It seem china is taking its ban on crypto-currencies rather too serious, recent move involve restricting its citizens access to foreign exchanges.

J.P. Morgan Chase is about to lob a grenade into the increasingly competitive world of retail investing.

The bank is rolling out a digital investing service next week that comes bundled with free or discounted trades, a sophisticated portfolio-building tool and no-fee access to the bank's stock research. Anyone who downloads J.P. Morgan's mobile banking app or uses its website can get at least 100 free trades in the first year.

The move, more than two years in the making, instantly intensifies the price war that is occurring throughout the investing landscape. Whether it's executing trades, managing portfolios or simply owning mutual funds and ETFs, costs have been collapsing on Wall Street. Among brokerages, the free trading app provided by Robinhood Markets has gained attention recently for attracting more than 5 million users, and a $5.6 billion valuation, in just a few years.

But J.P. Morgan, the biggest U.S. bank, has a distinct advantage over many competitors: It already has financial ties with half of American households. When its engineers flip a switch in coming days, more than 47 million people who already use the company's banking app or website will gain access to the new service, called You Invest.

"There are customers out there who may not want to trust their credentials or their money to an app of the month," said Jed Laskowitz, a J.P Morgan veteran who runs You Invest. "We're thinking about what's right for our customers, helping them get invested, and stay invested and diversified."

The move is a remarkable turnaround for a bank that charged $24.95 for online trades as recently as last year. Still, the industry has been expecting something disruptive from the New York-based company for some time. In June 2016, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon hinted that he was considering no-cost brokerage trades or a free automated investing program. His inspiration: Amazon Prime and its hodgepodge of free services.

"If you're a good account, it's no different than Jeff Bezos doing the $99 Prime and adding services to it," Dimon said at the 2016 investor conference.

Under Dimon, J.P. Morgan has aggressively gone after market share in businesses from institutional trading to deposits, causing industrywide ripples when it deems the opportunities are worthwhile. One example: The bank caused a stir in 2016 with its Sapphire Reserve credit card that came with a 100,000 point sign-on bonus. Thanks in part to that move, the industry is still in the throes of a credit card rewards war.

Targeting millennials
With You Invest, J.P. Morgan is targeting two broad groups, according to Kelli Keough, global head of digital wealth management. The first are people who have never invested before, including millennials, and who may be overwhelmed with the sheer number of investment choices, she said. The second group are people who have a Chase account but invest elsewhere.

"Folks that are new to investing, there's a perception that trading is expensive," said Keough, who joined the bank from Charles Schwab in 2015. "We wanted to lower the hurdles. We wanted to help people invest without cost being an issue, and to reward people who are doing more business with us."

In early trials, You Invest users are 15 years younger on average than clients of the bank's human financial advisors, Keough said. The overwhelming majority, 90 percent, haven't invested with J.P. Morgan before, she said.

How it works
Signing up through the bank's app can be done in three minutes, and moving money between Chase accounts happens instantaneously. Users can also seamlessly fund their investments from outside accounts. There is no minimum required to open an account.

All customers get 100 free stock or ETF trades in the first year, an offer that becomes permanent for those with Premier-level bank accounts, which require a combined $15,000 held at the bank.

Those with Chase Private Client, a higher account that typically requires at least $100,000 in holdings, get unlimited trades. The bank is currently considering adding other tiers that would incentivize people to pull money from other brokerages.

Users can construct diversified portfolios with an automated tool called portfolio builder by inputting their risk tolerance and objectives. In a recent demonstration, a client was able to quickly screen through ETFs — most of which came from competitors including Vanguard — and construct a portfolio composed of cheap ETFs and a few stocks.

The number of free trades a user has left is prominently displayed on the app. Keough said that most investors don't typically need more than 100 trades a year, but if they exceed that amount, they'll be charged $2.95 per trade, which still undercuts most rivals.

For instance, TD Ameritrade and E-Trade charge $6.95 per trade. Charles Schwab charges $4.95 a trade. All three offer free trades for a fixed amount of time for new clients who deposit enough money. Bank of America offers customers of its Merrill Edge service 30 free trades per month, but that perk begins at $50,000 in balances. Otherwise, trades cost $6.95.

Shares of TD Ameritrade, Schwab and other online brokers declined on Tuesday.

The next phase for J.P Morgan is for investors who want to be more hands off. Start-ups including Wealthfront and Betterment pioneered the so-called robo-advisor, or automated investment managers. Big banks including Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo have since released their own robo-advisors. Most charge between 0.25 to 0.50 percent of assets under management per year.

J.P. Morgan will unveil its own robo-advisor under the You Invest brand in January, Laskowitz said. He declined to say whether the bank will make good on Dimon's threat from 2016 to give away the service for free.

"If you think about our pricing structure, it will be very similar with what we're doing with our brokerage platform," Laskowitz said of the robo-advisor. "We're rewarding people for doing more with Chase."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/jp-morgan-to-unveil-new-investing-app-with-an-eye-catching-disruptive-price-free.html

Trinity Tran is a powerful speaker. Addressing a rally in downtown Los Angeles for New York congressional nominee Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 33-year-old activist and organizer thundered, “We are witnessing the emergence of a solution, from profit and greed to collective prosperity. We can empower our community from the ground up. It’s time to take our power back.”

Tran’s organization, Public Bank LA, is leading the revival of an idea that had largely been discarded until the financial crisis. In November, Los Angeles voters will have the opportunity to approve a public bank for the city. If the measure passes, it would become the first government-owned bank developed in the United States since 1919.

The term “public bank” may confuse some into thinking that Los Angeles is about to create a bunch of branch offices where residents can open a free checking account. The idea is much more ambitious. Public bank enthusiasts want to finance local improvements in housing, infrastructure, and community development by employing the money citizens already pay to state and local governments for services. To them, it’s about democratizing the financial system.

The public has yet to be brought in on this idea, until now at least. The Los Angeles vote represents the first popular referendum on public banking since the financial crisis brought the public bank idea back into the conversation. For the vote to go their way, activists will have to demystify a technical financial concept, and answer charges from critics that a city-owned bank will prove too risky and too costly for taxpayers.

The activists say they’re ready for the challenge. “Until now, activists have been fighting in the ivory towers of legislatures, and off the radar of the populace, even though it’s in their best interest,” said Phoenix Goodman, an organizer with Public Bank LA. “We have the opportunity to bring this down to the grassroots, where it belongs.”

If you live in a city, anytime you buy something that includes sales tax, pay a parking ticket, swipe your transit card or renew a business license, money goes to the city treasury. It doesn’t immediately fly back out into the paycheck of a police officer or schoolteacher. All state and municipal governments have cash reserves they hang onto. The numbers are significant; Los Angeles has a current portfolio of close to $10 billion.

Cities and states typically store this short-term cash in bank accounts or plain-vanilla investments. Big banks like Wells Fargo or JPMorgan Chase use the funds to generate profits, through loans or trades, or whatever else they can conjure. They, for example, fund private prisons that house immigrant families. They fund pipelines that carry fossil fuels and are displacing Indigenous Americans from their land. And big banks continue to act badly with relative impunity ― wrist-slap fines ultimately paid by shareholders, and no executive seeing the inside of a jail cell.

Divestment activists have demanded that cities abandon big banks, with some success. In Los Angeles, activists won a separation from Wells Fargo, holder of $101 million in city bank deposits. But they soon discovered that the alternative to Wells Fargo is just another Wall Street giant. Community banks and credit unions lack capacity and often face legal hurdles and onerous collateral requirements to handle public funds.

“We knew divestment from one big bank to another predatory bank was unsustainable,” said Tran, who led the divestment movement in Los Angeles. Soon after, Tran co-founded Public Bank LA, which demanded a city-owned institution to keep government revenues out of Wall Street’s hands. A public bank could use those dollars as a deposit base, she argued, funding loans within the community for local public works projects, small businesses, or affordable housing.

These needs are critically unmet at the local level. Banks are reluctant to finance projects with a perceived risk, like affordable housing, and private investors don’t see the return on investment in replacing water pipes. If a city or state wants to fund something big, they usually turn to either the municipal bond market ― a $3.8-trillion financial industry giant that adds significant lifetime interest costs, or public-private partnerships with investors who have a profit motive at heart.

Because a public bank is not a for-profit business, it can offer lower interest rates than private options, saving billions of dollars over time. And because the city owns the bank, any interest income would flow back into its coffers. That reduces financing costs and facilitates more lending. Plus, the money stays at home, circulating in the local economy rather than traveling into an investor’s pockets or a risky trading scheme.

This may sound like it came out of a late-night college dorm brainstorm session, but public banking is used routinely around the world, including in one of the reddest U.S. states. The Bank of North Dakota, established in 1919 by progressive farmers seeking independence from big banks, makes loans throughout the state and partners with community banks on larger projects. It doesn’t lend out state deposits. But like all banks, it creates new money by extending credit, with deposits balancing the books. Public banks, then, expand the money supply available for economic development, and keep that money circulating where it was created.

The Bank of North Dakota has earned profits for 14 straight years, during the Great Recession and North Dakota’s more recent downturn from a collapse in oil prices, according to its 2017 annual report. Moreover, it supports the most vibrant community bank network in the country, with more branches and higher lending totals per capita than any other state. No North Dakota bank failed during the financial crisis.

North Dakota’s public bank has faced criticism, however, for investments supporting fossil fuels. A bank controlled by a California city won’t necessarily share the same lending portfolio.

“We want to create a bank that is answerable to one shareholder: the public,” said David Jette of Public Bank LA. “San Francisco and Oakland need affordable housing, Los Angeles needs more transportation infrastructure. These are things a public bank can do.” The Los Angeles City Council, recognizing a potentially cheaper way to finance city improvements, certainly got the message. Led by council President Herb Wesson, council members unanimously passed the initiative to put the public bank vote on the November ballot.

But the challenges to establishing a new public bank are significant. A Los Angeles chief legislative analyst report released in February stated that the city charter would need to be amended to accommodate a public bank. That’s what the ballot initiative would execute. The report also said that state and federal law would need to change as well, and that the city would need to apply for a state bank charter, come up with collateral and insurance to protect deposits, and provide startup funds to capitalize the bank and hire administrative staff.

“There is substantial cost and risk associated with operating a public bank,” said Beth Mills, a spokeswoman for the Western Bankers Association, a trade association and a leading opponent of the ballot measure. “Presumably the bank would be capitalized with taxpayers dollars. How would any losses resulting from loan defaults be paid at a public bank ― would taxpayer dollars be at risk?” Mills added that any savings from financing would be wiped out by the expense of hiring attorneys, compliance officers and consultants.

As well as money from deposits, a public bank would need additional capital, which could be used to cover losses if they arise. That could come from a municipal bond offering or public pension investments. In effect, outside investors would be lending to the public bank and betting on its success.

Los Angeles activists are also joining forces with counterparts in six other California cities to form the California Public Banking Alliance, which would work with the state to develop a standard license and a framework for regulating public banks. “We want to build a network of banks to be interdependent and support one another,” said Jette. “Los Angeles is a great place to test this out on a voting public.”

Even if the vote passes and all goes smoothly, a public bank in Los Angeles would still be years away. But if it works, the public banking concept has revolutionary potential. It could employ constituent deposits for the public good. It offers an escape valve for city officials to revitalize neighborhoods without necessarily having to raise taxes. And to the activists, it reimagines the role of finance as more than just a profit-seeking beast.

“Simply by founding a public-owned institution based on public needs, you bend the course of financial history toward regular people,” said Jette. “We can control our own financial fate. And if we win this, we will take that everywhere.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/public-bank-los-angeles_us_5b6bef33e4b0ae32af954495

The word “bitcoin” is as likely to garner feverish excitement as it is glaring criticism. The financial community sees speculative promise in the form of trade that currently has little to no regulation. Meanwhile, others argue that it’s a distraction that detracts from the overall longevity of U.S. financial institutions.

Bitcoin’s energy consumption has become a recent talking point in the debate. A Forbes article published May 30 indicates that bitcoin dramatically increases global energy consumption – and that electricity is its “Achilles heel.”

I am a researcher who studies clean energy technology, specifically the transition toward decarbonized energy systems. I think that the conversation around bitcoin and energy has been oversimplified.

New technologies – such as data centers, computers and before them trains, planes and automobiles – are often energy-intensive. Over time, all of these have become more efficient, a natural progression of any technology: Saving energy equates to saving costs.

By talking specifically about just the consumption of energy alone, I believe many fail to understand one of the most basic benefits of renewable energy systems. Electricity production can increase while still maintaining a minimal impact on the environment. Rather than focusing on how much energy bitcoin uses, the discussion should center around who indeed is producing it – and where their power comes from.

Counting consumption
Unlocking a bitcoin requires an intense amount of computational power. Think of bitcoin as sort of a hidden currency code, where its value is derived by solving a programmable puzzle. Getting through this puzzle requires computer brainpower.

Electricity is 90 percent of the cost to mine bitcoin. As such, bitcoin mining uses an exorbitant amount of power: somewhere between an estimated 30 terrawatt hours alone in 2017 alone. That’s as much electricity as it takes to power the entire nation of Ireland in one year.

Indeed, this is a lot, but not exorbitant. Banking consumes an estimated 100 terrawatts of power annually. If bitcoin technology were to mature by more than 100 times its current market size, it would still equal only 2 percent of all energy consumption.

Power sources
Bitcoin is certainly consuming an increasing amount of power worldwide, but is it increasing the world’s carbon consumption? Bitcoin miners have traditionally set up shop in China, where coal supplies 60 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Now, bitcoin mining is exploding in areas with cheap power, like the Pacific Northwest. Power there is mainly cheap due to the massive availability of hydropower, a low-carbon resource.

Bitcoin mining in China, with a largely fossil-based electricity source, may indeed be problematic. China is already one of the world’s major contributors of carbon emissions. However, bitcoin mining in Oregon? Not the same thing. Not all types of energy generation are equal in their impact on the environment, nor does the world uniformly rely on the same types of generation across states and markets.

In Europe, for example, Iceland is becoming a popular place for bitcoin mining. That nation relies on nearly 100 percent renewable energy for its production. An abundant supply of geothermal and hydropower energy makes bitcoiners’ power demand cheap and nearly irrelevant.

Similarly, in the hydropower-driven Pacific Northwest, miners can still expect to turn a profit without contributing heavily to carbon emissions.

The right discussion
Like many other aspects of the energy industry, bitcoin is not necessarily a “bad guy.” It’s simply a new, and vaguely understood, industry.

The discussion about energy consumption and bitcoin is, I believe, unfair without discussing the energy intensity of new technologies overall, specifically in data centers.

Rather than discussing the energy consumption of bitcoin generally, people should be discussing the carbon production of bitcoin, and understanding whether certain mining towns are adding to an already large environmental burden.

Although there has been extensive discussion in the media of bitcoin’s energy consumption, I’m not aware of any studies that actually calculate the comparative carbon footprint of the bitcoin process.

Global electricity consumption is going up overall. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that world use will increase nearly 28 percent over the next two decades. But increasing energy consumption is bad only if we aren’t shifting toward less carbon-dense power production. So far, it seems that only miners are currently shifting toward cleaner parts of the world.

So perhaps people should quit criticizing bitcoin for its energy intensity and start criticizing states and nations for still providing new industries with dirty power supplies instead.

https://theconversation.com/stop-worrying-about-how-much-energy-bitcoin-uses-97591

Won and done? Sportsbooks banning smart money

Already a hot-button issue in the United Kingdom, a controversial bookmaking practice is starting to spread in the U.S.'s growing legal sports betting market, too.

Bookmakers from London to Las Vegas are refusing to take bets from a growing number of customers whose only offense might be trying to win.

The full scope of the issue in the U.K. is difficult to determine, but it's believed only a small fraction of the roughly 8.5 million "punters" (the European term for bettors) are impacted. Gaming experts say sportsbooks might have closed as many as 50,000 betting accounts in recent years, and just as many punters have had their betting limits restricted to mere pittance.

As one U.K. bettor put it, "If you try to win, they don't let you play anymore."

"Yes, bookmakers are severely restricting or closing accounts for what appears to be the fact that these people are winning," said U.K. gambling consultant Steve Donoughue, secretariat for an all-party parliamentary group that focuses on gaming.

"The hilariousness of it," Donoughue added, "is that they restricted one of my member's accounts, and he's a Lord."

The profit-minded corporations that have entered the bookmaking game, however, look at it from the perspective of their bottom line and wonder what business would ever choose to cater to customers thought to be "uneconomical." It's like encouraging a world-class competitive eater to dine often at your all-you-can-eat buffet.

American sports betting is not immune to the practice. Banning or limiting sophisticated players has been a regular part of Las Vegas sports betting for decades, and, like in the U.K., there's absolutely nothing illegal about it.

Bettors say the practice is increasing and has even occurred in some of the new states (such as New Jersey) that have entered into the now-legal bookmaking game in recent months.

"Americans should be worried," said Brian Chappell, a founder for the U.K. bettor advocacy group Justice for Punters. "It's coming."

In Nevada, refusing to take bets from any customer, from card counters to wise-guy sports bettors, is completely within any casino's legal rights. From Caesars Palace to the Venetian to more local spots like Station Casinos, every bookmaker in town will tell you -- albeit somewhat quietly -- that they've 86'd customers for one reason or another.

Seasoned bettors are concerned, though, that the practice of banning or limiting accounts is not only increasing, but the reasoning behind the decisions is becoming more and more suspect.

Many believe that the only thing betting intelligently will get you at some shops is a one-way ticket to being thrown out. An iconic U.K. bookmaker that's rapidly growing its footprint in the U.S. is said to be by far the most aggressive with the tactic.

ESPN communicated with 20 bettors for this article who said they had been banned from betting with William Hill U.S. in Nevada. Two said they already have been cut off at the new William Hill books in New Jersey, too, something the Division of Gaming Enforcement is reviewing.

"In our world, our community," said Joe Fortuna, one of the professional bettors who says he was cut off by William Hill in Nevada, "everyone knows you'll get thrown out of there."

"It's not even really close," said another Las Vegas bettor who had been restricted by William Hill and requested anonymity. "They're by far the worst."

Founded in 1934 in London, William Hill was granted a Nevada gaming license in 2012. The company has grown into the largest bookmaker by volume in Nevada, serving more than 100,000 customers and operating in more than 100 locations -- including at casinos like Casino Royale and Hooters on the Las Vegas Strip. They have the most customers and, in turn, probably have the most complaints directed at them.

A vast majority of William Hill's customers are recreational bettors who wager small amounts and never test the limits, house rules or gaming regulations. Industry sources say it's the remaining sliver of bettors who make the book uncomfortable enough to eliminate some of them from the equation.

William Hill executives make the decision on which accounts to shut down during a weekly meeting in the Las Vegas corporate office, according to multiple sources familiar with the company's practices. In these meetings, often held on Wednesdays, CEO Joe Asher will scroll through a list of accounts, flagging any that stand out as potential threats. He will then ask his team of traders why they should continue doing business with these customers.

The traders, sources said, regularly resist, promising that a player ultimately will lose back all their winnings and then some. Their resistance, however, has not prevented hundreds of bettors from being put on a list that prohibits them from betting with William Hill in person or on the company's mobile app. "I would be surprised if it's not in the thousands," one industry source said.

William Hill says the bettors on the banned list belong there. Nevada bookmakers are heavily regulated and risk federal scrutiny as well as six- and even seven-figure fines from Nevada Gaming Control if they don't maintain anti-money laundering and know-your-customer protocols. If a bettor is found to be unsuitable and violating federal law or state regulations, the bookmaker who took their bet is often held responsible too. To stay in good standing with regulators, licensed operators must be careful.

Anyone named in illegal gambling investigations is put on William Hill's banned list, along with bettors suspected of sharing accounts on the mobile app, a violation of gaming control regulations.

There is, however, a select group of bettors, dozens of them, who insist they haven't done anything except try to place smart bets and yet were still cut off. Some are angle-shooting advantage players, who target oddsmakers' mistakes and any latency in updating the lines, while others on the list say they are simply avid sports bettors who try to play the best odds. All kinds have been shown the door at William Hill, according to the bettors and additional industry sources.

"It is completely false to say that we ban people simply for winning," William Hill U.S. told ESPN in a statement. "There are literally tens of thousands of customers in Nevada that are winners at William Hill. That's one of the great things about sports betting -- a lot of customers do win.

"In the rare situation where we do prohibit someone from wagering with us, there are a variety of reasons why. They include the sharing of accounts (usually tied to someone who previously has been banned), betting on behalf of third parties, screen scraping and other efforts to 'game' the system, as well as compliance reasons or being offensive to staff and/or other customers.

"If someone tells you that the reason that they are prohibited from wagering with William Hill is because they are winning, they are not telling you the whole story."

The company declined to answer further questions on the record and did not respond to follow-up requests to clarify the meaning of "screen scraping." Several bettors said they weren't certain what "screen scraping" entails.

At ESPN's request, bettors provided emails and screenshots from their mobile accounts that notified them they could no longer bet with William Hill. Some bettors said they were even in the red overall at the book, but might have had a recent hot streak or won on a long-shot futures bet that proceeded their being cut off.

It happened to Fortuna two years ago. After cashing a winning bet on the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, he went back to the William Hill book the next day and was told he was no longer allowed to bet.

"They don't give you any reason," Fortuna said. "We called corporate and didn't get anywhere. It's almost like they're saying, 'We don't have to serve you,' which is unfair. You can't win. It's not really bookmaking."

Another bettor was informed of his banishment via email: "While we appreciate your previous business, the company has decided to no longer conduct business with you," a William Hill representative wrote.

The bettor said he sent three follow-up emails and left multiple phone messages asking for a reason for the decision but never got a response.

How other Nevada sportsbooks operateSome professional bettors have accepted that the books' right of refusal is just part of the cost of doing business that comes along with their chosen career. Some bettors said they go to great lengths to try to stay off the radar. They'll keep their bets under the limits and will even intentionally place wagers at less-advantageous odds.

"My personal experience here is that they have not backed me off," said Ed Miller, a Las Vegas-based sports bettor and accomplished poker author. "I have won here in Nevada. I know other people who have won. If you don't want to get backed off, you've kind of got to play it on their terms a little bit."

Not every sportsbook in Nevada takes a hardline approach to dealing with sharp bettors. Some Vegas veterans believe it is part of their responsibility as a bookmaker to accept decent-size wagers -- anywhere from $500 to $2,000, for example -- from any bettor in good standing. Some even welcome wiseguys, to an extent.

"We like having wise-guy action," said Chris Andrews, sportsbook director at the South Point Casinos and a nearly 40-year Nevada bookmaker. "You can use their information if you manage them properly, and it will help your bottom line."

Ed Malinowski, sportsbook director for The Stratosphere, divides wise-guy action into two categories: handicappers who bet their opinions, and advantage players who might place arbitrage bets on both sides of games and target off-market lines and odds.

"The advantage players are the ones who are just scalping prices and taking advantage of weak numbers," Malinowski said. "Those are more of the undesirable-type players we don't want in here."

The Westgate SuperBook, which is known to accept sharp action, creates a profile on every bettor in its database. Similar to The Stratosphere's practice, the SuperBook places bettors in eight different categories.

"We categorize them from the sharpest of the sharp -- the guys who bet their own opinions and we respect greatly -- to your average Joe," said Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports for the SuperBook. "We get a lot of sharp players in here that we deal with on a daily basis. We monitor them very, very closely. We profile to a point where we know exactly what they're doing and mold their limits accordingly."

In the end, you have two professions, each trying to increase profits, but only one side gets to make the rules.

"It's a cat-and-mouse game with these guys," added Malinowski, a 25-year-plus Nevada bookmaker. "Obviously, they're doing their job, and we're trying to do ours."

'A business, not a public service'The crux of the debate can be boiled down to two quotes from a January seminar in the U.K., hosted by the Parliamentary All-Party Betting & Gaming Group titled, "Are Bookmakers unfairly closing customer accounts?"

During the meeting, members of Parliament listened to industry stakeholders, including bookmakers and punters, state their cases.

"Risk management should not be taken to equal risk elimination," said Simon Rolans, chairman for a horse racing bettors advocacy group. "Betting on horse racing, by its nature, involves risk -- whichever side of the counter you are on -- and that is a significant part of its appeal compared to some alternatives."

Richard Flint, CEO of U.K. online bookmaker Sky Betting & Gaming, spoke next.

"We are ... a mass-market leisure and entertainment business," Flint said. "And that word, 'business,' brings me to my first major point. We run a business, not a public service. And we run it to be a commercial success. I'm not embarrassed about that."

In shooting for commercial success, should bookmakers be allowed to refuse to take bets from customers who take steps to try to win? On the other hand, should a business be forced to take on a customer they fear will repeatedly damage its bottom line?

The debate is getting ready to play out in state legislatures across the U.S.

In May, the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on state-sponsored sports betting. Full-scale, legal sportsbooks have since opened in Delaware, Mississippi and New Jersey, and many more states are expected to pass sports betting laws and set up regulations in the coming months and years. International companies are watching closely.

In addition to William Hill, European bookmakers Paddy Power Betfair and bet365 have already entered the U.S. market. Paddy Power Betfair acquired FanDuel, once exclusively a fantasy sports provider, and is now running the sportsbook at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, and bet365 has partnered with the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City. Each company has been accused of turning away or severely limiting sharp bettors in the U.K.

One U.K. punter, who had his limits significantly reduced by bet365, provided a transcript of an online chat with a customer service representative who explained that, "We expect this account to be uneconomical based on your type of business."

"When operators get to pick and choose their players based on skill, that goes against integrity and transparency -- the first right of the Sports Bettors' Bill of Rights," said Brian Hess, director of The Sports Fan Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based group that is lobbying states for a consumer-first approach to sports betting. "Clear, public disclosures of this practice and open competition would encourage fans to only bet where operators are fair and honest."

New Jersey is one of the only states in which gaming operators are not allowed to refuse to take bets from players who are simply using skill, a protocol backed by a 1982 decision from the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

However, in early August, a bettor told ESPN that he was cut off at the William Hill sportsbook at Oceans Resort in Atlantic City, after placing just two bets, the largest of which he lost.

"I had bet $8,400 to win $4,000 on a tennis match and $2,000 on a [first-five-innings] total on baseball," said Shane Sigsbee, founder of Las Vegas-based sports betting group Imawhale LLC. "I went up to bet on the White Sox, and the teller told me that they had to call the Las Vegas headquarters. He returned and told me that because I was banned in Nevada, I was also banned in New Jersey."

New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement is actively looking into the overall issue of banning bettors.

"The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement's policy is that patrons cannot be barred from wagering based solely on their winnings or skilled play," David Rebuck, director of gaming enforcement, said in a statement to ESPN. "The New Jersey Supreme Court has previously ruled that patrons cannot be barred from wagering at a facility unless they are on the exclusion list or self-exclusion list or they were caught or suspected of committing any action that may violate the Casino Control Act or State regulations, such as cheating or otherwise being disruptive to operations. These same rules apply to sports wagering.

"However, a facility can take action against skilled players, such as lowering an individual's bet limit. Additionally, online accounts may be closed by an operator for misconduct such as returned funds, bonus abuse, bullying in a chat room, or other terms and conditions violations."

The search for solutionsThis debate isn't an issue for the majority of the betting public in the U.S., which isn't a longer-term threat to the bookmakers' bottom lines -- and probably won't ever have to deal with being banned or limited. However, in the U.K., some casual punters, who weren't playing for high stakes, have been impacted.

"That's why we launched Justice for Punters," said Chappell, who started the advocacy group for U.K. bettors in 2015 and now has more than 2,000 followers. "Some of us are professional gamblers, but some of us are just recreational punters who try hard."

Chappell said the practice of restricting or banning U.K. bettors really increased around 2007, after many of the larger corporate bookmakers bought up independent shops and the industry consolidated.

"They were no longer bookmakers," Chappell said. "They became corporations that had to increase their profit every six months. They were no longer run by traders, they were run by investment bankers and accountants, who were going to the older generation asking, 'Why are you letting people win at all?'"

Some jurisdictions are trying to come up with solutions.

In 2016, the racing commission in Victoria, Australia, implemented a minimum bet limit (MBL) on some thoroughbred races. Licensed operators are required to accept any bet to win up to 2,000 Australian dollars or face penalties. If MBLs were applied in the U.S, bettors could be guaranteed the right to bet $2,200 to win $2,000 on an NFL game or $50 on a 40-1 longshot to win the World Series, for example.

Under the MBL rules, licensed bookmakers in Victoria are prohibited from closing or restricting a betting account that is complying with the established minimum bet limits.

Bookmakers Paddy Power Betfair and William Hill have tried the idea of minimum bet limits in the U.K.

"We are trying to find a balance between catering to recreational customers -- which the whole industry is doing -- and giving customers who want to bet more the opportunity to do so," William Hill UK group trading director Terry Pattinson told gaming industry trade publication EGR in late July.

Minimum bet limits are relatively new and have been restricted to horse racing to this point. Gaming experts say they are one potential solution to tackle the practice of bookmakers avoiding bets from sharp players. But some experts aren't sure professional bettors will like the outcome of forcing books to take their action.

"In a weird way, be careful what you wish for," said Matthew Trenhaile, a London-based veteran of the international sports betting industry. "Because if you force the bookmakers' hands, they will get better at this and they will squeeze the sharps out."

Trenhaile, whose background is in finance and as an odds compiler in between stints working with professional bettors, said a well-run peer-to-peer betting exchange with high-level, reputable financial backing could be a possible solution to the problem in the U.S. In a betting exchange, bettors post and accept or "match" bets offered by other bettors. The platform takes a commission for brokering the transaction, while not facing any of the risk. Betfair and Smarkets, another U.K. company eyeing the U.S. market, are examples of betting exchanges.

"If you got a genuine Wall Street brand investing in some sort of sports betting exchange, like a Citibank, if they had that behind it, it could go really well," said Trenhaile, who also referenced Amazon as another possibility.

Stakeholders, including professional bettors, are paying close attention as legal bookmaking begins to expand across the U.S. They're making their voices heard on social media, expressing their disgust and drawing attention to things like greater-than-normal vigorish being charged by some new bookmakers in addition to the increasing frequency of being prohibited from placing bets. They've heard the rhetoric about how the creation of the legal market will allow them to move out of the unregulated offshore industry, but then ask what they're supposed to do when the new legal books refuse to take their action.

"What I like is that America is very much exhibiting a strong fear of this," Trenhaile added. "And by being very public with their fear, I'm hoping that information filters back to the large bookmakers, because then they can tailor their product."

However, unless forced by states and regulators, it's a long shot that bookmaking corporations suddenly begin making business decisions to cater to the small percentage of their clientele they believe negatively impact profit rather than serving that vast majority of customers who pay the bills.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of having legalized sports betting," said Donoghue, the U.K. gaming consultant. "My view on the U.S. opening up is that it's going to be a major pain in the ass."

http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/24425026/gambling-bookmakers-growing-us-legal-betting-market-allowed-ban-bettors

What inhibits the development of Blockchain in the mass market

In speaking to business leaders, one told him a twice-a-year reporting system would allow companies the flexibility and cost savings companies need to "Make business (jobs) even better in the U.S." Trump tweeted Friday morning. Trump said he directed the SEC to look into a change in its requirements.

In a statement to reporters, Trump said outgoing Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi suggested a six-month reporting schedule.

"I'd like to see twice but we're going to see," Trump said. "So we're looking at that very very curiously, we're looking at twice a year instead of four times a year."

Public companies must report their sales, profits and the state of the company's balance sheet every quarter. That has been required since the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which was put in place to give more confidence and transparency to investors in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash. That act also created the SEC, which sets the regulations which govern those quarterly reports.

Businesses have long complained that the reports require company executives to focus too much on the short term. Juicing numbers impresses investors, but it can force companies to miss out on long term trends. One of the reasons Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk wants to take his company private, he told his employees last week, was the way quarterly reports distort decisions at the company.

The SEC has already been working on the issue. Chairman Jay Clayton issued a statement Friday saying the agency "continues to study" reporting requirements, including how frequently companies should announce results.

"The president has highlighted a key consideration for American companies and, importantly, American investors and their families — encouraging long-term investment in our country," Clayton said.

President Barack Obama has also criticized quarterly reports.

Speaking to the New York Review of Books in 2015, Obama said that he had talked to a large number of businesses executives who told him, "Because they've got quarterly reports to shareholders and if they've made a long-term investment that may pay off way down the line, or if they're paying their employees more now because they think it's going to help them retain high-quality employees, a lot of times they feel like they're going to get punished in the stock market. And so they don't do it, because the definition of being a successful business is narrowed to what your quarterly earnings reports are."

Shareholders, however, use the quarterly earnings reports as a guide to the quality and health of their investments. Without quarterly financial reports, investors could be blind to important risk factors that could damage their portfolios.

Nooyi confirmed she had talked to Trump about the change of schedule. She pointed out that it had the support of many CEOs, including the Business Roundtable, an association of leading CEOs.

"Many market participants...have been discussing how to better orient corporations to have a more long-term view. Most agree that a short-term only view can inhibit long-term strategy," she said. "In the end, all companies have to balance short-term and long-term performance."

Studies on the subject are mixed. It's unclear whether management at companies that report semi-annually take a longer-term investment strategy than management at companies reporting quarterly, said Salman Arif, a business professor at Indiana University who has studied the difference in reporting periods. What is clear is that investors are more reluctant to invest with companies when they have less information on their performance.

"Less frequent reporting can raise the cost of capital," he said. "If you're taking away information from investors, they will be desperate for any signals on performance."

He said when companies report only twice a year, the reaction in markets to their results is typically more volatile than the reaction to quarterly results.

The president has run privately-held companies that didn't have to report results at all during most of his time in business.

"This is the most myopic president in history," said hedge fund manager Stan Druckenmiller: "He doesn't think -- in any way -- long term. I find it very rich that he's proposing this with some veil that it's going to help companies think long-term. As an investor, I find it troubling."

Druckenmiller noted that investors like to know what's going on with the companies they invest in. A lot can change in a three-to six-month period, especially with all the disruption in technology.

"You've got guys like Elon Musk saying they want everyone to think long term. In the meantime he's building cars in a tent so he makes quarterly numbers," said Druckenmiller. "Jeff Bezos has proven you can report quarterly numbers and think long-term. He's done it."

The European Commission, among others, only requires semi-annual financial reports of companies there, although major European companies whose stock is traded in both the United States and Europe will report on a quarterly basis in order to comply with SEC regulations. Nooyi said she thinks it would be beneficial to harmonize American and European rules on financial reporting.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/17/news/companies/trump-drop-quarterly-reports/index.html

Yes he loss the $10,000 in one match and because of the amount involved he is discouraged about everything.  I think he go too far and that is what affect every gamblers. When the win two or three games the greed do set in and make them to bet more and in the process lose heavy.

However, even if Bitcoin has solved this economic problem, perhaps it’s naive to think Bitcoin would result in a more prosperous economic system. Bitcoin is a new and unique system, which is likely to cause more economic problems, perhaps unexpected or new ones.

Shares are now getting whacked in after-hours trading, which frankly messes no sense because they beat expectations on over all revenue and profit. Just shows that the idiotic crypto mentality has creeped into traditional investing.

Astronomical gap between the pay of workers and bosses exposed in report on earnings of America’s top 350 CEOs

The chief executives of America’s top 350 companies earned 312 times more than their workers on average last year, according to a new report published Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute.

The rise came after the bosses of America’s largest companies got an average pay rise of 17.6% in 2017, taking home an average of $18.9m in compensation while their employees’ wages stalled, rising just 0.3% over the year.

The pay gap has risen dramatically, with some fluctuations, since the 1990s. In 1965 the ratio of CEO to worker pay was 20 to one; that figure had risen to 58 to one by in 1989 and peaked in 2000 when CEOs earned 344 times the wage of their average worker.

CEO pay dipped in the early 2000s and during the last recession, but has been rising rapidly since 2009. Chief executives are even leaving the 0.1% in the dust. The bosses of large firms now earn 5.5 times as much as the average earner in the top 0.1%.

The astronomical gap between the remuneration of workers and bosses has been brought into sharper focus by a new financial disclosure rule that forces companies to publish the ratio of CEO to worker pay.

Last year, McDonald’s boss Steve Easterbrook earned $21.7m while the McDonald’s workers earned a median wage of just $7,017 – a CEO to worker pay ratio of 3,101 to one. The average Walmart worker earned $19,177 in 2017 while CEO Doug McMillon took home $22.8m – a ratio of 1,188 to one.

But the average is skewed by outliers, particularly the tech companies, where the CEO founders may own large chunks of the company but not take home much in compensation, relatively speaking.

Amazon’s boss, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, was paid close to $82,000 last year and his total compensation including security was about $1.7m in 2017 while the average Amazon worker earned $28,446 – a ratio of 59 to one for his entire package and just three to one counting salary only.

But neither man is waiting on his monthly paycheck. Bezos’s personal fortune now tops $154bn while Zuckerberg’s is close to $66bn, according to Forbes.

The compensation bonanza was driven by stock-related components of CEO compensation such as stock awards or the opportunity to cash in stock options, said Lawrence Mishel, a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute.

But the rise in their compensation can not be explained entirely by rising stock markets. CEO rewards have outstripped both stock prices and corporate profits, EPI found. Between 1978 and 2017 CEO compensation has increased by 979%. Over the same period the S&P 500 Index of the US’s largest companies grew 637%. The typical workers’ pay package rose just 11.2% over the same time frame.

“Over time I think there has been a loosening of norms.” said Mishel. “Everyone wants to believe their CEO is one of the best, so they look around and see what everyone else is being paid and then they pay them a lot more. They think everyone is better than average.”

The outsize pay packets have had a direct impact on people down the corporate ladder, Mishel claims. “The redistribution of wages to the top 5%, but particularly the top 1%, affected the wage growth of the bottom 90%.

“As a mathematical matter, had there not been the redistribution upward – to the top 5%, but which is mostly about to the top 1% – the wages of the bottom 90% could have grown twice as fast as it actually did.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/16/ceo-versus-worker-wage-american-companies-pay-gap-study-2018

America's intelligence chiefs have warned banks of a major hacking threat to cash machines worldwide in the next few days.

The FBI sent out a confidential alert on Friday to warn that cyber criminals are planning a global 'cash-out scheme' using malware to take over ATMs and steal millions of dollars.  

Banks were warned that they could fall victim to an 'unlimited operation' in which millions of dollars could be withdrawn from cash machines.  

Smaller banks with less sophisticated security systems are thought to be most vulnerable to an attack using the 'jackpotting' technique, the Daily Telegraph reports.  

The warning said: 'The FBI has obtained unspecified reporting indicating cyber criminals are planning to conduct a global Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cash-out scheme in the coming days, likely associated with an unknown card issuer breach.'

The website Krebs On Security reported that criminals could create 'fraudulent copies' of bank cards by installing their data on reusable magnetic strip cards.

The FBI warned that 'at a pre-determined time, the co-conspirators withdraw account funds from ATMs using these cards.'

'Historic compromises have included small-to-medium size financial institutions, likely due to less robust implementation of cyber security controls, budgets, or third-party vendor vulnerabilities,' the alert said.

Attacks could affect banks all over the world with British banks with large overseas interests including Barclays and HSBC thought to have been made aware of the danger from the 'jackpotting' technique.

Earlier this year it was revealed that a co-ordinated group of hackers had stolen more than $1million by hijacking cash machines in the U.S.

The spate of attacks represented the first widespread jackpotting activity in the United States, officials said in January.

The heists, which involved hacking ATMs to rapidly shoot out torrents of cash, were across the United States spanning from the Gulf Coast to New England.

An alert at the time from an ATM maker said the method included gaining physical access, replacing the hard drive and using an industrial endoscope to depress an internal button required to reset the device.

A U.S. Secret Service alert sent to banks in January said machines running Windows XP were more vulnerable and encouraged ATM operators to update to Windows 7 to protect against the attack.    

Hackers have moved from stealing payment card numbers and online banking credentials to more lucrative hacks on bank networks, giving them access not only to ATM machines, but also to electronic payment networks.

In 2016 it was reported that cyber criminals had remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe.  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6056189/FBI-warns-cyber-criminals-plotting-mass-hack-against-bank-ATMs.html

MANY goverrments use “sin taxes” to dissuade people from smoking and drinking alcohol. In recent years, some lawmakers have turned their cross-hairs to a different vice: sugar. Obesity is on the rise all across the world. Forty per cent of Americans today are obese, up from around 15% in 1980. Several countries, along with a handful of American cities, have introduced taxes on sugary drinks in recent years. Their governments hope that these levies will both raise revenues and reduce how much sugar people consume. But do sin taxes even work?

Policymakers are right to think that sin taxes lead to lower consumption. The exact estimates vary from study to study, but economists have found that in general, a 1% increase in the price of tobacco or alcohol in America leads to a 0.5% decline in sales. In practical terms, this means that sales of tobacco and alcohol are more responsive overall to price changes than say, sales of many common household goods, such as coffee. Similarly, while it is still too early to determine whether these taxes will have any effect on obesity, studies have shown that they have at the very least reduced sales in Mexico, and the cities of Berkeley and Philadelphia.

But if there is a problem with sin taxes, it is not that they are ineffective. Rather, it is that they are inefficient. Sin taxes are blunt policy instruments. People who only have the occasional drink are not taking on any great health risks, yet they are taxed no differently than serious alcoholics. A similar logic applies for sugar taxes. Tobacco presents a slightly different problem. Nicotine is highly addictive, meaning that there are relatively few people who smoke cigarettes only occasionally.

It is easiest to justify taxes on particular goods when they present what economists call “negative externalities”. When a driver buys fuel for his car, both he and the petrol station benefit. Yet cars emit carbon dioxide in their wake, which suggests that it would be only fair for drivers to pay taxes to offset the environmental damage they cause. Some policymakers argue that people who engage in unhealthy habits also impose negative externalities, since they tend to present taxpayers with bigger medical bills. In practice, however, these costs tend to be overstated. While obese people probably do present net costs to governments, smokers tend to die earlier, meaning that they probably save governments money since they draw less from state pensions. Policymakers should still consider implementing sin taxes if they intend to intervene to change individuals’ behaviour. But they should be aware that the bulk of the damage that smokers, drinkers and the obese do is to themselves, and not to others.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/08/10/do-sin-taxes-work

Concerns over Apple's elaborate efforts to reduce its tax bill are nothing new. The company — which hit a historic $1 trillion valuation this month— was punished in 2016 for a tax deal in Ireland, which the EU said amounted to illegal state aid.

But a newly discovered tactic has reignited the debate about the company's tax contributions. The San Francisco Chronicle reported over the weekend that Apple was "aggressive in opposing tax assessors," the public officials who determine the value of property for tax reasons.

Apple may be the biggest taxpayer in Santa Clara County, where its Cupertino headquarters is based, but The Chronicle said it had 489 open tax appeals in the area, disputing $8.5 billion (£6.7 billion) in property value.

In a 2015 appeal, Apple claimed that a "cluster of properties" around Apple Park was worth $200, rather than the $1 billion figure alighted on by Santa Clara County's tax assessor. In another, Apple said a property valued at $384 million by local officials was also worth $200, The Chronicle said.

"These are major cases, and publicly, they kind of go under the radar screen," Santa Clara County assessor Larry Stone said. Companies are prepared to spend millions of dollars on lawyers to appeal tax rulings, he added, "but there's millions at stake."

Business Insider has contacted Apple for comment. The company declined to comment when approached by The Chronicle.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said the firm pays its taxes properly. "In every country where we operate, Apple follows the law and we pay all the taxes we owe," Cook said in an open letter in 2016.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-trying-to-reduce-cupertino-tax-bill-2018-8