Features of the manager
- Keeps track of members and their credits.
- Shares out winnings.
- Deducts credit to play new gambles.
- Copes with missed subs payments.
- Copes easily with members leaving (or joining.)
- Keeps members informed with a selection of status reports (which may be e-mailed.)
- Email individual members or the syndicate as a whole.
- Print out subs forms for easy checking off of members.
- Quickly produces a new agreement for your members to sign.
- Context sensitive help.
- Records an event history that you can consult.
- Genuinely random numbers.
Features of the Games
- Quickly create lottery entries.
- Fill in the play-slips.
- Check your entries for wins.
- Calculate the winnings and automatically pass the values back to the manager.
- Compare individual lines with the draw history of the game.
- Produce gamble reports.
- Indicate in the manager that it's a play day, or that it needs information.
- Tell the manager that an entry has winnings, which it will indicate to you.
- Create game templates.
Tracking members credits.
These tasks on first sight are not so great. However, how easy is it to track members' credits when someone wishes to join your syndicate? If you always share out previous winnings (unlikely for non-trivial syndicates) then you'd be OK. If you re-stake all small winnings, then the syndicate float would always be zero, but how would a new member join your syndicate after a week (or a number of weeks) that enjoyed a win/wins? The issue in both these cases is that you don't want to keep track of every members credit to the nearest penny, because it would become a second job! LSMC can sweat these details, enabling you keep a syndicate float, of which members may have different shares in, depending on when they joined the syndicate. This float could then be shared out when it gets larger (removing the need to share out odd sums of money), or left to be available to stake on rollover draws. LSMC allows you to chose to do what you want, rather than what's easy to keep track of.
Shares out winnings.
Hopefully your entries will win and you can then share these winnings out to the playing members. (In LSMC, you can just play selected members, or some members may be suspended. LSMC knows who is playing any given entry, and correctly shares out the winnings to the correct members.)
Deducts credit to play new gambles.
There's no need in LSMC to play one or two lines per member to keep the sums simple. LSMC doesn't care if the sums are tricky, it only cares that the playing members can cover the cost of the new entry. LSMC will then adjust the members credit accordingly.
Copes with missed subs payments.
If a member misses a payment (this is not uncommon,) you have to apply the rules of your agreement to the situation. This can be the dropping of some of your normal lines, but it will also mean that the non-paying member will receive none of the winnings. However you handle this event, LSMC will oblige you. We would recommend temporarily suspending the member, and making a member report that you email to the member and the rest of the syndicate. Note the importance of your syndicate agreement in this matter though.
Copes easily with members leaving (or joining.)
The syndicate as a whole will have a 'float' or 'kitty' that the manager (i.e. you) will hold. The members will not necessarily have equal shares of this float, but LSMC knows each members credit, so when a member leaves you will be informed how much the member is owed. Variations can occur if members miss any subs payments, or new members join. New members will pay the subs, but they'll have no share of the float until they play in a winning entry. (When the syndicate agrees to play extra draws, the cost of the extra play can come from the float. Any new members would then have to pay in extra to cover their share of these plays. LSMC does not allow members to have negative credit.)
Keeps members informed with a selection of status reports (which may be e-mailed.)
LSMC and its plug-in games allow you to easily produce reports and distribute them to your members. You can create reports for members, the syndicate, or for your lottery entries. You can save these reports to file, print them, or e-mail them. These reports makes your syndicate very transparent to your members, and it's all so easy!
Print out subs forms for easy checking off of members.
The subs form will list your Active members, their unique membership number, and their current credit amounts. When collecting, you can collect a regular sum, or just enough to cover the next lottery entry. You may collect different amounts from each of your members. LSMC only cares that the syndicate can cover any new gambles. How you manage your syndicate, is your decision.
Quickly produces a new agreement for your members to sign.
Your agreement is only any good if it is up to date. Larger syndicates may have a relatively high turnover of members, so producing new agreements is very important. LSMC stores the wording of your syndicate agreement, and whenever you need to produce a new document for signing, it will print it out along with the names and numbers of the Active and Suspended members. This saves you from having to maintain a separate agreement document.
Context sensitive help.
You can get help at any point in the manager with the F1 key.
Records an event history that you can consult.
LSMC records the sequence of events, such as when you created new lottery entries, or when members joined, when members credits were altered etc. You may add your own items to this history, or review the history. You can control the number of records that are stored, or for how long they are stored, but you cannot remove selected items or re-order them. This history can be used to show what you've done and when you did it.
Genuinely Random Numbers.
When you ask a random number generator to generate lines for you, just how random are they? Random number generators supplied with programming languages are typically pseudo-random. This means they are evenly spread in their distribution, but that they are not truly random. Using such a generator in an application that will be used by many other users, could lead to duplication of line selections between users, which is unacceptable.
LSMC tackles the issue with its own number generator, that ensures your selections will always be different, and will not be duplicated by other users. (This does not prevent particular selections for lines existing in another syndicate, since there are a limited number of unique selections you may play, but it does prevent matching sequences of lines.) If you already use number generation software, you need to be sure it takes care to prevent duplication between users as we have.
Quickly create lottery entries.
You can quickly create entries, either using our own specialised random number generator, by entering lines you select yourself, or using a previously saved template for the lottery game. If you play lines your syndicate have chosen, the use of templates mean you only ever have to enter the numbers once.
Fill in the play-slips.
This is potentially one of the most likely sources of mistakes when running a syndicate. LSMC allows you to rapidly fill in your play-slips with your printer, and to do so accurately. You may do this just for extra lines on top of your regular numbers, or use this feature to enable you to easily play different lines each draw without excessive workload on you. Games capable of printing also allow you to calibrate your printouts.
Check your entries for wins.
With all of your played lines already on your PC, checking for wins takes little more time than entering draw results. Wins will be flagged to you, and when you examine the entry, you will be informed which lines have won, and also what prize. That's got to beat checking the lines by hand, fearful of missing any wins and consequently losing money! Worse still, missing lines when your eagle eyed members don't (eek!)
Calculate the winnings and automatically pass the values back to the manager.
Whenever a lottery entry wins it will flag that it has in the manager. Whenever you collect on an entry, you will be asked to confirm the prize values, and the game will calculate the total winnings which you are asked to confirm. This sum is then automatically shared amongst the participating members.
Compare individual lines with the draw history of the game.
Lines may be compared against a game's entire draw history, for just those draws that are within the valid collection period, or a given range.
Produce gamble reports.
The games can generate information that you can send to your members, detailing the specifics of the entry, and/or provide any win results and details of winnings collection, and it only takes seconds to do.
Create game templates.
Game templates enable you to have pre-formed entries for the lottery games, and they enable you to rapidly replay existing lines. They serve as a starting point for new entries, so you can add or subtract lines to them, or alter the number of weeks to play etc. You still have total control over your entries.