Mobile applications developed by popular lottery websites have become increasingly common over the past few years. People often place fairly high expectations on such applications—especially if they are developed by a website that already has an exceptional reputation. In theLotter Mobile Lotto App review below, we will look at an app developed by one of the biggest names in online lottery.
Stand-Out Feature
Easily the best feature of this app is the ability to purchase lottery tickets while on the go. However, this process is not as streamlined as we would have hoped.
To purchase tickets through the app, you will need to install the app and sign in to your existing theLotter.com account. If you do not already have an account, the app will allow you to register a new account. All good so far.
Once signed in, you can select from the same extensive collection of the top online lotteries that you would find on theLotter.com website. After you have found the lottery you would like to play in, simply click the lottery logo. You will be directed to the lottery options screen. Here you will be able to select if you would like to purchase a standard ticket, a syndicate ticket, or a bundled ticket. If you choose to buy a standard ticket (as will most likely be the case more often), you will be able to select the number of lines that you would like to play. No problems here.
After this, you will need to pick your numbers using the excellent number picker view. If you would prefer not to pick your own number, there is also the option to allow a quick pick to select your numbers for you randomly.
When your numbers have been chosen, you will be asked if you would like to purchase your tickets as a one-time entry, a multi-draw entry, or as a subscription. Select the option you prefer and hit the ‘Buy a Ticket’ button.
This is the point where things stop being as great as we expected them to be. Rather than processing the purchase of your ticket within the app, once you select to purchase your ticket, the app will cause your mobile device’s browser to open. The browser will navigate automatically to theLotter.com, and the app will feed all your selections through to the site. Once this loads, you will have to conclude your purchase on the mobile version of the website rather than through the app.
This may not be the end of the world, as this process works well and is easy enough. However, for a website that is as large and renowned as theLotter.com, we did expect their app to be able to manage everything from within its own infrastructure. The fact that you can’t seems odd and takes away from the experience. After all, what’s the point of using the app if you could just do all of the above using the mobile site right from the get go?
Additional Features
In addition to being able to (indirectly) purchase tickets, the app offers the following features:
Results: The app has a section that is dedicated to the latest results of all available lotteries. In addition to just showing what numbers were drawn, the results section also allows you to see the number of winners that there were for the draw and how much they won, and even view the pay table to see what the odds of winning are.
Ticket Checker: Alongside the draw results, the app allows you to check your tickets against previous draws to see if you are a winner. Unfortunately, unlike some of the other best lottery apps out there, theLotter app does not allow you to use your device camera to scan your ticket. Instead, you are required to enter in your chosen numbers. Once you have done this, the app will alert you as to if you are a winner or not. This, in our opinion, is another let down, as the company certainly has the resources to make a beautifully functioning ticket scanner.
Support Chat: As a nice change, this app offers a built-in chat area where you can contact support. We are not sure how well this works because we were unable to connect to support the entire time we were reviewing the app. However, if this feature does actually work for you, then this is very convenient.
Alerts: The app allows you to configure alerts that will send you notifications every time that one of your preferred lotteries has a jackpot over a certain amount. Alerts can also be configured to notify you when results for your chosen lotteries have been published.
My Account: In this section of the app, you will be able to view and manage different parts of your account. This includes editing your personal information, viewing your purchased tickets, and more.
Location & Lotteries Available
Based on your location (which the app does require permission to track), you will have access to the full range of more than 50 lotteries offered by theLotter.com.
User Interface & Usability
In terms of design, there is nothing that we can complain about. The app looks great, and it is easy to tell that a great deal of time and effort went into making sure that the app is attractive to look at. From highly detailed images to bright colours, everywhere you look is a joy.
The navigation of the app is almost as good as the design. It is easy to navigate around the app using the menu bar located at the bottom of the app. The fact that the developer managed to get all the features to fit logically under just three tabs is also a noteworthy achievement.
Unfortunately, as much as we can compliment the design and navigation of the app, we cannot ignore the apparent usability flaws. For one, the app can be incredibly slow in some areas—trying to access our account took about 15 minutes (keep in mind we have a fast Wi-Fi connection and tried the app on multiple devices). Aside from that, while navigating there were about four instances where the app crashed and had to be relaunched.
We are not sure if this is because the app has to be sideloaded from theLotter.com website since it is not available on the Google Play Store. Meanwhile, the iOS version of the app has fantastic user reviews on the Apple App Store. Whatever the reason is then, these problems may be enough to make Android users ditch the app and stick with the mobile site instead.
Ads
As expected, the app does not contain any ads. Instead, the only things you may see that can be considered ads are banners for large upcoming draws. All these, however, are internal banners from theLotter.com and can easily be ignored.
theLotter App: Scam or Legit
The app is the official work of theLotter.com and can be trusted with complete confidence.
Conclusion – theLotter App Review
We are not going to lie about the fact that we were excited when theLotter.com released apps for mobile devices. After all, an app for one of the best online lottery websites in the business is sure to be magical. It is with extreme disappointment that we announce that this app is far from magical. While it does everything right in terms of design and even selecting what features the app should have, it falls far short of our expectations due to the fact that it makes users buy tickets via the mobile site, offers no way for players to scan tickets, and, worst of all, is quite slow and unstable. Perhaps it is an Android problem, but we would instead visit the mobile version of the site than using the app—and that is saying something.
