I also want to support Ukraine, the war is a terrible thing and should be ended as soon as possible. It is always the most vulnerable people that are hurting the most. Donating money is one option, another one is giving food and clothes for the refugees in Ukraine, Poland and Romania. Sanctions against the country Russia is a good thing to put pressure on Putin to engage in negotiations with Ukraine and end the war.  Boycotting all things from Russia will hurt ordinary people a lot more that it will the government. It is normal people like us who just happen to live in Russia. I have a few Russian friends and all of them are against the war, nobody supports it. Unfortunately there is a big difference in Russia being against something and protesting openly against it. You are not only at fear to be put in jail, but also to maybe lose your job or benefits from the state. Hurting the big state owned companies through sanctions is the right approach, boycotting everything from Russia is not I think. It's not like the Russian casinos are run by Putin himself.

Watching the match was a rollercoaster, such a strong comeback from Faze in the first map and then the lenghty overtime in the second match. It was a 3-0 win but not an easy won for sure, very well played by both teams. Was a great athmosphere to watch it live. I felt like there was so much ingame betting during the final than I barely see from CSGO matches. After the first 5-6 round wins for G2 the odds came down to 1.25 for a win of G2, just to see them switch to Faze in the second half of the match. Broky is a great player, he deserved to be the MVP of Katowice 2022, I just felt that Ropz played a little better. His strong performance carried them through the finals. His ACE in the first game was so sick. Looking forward to the Major in two months.

It's very hard to quantify the losses Russia faces due to the Ukrainian war. The stock market collapsed, Rubble is going down, international trade stopped, many new sanctions are coming up. On top of that is all the military equipment being lost in less than a week. Every jet, tank or helicopter that goes down cost several million. All these costs together need to have some form of profit that Putin hopes to gain Ukraine. One Profit is that he hopes to get access to the natural resources, like natural gas. If he changes the government and installs a pro Russian prime minister he could also control the large companies in Ukraine.

Bitcoin is a good alternative to traditional fiat money. Especially if people want to support Ukraine from abroad, then bitcoins is a quick way to pool money from all around the world to send to Ukraine. There are two issues which could be a problem. First, Russia might target the Internet infrastructure and tries to jam the access from abroad. Without working Internet it's hard to deal with bitcoins, and you always need to convert it to fiat money. That is probably why so many countries send goods and weapons directly, like medical supplies and fuel. With large amounts of money it might be hard for Ukraine to purchase things. The second issue is that there are fake donation requests to help in Ukraine. With bitcoins there is only a small chance to recover funds that have been send to a scammer.

Yeah I agree, G2 looked like the stronger team during the playoffs. Beating NAVI in the Semifinals came as a big surprise to me, especially winning confidently 2-0 with no overtime. Usually my NAVI pick pays off better   Just not sure if I should place a last minute bet now on G2, with 1.5 G2 seems like the strong favourite of the game. Maybe a small bet at these odds on Faze is better payout.


Ropz is also one of my favourite players. I enjoyed watching him play since his early days at mousesports. He really came far. Would be awesome if he could pull of the Player of the Match.

I don't think China will follow b.) remain neutral and just observe. Russia is an ally of China, and China has been in a currency war with USA for years now. So if they have the chance to weaken the west they will do so. First of all I would expect China to block any major resolutions against Russia in the UN. Another step for China could be to directly support Russian. Russian banks will be blocked from Swift and they have no more access to western refinancing markets. China could use this opportunity to give out loans to Russia at high interest rates. In the end China will follow the path that strengthen their own position and not what is best for humanity. This is also why USA doesn't want to get involved to deeply in Ukraine, because their main concern these days is China and not Russia anymore.

In my opinion it's a good time to buy bitcoins. The current price compared to the last 12 months is cheap. I do believe in the longterm upwards trend of Bitcoins. This is of course my own opinion and no guarantee that prices will actually rise soon again. It could be that the Ukraine crisis intensifies and BTC will drop even further. That would only be short-term. Over the next 12 months I expect a higher price than today. So if you don't own any BTC at all I would buy some now.

Will Smith hasn't won an Oscar before, he was nominated for The Pursuit of Happyness and for Ali. Both pretty good movies, but he didn't win. Given that he is making movies and Series for such a long time, I would expect him to win this year. Nicole Kidman has one 1 Oscar so far I think, for best actress in The Hours, which was a  long time ago. The chances look good that these two will win this year. Nominees have definitely impact on the votes. As for the supporting actors/actress and director, I don't know them really. It's still some time left until the Academy Awards, I might bet 1-2 weeks before on Will Smith. He is a great actor and deserves his Oscar.  

Banning Russia from SWIFT would be a strong sanction that will definitely hurt Russia. It seems that all the European countries that opposed removing Russia from SWIFT before are changing their minds right now. It could be that already next week all countries will agree to the new sanctions. As for NATO to enter Ukraine, I don't think there is any chance for this.  Ukraine could use the help of NATO fighters to help get air superiority. But Russia is a nuclear power and stated publicly they would attack anybody who will intervene in the war. The western world can only send more weapons, ammunition, financial aid and other support equipment. Sending official soldiers is not an option at the moment. I hope Ukraine can hold out.

Not a bad recommendation. Owning some bitcoins is good for every portfolio. Nobody knows how high bitcoins are going to rise, so buying some coins at current levels is cheap compared to the ATH. In my opinion getting bitcoins below 40,000 USD is a great entry level. The sudden invasion of Ukraine by Russia, send crypto prices down. But now the world realises that it is not start of WW3. No other country will join the war against Russia, it's a conflict only between these two nations.
That's why, if you don't own crypto coins at all, better to atleast buy some now before the prices will recover again. Don't expect to become a billionaire however from 1 BTC.

Online casinos usually require the minimum age of 18 years, what is the same in most countries to enter physical casinos. When entering a physical casino you have to show your ID. For online casinos such verifications come at the withdrawal process. A minor could potential start gambling at an online casino, but his winnings would be frozen if he tries to withdraw them. Gambling alone as a minor is dangerous and can lead to gambling addiction down the round. There should be some form of oversight from the parents for what the kids are doing online. And if you are 17 and can't wait for your 18th birthday, maybe just ask your dad to gamble together a bit. He could even teach you something.

The IEM playoff games this weekend should be quite interesting. So far I didn't place any bets yet, but out of the two matches on Friday G2 vs Virtus Pro should be a good win G2. Their performance over the last two months was strong. I don't expect any surprises here. Faze vs Gambit is a harder pick, I probably will not bet here. As for Saturday I expect Navi to play vs G2, and Navi to win this one. Over the last 6 months Navi was the team I won my most bets with. It's always good to bet a little on them.

How do you define part of Ukraine? There is a civil war going on for 8 years, since then these 2 regions were not part of Ukraine anymore but autonomous regions. I find it very sad that the two countries couldn't find a peaceful solution and it ended in war now. War is always wrong and is only going to hurt the innocent.



Unfortunately most investors don't look at bitcoins other crypto currencies as safe assets yet. For the majority of investors cryptos are still assets to speculate with. Similar to stocks investors are going to sell their holdings into less risky assets. Thats why we can see cryptos, commodities and stocks dropping at the moment and see a rise in gold price. Same goes for silver platinum, it is still the safe haven for many. Also the Swiss Franc is rising again, another safe asset for many investors.

I wouldn't say that Journalist gain much from war, there is always news stories to report about. Would be interesting if during times of war people actually buy more newspapers. Most of my friends are not reading any newspapers anymore, they only rely on online news for free. In general war is bad for economy, we can already see that stocks are tanking due to the fear of war. Nobody would spend a lot of money right now, people are cautious and will delay their spending and focus only on necessary things. The companies that are profiting from war are from the defence and armament industry. Companies that build drones, guns, artillery and all the ammunition will see an uptick in sales. Overall this is only a tiny fraction of a country that actually profits from war, most people are affected negatively.

Yeah I remember that video from YouTube were you could see the nervous young Carlsen play Kasparow, and after the match you would hear how impressed he was with him. Magnus got a lot of support for his family, they took him out of school for a year and travelled with him through Europe. So he could play many tournaments against a lot of different players. Now with the rise of online chess and blitz chess apps, everybody can play against each other from home. The potential to train against grandmaster from the other side of the earth should help all players. Even Magnus offers now the chance to play Blitz games against him on his own website.

Interesting approach to measuring recoveries and crisis. It's been a while since my economics classes in university, but what I remember is that the currency of a nation is not a good indicator for the state of the economy. A strong currency will show also a strong economy, but the government would try and lower the strength of the economy to make their exports more attractive internationally. The lower the currency the cheaper are the exports of a country. So a cheap currency doesn't necessary mean that the economy is weak too. Even with inflation we can't accurately say that is in crisis. Only when inflation hits high double digits and is in a spiral the economy will be in crisis.

I just read this morning that an Indian 16 year old teenager Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa managed to beat Magnus Carlsen in a Blitz Chess tournament. He is only one of three Indians grandmasters who managed to beat Carlsen. Blitz chess and normal chess games are very different, the players don't have the time at hand to think too deep about moves ahead. It is much easier to make mistakes. In a traditional tournament Carlsen would have probably won. But still, such a big win at such a young age his a pretty big boost for his self esteem. I hope he will keep training and maybe go for a world championship match vs Carlsen at one point. Now I am wondering how this Carlsen loss will impact betting on matches in the future. It is just a matter of time until we have a new world chess champion.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/22/sport/rameshbabu-praggnanandhaa-magnus-carlsen-chess-spt-intl/index.html

I fully agree with that, try to be as cautious as possible when it comes to doing transactions online. After the crypto rally last year the number of scammers and hackers in the crypto world increased a lot. 2-3 years ago I didn't get any emails about cryptos and that I won something, or that I should accept a transfer of coins. Now, every 3rd or 4th email is either a fake Amazon invoice, or some crypto promotion which is not real. Even on discord I get approached atleast twice a month from a bot about new crypto deals or special casino promotions. Before accepting anything online these days, I make sure to tripple check the information. Clicking on one wrong link can already download malware in the background that will steal our data.

Very interesting summary you made here, it looks very professional. Thank you for it. By looking through it I was very surprised. Some of the statistics are new to me. Especially that only 3% online casinos identify as crypto casinos. Somehow I thought that after the crypto rally from last year that we had many more crypto casinos. I know that all the big casinos from Las Vegas also operate online, but the huge rise of crypto casinos should match that. My own perception is probably skewed towards crypto casinos through this forum. Except for playing poker on some old school software, I would say that all my online gambling is done on crypto casinos.
What is a bit alarming to me is that only 51% of crypto casinos have a valid gambling licence. That number seems a bit low too. I would have expected the pressure from gamblers to be much higher on casinos to operate with a valid licence. Especially since online gambling licences can be obtained for around 10,000 USD from some tax haven countries. When choosing a casino I will always prefer to gamble on the one that has a licence, compared to another one.

Sounds like a plan, but when cryptos are low so are all the other assets too. Creating and selling  NFTs should also be influenced by the current world outlook. Wouldn't it be better to hold out and wait for the hype? Same goes for selling crypto coins right now. In my opinion instead of selling at such low prices, better to just sit it out. There will be better times again. In the end everything is a gamble right now if there will be a big war in Ukraine or not. No one knows the chances, but there could be another major conflict that pulls down the world economy. So selling today would be the plan only if we can buy back the coins cheaper at a later time. It could however be that Russia and Ukraine will de escalate things and find a compromise. Optimists will hold and pessimists will sell, only to be hurt by inflation.