Fancying West Ham, and Watford to nick a point personally. Tottenham have been picking up their form recently, but they always seem to disappoint against the lesser teams. Think Watford have a good chance of getting a point or potentially even more.

West Ham have let me down recently though, they don't seem to have the consistency to be challenging for top four.

Solid tradition that, the British equivalent is having a curry, and beer the night before, and then getting obliterated on new years day. That's the British tradition it seems.

Yeah, I'll give credit to Jake Paul for not only beating Woodley twice, but doing it in style on the second go of it. I'm a little bit disappointed in Woodley, but at the end of the day it was pretty clear he was there to collect a pay check, and probably doesn't overly care about the result. Though, I expect he's quite annoyed he got embarrassed by Jake Paul, and that'll forever be on his record.

January 15th will be a welcome sight, I've been missing my UFC. Its the only thing that's missing in my holidays.

I mean, the swings can still be pretty drastic when you compare it to other currencies. Obviously, other things in the stock market would be more volatile, and various other cryptocurrencies are definitely a lot more volatile, but Bitcoin is most certainly still pretty crazy, and has the potential to earn a pretty sharp trader some serious money, even in the short term.

Also, considering the backing that Bitcoin has, and the potential it has to offer, its probably the most unique opportunity in most peoples lives. People thought the internet boom was a great time to make money, until Bitcoin absolutely threw that out of the water.

The key part is that it has to be registered to a company, and therefore that company has to be registered to a person. That then allows you to hold that person responsible if anything does go wrong or at the very least have them investigated, and decide it in a court of law.

If licenses weren't a thing then anyone could register a domain name, and scam people without much consequences. I know that's still possible, but at least people do value the idea of being licensed due to having some degree of protection. Its not perfect, but its something that adds a extra layer of security. If you wanted to be assured that a gambling website has been checked, and verified that they are who they say they are then you can do that by checking the register or contacting the gambling commission.

Yeah, your right. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it is an additional layer of security. While, it most definitely isn't fool proof it will help in certain instances. Fake data I expect is rare, since I'd hope that the gambling commission would require some sort of government confirmation, i.e checking the person behind it is who they say they're.

Assessment criteria is available online, UK gambling commission has it here: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/licensees-and-businesses/guide/compliance-assessments

So, they basically check that the website operates as specified. In fact, that website is a great resource for UK based or gambling websites offering a service to UK residents, since it specifies the requirements, and what's expected from your gambling service. I believe the gambling commission is a government run scheme, so they would absolutely verify the identity of people, and businesses offering gambling services.

I'm only surprised by the way they're going about it; providing education to their employees, announcing only Bitcoin, and not any other Altcoin, and pushing the fact that owning a private key is important. Technically, they could offer their services without suggesting to own the private key, which speaks tenfold about their trustworthiness. Hopefully, they'll incorporate into their services that the client will be required to own the private key, and not just suggest it. I guess, if a client wanted too they could opt out, but by default it should be that way I think.

I understand that not everyone wants to be completely responsible for their money, and therefore banks or some sort of third party is likely forever going to be needed. Although, I think by default at the very least the client should be offered what they want to do by default, and be explained without bias on what that exactly means.

The contract should have specifics about what addresses they would receive the money at, and therefore trying to hide money via different addresses wouldn't float. Once the address has received money from the specified sender, and receiving address any money transferred out would still need to be declared as income tax. Well, I guess the type of tax declared could vary by country, but most countries would treat it as income tax.

The only push back I could see is adopting a new ish currency that tends to fluctuate which could be considered extreme by the majority of people.  It definitely won't be related to taxing since it'll all need to be declared.

My only curiosity of this is whether the contract is tied to a set Bitcoin amount or if the contract is tied to fiat, but converted at the time of completion of an event.

I'm not exactly sure what your trying to point out here? The thing is, even if Bitcoin was considered boring, which I for one can tell you its not, they'll be people that would be glad that Bitcoin is stable enough to be considered boring. The thing is, Bitcoin is one of the most exciting concepts to come out in the last few decades, maybe you could potentially the most exciting thing in a century, but most definitely in decades. Bitcoin has the potential to be revolutionary, and if Bitcoin isn't the solution to our problems, it's very likely the very foundations to something completely revolutionary to changing how we think about privacy, third parties such as banks, and how we manage our money.

The price is the least of the concern when it comes to excitability, honestly the price is just a upside to speculative traders looking to get in on the action, and make as much money as possible in a short period of time, but the real excitably is about what Bitcoin could become, and how it'll influence the world around us in the future. 

Both are definitely preferred. Though, I know a lot of people are going to disagree with that due to the KYC element. Most licensed gambling websites are required to take some sort of KYC, since they need to comply with the national laws set out by the government, which is what the gambling commission usually go by.

There's definitely a reason that gambling websites ask for KYC, though you can't always guarantee what they'll do with that information. I think the misconception is, KYC is always bad. Though, I would partly disagree, and say certain services it makes sense, however the issue with KYC isn't the act of requiring certain identification or confirmation of identity, its the amount of information they request from you that's the issue.

The government should be the only ones which have access to much of the information that websites gambling websites require, and instead of giving the information to them directly, the government, and gambling commission should work together, and generate a unique code which is linked with the KYC information that only the government hold. Then, you can be sure that the websites that you use that require KYC, can only verify that you are who you say you are via giving them the unique code. The government then are the only entity that has possession of your sensitive data. Most people are already registered with the government in some sort of way, for example National Health Service, Banks, Electoral Poll, so this wouldn't be a massive invasion of privacy. The problem is at the moment we keep giving our information to these companies, that will use it any way they can, and profit from it.

If we look at the statistics boxing is probably considered more dangerous due to the long term effects that getting punched in the head does, compared to hard blows, but non repeated punches. Obviously, the research is still being conducted (including other sports like football), but I expect that Boxing does have more long term effects, especially considering the effect that the boxing glove has, i.e padding the blows allowing more blows than a smaller glove like the UFC does.

Since, if you get hurt in UFC its likely game over, and if its not your trying to dive to the legs, and survive. Boxing, quite often the blow isn't enough to knock you over, but your dazed enough to not know exactly what's going on, and therefore take more shots.

It annoys me as a fan, I can't imagine how annoyed MMA fighters are to see that people like Jake Paul who are completely new to the sport are making more money in one fight than most UFC fighters will ever hold in their careers. Its quite sickening, I'm not sure if that's Dana's fault though or if its just the ridiculous amount of money that Boxing has come to spend.

I don't think hes trying to say charge back here, since contracts should protect you against that, especially from recognized organisations like the UFC etc. Like I explained above, hes probably suggesting he expected some sort of push back from the fans or others orgs, but didn't.

Despite fiat being able to chargeback, there's no way on earth that a bank or payment processor like Paypal would do this if the contract has been agreed upon. I know its a little confusing, because I'm not sure why he would receive any push back, unless hes talking about joining Eagle FC instead of a more recognized brand in MMA, instead of actually fighting for Bitcoin.

I've got a bit of a bone to pick with the AFCON, and honestly I'm not trying to get political here, however I'm on the side of being a little bit annoyed that despite us paying wages to players, they're practically forced to go to the AFCON during the season. I know there's been a lot of former players coming out recently saying that the AFCON is being discriminated against, but its not the competition I have a problem with its the timing of it. Surely, it would make more sense to the organisers, as well as for the fans to schedule it during the off season?

At the very least AFCON, and the Premier League need to work out some sort of compromise where the premier league schedules games around these competitions, and potentially has an international break. Though, an international break seems a little over kill for only a few players that do end up being impacted.

I just feel in its current state it creates an unfair advantage to the likes of Manchester City who can afford higher quality backups. Now, I know you could argue that Liverpool, and those that have purchased AFCON eligible players knew it before hand, and therefore accepted they would be missing for the games, but it still stings a little when there's plenty of time that this could be scheduled for out of any other competitions schedule.  

Maybe, I'm being a little unfair, and being biased to the Premier League due to only caring about my club that's in it. Anyway, I'll be routing for Egypt (more bias there I'm afraid), but I suspect Algeria or Nigeria to come away with the win. Senegal has all the potential in the world, but they never seem to click at the right time. Also, with Mane being slightly off the mark at the moment, I think that'll have an impact on their chances too.

Yeah, but last season was a bit of an anomaly, and really it was whoever got the luck of the draw. That was the first real season with Covid at large, and a lot of issues with how to deal with it. Liverpool had a absolute nightmare last season in terms of injuries, as well as battling Covid. So, there's plenty of reasons why they managed to finish second. I won't take everything away from them as they still needed to put in the performances, but many factors contributed to them being second.

They've got all the talent in the world, just something is rotten in that team, and I think its the players I mentioned. Once Ronaldo, Pogba, and potentially Maguire are gone I feel they can finally kick on whoever the manager is.

I think the criticism of Rashford is a little unjust. He's been fantastic for most of his career, and Manchester United fans jumping on him while the whole Manchester United squad is stealing a living isn't quite fair. He's young, and probably has one of the highest ceilings in the squad.

That Manchester United squad is brimming with talent they just can't seem to get on with each other, and there probably needs to be major adjustments to how they play or move on the players that are causing the issues. I don't think Ronaldo is good for that team, yeah hes been vital the last season getting much needed goals, but overall his attitude or ego if you will likely has a negative effect on the squad overall. I've watched Manchester United a few times this season, and they seem to always want to play through Ronaldo whenever he plays which takes the effect of Rashford, and the like away.

I'd say Ronaldo, Pogba, and Maguire need to be moved on. Not only for their performances, but their attitude, as well as their influence within the dressing room. We all know Ronaldo has a winning mentality, and is one of the best players to ever play in the Premier League, but I don't think he's what is needed at Man Utd. Pogba has looked brilliant in spells, but overall doesn't look like hes bothered to play. Maguire was a poor signing from the start, and should have never been near a starting player for Manchester United.

Also, a percentage of the newly registered accounts that have ended up nuked or banned would be sweet. I expect there's quite a large percentage of them. We've got several account farms which post the same thing, and we can easily nuke upwards to a hundred a day. Seems like they have thousands of accounts at their disposal, and we've only touched the surface as they've continued the same type of posts for months.

Generally, as with any new technology we see a initial growth spurt, and then over time the percentage of growth usually dies down a little bit. This is evident with the forum's growth, and Bitcoin in general. Lightning being new shows significant growth, but this will likely die down in the future as more, and more have already adopted it.

The forum, and Bitcoin as long as we're still in the positive is a good thing.

Nice to see Bitcoin getting used in the MMA world. Not groundbreaking, but good to see. I do fear that fighters will start peddling NFTs, and anything else they can just to earn some money though. Well, not just fighters, but any professional sports person.

Its phrased a little weird in the article, but I don't think it has anything to do with the contract specifics, instead this is usually a phrase used when a person was expecting criticism, but the way hes worded it suggests he hasn't had any. That would be my best guess based on the context its used.

Report them to the gambling commission, and they should investigate. The equivalent of the gambling commission might be different in other countries, but in the UK the gambling commission sort of verify things are going as they should. Often its a legal requirement to offer some sort of support in the UK, and they need to make it accessible for everyone. If they aren't like I said report them to the gambling commission, and they'll investigate. The website will either get shut down depending on the severity or have their licenses temporarily suspended until they sort out the issues.

As far as I'm aware the gambling commission does do spot checks randomly, though with the amount of gambling websites registered with them, it would be fairly impossible to do this every couple of months for each site. They likely rely on people like you, and me reporting them.

Honestly, that's probably a good strategy. I consider myself a anti expert, meaning whoever I pick usually ends up losing. Especially, in the bigger fights. Only somewhat listen to me in the prelim fights as I get all the main cards wrong.

I'll definitely be going with Ngannou as that's where the money is, and he'll always have a chance even if he gets outclassed by Gane due to his power.  

Maybe, he has a lack of belief, and knows that he's probably not going to be around for long at the top. As we know, the money significantly drops off once you aren't fighting in the bigger fights in the UFC. Could potentially be trying to sift as much money out of the UFC as possible while he's at the top. Probably sees Gane as a legitimate threat to his reign, and therefore is reluctant to be friendly. I'm not sure what's gone on with the coaching situation, Ngannou hasn't really said anything in his defense, so we've only heard it from his coach which isn't exactly fair. I'll reserve judgement for now.

Bloody Chelsea, I swear any time I put a bet on Chelsea they end up doing what I predict, but they manage to at least mess up one of my bet builder options. For example, I had them to be drawing at half time, and then drawing at full time. Brighton missed a few shots, and I thought the Lukaku goal despite being a decent goal from him should have been defended better.

I've been so close to winning big money with the bet builder, but I usually fall at the first hurdle. This time it was Chelsea, I bet the rest of the games I have on it will come in.

Anyway, I know a lot of Manchester United fans are excited by the new manager, but they're expecting miracles from the exact same team which hasn't shown the desire, the skill or any sort of motivation. A new manager isn't going to change that unless they're a character like Klopp, which I don't believe the new manager is.

Interesting, I wasn't aware that the money in boxing is just for the bigger fights, though I guess it makes sense when they pay upwards to a hundred million for certain fighters. Although, I always try, and take reported figures with a pinch of salt since I always find the media report inflated prices as a way of getting more people to click their articles. As far as I'm aware the contracts specifically state that the rewards for winning, losing or whatever are not to be disclosed to a third party.

If boxing is only paying 1k for new fighters I find that a little unfair, and maybe both UFC, and boxing need a restructure.

Probably right. Definitely overlooked that in this instance. I don't think krogoth was looking to do the usual giveaway though, and it was probably going to be very much like the existing raffles over in the collectibles section. I'll be honest I'm not totally familar with how they usually run over in that section since I rarely deal with reports there. Depending on how Krogoth or anyone else for that matter decided to run it could potentially be conflicting with the rules set out about giveaways.

The key part is; NFT, and free entry. If it was over a physical Bitcoin item it wouldn't be a problem, its the fact that the Altcoin section has a history of giveaways becoming problematic, and believe you me the section is rather overrun in spam despite the ongoing moderation there. Obviously, mprep mentioned it using a nominal fee in order to sidestep the rule probably wouldn't float that well here either.