Blockchain technology could be the key to solving Midwest lotto fraud

Winning the lotto is a dream that everyone can relate to. However, being scammed out of your money due to lotto fraud is a nightmare nobody wants to deal with. For residents of the Midwest, this is an unfortunate reality. According to StartupBeat, earlier this year, an IT worker at the agency which coordinates lotteries between five states, including Iowa, was rigging the winning numbers and encouraged family and friends to buy the tickets before they were announced. In response to this, some startups are now actively working to stop this type of fraud, such as Lotto Exposed, which has conducted over 10,000 online reviews of lottery services throughout the past decade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtRoKXBGi_o And this benevolent startup isn’t the only threat for fraudulent lotteries. Blockchain technology is rapidly changing the level of trust and security across numerous industries, and it appears that lotteries are no exception. We have witnessed this across many different startups looking to bring greater security, ease, and transparency to this fraud-riddled industry. “The ReadyPlayGo platform will not only offer a broad selection of games – from traditional casino-type games and lotteries to the increasingly popular genre of social games and games of skill – but also fast money deposits and withdrawals, security, guaranteed fairness and provability, and all the advantages of blockchain technology,” states a recent PR from ReadyPlayGo, the world’s first real money gaming app store which uses blockchain technology. Other startups have set their sites on focusing solely on lotteries, supported using blockchain, such as LuckyToken, “the first block-chained lottery, which excludes any manipulations with money. Transparency, anonymity, accessibility, and ability to track funds are the advantages of LuckyToken.” As blockchain continues to evolve within our society, it is becoming increasingly clear that transparency across industries will become stronger than ever. After all, this is the same technology which has given birth to cryptocurrencies, a technology and asset which has skyrocketed in value over the past few years, due to the consumer faith in blockchain supporting it. In light of this, we might expect a similar rise in faith for the lotto industry, once rife with fraud.

Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company