Mobile Lottery Ticket App JackPocket Now Accepts Bitcoin
Lottery ticket app Jackpocket has announced a new payment method for users to purchase Powerball tickets with their smartphones, with bitcoin.
Jackpocket made the announcement yesterday in the lead-up to its record-setting $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot. The jackpot is a full $600 million more than the previous record-holder from March 2012 when ‘Mega Millions’ was drawn for a prize of $656 million.
Jackpocket was launched in 2015 and is a lottery ticket purchasing app for several lotteries offered in the state of New York.
Stating that the goal is to “create a more efficient lottery platform” while announcing the addition of bitcoin as a payment service, Peter Sullivan, CEO of Jackpocket claimed to take a “bullish” approach to “cryptocurrencies and the blockchain in general.” He points to the cryptocurrency and its underlying technology as a means to help bring Jackpocket into the future.
In a Medium post, he stated:
Our goal at Jackpocket is to create a more efficient platform. This means reducing friction and providing more options for players…and ensuring the lottery itself is more safe and secure.
Utilizing Bitcoin is one step in [the] right direction to accomplishing our goal.
Sullivan also noted the company’s foray into looking for new and innovative ways to process payments after “limitations and heavy regulations” that come from current payment processing solutions when seeing transactions in large numbers. While claiming to move to a new credit card processor, he cites Bitcoin as a ready solution to even circumvent the “slow and tedious” process of migrating to a new credit card processing channel.
The CEO stated that the company is opening itself to a new demographic of lottery players after accepting bitcoin. He further opined that bringing in Bitcoin holders ensures “a more affluent and tech-savvy” consumer will look to purchase lottery tickets.
Citing various hurdles for e-commerce merchants taking micro-transactions with traditional payment methods, he added, “Bitcoin provides us the opportunity to take small transactions and we’re excited to bring the experience into our native checkout in the near future.”
Image from Shutterstock.
