ticket is mine? To trust that your digitized "evidence" is actually real? How do I know you haven't bought 10,000 tickets with our money and scanned one ticket and assigned that to everyone, keeping the other 99,999 for yourself?

I swear I'm not paranoid, but we're talking about potentially millions of dollars. You only have to have one of your customers win once and then disappear with the money. If the ticket is safely on my person or in my wallet or in my safe deposit box or in a safe in my home or somewhere where I have direct access to it, then I can say with certainty that it's my ticket and not anyone else's -- and I don't have to trust anyone else with it.

I certainly trust myself more than a couple of guys with an iOS app, yes?

Edit: I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just asking what I consider to be legitimate questions -- questions that you are not answering on your live site and questions whose answers are (and should be) more complicated than "trust us."

I'll do my best to answer your question. We already have a couple hundred users who are quite comfortable trusting us with their lottery tickets, some have won, but clearly not the millions you're referring to. I would not expect everyone to trust us, especially so early in the game. What we plan on doing is making our legal documents clear and simple, building a recognizable brand that is closely tied with the lottery (state/goverment), and maybe building some more security layers and ways for users to feel comfortable with the process. At the end of the day, earning the trust of the Jemaclus's of the world will be tougher. If all the things I outlined above happen, then it'll likely be much easier. So, yes you should trust us, maybe not now, but someday. Thanks for the feedback.

Actually a lot more secure then buying anywhere else. You actually get a digital receipt timestamped with your ID attached to it. Not to mention a picture of your ticket. You end up loosing the winning ticket and its anyone's to claim.

I disagree.

Just because I have a picture of a lottery ticket doesn't mean it's my ticket, and it's not gonna be good enough to take in and claim the reward myself. I still have to trust you to do that for me.

And quite frankly, I don't. I don't know you, and I have zero reason to believe that you would follow through on your promise, especially when there are potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. You're gonna have to come up with a better answer to my question than "trust us."

I think you actually understand contractual law. We've made an agreement that the ticket belongs to you, and back that agreement up with documentation showcasing that its been purchased and its been purchased on your behalf. You are the rightful owner. I would be impossible for us to cash it in. Any court of law would uphold that the ticket is yours. We have no ability to not keep our promise.

Cue legislative response to disruptive use of technology in 3... 2... 1...!

I love apps like this - way cool, and will cause some politicos to flounder and babble and froth as they seek to rationalize and apologize for current rights patent.

We've been super quiet about this and are not really ready to ship yet (bunch of bugs) but decided to let you guys give it a try since the Mega Millions is so big.

If you're on iOS you can use the code "money" to try it

I'm getting "Location must be enabled to use JackPocket" here in VA on my S3 running ICS. Looks like it's attempting to get a GPS lock and timing out before it gets one. Any reason you all need fine location data and coarse won't cut it?

Cool idea though- I'll definitely give it a shot if it starts working!

Totally should have mentioned this earlier. For now we're only going to be supporting NY lotteries, that's where our tickets are bought. In order to comply with current lottery rules, you have to be physically in the state of the lottery you're playing. We use GPS fencing to accomplish this.

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Yes for right now we're only in NY. Would love to open it up in New Hampshire someday.

Good luck with the business Pete. Had no idea you were on HN!

- Besto

Is it a subscription delivery service like this: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/04/lottogopher-com...

Hey thanks for the comment! It is not a subscription delivery service as of yet. We first wanted to nail down the basics of allowing users to select their numbers and get their lottery tickets from the comfort of their own homes.

Showed this to my aunt and she loved it (has been playing lotto for over a decade). If they can leverage push notifications effectively and find a subscription model that works, I think it could be big.

Disclosure: I won $1 on this app a few weeks back

This is by far the easiest way to buy lotto tickets. I once bought a ticket from a bodega that won a few numbers and I lost it. This way I will never lose a ticket again.

Hey HN CTO of Jackpocket here. This has been an incredibly fun project to build. If anyone has any technology questions, happy to answer them best I can.

Tip: link to the google play store. Don't 'text me' a link. I can install it from the pc. You lost me right there.

We'd love to send you to the Play store, but unfortunately the Google Play store is very strict regarding gambling. Interestingly enough, the Apple store isn't as strict. Go figure. Thanks for the comment!

Gotcha.. that makes sense.. even a link to an apk w/ screen shots though or a QR code would be much preferred. Having a box to enter my phone # makes me think I'm going to get spammed and I immediately click off.

I was unable to use it. It told me location access needed to be enabled even though it already was. Nexus 4 running KitKat.

Hi Splendor, I'm the Android developer for it and I'm sorry to hear you're having issues with the geo-fencing, but I will try to help you out. Currently, the application uses Google Play Services (a connective library for Google Play's APIs) in order to grab your location to make sure you're in New York.

If you're getting an error saying that Location must be enabled in order to use it, it means that your device claims the GPS Provider, the Network Provider, AND the Passive Provider are ALL disabled when attempting to grab your location.

If you're sure they're enabled in your settings (where the App's error message should take you), I would try restarting the device.

If the issue still persists, please shoot me an email at matt@jackpocket.com and I will help you get it working

Really love how it sends me a push if my numbers hit. No need to check my tickets at the bodega scanner which never works.

Really simple way to buy lottery tickets. Have been using it myself! Good job.

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