How to buy lottery tickets with Bitcoin

Before you start

• You must be 18 or older and it must be legal where you live.
• Decide your budget first. Each ticket costs $5.
• Have a little extra Bitcoin to cover the network fee, which depends on how busy Bitcoin is.
• Use an email address you can open. Your ticket numbers are sent there.

Step by step

1. 1Open the Buy tickets page and choose how many tickets you want. The total is shown in dollars.
2. 2Enter your email, tick the age confirmation and press "Pay with crypto".
3. 3You are taken to a secure payment page run by Plisio. Choose Bitcoin as the coin.
4. 4The page shows an exact amount of BTC and a Bitcoin address, usually with a QR code and a countdown.
5. 5In your wallet or exchange, send exactly that amount to that address. Copy and paste, or scan the QR code. Do not type it by hand.
6. 6Wait for the payment page to show it was detected, then confirmed. Do not close it until you see a success message, although you can close it after paying.
7. 7Check your email for your order number and lottery numbers.

Send the exact amount. If you send much less, the payment can fail. If you send from an exchange, remember the exchange takes its own withdrawal fee, so withdraw the amount shown plus the fee.

How long it takes

Bitcoin produces a block about every ten minutes, and payment providers usually wait for at least one confirmation. A payment can be confirmed in a few minutes or take an hour when fees are low and the network is busy. That is normal.

The draw closes on Sunday at 20:00 UTC. Pay well before that. A payment confirmed after the close enters the next draw instead.

Fees

Bitcoin's network fee depends on demand, not on the amount you send, so a small payment can carry a relatively large fee. For a $5 or $10 purchase, the fee can be a visible share of the cost. If that bothers you, consider paying with a cheaper coin such as a stablecoin on a low-fee network.

Common mistakes

• Sending to an old or different address. Always use the one on the current payment page.
• Sending after the timer expires. If that happens, contact support with your order number and the transaction ID.
• Using the wrong network, for example sending Bitcoin Cash to a Bitcoin address.
• Closing the page before paying and then sending money to an old address.

After you pay

You receive an order number that starts with ORD- and one lottery number per ticket, such as CD-7K3M9-QXA2B. Put either on the Track page to see the status. If no email arrives within an hour of a confirmed payment, check spam and then contact us with your order number.

A realistic timeline

On a busy network with a low fee, confirmation can take longer. Leave plenty of time before the Sunday cut-off.

Choosing a fee in your wallet

Most Bitcoin wallets offer low, medium and high fee options. A higher fee gets you into the next block more reliably. For a ticket purchase, medium is usually fine unless the draw closes soon, in which case pay the higher fee. Check the amount in your own currency before confirming. If a wallet offers "replace by fee", you can raise the fee on a pending transaction that is taking too long.

Checking your payment on a block explorer

1. 1Copy the transaction ID from your wallet or exchange.
2. 2Paste it into a Bitcoin block explorer.
3. 3Check that the recipient address matches the payment page and that the amount is right.
4. 4Look at the number of confirmations. One or more normally means the provider can confirm the payment.