Doing a thesis in gambling to find out that loot boxes are unethical?  I think every sane person would agree with that. I encountered many times of loot boxes in online games and none of them were worth their money. Back in the days you would pay 50$ for a game and that be it, you had a full game and didn't need anything else. Maybe after 1-2 years there would be an add on coming out but that is it, no need to spend anymore money. In todays world there are so many alternative pricing methods which is really sad. I know guys who justify spending 500-1000 USD in a single game per year to get some different cosmetics and skins. All of them are hidden behind loot boxes with a drop chance of 1-5%. You need to buy so many of those boxes to get what u actually want it's really sad. And the addiction behind is more OCD than gambling addiction because its about to get all the rare things in a game. It's like being a perfectionist for skins in a computer game.

Having a hall of fame here on the forum sounds like a funny idea. There are a lot of prediction threads, raffles for people to bet on tournament winners and other betting games. On top of that we have all the big bookmakers and casinos which show their top monthly winners. The question is if the hall of fame be for the people who make he biggest profits with sports betting, or for people who are picking the right team most of the times? If we just go for the highest winnings than this will likely include the whales who have a large bankroll to bet and gamble. For the average Joe it will be harder to get into the hall of fame. That's why it would also be nice to have category which shows gambles who picked the right teams most of the times. There are probably people who bet small amounts but manage to be right 80-90% of the time. It's also very impressive result even if their overall winnings is lower.

Congratulations to your crypto success, you already made very big profits. Your strategy sounds well thought trough and should bring you more profits in the future. It's hard to tell if you will reach your goal of 10m USD like that. But is this really important for you? Maybe some more moderate goals would be a tradeoff to not face the risk of a big loss? If you split your money you could easily buy a nice house or apartment for 400k USD, maybe you even find a seller who accepts crypto currencies. Than you already have a hard asset you can always rely on. With the remain 250k USD you could still do your strategy and get a few millions profit. Storing your money across multiple wallets is a good idea given your big network. Maybe 50 different wallet is a bit much because you need to store all the information savely, but having atleast 5-10 is a good idea.

Usually for a safe haven asset we need a stable price to keep it's value. Gold for example is one of these assets, they have a fairly stable price with low volatility. Bitcoins have much higher volatility than Gold.  For the first time in a while Bitcoins dropped shortly below 30,000 USD which is a very important barrier. If prices drop further investors could get spooked and start selling their coins sending the prices even lower. That would increase volatility even more. When it comes to having bitcoins as a safe haven we need to know what purchase price we have. If we bought BTC in the past at 20,000 USD or right 30,000 USD then it is definitely a good investment and will keep its value long term. The thing with Bitcoins is that is not being affected inflation. Due to the high energy and food prices we are facing 10% inflation rates in Western countries, with that there is no real option of leaving cash around at the bank. It's better to be invested in a volatile crypto coin that will rise long term, than holding cash which is losing purchasing power each month in my opinion.

Very interesting first two days of the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 is already over. So far I really liked Vitality and G2, they both played good matches and are through the challengers stage already. As for todays matches there seem to be some good opportunities again. Astralis is playing against Team Spirit and should win that match easily. Even though Astralis is not the top team they were 2 years ago they still have a good roaster and are the clear favourite here. Another good game today should be Team Liquid vs Complexity Gaming, with Team Liquid winning this one. Complexity had a really bad start in this major with winning only 1 round against Vitality, such a demoralising defeat will make the game today even harder. I think Complexity won the least amount of rounds from any team in this Major so far. My last pick for today would be ENCE, they played really well so far and should win against Bad News Eagles.

You seem to mostly focus on the pros of crypto gambling rather than the cons. Nothing wrong with that, I am a fan of gambling for many years and went straight after my 18th birthday to a casino for the first time. I wouldn't really make a difference between crypto of fiat gambling. The casinos are the same, the games are the same, only the form of deposit and withdrawal is different. You can even deposit fiat money and withdraw your winnings in crypto coins. In the end it just comes down to what is easier for you to use and what you think is more valuable longterm. Lossing is part of the game can't be the biggest con argument for crypto gambling, because if everybody would just be winning than the casinos would go bankrupt in 2 weeks. The biggest con is that some people become addicted and are not able to stop by themselves. We need more help for people suffering from addictions.

Great news from Portugal. I love that country, great food and very friendly people live there. Maybe all the big crypto investors will buy a home now in Portugal  if I had the pocket money I would buy a vacation home there. Also the price of 3 bitcoins seems quite reasonable. I have a Portugese friend who bought an apartment last year for 120k euros which was really old so he had to completely refurbish it. What he told me is that financing is a bit of an issue in the Portugese market right now. Banks are taking very conservative appraisals of properties which results in much smaller loans that will be granted for the purchase. Buyers who can pay the full sum at once are very attractive for the sellers. And with the rising number of crypto investors it makes sense to use bitcoins as a means of purchase.

I still remember my first book I read about stock trading, it was  15-20 years ago. The book was from a highly successful investor from the 90s. His advice was basically buy stocks and forget about them. Spread out your money across multiple stocks to have some basic level of diversification and hold for the long run. In the crypto world we would  that HODL investor. For any new trader or investor I would recommend that approach. Having a crypto portfolio with BTC, ETH and some alt coins is the best to take advantage of the long term upwards trend. This is if course very boring and some people would prefer to actively trade their portfolio. In such a case I would recommend to take only a small fraction of the money to trade more often. Like this losses will be limited and it's a good way to learn the trading game.

That is definitely the craziest combi bet I have ever heard about. Predicting 16 results is insane and involves a lot of luck. The only sad part is that he only bet 0.6 GBP, if he bet a few GBP he would be a millionaire now. To succeed with such kind of a bet he must be a big football fan. Without a good knowledge about all the teams I don't think you can succeed. Another question would be how many bets he places each week. Maybe he coveres a lot of different results each week. With such a small amount and huge payouts you could make hundred of bets each week as long as you score one big one. It must be luck, because how could you have insider information for 16 games? It's too much, maybe there is one or two fixed games from time to time, but not all. And if he really had insider information he would have been a much larger sum than 0.6.

I fully agree with you, buying bitcoins right now is a good trade. At the end of the year prices will likely be much higher again. And buying now around 35,000 USD will lead to a good profit. Sure we could try and wait for prices to drop below the 30k barrier, but that is not very realistic. Waiting too long for the best purchase price might just lead to missing out on the next rally. Today the whole world was afraid Putin would escalate the war in Ukraine and maybe even start with a general mobilisation. That wasn't the case, the war will likely keep going on for more month eventually leading to a peace conference. As soon as the world calms down again crypto prices will rally again.

It seems that most people here are against the animal cruelty in horse racing, that's a good thing. I am still struggling to understand what the average gambler on horse racing is like. On the weekend I asked some friends and nobody knows anybody who enjoys that sport. It must be a limited target group I guess. In an article I read that almost exclusively older men are gambling on horses. It could also be a cultural thing. Something else I noticed is that we still have Polo teams in my city. Never been to match either or watched on TV but I sometimes see the fields being prepared for a match. Now I am wondering if Polo could also be cruel towards horses. Are horses being hurt when playing Polo? I know that in Spain Polo is still very common and there is also quite a bit of money involved, it must be very competitive.

I find it sad when countries ban gambling even for religious purposes. Because people can just fly to another country and gamble there even if its not allowed by their religion. In my opinion religion shouldn't be too strict on everyday life. They can still warn about the risks in gambling but let everybody choose for themselves. Some people like gambling and some people don't. Of course gambling should only be for adults and there needs to be some form of protection from excessive gambling. There also shouldn't be a difference between a male and a female gambling addict, both is bad. Gambling is about having fun, excitement and joy, not about ruining your life. It's like with your favourite sports team, sometimes they win, sometimes they lose. But you can't be too heavily invested emotionally or financially. Blackjack is among my favorite cards games and it's good training courses are being offered. More training and better eduction will lead to more experienced gamblers with lower risk of become addicted.

I don't think that money and accumulating wealth can be the sole purpose in life. Don't get me wrong, money is important in life. We all nerd it to survive, but money brings no happiness. What if you are very rich and to sick to enjoy the money? All the money in the world doesn't matter if you or a close family member is suffering from an incurable disease. That is probably also why none of the major religions list money as a goal in life. Another thing is that our capitalistic countries are not designed to make to make everybody rich, only a small fraction of society will manage to become rich. Taking out student loans, mortgages or payday lending is what keeps the big banks running. Having financial independence for all people is no goal for politicians.

That is a large amount of crypto currencies held by just one country. I wasn't aware that Russia had such kind of wealth prepositioned into cryptos before the war. Not a bad idea to be honest. Putin must have anticipated large scale of sanctions against Russia and help to prepare his country to go around them in some kind of form. International bank accounts and super yachts where very quickly seized by the western countries, but with crypto currencies it is much harder to block them. The only question is now if Russia would like to sell all those crypto coins quickly, who would buy them and in which currencies would they be able to sell. Receiving large amounts of Dollars or Euros wouldn't help much Russia right now, because they can't spend them.

Great news, it is always nice to see that professional athletes take the chance to be being paid in crypto currencies rather than fiat money. I already liked the move that bonuses in the MMA community would be paid in bitcoins. Crypto companies have been making a lot of deals in the sport industry this year, we saw quite a few new partnership and advertising deals for really big tournaments like the Football World Championship for example. This will bring in a lot of new investors into the crypto community, because sports has such a wide reach all around the world. To watch sports you don't need to speak the same language, and it doesn't focus on any particular age group. It's a good place to be in for advertising. MMA is taking a really big step in the sport world here. They are the first ones to go this way, I am sure there will be others to follow. 

Haha seriously? I missed that quote completely. Warren Buffet has been very critical about crypto coins in the past, but this seems to be a new level though. Honestly, like what the hell bitcoins are trading right now at 34.000 USD. Why would any sane person in the world sell his coins for $25 to Warren Buffet? It is like me saying I would buy all bitcoins for 1$. That is completely illusional. Warren Buffet is 91 years old, at his age it makes no sense to invest in bitcoins. Crypto currencies are a long term investment. And if he has no confidence in them or doesn't fully understand it he can just stay away. No reason to make fun of bitcoins and the investors. I really hope nobody is falling for his trick.

Not really sure how to make calculations on this, because limiting times for games on casinos depends a lot where the most customers come from and which time will be available to play for them. Casinos operate internationally and the games run 24 hours a day, there will be gamblers coming from America, Europe and from Asia. To find a time slot that works all around the world seems a bit hard. I would expect most gamblers to play in the evening, so when have the games run in the evening in Europe, it will be night in Asia and morning in America. Having a flat fee for games makes the earnings much more predictable for casino, especially if the fee is not related to the betting size. If every gambler has to pay $5 and the house edge is 0 than the casino will likely not make any money from the games itself. After a few month of crash games the profit will equal to the fee. But with a house edge of 1% the casino should be doing better because more games will be run over the day and the casino profits of larger wages that will return more than $5.

Buying Twitter was a huge move for Elon Musk to boost his social media reach. Already before he had millions of followers who would blindly buy anything he recommends. Elon is a very gifted sales person that convinced the world to buy into electric cars and space rockets. Together with his background in online pay services he has with PayPal, it comes natural for him to be an advocate for crypto currencies. Step 1 will probably be to increase his followers on twitter, and step 2 will be to promote crypto coins he is invested in and he likes. Personally I am a bit uncomfortable that one individual has so much power over crypto coins. One good or bad tweet will send crypto prices flying.

My standard of living didn't really change much in the last 5 years. I got so used to buying the same brands over and over again that I rarely change my spending habits. What I did notice over the last years is that I have to spend more and more money to keep my standard of living constant. 5 years ago I spend between on average 15-20 euros at the supermarket. Now I always spend more than 25 euros for the same items. What makes me afraid is that we are just at the beginning of the new inflation wave. Goods and services increased a lot in price recently, but the average wages didn't change. So far the employees are losing a lot of purchasing power in real terms. We will likely see a larger number of unions going on strike and demanding more money. All that additional salaries will in return bring the companies to rise prices even more.

I am a fan of card games, all types of it. In casino we see most card games only be played against the dealer. Games like baccarat or blackjack are fun and also a good way to make some profits. The only real popular card game where you play against others is poker. It's probably one of my most favourite games. Being able to bet as much as you like during no limit games is very exciting. I wish we could see a larger variety of different games bring played against other humans. I understand that this is not so attractive for casinos because they only profit through rake. Providing the tables and infrastructure only earns them a fixed fee per hand played. There is no big upside for them. Still offering games like Romme in a player vs player setup could increase the number of customers for a casino. Having the chance to switch between a larger number of card games keeps everything interesting.