From a gamblers point of view I can understand that, we spend a lot of money and feel entitled for a big win after a losing streak. Unfortunately, this is not how gambling works, the casino games are based on mathematics and statistics. One of the most important things in gambling we need to remember is that each round is independent from the previous ones. It doesn't matter if there was 10 or 20 times in a row red at the roulette table, the chance for black to come next round is exactly the same. Humans like to see patterns, which is why our brain tells us that there will be black next round, or that we deserve to win now after a losing streak. This also makes chasing losses very risky and I try to avoid it as much as possible.

Roulette seems like a great game for beginners, you have a wide range of possible bets to place and you can learn a lot about the game while playing it. All the big casinos have roulette tables and if you manage to go to Macau or Las Vegas it's the one table you won't get around. Without any previous gambling experience I would you recommend you start placing bets on red or black. The winning chances to double your money is almost 50% and you are not at risk to lose to much. My favorite game is black jack, but here you need to learn a bit more about the game first and it's hard to make your decisions quickly when gambling for money.

There will always be a luxury market for the 1% super rich people of the world. It doesn't matter who holds the cash, because if one person losses it someone else will gain it and take his place spending it. Supply and demand don’t really work for the billionaires of the world, because they want to be different from everybody else. There are limited amounts of Lamborghinis or Ferrari in the world, some models are even only produced in very small numbers. This gives a lot of prestige to the owner of the cars, because everybody knows how expensive they are and you can't afford them from a normal salary. Same goes for the clothes the rich people like to wear. The quality of a T-Shirt or Short will never justify a price of 2,000 USD, but showing a logo to everybody else from such a special brand makes it worth it. Luxury items are never going to be for the masses and we should be fine with it. If you had millions in your bank account and don't care about money anymore, wouldn't also buy the fanciest items in the world? You got to somehow spend your money after setting up your family for life.

I wish I had such kind of Bitcoins in my wallet, unfortunately I am still among the smaller traders here. Either you joined the crypto world really early when prices where much lower, or you just have a lot of money through work/gambling or trading that you can buy so many coins. In any case I think there are plenty of people today who still hold large amounts of BTC and are not selling. The first reason why is that prices have been much high in the past and many of the long-term investors didn't sell their coins at the ATH above 60k USD. So, why should they be fine now to sell at 40k USD? Another point is that prices are not dropping sharply. I would expect prices to dip again if there are many investors selling their coins at once. And the last point that speaks against most investors selling their coins at the moment is the halving is only coming up next year. If you don't really need the money at the moment, wouldn't you rather wait for the next halving to push prices even further? Thinking about retirement might be a good idea as well.

If a lot of luck is involved then I wouldn't call it a great trading strategy. Luck will always play a part in life, but I wouldn't recommend to start trading with the only hope of being lucky to become profitable. In the past I tried myself with arbitrage trading and only achieved mixed results. The price differences I noticed on a few exchanges was quite small and when trying to take advantage of them they were also short lived. It's good to keep an eye open for arbitrage opportunities, but I found that only relying on it is not going to work. It requires a lot of time to observe the markets and compare prices on various exchanges constantly. Also, there is a big competition for arbitrage trades, which is why most opportunities are going to be very quickly. Arbitrage trading is the closest we can come to a risk-free profit, because we buy and sell the same security at the same time.

Chris Ferguson is a great poker player, I loved to watch him in the 2000s on TV. The Poker After Dark Series with him, Doyle Brunson, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, etc. was awesome. So many great personalities that taught me a lot about poker. However, you can't really use poker as the standard gambling game we are going to play, because it's completely different from all the other games we can play at the casino. Biggest difference is that we are not playing against casino, only against other players. In the traditional casino games, it's us against the casino, which always has an advantage over us with their house edge. Mathematics is not going to change the fact that the more we play, the closer we will get to the expected values of the games and likely lose money. With poker we don't have to worry about the casino, because they take a fixed rake per hour from each round for providing the infrastructure to play online poker. We only need to a have a decent strategy to play better than our fellow gamblers. So, it's good to learn math and statistics for gambling, just don't expect to find a strategy that is making you consistently money in all type of casino games.

   

This sounds like the plan some business owners have, who are expecting AI to take over the workforce eventually. There won't be enough jobs for all people, so the government has to provide a basic income to cover all needs of the people without a job. This would have to be financed through taxes, which doesn't seem realistic at the current state of the world economy. Only a few rich countries would actually be able to pull it off, and the majority of countries would need to rely on debt to take care of all their citizens. With debt levels already being so high for many countries, I don't see much room to make the universal income feasible at the moment.  Crypto currencies are a good way to try and generate some income at the side, protected from government interference. But for that we would actually need money to start trading and investing. Without any savings it's really hard to build a decent crypto portfolio that will grow large over time. The only thing we can do is to vote for the party that is the most likely to help the little man and push for universal income.

For me sports betting is a great way to make watching sports more interesting. I am much more excited when I placed a bet on the game and as I watch many sports anyways, I like to put more pressure on my convictions as well. Sports betting is winnable long term, because we can choose freely what type of bet, we want to go for. For example, only placing a few games per months on the strongest team of the league is going to let us win almost all of our bets, unfortunately the payout will be very small. It’s true that in every bet there is of bit of luck involved, but there are professional players behind the teams and we know about their past performance. A very strong player is likely to keep performing for the rest of the season if he doesn’t get injured and vice versa. Also, money invested in the teams is correlated with the success of the teams. It’s no surprise that always the same type of teams is going to be at the top of the league and reach deep in tournaments like UEFA. The competition is high in well paid sports and it might be hard to predict the champion at the start of the season, but predicting the winner for each match as we get all the available information each week is much more doable.

This weekend the semi and grand final is happening of the BetBoom Dacha 2023. It was kind of sad to see Furia being eliminated after there strong win against Astralis, but both Spirit and Virtus.pro played much better and deserve to be in the semi finals. The first match today is going to be BetBoom vs Virtus.pro and should be won comfortable by Virtus.pro. They are the much stronger team and didn't lose a match yet in the tournament, for me they are the clear favourite. The second match today is going to be MIBR vs Spirit, where I am going with Spirit to win the match. It's nice to still see a Brazilian team in the tournament, but I think Spirit is much stronger and should win easily. Also, the two teams played against each other during the qualifiers and Spirit won 2-0. The most likely grand final tomorrow is going to be Virtus.pro vs Spirit, where I am going with Virtus.pro to win the tournament. They reached the first place in the group stafge and beat Spirit 2-0 earlier this week already. Should be a good final, which might be going into overtime on one match, but Virtus.pro will win in the end. 

Yes I think the same, we should be investing time to do research on the teams and matches we want to bet on. The odds from the bookmaker and the spread can give a good indication how popular a certain bet is. And in the end it always comes down to the quote we get from the bookmaker to determine if we should make a bet or not. Because just because there is a decent payout for a bet, doesn't mean it's likely we are going to win the bet. I would always try to gather as much as possible information before a match to make up my own mind and come up with a winning probability for my team. Then comparing my chance of winning to the odds the bookmaker offer. This of course means that we follow the sport we bet on regularly and have an advantage over other gamblers. Let's say I have no clue at all about the sport and still want to bet on it, then looking at the spread might be my only way to get some information. The problem is that without any additional information it doesn't really make sense to bet on a match, because it's just like rolling the dice.

I am also excited for Bitcoin to have a small rally before Christmas. To me it was just a matter of time before the crypto boom would come back. Any price levels above 40k USD are huge and I hope that we are going to stay on those levels for next year and not fall back down again. FOMO can be a risk when we are only running behind the trend and never actually participate. As long as you already own Bitcoins and participate in the current rally, I would try to not start buying large amounts now for the fear of FOMO. In my opinion the best approach to acquire crypto currencies is still the DCA method and it worked really well in 2023. Buying a fixed number of coins every month or every two weeks, is going to lead to a great average purchase price, as the long-term trend of Bitcoins is positive. We need to be realistic when it comes to FOMO, buying now large amounts would mean that we think the rally is just starting and there is a big upside potential. In case you don't own any Bitcoins at all I would consider buying some, in any other case I would just keep my current ones and wait for a new ATH before taking profits.

Investments are the best way to make use of our savings and to not leave the money in a bank account where we get only limited interest. In my opinion money is the most important thing in investing, because you give money to people that already have business ideas. Running a business consumes a lot of time and we need to have ideas, with investing we can just bring our capital to good use instead. The only type of business that I can  think of where you are instantly profitable is selling products that you don't own yourself. Basically, you bring together buyer and seller for a commission. This is the business model that most influences and steamers follow. They don't have to spend any of their own money on products and still make a nice profit. The only thing they need to invest is their own time to attract new buyers and if course they need a big follower base. In case you are active on social media and know many people you could try to run your own small online business, otherwise I would stick to investing.

For me 1,000 USD is not enough money to start trading futures with a margin account. I have done so in the past with a few friends and we started out with 5,000 USD using x5 leverage, which still lead to large swings that would go up or down 10-20% in a day. Two days is not such a long time, so you probably have to worry less about larger swings. But why not keep trading more in the spot market with your 1,000? Prices are going up and down a lot lately and we can profit of the volatility in the spot market as well. Is this your only investment money or do you have other investments? Without any additional cash to cover margin calls you could be forced to sell your position at a loss. Assuming this is your first future trade I would recommend you stick to a small leverage and don't take too much risk.

The next tournament in CS2 is starting this week with BetBoom Dache 2023 in Dubai with some strong CS teams again. I am really hyped to see Furia again after their big win at the Elisa Masters Espoo 2023. It's great to have FalleN back on the international stage with all his experience. The first match today will be GamerLegion vs Cloud9, where Cloud9 should have no issues of winning the game, they are clearly the stronger team. The second match will be MIBR vs BetBoom. The second Brazilian team is not as strong as Furia, but should have good chances of winning against BetBoom. The two teams played against each other last month and MIBR won 2-0.  Tomorrow Astralis is playing against Virtus.pro, which could be going either way. The two teams are equal in strength and it feels a bit like a coin flip to me, I will skip betting on that match. The last match tomorrow is going to be Furia vs Spirit, where I am rooting for Furia to win. Spirit is a strong team that won a lot of there last matches and they are the favourite, but I hope the Brazilian magic is going to win.

Not sure if I fully understand the issue here, you gave your friend 10 USD for him to gamble with and he would return the money ASAP? But how can he return the money ASAP if he losses in gambling? He either has his own money to repay you, but why loaning out the money from you in the first place then, or he doesn't have any money at all and after losing his gamble he will be broke. It would be always a bit cautious if a friend wants money for gambling and still wants to repay me quickly. And then you wanted to use the same 10 USD for your own gambling? But why give it to your friend then, you should have gambled yourself first and only give your friend some money after you played. Also, relying on a bet with 50x multiplier doesn't seem so realistic to be winable in many cases. I would say you got lucky here and should be happy about your win. In the end you end with the 50 USD profits + the 10 USD from your friend. You can place many more bets with your bankroll now and keep growing your balance.

No, of course trading should be for everybody and not only for the rich. When it comes to trading and investing it's true that rich people have much more resources and capital to use which gives them an advantage. But, if we never start to trade ourselves, how are we going to get out of our problems and become rich ourselves one day. For me there are only two real options to accumulate money and reach financial freedom, first win the lottery or be lucky in gambling, second start trading and build an investment portfolio that is growing over time. It makes almost no sense to have a savings account at the moment, because inflation rate is more than double the savings rate and we would just be losing wealth over time. Also, trading doesn't really require us to have a certain minimum amount of money before we can start trading. Anybody with a few hundred USD can just start trading and make some money. That is also why knowledge and experience is more important than having money alone. A good trader will always be able to build up a big portfolio over time through his trading profits, whereas someone who is a bad trader but has a lot of money will eventually lose most of his money in trading.

Bankroll management is the key to building our fortune in gambling, without it we are always going to struggle and be at risk to lose large sums of our money. For a few years I have some strict rules to try and preserve as much of my bankroll as possible. The first step each month for me is always to set a fixed limit on how much money I want to use for gambling. Splitting down my bankroll into smaller installments for each week to gamble with, gives me some freedom to decide how much time and money I want to spend, while also limiting the total amount I can use. The second step is to be happy about my winnings and take some of it out from the monthly gambling allowance. Like that I ensure that my bankroll is growing and I avoid the risk of losing all my winnings again. For me the key of bankroll management is to avoid going broke, because then is everything lost and we can not recover again. A good approach here is to use a percentage of my total balance each month for gambling. So, when my bankroll is growing over time I can use more money for gambling, and when I am losing I also have to cut down on my gambling sizes. In case you struggle with discipline, make an excel sheet where you write down your bankroll and how you are going to limit it. Only make transactions that fall within your limits and keep changing it over time with your bankroll.

Slots are also not my favourite games, but from time to time I enjoy them and will spend quite a while trying to get my hands on free spins. Congratulations to your win, it's nice to see that other gamblers are having some luck. So far I haven't won any bigger amounts with slots yet. Overall I would say that both Black Jack and Roulette gave me much better returns than slots, even though the RTP on most slots machines is quite high. Do you think that watching gambling streamers had any impact on your winnings, or was it just a motivation to come back to slots? I also like to watch gambling streams on the side when I play, but for me it doesn't really have a impact on my profits. Maybe it helps me to stay longer focused on gambling as I would without watching streams, but when it comes to winning any jackpots or large amounts it doesn't seem to help. Also seeing the large wins by some streamers, I am sceptical if everything is legit or maybe he is getting some advantages. 

While this is probably true in the long run, I don’t see the world switching to a fully digital transaction-based economy any time soon. There are still too many people struggling with the online world and want to keep using their cash. My family is the perfect example for that, my grandmother never did any online transactions, she even never did a bank transfer in her life. Everything is by my father or uncle; they withdraw the money for her and she just uses cash all the time. It’s very similar for my mother, she never did online banking in her life. All transactions she only does in the bank branch and while she uses her debit card from time to time, I would say she pays 95% in cash. My dad is doing online banking sometimes, but losses his logins once a month and needs to reset everything. My friends have very similar experiences with their parents and grandparents, which makes me question how the world could advance at the current stage. Maybe in 30 years once all the older generations are gone it’s going to look different, but right now it seems impossible.

Casinos have been used to launder money for the last 100 years at least, crypto casinos are nothing special in that regard and are just an extension of the digitalization of the economy. AML policies are a decent way to limit the money laundering in smaller situations, but for the bigger organisations it won’t have a big impact. Criminals can switch around different casinos and use the loosest regulations for their advantages. I remember reading about a big bank heist in the Bangladesh central bank, where several millions were stolen over a weekend and transferred to the Philippines. The hackers had a group of more than 100 gamblers ready to spend the whole weekend in physical casinos and launder the money. These individuals came from various different countries only to spend 60 hours gambling and fly home again. It’s hard for casinos to do anything against such people who have no criminal history and are visiting the casino for the first time. The same thing can happen with online casinos as well and the government won’t be able to stop it completely. I don't think the government is going to start seizing casino to avoid money laundering completely, because they would have to do the same to physical casinos as well. Regulation might become stronger in the future, but banning and seizing casinos doesn't seem realistic at the moment.