In 2007, a group of university students teamed up and decided to play the lottery together. But when they failed to collect money from everyone by the ticket cut-off time, the group began rethinking the way that they played together, and LottoByText.com was born. Owned and operated by Bitstacker Ltd., the site offers a unique take on how to take part in a lottery syndicate. In this LottoByText.com review, we will look at how the site works and whether or not it is worth trying out.
How Does It Work?
How this site works is one of the best things about it. This is because of the strange nature in which the founders thought of running a lottery syndicate. To begin, you will need to register a player account using all the necessary information that you would use when signing up on any other online lottery website. Doing this will gain you five free lines to the next upcoming EuroMillions draw.
The numbers of these five lines (and all other lines played through the site) are chosen using a random number generator and are then sent to your mobile phone via text message. For this reason, it is imperative to provide a working contact number when registering.
After you have claimed your five free lines, you will need to select a membership subscription offer that you would like. This is compulsory if you received the five free lottery lines, as acceptance of those lines of play means acceptance of a subscription membership. There are three different subscription offers that each offers various benefits.
The first option (Starter) costs £4 per week and offers five lines of EuroMillions for both the Tuesday and the Friday draw. The second option (Pro) gives you ten lines for each of the two EuroMillions draws every week and costs £7. The final and most expensive option (VIP) costs £15 per week and gives you 25 lines in the Friday EuroMillions draw and 25 lines in the Saturday UK Lotto draw. Each of these membership options also automatically enters you into a monthly prize draw to win £100 that is hosted by the site.
Is LottoByText.com Legit or a Scam?
As a general rule, we believe that any site that manages to exist over a certain number of years is legitimate and can usually be trusted. However, this is a rule that we may reserve applying to this site. When searching online, there are shocking reviews from players who have used the site and either never received their lottery numbers, never been able to claim prizes despite having winning numbers, or been overcharged continuously even when trying to cancel their subscription.
It is not just this, however. When looking at the fine print in the terms and conditions of the site, it appears that the site is not even the one hosting the syndicates. Instead, a company named Groupify Ltd. is the syndicate manager of all the memberships offered. This would generally not be a problem except for the fact that to claim a prize you will have to contact LottoByText, who will then contact Groupify, who will then contact the lottery. All this creates completely unnecessary extra steps, and it would be simpler just to enter a syndicate from any other lottery website that offers them.
Lotteries Available
There are only two main lotteries that the site supports—UK Lotto and EuroMillions. This is purely because the site is a British site and is registered in England. While this does not necessarily limit it to UK lotteries, it does make sense that it supports its local lotteries rather than branching out across the world—at least for now.
User Experience
Aside from the scathing user reviews and the ridiculous terms and conditions, the website developed by LottoByText.com is actually surprisingly great. The site is modern and certainly will not leave you feeling upset after looking at it for hours. It is also fluid and responsive and loads quickly. We also love the small animation that outlines each menu item when you hover your mouse pointer over it.
LottoByText.com Extras
Aside from allowing you to enter its ridiculous membership subscriptions, the site does offer a few additional extras. These include:
Reward Points: Reward points are granted each time you log into the site and make use of the site features. These reward points cannot be exchanged for any money but can be used to play some of the instant games offered by the site’s Store.
Bonus Credit: Bonus credit is a virtual currency used by the website that replaces having actual money on your player account. If you are due any winnings, you can choose to have them paid out in bonus credit rather than cash. Doing this is said to almost quadruple your winnings and will load your player account with bonus credit. This can then be used to purchase tickets on the site or pay your weekly membership.
Store: Aside from the membership options, the site also allows the sale of individual tickets through its store. We assume that these tickets form part of a syndicate, although there is nowhere on the site that actually states this. In addition, the store hosts a small variety of instant games that you can play either for free or using reward points. These games allow you to win real cash that will be credited to your player account.
Payment/Withdrawal Options
It appears that the only payment and withdrawal options available on the site are debit and credit card, which we assume will need to be either Visa or MasterCard. This method will be used both for payments you will make to the site (e.g. for your membership) and for withdrawal requests when you have winnings owed to you.
How to Claim Your Winnings
According to the terms and conditions of the website, you will need to request your winnings if you see that you are a winner. This can be done via the website and will send a request to Groupify Ltd. Apparently, Groupify will then ensure that your winnings are paid out within a space of 14 days from your claim. However, this is only applicable to claims under the value of £500.
For any claims over this amount, you will need to contact the LottoByText customer service centre and follow their instructions on how to claim your prize. Again, none of this makes sense, as so many other sites have a much more streamlined system that does not require even a fraction of this amount of admin.
Customer Support
The site offers a FAQ section that is—to be kind—laughable. We honestly don’t know why the FAQ section of the site even exists, and it would be better for the site to simply remove it rather than offering that waste of webpage to people looking for answers.
Aside from this, there is an online form that can be submitted and a support email address (support@lottobytext.com). Amazingly, especially for a site that operates on text messages to your mobile, there is no contact number for the site and the useless FAQ, online form, and support email are the only three options for support.
Welcome Bonuses/Promotions
The only welcome bonus available is the five free EuroMillions tickets that we mentioned already. Aside from that, there is literally nothing that is offered to encourage people to join the site.
Rules and Regulations
The only hard and fast rules stated by the site is that you must be over the age of 16 years to register and that it must be legal for you to take part in lottery syndicates in your region. Aside from these basic rules, there do not seem to be any other restrictions on who can or cannot join the site.
LottoByText.com Review Conclusion
We have said it before, and we will repeat it—we don’t like being negative about any online lottery site that is merely trying to make the lottery experience for its players better by offering something new and unique. However, saying that about LottoByText.com would be an absolute lie and would call into question our judgement.
We are at a loss as to how this site has managed to operate all these years and cannot understand why anyone who is sane and sober would bother registering for the services it offers. Aside from the fact that the site is pretty great-looking, we are battling to find a single redeeming feature for LottoByText—and, yes, that includes the fact that you can get five free lines of EuroMillions play.
If you are looking for an online lottery syndicate to join, we highly recommend taking a look elsewhere. Many other lottery websites offer decent services and don’t make you want to facepalm each time you see their name in your URL bar.
What the shit is this website?