I am sure there are a couple of members here who would have something to say about that. Nigeria is the most populous nation on the continent and Côte d'Ivoire are the hosts, the wind would be in their sales.

The pool is mostly an exercise now for the rest of us. Got to have some more luck in future pools.

- Jay -

The third goal took a slight nick along the way which changed the direction of the ball just a little bit. I would not go too hard on Alisson on that one.

It sucks how the English media does not allow Arsenal to just show a bit of passion. All clubs and mangers can get as energetic as they want, but when Arteta runs around the touchline he is tagged 'immature'. Klopp has pretty much run off into the field after an additional time winner and it did not attract any attention at all.

- Jay -

1. Yes
2. Over
3. Under
4. Yes
5. Heads
6. No
7. Rush
8. SF
9. KC
10. Sack
11. SF
12. No
13. No
14. Yes
15. Yes
16.  No
17. Under
18. Yes
19. 2
20. No
21. SF
22. SF
23. KC
24. SF
25. Blue

Tiebreaker: 44 points

- Jay -

A glance through your post history shows that majority of your posts were made in your local board. If there is a shortage of merit circulation in that board then you would not be getting much of it. I would not advise you start posting in other boards you are not comfortable in simply to get merits, that can lead to spam and get you on ignore lists, which is the opposite of what you want.

You first have to stop looking at merits as the determinant of quality here. What quantifies your time spent here is the amount of knowledge you are acquiring, not merits you are getting. The more you learn, the better your posts get.

- Jay -

I consider personality and character to be too nuanced for it to be so easily generalized. There is no one (or two boxes in this case) that fits gamblers, when you throw it other personality traits like poor self esteem, manipulation and IQ, it is just opening up pandora's box.

- Jay -

I went against one of the seeded teams, but the wrong one. Chelsea and United have been unpredictable, but so much so has been Wolves and WestHam, difficult to speculate how good or terrible their next performance would be.

The goonerz are leading now thanks to some elementary mistake from Van Dijk and Allison. I think it was more of a Van Dijk mistake cause he should really be taking care of that.
Now we got to hold on for the win.

- Jay -

Ironically they just snatched the victory at the death. I do not see a way back for Mali now. The fairy-tale journey for the hosts will continue for yet another round.

- Jay -

They maybe factored in the fact that they are the hosts of the tournament. They were not expected to win and beat the favorites Senegal, it is expected that they would win Mali. I am surprised more pool players are expecting Mali to win, I am on the minority who picked Ivory Coast

- Jay -

That was a crazy matchup. Luton score 4 goals in 2 straight matches and now move a point ahead from the relegation zone. I also expected it to be an easy match for Newcastle since they were playing at home and were building a good run of form.

Aston Villa are on fire, all of their forward players have scored and it is still the first half.

- Jay -

It may also go to show that what we consider to be knowledge does not translate to ability to correctly predict match outcomes, and sometimes just winging it and going with your guts can be an effective prediction strategy, with luck playing a little part and staying level headed to adjust your predictions as the tournament goes being vital.

If for example the entire tournament was scratched and started again, do you think the pool standings would be the same or remotely similar at this stage or we would have similar sides in the last 8? I think not.

- Jay -

I had a bet in for the correct score between Everton and Tottenham: 1-2.

It sucks winning it for so long in the match and then for it to be spoiled so close to the end. It shows the unpredictability of football and also helps Everton stay above the relegation zone for the time being. I am really struggling to see a way they stay in the premier league this season, but they are giving it a very good fight and will be in the race till the end.

- Jay -

Not all investors can gain exposure to bitcoins directly. For us regular investors, you can just log in to an exchange and buy bitcoins. Some institutions and enterprises cannot, they will go through too many legal hoops to acquire and store bitcoins like you do, they are the ones who would most utilize ETFs.

Some other use it cause they do not want to carry the responsibility of holding their investments themselves, but rely on a third party.

- Jay -

I struggled to understand your post. It looks to me like you are comparing ponzi schemes to gambling, or likening it to be a form or gamble or risk.

If you choose to walk into a scam cause you believe you would be able to profit from it before it goes bust, that is your decision to make. But it is still a scam and should not be encouraged cause you are actively promoting something you know to be a scam.

This in my opinion is also not a topic for this board.

- Jay -

What is better is the forum does not have an algorithm that determines how posts show up. A newbie and a legendary member posting would averagely have the same visibility, what would affect that is how much people interact with either posts to keep it at the first page of the board.

With other mainstream social platforms influencers get to a much larger audience due to their higher number of followers. If they are promoting a scam, a not so influential member does not have the reach to warn enough members about it.
Replies are even arranged based on interactions, so if you reply to a tweet warning that it is a scam, except others interact with it, it drops to the bottom of the page, or the poster just hides it, whichever happens first.

Telegram is way worse cause conversations happen in closed boxes and you cannot even prove it, cause screenshots can be faked easily.

- Jay -

Gambling is not a reliable undertaking. I would not advise the Op to take on this, even though they said they are only speculating on it at this point.
Even those influencers on social media who talk on gambling and post winnings regularly still lose a lot of the time, but they would not post their losses which happens a lot of the time cause that does not support their narrative which they want to give to their followers.

- Jay -

Arsenal win definitely. Liverpool are in good form but I just feel that Arsenal will have the edge in this one and make the title race a bit more interesting.

Brighton is the team which I find to be most predictable these days. I would expect Crystal Palace to win owing to the poor run of form of the seagulls, but they could show up with a masterclass.

- Jay -

They came through. This for me is arguably their best performance of the entire tournament and lays down a marker for all the other teams. If they can work on their finishing to go along with their brilliant defending, they are edging the other teams to win the title.

- Jay -

Alright then. I personally would not be interested in this sort of arrangements. I consider gambling to be fun and not an investment and anyone who is interested in being sponsored to gamble takes it a little too seriously.

Some others may be interested, if there is a clear indication that they bear no risk, this can be done through using an escrow, but that will still require you to move the bitcoins you did not want to move in the first place. If you can provide that assurance, you may find willing players.

- Jay -

To ensure I understand you... In a situation where you do not want to move funds from your wallet, others should crowdfund your balance which you would gamble with and share profits based on a certain percentage determinant. And if you lose, you would refund using the finds you did not want to move in the first place?

Correct me if I got any part wrong?

- Jay -

I think it would. Satoshi deciding to sell off his Bitcoins would cause a massive hysteria in the crypto community. Headlines would be spun around it:
Has the founder lost faith in his creation?
Has the security of the founder been breached, how safe are your bitcoins then?
Bitcoin; a ship without a captain

The list goes on and on. The government would sponsor propaganda against it and there would be a massive crash. What I would be confident about is that Bitcoin would recover from it.

- Jay -