Congratulations! You’ve finally decided to join the 21st century and go digital with your lottery play. The question is, what is your best online playing option? When you play online you have 2 options to choose from. Either a lottery messenger service or a lotto betting site. Both offer you the full prize amount advertised for the official lottery, but which one will give you the best playing experience? Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know about which online lottery playing option will work best for you!
Lottery Messenger Services
A lottery messenger service, like theLotter, acts as a third-party service for buying lottery tickets. They have the ability to offer tickets for dozens of lotteries by having local offices around the globe. Players simply need to purchase their ticket on the website and after it’s processed, a representative from a local office will go out and physically buy a lottery ticket with the money the customer deposited on their behalf. The ticket is then scanned into your online personal account and the original ticket is put in a secure vault until the draw to ensure it doesn’t get damaged or lost. This is one edge that messenger services have over lottery betting services. The scanned ticket can be used as proof of ticket ownership if the prize is won. This would make the act of a messenger service running away with your prize winnings pointless if you already have the winning ticket in your possession. If you win any prize in the draw, you will immediately get an email and SMS with a win confirmation.
Lottery Betting Services
The other option players have for playing the lottery online is through bet-on websites, like Lottoland. Unlike a lottery messenger service, you do not take part in the actual lottery draw. Instead, players predict the winning numbers drawn and place a wager on the outcome. Players choose the same amount of numbers and win the same prizes if they match these numbers, exactly as if they had been playing the actual game. Another difference is that online lottery betting is defined as a form of gambling and is run by licensed betting firms. They are in no way connected to the lottery draws. This is a way that companies and players can participate in international lotteries without the need to physically buy a ticket. Another advantage of being totally independent of official lottery operators is that companies can offer unique features such as Double Jackpots and other promotions that come with the territory of being an autonomous lottery service.
How to Claim Winnings
Lottery Messenger Service
When you win secondary prizes through a lottery messenger service, the company will claim the winnings on your behalf. After they obtain a receipt from the official lottery operator, the winnings are immediately transferred into your personal account for withdrawal. Larger prizes, such as a jackpot and some secondary prizes, may require winners to retrieve their winnings in person from the official lottery operator. This may entail paying for a flight if you’re coming from abroad. In some cases, services like theLotter may choose to pay for the winner’s travel expenses.
Lottery Betting Service
With a lottery betting company, receiving your winnings for smaller prizes may be quicker compared to messenger service. This is simply because a lottery messenger service works with official lottery operators and therefore, your wins may take time to process. With a lottery betting company, smaller wins are immediately transferred to your bank account from the company’s own funds. Larger prizes may take several weeks to process, seeing as the winnings it needs to pass through the insurance company, the lottery betting company and then finally to your account.
Pay-Outs: How Does a Lottery Betting Service Pay Out Winnings?
Most lottery betting services use an insurance-based model in order to have enough funds to award “lottery prizes”. Instead of customers playing in a draw and acquiring tickets from a retailer, lottery betting agencies forward the wager that the customer places on the draw results to a third-party insurance company. The betting service pays the insurance company a fee for every wager in order to counterbalance the risk if a large lottery prize like a jackpot is ever won. The insurance company will compensate the lottery betting company which will then be transferred to the player. In the case of smaller wins, the betting company usually pays out the prize from their ticket sales revenue. One thing that may make people nervous about betting services is that using an insurance-based model really requires a greater deal of trust in the company you’re betting with. This is because no physical lottery tickets are purchased from any official lottery operator. So, if you happen to win a draw you bet on and the company refuses to pay, the lottery commission will not step in to help you. This can happen if your lottery site ran into financial trouble or failed to keep its insurance policy up to date, or are simply trying to scam you. With this in mind, successful lottery betting websites such as Lottoland and many others have never had complaints regarding this issue.
Earning Money
How Does a Lottery Messenger Service Earn Money?
Lottery messenger services earn income from charging a service fee for the tickets they sell. This fee goes towards paying staff and maintaining the quality of the website. Some messenger services may take a commission when a player wins a prize, other websites like theLotter, earn solely the service fee. So instead of thinking of it as expensive tickets, think of it as a small fee for a service that can lead to a big win.
How Does a Lottery Betting Service Earn Money?
Similar to lottery messenger services, lottery betting websites increase their ticket prices in order to gain profit. One difference, and disadvantage, of playing with a lottery betting service is that when jackpots are high, there will be more players and consequently, more winners. For Insurance companies this is a risk and therefore, they increase their premiums. As a result of the increase, lottery betting companies are forced to raise ticket prices in order to be able to pay for the insurance policies and still remain profitable. So while tickets may seem cheaper on lottery betting sites, the prices are not always consistent and can fluctuate with the jackpot prize.
Where is All Your Money Really Going?
When you pay for your lottery ticket, you don’t usually think about where your money is going. Like all lottery operations, ticket sales revenue goes towards paying out winners and keeping up company operations. With lottery messenger services and lottery betting services, this is where one of the biggest differences lies. Lottery betting service retains all the profits from the ticket sale. They use the tickets sale revenue to pay for insurance policies for their customer’s wagers and to run the operation. Ticket messenger services on the other hand only retain the service fee they add onto the lottery ticket. Because the cost of the ticket is actually going towards paying for a real lottery ticket form a retailer, the money is actually going, in addition to the lottery prizes, towards good causes. A large amount of sales revenue, depending on ticket sales, the state or country’s regulations, go towards social and economic programs that benefit the community, such as education, veteran and elderly assistance, the environment and more.
| Messenger | Bet-on | |
| Scanned Tickets | Yes | No |
| Ticket Price | Higher, but with a consistent price. | Lower, but fluctuates with the jackpot. |
| Bonuses and Promotions | A limited amount of bonuses and discounts. | Bigger and more diverse discounts and bonuses as a result of being totally independent of lottery operators |
| Claiming Secondary Prizes | Transferred immediately through the service’s personal funds. | Transferred from the lottery operator to Messenger service and then to your online account. |
| Claiming Jackpots | Players may need to travel abroad to personally claim winnings from the official lottery operators. This process may take several weeks. | The money is paid to the betting service by the insurance company and then transferred to the winner. This process may take several weeks. |
| Security | Most services give proof of ticket ownership and are connected to official lottery operators. | No official lottery ticket is provided and there are no ties to any official lottery operator. Dependant on insurance company policies for payouts. |
| Where You Money Goes | Partially to the messenger service. Money that pays for the official lottery ticket goes towards lottery prizes in addition to social, economic and environmental programs. | All ticket revenue goes solely to the lottery betting service |
| Services | theLotter, WinTrillions, IceLotto, PlayHugeLottos | Lottoland, WinTrillions |
Both options give you great advantages and a few disadvantages. You just have to decide which of the two great options you want to try your luck with. You can choose to play with messenger service, like theLotter, and purchase your tickets from a lottery retailer and participate in the official lottery draw and have your lottery prize money paid out directly by official lottery operators. Your other option is to play with a lottery betting service by placing a wager on the outcome of the draw and being able to win the equivalent amount in prize money or more, with additional deals and promotions they can offer as a totally independent lottery service. The choice is yours!
Most frequently asked questions
Lotto betting services allow lottery fans to place bets on the results of top lotteries around the world. A physical ticket is not purchased, but the winning numbers are those drawn by the official lottery operator.
Yes, as long as you use the services of a reliable lotto betting services provider. Make sure you check the online reputation before you register with one of the betting-on services.
The main difference between the two types of online lottery services providers is that lottery messengers purchase the ticket on the customer’s behalf, while lotto betting services offer you the possibility to place a wager on the result of a lottery draw.
It depends on the value of the jackpot. Lottery messenger services have a fixed service fee, but lotto betting prices may vary depending on the value of the jackpot. Since their service is insurance-based, the higher the jackpot, the bigger the risk; hence, the cost increases to cover the higher risk.