It depends how much money you have and how many bitcoins you want to acquire. For mining bitcoins you need a whole setup that will cost a lot of money to start the operation with. GPU prices have been falling throughout the year and will be close to their original purchase price 1-2 years ago. In my opinion the computer hardware market is still a mess and I wouldn't be buying new equipment right now. With the new Nvidia cards coming out soon and also AMD is going to reveal it's new cards in November there is a lot of new technology coming to the market soon. If you really want to consider buying a mining setup I would look for a cheap used rig, but even the secondary prices are expected to fall once new GPUs are on the market. Then again it also depends on how many bitcoins you are looking for. If it's only a short term project to acquire a few Bitcoins it might be easier to just buy them at an exchange and store them rather than to mine them. But if you are trying to setup a whole operation to stay in the mining business long time don't buy Bitcoins. Another thing is that while purchase cost for rigs are falling with the crypto prices, the running costs are rising with inflation sharply this year. Make sure you have a cheap source of electricity for your rigs. 

I don't think that trading is a form of gambling, there are some similarities but it's not the same. First of all in gambling, when you place a bet at a casino you have nothing left. Your money is with the house and you only have a chance to make a profit on one single round. The round happens usually really fast and you know instantly if you won or lost - there is no grey area, you either make a profit or your money is gone. It's not like you can say that you made an error in your judgement and tomorrow the casino will correct your bet. In the gambling world you can only recover past losses with new money and new gambling. In the trading world things are different, once you place a trade you hold an actual asset and will profit of a rise in prices even it only happens in a few weeks. With bad bets your money is lost, but with bad trades you can always sell and get atleast some money back.

It is pretty common in the poker world to stake each other for big tournaments. All the top poker players know each other and once you reach your first big payouts it becomes much better to spread your risk than to take it all on your own. In the big tournaments with hundreds of players the chance of winning is small, even for the professional poker player. He might make it into the money, but for reaching the first place you need to be lucky. And it also affects your strategy if you only play to reach the money, or if you want to win the tournament. Sharing some of their profits with other players helps to diversify risks and can lead to payouts even if you got knocked out of the tournament. Daniel Negreanu is doing that even for his fans, you can buy different structured packages before the WSOP each year and make a profit whenever he makes money in a tournament. It kind of similar when people at the final table make a deal among each other to split the money based on their poker rating and then only play for who gets the bracelet. Poker player are business man and are looking for ways to get the most money out of a situation. In tournaments once the rebuy phase is over things can go wrong very fast, imagine getting AA and the chip leader puts you all in preflop only to see his 99 hand hitting a 9 on the turn and you are out of the tournament.

I like to have at least a minimum balance of 100 USD. This threshold still comes from my beginning poker days when I made sure to have 5x 20 USD buyins left. With this minimum I will always deposit new money once I fall under it. So whenever I withdraw money I usually leave 150-200 USD in the account to make sure that I have a buffer for any potential losing streaks. The good thing about gambling with crypto  currencies is that you can deposit and withdraw money very fast and easily. That is why we shouldn't leave too much money at the casino in my opinion. There is always a security risk involved that can be avoided if we send larger winnings back to our wallet. It also depends if we play only at one major casinos or if we multiple casinos we play it. For example, I play poker at 3 different casinos but only one of them I use regularly. That is why I only have a balance at my active casino, and at the other ones I usually only play when there are some promotions and I will deposit new money quickly.

Russia is getting pushed back right now in Ukraine, there is no way that Russia can still conquer the whole of Ukraine. The chance to win the war outright is over, Western countries send too many weapons into Ukraine. At the moment it looks like a stalemate, Ukraine can't liberate all the teritority, and Russia can't conquer all. Eventually the two countries will have to start with peace negotiations. And Russia can't be the world dominant superpower if they are struggling in Ukraine so much. The only two superpowers in the near future will be USA and China. The dilemma Russia faces is that their equipment is much older than the one Ukraine is using. The average Ukrainian soldier is better equipped than its Russian counterpart and the new mobilisation is not going to help with that. On top of that are the sanctions from Western countries that hinders Russia to use state of the art technology. I don't think it's realistic to look at Russia as the next dominant super power.

First time I am hearing about those games. Also the word gacha game is new to me. This seems to be part of the gambling section within games. Whenever you spend ingame, or real currency for a chance to receive something rare than it's gambling. This isn't really new in the gaming world. For years loot boxes and case opening have been part of large games like Dota or CSGO. Some of the rarest skins can be worth thousands of dollars and there is a whole secondary market for trading those skins. As long as the skins are only cosmetic I don't mind it and support that game, but once rare items give you extra power or special abilities j would stay away from the game and don't support their pay2win setup. What I learned after years of gambling in games is, if you are looking for one particular item than its better to buy the item directly at the secondary market instead of hoping to become lucky in the gambling.

That is a pretty big development for the gambling streamers who rely on Twitch to make money. With less than a month that is going to create a lot of problems. I don't like that Twitch seems to be controlled by the influencers and they can decide what should be streamed and what not? So it's fine for 12 year old kids to see girls in bikinis all day on twitch and donate money to them, but it's not okay for adults to watch gambling online?

At least some parts of gambling like Sports betting and Poker is still allowed. Personally I rarely watch Twitch, because it seems like a waste of time to me. Why spend time watching someone else make money online, when I could use the time and gamble myself? In the past I used to follow a few poker players on Twitch, but now I prefer to play myself than watch them. Same goes for the whole gaming community, I understand that many people enjoy the chat interaction but I would prefer to control my own character than to watch someone else do it. I am not so familiar with the whole streaming area, I know that Mixer from Microsoft failed back in 2020 and since then I didn't hear much about a big competition for Twitch. But maybe there are different streaming platforms. Also it seems that streaming gambling for casinos that are licensed in the USA seems okay, that is a one sided.

It could definitely create a new set of problems if all the prisons would start running their own casinos. On a rational level it might work and could give inmates a new motivation to work and behave to get the privileges of gambling. But will this really help them to stay out of prison once their sentence is over? Now I am a bit sceptical, what if an inmate becomes addicted to gambling in prison and will start criminal activities as soon as he is free to finance his addiction? The risk is definitely there to do more harm than good. I remember hearing that more than 35% of prison inmates have substance addiction to either drugs or alcohol. And people who had an additiction in the past are more likely to become addicted to something else. It would be terrible for inmates to jump from one addiction to a gambling addiction. Also some form of gambling takes already place by playing cards in the prison. Poker is a good game that cellmates can play with each other.

War is a very bad thing for humanity, thousands of lives are lost and a lot of material and livelihoods are destroyed. It's usually a few powerful people at the top who decide about the fate of millions of people. It's sad that still in 2022 the world is in such a medieval mindset. The world needs to change to make wars a think of the past. The problem is that not everybody is hurting during war times, there are people who profit or it. For example, the weapon manufacturers in Europe and North America are making a lot of money right now. Western governments are sending their older equipment from stockpile to Ukraine and replace it with new weapons. On top of that did many countries increase their military budget. And then there are the many twitter videos that show how successful Ukraine is fighting with Western equipment, that's free marketing for the arms dealers.

Finde ich super, dass auch wir hier im deutschen Unterforum versuchen die Beitragsqualität zu steigern. Wobei ich sagen muß, dass die Qualität der Posts meiner Meinung nach schon um einiges höher ist als die Post in den englischen Hauptforen. Dort entstehen ja fast täglich neue Beiträge die keinen wirklichen Nutzen für das Forum haben. Es ist trotzdem gut einen Blick auch auf unsere deutschen Einträge zu haben.

Das mit dem Denglisch ist so eine Sache die glaube ich gerade jüngeren Nutzern hier im Forum schwerfällt. Ich merke es selbst wenn ich mich mit Freunden unterhalte wie einfach wir englische Wörter in unsere Gespräche miteinbeziehen. Selbst hier beim schreiben ein paar Zeilen hätte ich fast user statt Nutzer, oder post statt Beiträg geschrieben. Ich werde much auf jeden Fall mehr bemühen nicht so viele Englische Wörter im deutschen Forum zu benutzen.


Die Signaturkampagne ist natürlich ein Grund warum viele Nutzer jede Woche ihre mindest Quote von Forumseinträgen erreichen will. Insbesondere das vorschreiben von einer Mindestanzahl an Einträgen in Subforen wie dem Glückspiels Forum bringen schon einige sehr kurze und unnötige Beiträge zum vorschein. Es ist auch nicht ganz einfach jede Woche 20-30 qualifizierte Beiträge abzugeben. Wobei ich auch denke, dass das Merit System eine Mitschuld an den vielen Shitposts trägt. Man sieht viele neue Nutzer, die versuchen an Merit zu kommen um ihre Ränge zuerhöhen, kurze neue Beiträge erstellen die eigentlich nicht notwendig sind und oft schon in der Vergangenheit bereits erstellt wurden. Das liegt wahrscheinlich daran, dass die meisten Merits verteilt werden an Leute die ein neues Thema eröffnen, und eher weniger an Beiträge. Im Endeffekt geht es bei dem Merit und den Rängen auch wieder um die Signaturkampagnen in dennen ein viel höherer Betrag pro Beiträg ausgezahlt wird für Mitglieder mit Legendären oder Helden Rang.

Having casinos in a prison could be an interesting idea to make live more exciting for inmates. This has some problems that could arise if it would be allowed in all countries, because the casino would need a gambling licence and also regulators who make sure that the games are fair. The big question would be if the casinos are owned by the prison company or by external companies. The casino should only be available for good prisoners who are not violating prison rules, like that it would be another motivation for prisoners to behave. And since many prisons offer inmates the opportunity to work they would already have funds to bet with in the casinos. Maybe casinos could work with more than just money. I know that trading with goods like Ramen, Chocolate Bars and other goodies is very big in prison. So inmates might have the chance to exchange these goods for tokens to be used in the casino.

That is a good advice for anybody who is struggling with getting older. Age should never be a deciding factor when it comes to our passions. We are living now in the best period humans have ever lived in terms of medical treatment and life expectancy. There are so many people these days reaching 90 or even 100 years and still be fit and clear in their mind. Also there a lot of mobility sultions now which make it much easier for older people to get around. I noticed this in my home town that the university is providing more and more courses for elderly people. There are extra courses only for the elderly that even offer diplomas. It's a great way to keep people engaged in learning and also to give them another purpose in life. The worst thing we can do is to stop and not learn anything new. The human brain is designed to be used every day and learn something new, if we stop with it, our functions are going to decline. Passions it was keep us young, we should be following them as long as possible.

There already have been quite a few bad moments with bitcoins so far that made me question my strategy with crypto currencies. First of all was a big step for me to decide and only deal with Bitcoins back in 2016 for my CSGO skin trading business. I was buying and selling a lot of knives back in the days and bitcoin was a good and fast way to cash out and deposit new money. By using Bitcoins I could buy skins my cheaper than the official steam prices and then use the real prices to trade for more favourable skins. When I took a break from CSGO I also sold all my bitcoins and stopped using crypto currencies all together. Now with hindsight this was my worst experience and biggest mistake when it comes to investing. The best way to handle it is to never repeat the same mistake again. This was also my motivation this year to not sell any crypto coins into the bear market. When the Ukraine Russia war started and prices were in free fall I got close to sell my coins again, but in the end I decided it's best to stick to sit it out and don't panic.

No idea what is going on with Astralis this season, I expected so much more from them. Both the loss against HEET and Complexity seemed completely unnecessary and the could have pulled both games around. Both ENCE and HEET won only 1 match in group C, against Astralis. Lost some money again during gourp C and could only recover a little with my MOUZ bets. Hopefully I can make a profit again during the Group D matches, which are starting tomorrow. The first match is going to be Cloud 9 vs Evil Geniuses, which should be a good win for Cloud 9. Their team looks really strong this year and I think they have the best chances of reaching first place in Group D. I am going to place a bet on all of their 5 matches this week.

If I can make a real difference with my money that I would use it to help a family in need instead of using it for gambling. The problem is that how can I guarantee that my money will actually do good? Donating to large organisations is very anonymous and I am afraid most of the money will disappear for all types of cost and only a small amount will reach the people in need. In my city there are quite a lot of people on the streets asking for money, but this money is mostly used for drugs and alcohol. I am not a wealthy person and have to save money each month that I can use it for gambling and sports betting. I go out less than I could and don't drink the most fancy drinks and meals when I go out, so that I can enjoy some gambling at home. If I ever manage to win big in gambling and become a millionaire, I would donate some of my winnings.

It depends on which kind of tournaments you are looking for, the large tournaments with thousands of players are rare and mostly publicity events. But there are quite a few smaller tournaments that have quite a high chance of finishing up in the money. For me the best thing are sit and go games with 30-100 players. They offer large enough price pools to make it worth playing a few hours and you usually have the option to rebuy if you fail with your first bullet. The good thing about these micro tournaments is that they are offered in different buyin sizes and run many times a day. There are fixed times and you can plan your evening accordingly. And when playing online you can play multiple games at once.

It would be great if crypto currencies take a more leading role in the financial service industry. The banking model is outdated and will disappear eventually. I see this my own city where only old people still go to the bank and talk to the employees. Among my friends everybody is using a direct bank that only operates online, it's faster and cheaper. The second most important feature after providing credit and debit cards, is to offer loans. Especially now during economic difficult times the access to loans is very important. Maybe bitcoins could help to offer services in that area. Many HODL investors are looking for ways to earn passive income, this would be a good match for people looking for loans.

I agree with you, there are anti inflationary pressure in bitcoins. The biggest one is the limited supply of BTC, there can't be new coins be printed overnight. Long term bitcoins should be a great tool to protect us from inflation. And if we look at longer time periods, bitcoin has done a good job in keeping its value. The problem is short term price corrections that we saw since the last ATH. Here are much bigger forces at play that bring down the price, while the price boost from rising inflation is only marginal. The world has changed since last year, we can see this also in the stock market which is down 30%.

It really is counterintuitive to see people sell bitcoins and other crypto currencies when inflation is on the rise. I am still not sure if investors are afraid of the high inflation or general economic outlook. And what are these investors switching their money from cryptos into? Stocks are also down and it doesn't feel like investors are heavily buying them. Holding cash seems like the worst idea you could do right now. With inflation rates above 10% you are losing so much purchasing power of your cash. The only rational to hold all that cash is if you expect another crash and things too get much worse. I am not so negative and think it's much better to stay invested and sit out this bear market. As long as we are not selling we are not realising any losses and will profit as soon as prices start to rise again. 

These low odd bets are more common than you think. Especially in larger tournaments there are a lot of weaker teams who are being paired with the favourites and having almost no chance of winning. You are right that it takes a long time to win a row for making up for one loss. For me it's too risky to only be betting on such small payouts. I am sure that if you place 50 bets in a row there will be one game where the underdog wins and you lose it all. A bad day for the top scoring player or a injury can ruin everything. From time to time I bet on these 1.01 or 1.02 bets, but in general the minimum should be 1.05. Like this you only need to win 20 bets in a row to recover your initial amount. The most important thing for me is to never put all my bankroll on a single bet, I always need some funds on the side in case a bet goes wrong and I need to recover.