[Jemaclus]

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?

[lshemesh]

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.

[rybosome]

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.

[Jemaclus]

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.

[lshemesh]

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.

[Jemaclus]

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."

[lshemesh]

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.

[pjsullivan3]

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.

[Jemaclus]

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."

[pjsullivan3]

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.