Crypto Lotteries Explained: How They Work + Their Pros and Cons 

At this point, it’s practically guaranteed that you’ve heard about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. But what about crypto lotteries? If you haven’t, then this article is a must-read for you because it explains everything you need to know about them so that you can place your first bet and, if you get lucky, win a crypto fortune. 

What Are Crypto Lotteries?

As their name implies, crypto lotteries are lotteries played with cryptocurrencies. While the basic rules of the game remain the same (you buy a ticket, wait for the lottery game to start, and discover how much you’ve won), the foundation on which crypto lotteries are built is very much different. 

Here are a few differences between traditional and crypto lotteries: 

• Instant distribution of winnings: Cryptocurrency transactions are peer-to-peer, which means they don’t have to go through a centralized processor to be confirmed. As a result, winnings can be distributed instantly and directly—no need to wait days or even weeks for you to enjoy your money. 
• Worldwide availability: In many countries around the world, lottery games are heavily regulated and sometimes even banned entirely. Fortunately for players who live in those countries, crypto lotteries are completely online, so they can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of where they’re located.  
• Fairness and transparency: Cryptocurrencies are powered by blockchain technology. Because a blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and oftentimes public digital ledger, it provides crypto lottery players with fairness and transparency, helping ensure that winnings are distributed fairly. 

As you can see, crypto lotteries offer several key advantages over traditional lotteries, which is why so many lottery players have become deeply interested in them. 

Pros and Cons of Crypto Lotteries 

Pros

• Transactions are processed instantly
• No need to go through a centralized payment processor 
• Available in countries around the world 
• Low ticket prices
• Fairness and transparency 

Cons

• Cryptocurrencies, in general, attract shady individuals 

How Do Crypto Lotteries Work?

If you’ve never played a crypto lottery before, we have good news for you: placing your first bet could hardly be any easier, and the entire process can take less than five minutes. Here’s what you typically have to do: 

Step 1: Pick a Crypto Lottery  

Today, crypto lottery players have many great options to choose from. Crypto lotteries like FortuneJack, Lottoland, DuckDice, and CryptoGames have been around for a long time, and their reputation has been verified by countless players. 

When selecting a crypto lottery, the most important thing is its ability to meet your own personal needs. If you’re attracted by the idea of winning millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency, then you should focus your attention on larger lotteries with huge jackpots. 

Regardless of whether you’re playing for fun or to hit the jackpot, you should always assess the lottery’s functionality and customer support responsiveness before you really commit and put all your eggs in one basket. 

Step 2: Create an Account 

Next, you need to create an account. Whereas traditional lotteries require players to submit heaps of personal information because they are required to comply with many different laws and regulations, crypto lotteries often ask for just an email address, and some don’t ask for any information at all. 

Why? Because they don’t need to. Because of their online nature, crypto lotteries can store all player information in an HTTP cookie and access it as needed. As long as the cookie is available, you can come back without having to log in with an email address and password. 

Of course, it’s a good idea to create an actual account if you would like to keep using the same crypto lottery otherwise you could lose access to your funds just by wiping your browsing history clean. 

Step 3: Deposit Cryptocurrency 

Back in the day, there were quite a few free crypto lotteries, but those have become fairly rare. If you would like a chance to win a nice sum of money, you will have to deposit at least some amount cryptocurrency so that you can purchase a lottery ticket. 

The cryptocurrencies most commonly accepted by crypto lotteries include: 

• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Cash
• Ethereum 
• Litecoin
• Dodgecoin 

Keep in mind that cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, so the value of deposited cryptocurrency funds may change dramatically over time. That can be either good or bad news, depending on whether it goes up or down, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the cryptocurrency market and learning to anticipate its changes. 

Step 4: Place Your Bet 

With an account opened and funds deposited, it’s time for you to place your first bet. Your crypto lottery site of choice will likely have a broad range of games to choose from, with ticket prices typically starting at less than $1. 

While crypto lotteries let you purchase as many tickets as you want, for as much money as you’re willing to deposit, you should never play with money that you can’t afford to lose. It’s a good idea to set aside an exact amount of money to play with each month or week and absolutely avoid playing with any other money, even if the temptation to hedge your bets becomes extremely strong.  

Step 5: Check if You’ve Won 

Crypto lotteries rely on sophisticated hashing algorithms and complex random number generators to draw the winning numbers. As a player, you don’t need to worry about how your platform of choice works as long as you know that the platform is reputable. 

Checking if you’ve won will likely involve clicking a single button. If you learn that your ticket contains winning numbers, you can expect the funds to be added to your account without any delay. At that point, you should create an account (if you haven’t done so already) otherwise you could lose access to your wallet just by wiping your browsing history or accidentally formatting your hard drive, as we’ve explained earlier.  

(Hopefully) Step 6: Withdraw Your Winnings 

If you’ve got lucky and won, you can now go ahead or withdraw your winning to a cryptocurrency wallet of your choice. The withdrawal process should be instantaneous, but it may take a short while for the transaction to be confirmed. 

Alternatively, you could leave the funds in your crypto lottery wallet and use them to keep playing. That’s up to you to decide, but it’s always a good idea to keep your cryptocurrency funds in multiple wallets since hackers are willing to go above and beyond to gain access to them. 

What Are the Odds of Winning a Crypto Lottery?

That depends on which crypto lottery you choose. For example, the odds of winning LottoLand’s Bitcoin jackpot (starting from 1000 BTC) are 1 in 13,9 million. To put this number into perspective, the recent Powerball drawing in Tennessee was 1 in 292.2 million. In other words, LottoLand’s Bitcoin jackpot is much easier to win. 

What’s more, you don’t even have to get all six numbers right to win a prize: 

As you can see, one in seven tickets wins a prize, which means that you’re basically guaranteed to experience the thrill of winning a lottery (even if it’s just a small tease) after a short while of playing.