POA Mania vs PoolTogether

POA Mania and PoolTogether are both no-loss lotteries, where participants commit funds for a chance to win additional funds. In contrast to most lottery-style games, players cannot lose the funds they commit. Both apps are similar in this way and do not constitute gambling. In fact, the game play encourages savings, as players keep their funds in the contracts or deposit additional funds to increase their chances of winning.

While they do not lose any funds, players maintaining funds in PoolTogether are losing out on interest they could earn on their funds by placing them in Compound or another DeFi application. With POA Mania, players do not lose out on any potential gains; the funds they commit qualify them for a chance to win additional POA that is produced through chain emissions. Other key differences are highlighted below.

	PoolTogether	POA Mania
Chain	Ethereum Mainnet	POA Mainnet / Sokol Testnet
Prize Created By	DAI Compound Interest	POA Chain Emissions
Token Value	Stable	Volatile (prize value ⬆️ or ⬇️ depending on market)
Duration	Weekly	Up to Daily - based on Round Closer
# of Winners	1 per week	Up to 3 per day (21 per week)
Prize Amount	Based on deposits	Independent of deposits
Jackpot	No	Yes, grows daily. 1% chance of a winner each round.
Round Close	Predetermined	Dynamic - Round Closer receives prize
Winner Selection	Requires administrator (Centralized)	On-chain (Decentralized)

Key Differences

1. PoolTogether rewards come from interest generated by all DAI locked in the lottery contract. This requires large deposits and a substantial amount of time to accumulate a meaningful reward pool (1 week cycle). POA Mania rewards come from chain emissions. With the proposed model, thousands of POA will be distributed to winners daily.

2. PoolTogether relies on a centralized authority to determine the winner. POA Mania uses random numbers created on-chain to choose the winners. POA Mania is a fully decentralized application, not subject to centralized manipulation.

3. PoolTogether offers 1 weekly winner. POA Mania offers 3 daily winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd place) as well as a jackpot winner.

4. PoolTogether rewards are stable tokens. POA Mania offers volatile token rewards, increase speculative opportunities.

5. PoolTogether operates on a defined weekly timeline. POA Mania allows any participant to close a round after a preset minimum amount of time has passed (set to 1 day on POA Network). The pool closer receives a portion of the pot. This creates a ‘game within a game’ which increases excitement and interaction.