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I never considered myself lucky, but when I saw a crypto lottery offering a chance to win $1 million worth of Bitcoin, I couldn’t resist. The lottery was called “BitJackpot”, and it had thousands of positive reviews across social media.

The way it worked was simple: buy a lottery ticket for 0.2 BTC (about $8,000 at the time), and you’d be entered into a weekly drawing. What made it even more exciting was that some people in the comments claimed to have already won smaller prizes.

At first, I was skeptical. But after seeing a live draw streamed on YouTube with winners being announced, I thought it must be real. I went ahead and bought three tickets, spending a total of $24,000.

A week later, I received an email saying that I had won second place! My prize? 5 BTC—worth over $150,000. I was in complete disbelief. My heart raced as I followed the instructions to claim my winnings.

The email instructed me to pay a small “processing fee” of $5,000 to verify my identity and unlock the winnings. It seemed like a reasonable request, given the huge amount I was about to receive. So, I sent the fee.

Then, I received another email stating that I needed to pay an additional “blockchain transfer fee” of $10,000 to complete the transaction. By this point, something felt off. But I had already come this far, so I reluctantly paid.

After another few days, I received a final message stating that due to international tax laws, I had to deposit $15,000 to pay withholding tax before my Bitcoin could be transferred.

That’s when I realized I had been scammed.

I checked the original website, and it had disappeared. The YouTube live draw was actually a prerecorded video, and the “winners” in the comment section were fake bot accounts. I had lost almost $40,000 chasing what I thought was a life-changing opportunity.

I later found out that crypto lottery scams were one of the most common frauds, where victims are lured into paying increasing fees until they either run out of money or realize they’ve been deceived.