First of all I don't think that currency manipulation is anything new that happens to bitcoins. In the past all major currency have been focused by traders to get manipulated, some even successfully like George Soros and the British Pound. As long as a currency is free and independent there is nothing we can do against. Usually these manipulation are short term and will eventually be corrected by the market. In my opinion bitcoin is the money of the future because it can be accessed by anybody around the world as long as he has internet. There is no need for banks to share the same network, or for people to know each other. All the transactions can be done freely and independent of governments and corporations. This is the main advantage, which also makes many politicians oppose the idea of bitcoin becoming the number one currency. All governments could unite as they fear to lose the power over the monetary policies in their countries.

I agree with you, it makes no sense to go and look around for who to blame our gambling losses on. After a big loss it's hard to keep our emotions in check, but it won't do us any good if we blame the casino or ourselves for it. In the end it was our own decision that lead to our losses, which doesn't mean it was wrong decisions. Gambling is a game of chance that involves a lot of randomness, we can't avoid losses forever the longer we play. In my opinion it's best to accept losses as inevitable part of the game and shouldn't be blamed on one person or decision. It helps to ask ourselves what good does it to blame someone for our loss. It's not like we are getting our money back from it. We also shouldn't start lying to ourselves, accepting the truth and reality will help us the most longterm.

That's an interesting point, but how do we get a profitable trading system in the first place? I agree with you that it makes sense to create a trading system around our profitable trading ideas. Probably most beginners have the same problem to find trades that will make money consistently. Doing research and using technical analysis is a great way to find such trades. But it also requires a lot of testing to see if our trading system is correct. Just because we make money during a few weeks doesn't mean that our trading system is profitable long term. For example, if the general crypto market moves into our favor it will likely rise all our positions, even if we didn't pick the best coins. A constant form of oversight and testing can protect us from losses, I wouldn't trust a trading system blindly just because it was right in the past. 

I don't think that crypto markets are independent, there is definitely a high correlation between bitcoin and all the other crypto coins. The only difference I would say is that bitcoins are the driving force here. On one side you have bitcoin and maybe Ethereum and on the other side all the alt coins. A big shift in the alt coin market will lead to a price change of BTC and ETH, and vice versa. The connection that all these crypto coins share are the same type of investors. Someone who holds alt coins is very likely to hold bitcoins as well. And when the investors start selling one coin there is a high chance they will sell their other coins as well. For most investors crypto currencies is only a part of their portfolio and there is always reshuffling going on depending on the news and future outlooks.

Just because we don't have to spend any money doesn't mean it's not gambling. In my opinion it's the games itself that qualify for being gambling or just games and sports. For example if a casino offers us free spins, or a bookmaker offers us free bets, wouldn't you call it gambling then? We can still win money from it, only it's free because of a promotion. The casino will try to get customers interested in their games and once the free games run out they will have to pay for it. I would rather describe anything that involves chance and randomness that leads to a profit as gambling. Also the casino have other sources of revenue like advertising to make a profit and let the gamblers play for free some minor games. With revenues the casino can't exist, but they also need to attract new customers on a regular basis to offset any regular gamblers leaving the casino.

Power depends on money, because if we don't have any money than we also don't have any power. In only rare cases power doesn't come through money. A boss is powerful because he pays the wages of his employees, a politician is powerful because he can changes the law, but to get into power the politician needs a lot of money to secure the votes. Only in the church money is not a guarantee for power, there the people believe in something bigger. With economic resources I wouldn't trust in them either, because the prices are changing rapidly. If there is too much of one resource, the price is going to fall and we won't have any money or power left. So if we could choose between, resources, power and money, I would always go with the money. As it's the one thing that kept the world going for hundreds of years. If you look back at history, it was not the Kings that had all the power, but rather the big corporations behind the Kings that enabled them to stay in power and fight their wars.  

I would be very careful when sharing a lot of private information with the bank. You never know how secure the casino is with keeping personal data and who can get access all these documents. First of all I would research on the internet if there have been similar issues with the casino by other users. If it's a legit casino and there are no red flags then I would double check with my bank that the issue wasn't on your end. Make sure that the bank really processed your transfer and not that there was a typo in details. In case everything is correct than it might just be lost on the casinos side and with some more information from you they should locate your funds again. Maybe you have an option to get a bank statement from the last few weeks with very limited amount of personal information on it. Otherwise I would recommend you blackout all the other transaction and all unnecessary information, only keep your name and the transfer to the casino on it.

I don't really see a problem talking with my friends about crypto currencies, as I trust them and don't think they would do any harm to me. Most of my friends have at least invested a small amount in cryptos themselves and shouldn't be jealous when crypto prices are going to rise again. Also all my friends are already older and we know each other for a long period of time, if one of them would become rich overnight I wouldn't feel jealous and try to take advantage of it, rather I would feel happy for them. Talking with strangers about cryptos is something else completely, because you should never reveal how much money you have. Speaking generally about the idea of crypto currencies is fine, but don't tell strangers how many coins you have. It the same with Fiat money, you should never tell strangers on the streets how much money you have in your wallet or bank account. The same goes for the internet, some form of privacy should always be maintained as we can't trust strangers.

 
Protecting our money against inflation is one of the most important challenges we face today. In many countries we have inflation rates of 7-10% for more than a year. There are a few ways how as can try and save the value of our money. Depending on the country you live in I wouldn't worry so much about bank insolvency, because our deposits are usually guarantees by the government. If you hold debt or equity of the bank I would worry more. When buying gold there are two ways to do it, physical and synthetic. If you want real gold than the bank will put it in a vault and it's also protected from a bankruptcy, but you have to pay storage fees. Much cheaper is to buy an ETC, that gives you the return of the gold price, without actually owning any. The question is if the return on your bank deposit or gold holdings is going to be enough to offset the inflation rates. In my opinion it would be better to invest in crypto currencies.

That was a quick and good summary on how to focus on gambling. I fully agree with you that setting a budget for ourselves is one of the most important rules in gambling and sports betting. For several years now I have a hard limit per month and week on my bankroll, this helps me to avoid chasing losses during a streak of bad beats. When following martingale based strategies it relies on always doubling up our bet after a loss. Without a strong focus on our balance we could be wiped out during a losing streak. Another point I would add to your list to take out some of the winnings and save them. Whenever I manage to make bigger win in gambling I try to take at least 50% of it and withdraw it. Having a separate wallet helps me to grow my winnings long term.

That's exactly the point, people should invest their money responsible and within their means. The risk of using borrowed money and trade above our means is too big compared to the limited upside we get. Borrowing money means we are bound to fixed interest payments to not default on our debt. Investing is usually the exact opposite of making a fixed repayment schedule. There is a lot of randomness in financial markets that can lead to unforseen losses or winnings. When having a profitable trading strategy there is. I need to increase the risk with leverage, we can just run our strategy for a longer period of time to make enough returns.

With 4k Bitcoin I assume you mean 4,000 USD invested in Bitcoin. Or do you actually have 4,000 Bitcoins, which would be 112 million USD   Unfortunately there is no guranteed way where you can make profit of 100 USD per day. That is a 2.5% return on your investment every day.  To achieve such high returns you are going to have to take a lot of risks, and the chances are much higher that you are losing money than making money. Nobody can offer you such returns with a guarantee, if anybody tell you otherwise it's like going to be a scam. Why do you want to make such high returns per day? You should be looking for more reasonable returns, like 100 USD per month or 300-400 USD per year. Also most money you are going to make from bitcoins you make by holding them, there aren't really bank accounts where you can deposit your coins to get a fixed % return per day.

I think this is most important point that helped to become much happier over the years. In the past I used to always focus one some big purchases, like a gaming PC when I was a kid or a new car after I grew older. It took a long time of saving money to reach that goal and the happiness I got in the end from the one big thing wasn't what I had hoped for. If you spend so much time thinking about  one particular thing the expectations become so high, that once you actually get it won't live up to it. That it's why it so much better to treat ourselves regularly for something small and not expensive, rather than a few large items.  For me scratch tickets is one item that can help to change my mood whenever I feel down. They are only 2 Euros and I usually buy 2 of them, and even when I only make my money back from them which happens a lot, I already feel better.

Also the first time I am reading about people complaining about the integrity of the sport itself due to gambling. Usually the critics of sports betting and gambling in general see a risk for the public due to gambling addiction and not for morally corrupting the players. In my opinion this is not really the case as most of the top athletes would never risk their job for gambling on their own matches. If you already have a contract to earn millions by playing the game, why would you risk it all for some small profit? It's also surprising that something like that would happen in NFL, where you have so many players per team that the impact of one individual is much smaller. The same goes for football, there are so many viewers and cameras covering the match that it's hard to deliberate throw a game in your favour. It's common that in all competitive sports the players are not allowed to bet on their own matches and I would expect to most player follow that rule. 

Another exciting weekend with CSGO matches coming up, the Paris Major is in full force with group stages happening until Tuesday. The first of match of the day will be NaVi vs GamerLegion which should be an easy win for NaVi. I am still mainly focusing one clear favourite matches to try and build up my bankroll again. On the 9INE vs Liquid match I am not going to bet as the two teams are very equal in skill. With these best of 1 matches there is too much risk to bet on matches that could be going either way. Same goes for Heroic vs Faze, probably the most exciting game of the day, but again these two teams are both very strong and could win the match. Even though Heroic might have a small edge in the match I will pass. Furia vs Monte is a better match to bet on the Brazilians. Also ENCE vs Bad News Eagles should be a one sided match and won easily by ENCE. The second most interesting match of the day will be G2 vs Vitality, which should be going in the favour of Vitality after they played so well in the IEM Rio final.

Sogar zwei Gewinnspiele zur gleichen Zeit, dass hätte ich beinahe übersehen. Herrzlichen Dank Willi dass du immer so viel verschenkst hier im DE Bereich.

Ich probiers auch mal wieder mit meiner Glückszahl 13, leider ist heute Samstag und nicht Freitag.

13 - Mauser

Viel Glück an Alle und ein schönes Wochenende.



Oh Danke, dann noch die 07

07 - Mauser

I think the most important thing we should learn from the bankruptcies of these big exchanges is to never leave large sums of money at them. It's fine to trade on them regularly, but once we accumulate 1,000 USD worth of cryptos and more we should be transferring them to a more secure wallet. Even with the high fees we are facing today it's important to keep our coins save. Better to pay 20 USD in fees than to lose a large sum of it due to a bankruptcy. As for using companies again that have failed in the past I don't think it's a problem as long as they have always been honest with the customers. It's a big difference if a company is failing because they scammed their users out of a lot of money, or they were running a ponzi scheme, or they didn't charge enough fees compared to their operating expenses. Bankruptcies are part of modern society and a well restructured company can succeed. Pepsi for example went bankrupt two times before they succeeded and people are still drinking their sodas today. 

Somehow I thought that most casinos rely on 3rd parties to provide slot games for them, because at most casinos I see the same type of slot games. It also has the advantage that the casino doesn't need a development team and monitor the games. When using popular games there is a lot of trust involved as many other casinos use the same game. So when it's a vanilla slot game without any new features than I would prefer a 3rd party game. But if it's something new and exciting I would switch over to the proprietary game. For me the biggest criteria when choosing slot games is the RTP %, I will always take the game that gives me the highest return percentages. Any original slot game from a casino should try and be included in the rankings that can be found online, it's where I usually check for new games.

Sorry for your situation buddy, it must be really hard for you. It's good that you are saving some money in bitcoin, are you having any chance of saving more money monthly in the future? I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but with 30 euros you are not very likely go reach independence. Saving 360 euro per year is not a lot of money. Even if bitcoin would reach another ATH this year it would only be a 100-200% return. How much money do you actually need to be independent and cover all your expenses? You probably will have to increase your monthly savings rare a lot.

I am still not convinced that AI is going to take over the poker world. There might some people who can make it work to have AI assisted online poker games, but once the majority is going to use it the casinos will likely ban. Because if the use of AI would be allowed it comes down to AI VS AI games and who has the best software and hardware. The individual player skill is not important anymore, it's all about having the strongest AI with the best computer. Another thing is that most online poker players are playing multiple tables at once to increase their hourly profit. With the use of AI the number of possible tables it could play at once increases a lot. A super computer might be able to play a 100 tables at once which is insane if every table you join the same guys are already sitting there.