Leveraging a 50k bankroll

[kewljason]

That doesn't mean you would use it to replenish your current bankroll if things went south, does it?

BillyC1

That money is my current bankroll, so yes. I keep 20-25% in cash and the balance is earning what little interest I can get until I may need it. I used to have several short term CD, expiring at different 3 month intervals, but CD's are paying nothing and not even worth the bother, so I just put it in a money market account and let it sit til I need it.

 

[johndoe]

You might find https://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/ useful for chasing good rates.

 

[bj21abc]

That sounds incredibly cumbersome. I am used to selling and being able to withdraw the money the following day. However, I am not familiar with how it works in the States - is it the same if you have your money in a trading account such as Ameritrade ?

It is not a one day delay, it is several working days. My brokers will hold the money for two working days, then it needs to be transferred into your bank, which takes a day or two, then it needs to clear your bank. I do this quite often and you need to factor in a week in general.
Of course, you could skip a few steps and cash a money market check in a casino but good luck doing that without disclosing your id.

 

[kewljason]

You guys are missing the point. Whether it takes a day or a few days or a week to get your money doesn't matter. When you invest in the market, it is generally a longer term investment. There could be things that happen that cause the stock to take a short term dip. Maybe some lower than expected earnings, or a negative article in one of the major business journals or magazines or mabe some worldwide event or occurance. You invest long term to be able to ride through this type of short term negative cycle. You want to choose when the right time is to get out of the stock, not be forced to do so at an inopportune time by a few bad blackjack sessions. I agree with blackchipjim. Your bankroll is for playing blackjack and the majority of it must be very easily accessible, without any kind of penalty for accessing it immediately. The stock market simply does not fit that bill.

I actually have part of my bankroll invested in real estate. It wasn't really something that I planned to do, but when I purchased a property last year, I had to put down more of a down payment than I wanted too, because I was unable to verify any kind of income other than blackjack play. So a small portion of my bankroll went to this downpayment. I figure that in the event of a horrible run at the tables where I needed to get to the last portion of my BR, I could use that investment as collateral, rather than terminating the actual investment at an inopportune time, as would be required with stocks. Right now, obviously, real estate is not a good investment, so I am not realizing any kind of return on that portion of my bankroll, but hopefully at some point in the future that will change.

 

[elkobar]

blackjack vs. stockmarket.

Inspirational post Tensplitter. Have the results you speak of been experienced, or close to that, first hand? This would have been a nice response to a post submitted not too long ago on the forum about playing blackjack full time.

This is also a response I was seeking on a post under "Other Games”, “Blackjack vs. stock market" on this forum. I've always had thoughts about the great points you stated for drawbacks on market investing. Time invested looking at portfolio, time spent on stock market strategies that may not pan out due to uncontrollable factors in the market, reading market journals, watching CNBC, tax implications, unable to touch entire bankroll as it’s locked up sitting in the market. Many factors to look at, whereas blackjack is focused on mathematical advantage, and that’s it.

Naturally, we are taught to invest in the market opposed to gambling in casinos for good reason for the average individual. However, if you do the research, put in the time and discipline, one can become an advantage player, but is not preached in the everyday media.

Personally have took a huge negative swing in stock market before rebounding, basically to a little over breakeven point(after adjusting for inflation). Would have been better to use, even just a fraction of, the market investment to experiment in blackjack years ago. As you stated, I believe the time would have been more rewarding at blackjack than trading stocks.

Man, if even only half of the above results could be personally obtained, I’d look to dropping the full-time day job to part-time (as backup for constant income), and play blackjack part-time.

Hi
Junior counter,
could not resist this one, with regards to investing ; long term as opposed to trading short term is recommended. if you read, Successful investing formulas, by Lucile Tomlinson. 1950 edition; and Benjamin Grahams,the Intelligent invester. you will find that the statistics favour buy and hold long term, ( and profit ) but only for the Index; it only goes up and down, but never kaput!. Trading is a 90% plus losing game.
Dollar cost averaging is a good way to enter the market, and also save money.
Can't help you with card counting as I cannot do it here, only have CSM's.
Elkobar..

 

[shadroch]

You guys are missing the point. Whether it takes a day or a few days or a week to get your money doesn't matter. When you invest in the market, it is generally a longer term investment. There could be things that happen that cause the stock to take a short term dip. Maybe some lower than expected earnings, or a negative article in one of the major business journals or magazines or mabe some worldwide event or occurance. You invest long term to be able to ride through this type of short term negative cycle. You want to choose when the right time is to get out of the stock, not be forced to do so at an inopportune time by a few bad blackjack sessions. I agree with blackchipjim. Your bankroll is for playing blackjack and the majority of it must be very easily accessible, without any kind of penalty for accessing it immediately. The stock market simply does not fit that bill.

I actually have part of my bankroll invested in real estate. It wasn't really something that I planned to do, but when I purchased a property last year, I had to put down more of a down payment than I wanted too, because I was unable to verify any kind of income other than blackjack play. So a small portion of my bankroll went to this downpayment. I figure that in the event of a horrible run at the tables where I needed to get to the last portion of my BR, I could use that investment as collateral, rather than terminating the actual investment at an inopportune time, as would be required with stocks. Right now, obviously, real estate is not a good investment, so I am not realizing any kind of return on that portion of my bankroll, but hopefully at some point in the future that will change.

You have much to learn about the stock market. Suffice it to say you are half correct about a part of your post and quite mistaken on the majority of it. Ask yourself this- If stock investing is for the long term, why are some two billion shares a day traded just on the New york Stock Exchange?

 

[Brock Windsor]

Hi
Junior counter,
could not resist this one, with regards to investing ; long term as opposed to trading short term is recommended. if you read, Successful investing formulas, by Lucile Tomlinson. 1950 edition; and Benjamin Grahams,the Intelligent invester. you will find that the statistics favour buy and hold long term, ( and profit ) but only for the Index; it only goes up and down, but never kaput!. Trading is a 90% plus losing game.
Dollar cost averaging is a good way to enter the market, and also save money.
Can't help you with card counting as I cannot do it here, only have CSM's.
Elkobar..

A good thread, too much to comment on. Buffet invests, most investors come out ahead. Thorp trades, most traders lose. Both have made near 20% annual returns over their lifetimes. Dollar cost averaging is a system, systems do not do well. If you use dollar cost averaging to the point that your ROR is too high you will bust out. The posts from Tensplitter do not reflect the reality of professional play. Kewljason seems to be much more accurate and IMO is telling it like it is. Weigh all the opinions and reach your own conclusion.
BW

 

[tensplitter]

I realize that while it's theoretically possible to make 100K a year in blackjack running a sim in CVCX, in real life that would be hard because of heat and travel time, and the need to play more hours than a full time job. But the sim I ran to calculate a 10% annual return is realistic. It's also good to place the unused portion your bankroll in interest bearing accounts.

 

[kewljason]

You have much to learn about the stock market. Suffice it to say you are half correct about a part of your post and quite mistaken on the majority of it. Ask yourself this- If stock investing is for the long term, why are some two billion shares a day traded just on the New york Stock Exchange?

I am sure I do have much to learn about the stock market, since admittedly, I know zilch. :laugh: I am not a stock market guy. If someone wants to be a day trader, fine, be a day trader. Seems like a risky thing to do with your bankroll, money that you specifically set aside for blackjack play. My bankroll is for playing blackjack. While, I would like to have some of that money working for me, the most important thing to me is that the money is safe and readily available, in it's entirety (that means no shrinkage) for the purpose in which it was intended, blackjack play. The stock market does not offer me that risk free guarantee. Maybe you should ask yourself this- If the stock market is such a great investment, how come their are millions of seniors and people close to retirement age, who's retirement 'nestegg' is either gone entirely or much less than it was 3 years ago?

 

[flyingwind]

A good thread, too much to comment on. Buffet invests, most investors come out ahead. Thorp trades, most traders lose. Both have made near 20% annual returns over their lifetimes. Dollar cost averaging is a system, systems do not do well. If you use dollar cost averaging to the point that your ROR is too high you will bust out. The posts from Tensplitter do not reflect the reality of professional play. Kewljason seems to be much more accurate and IMO is telling it like it is. Weigh all the opinions and reach your own conclusion.
BW

I've been enjoying the amount of discussion that this thread has spawned. The discussion is very good, and I agree with the summary above from BW. I've held out stating my own opinions for now, because there're a few others who I've been hoping would chiming in on this thread. I don't know, maybe some of those people are on vacation or not reading threads. At least one additional idea that I want to throw into this - so far much of the discussion has been BJ vs investing/trading. What about BJ vs other AP activities?

 

[shadroch]

I am sure I do have much to learn about the stock market, since admittedly, I know zilch. :laugh: I am not a stock market guy. If someone wants to be a day trader, fine, be a day trader. Seems like a risky thing to do with your bankroll, money that you specifically set aside for blackjack play. My bankroll is for playing blackjack. While, I would like to have some of that money working for me, the most important thing to me is that the money is safe and readily available, in it's entirety (that means no shrinkage) for the purpose in which it was intended, blackjack play. The stock market does not offer me that risk free guarantee. Maybe you should ask yourself this- If the stock market is such a great investment, how come their are millions of seniors and people close to retirement age, who's retirement 'nestegg' is either gone entirely or much less than it was 3 years ago?

Thats like asking if BJ is such an easy way to make money, why don't most people win?
When you buy a stock, you have an option of setting a price that you want the stock sold at. you can set an upper price and a lower price. As an example- you buy Wynn at $62. You can set it to sell when the price hits $80, or when the stock hits 50, or both. The vast majority of stockholders do not use these options, or even know they exist. People who used these didn't get badly hurt when the market dropped 40%.
No one can beat BJ without a good deal of study and practice. The same thing goes for the market. The market reacts to events, but does so in a manner that follows patterns. Small investors have a huge advantage over large investors in this as one can buy 1,000 shares of something unnoticed, but if the California Pension Fund starts buying hundreds of thousands of the same stock, it gets noticed and becomes the start of a trend.

 

[elkobar]

blackjack vs stockmarket.

Thats like asking if BJ is such an easy way to make money, why don't most people win?
When you buy a stock, you have an option of setting a price that you want the stock sold at. you can set an upper price and a lower price. As an example- you buy Wynn at $62. You can set it to sell when the price hits $80, or when the stock hits 50, or both. The vast majority of stockholders do not use these options, or even know they exist. People who used these didn't get badly hurt when the market dropped 40%.
No one can beat BJ without a good deal of study and practice. The same thing goes for the market. The market reacts to events, but does so in a manner that follows patterns. Small investors have a huge advantage over large investors in this as one can buy 1,000 shares of something unnoticed, but if the California Pension Fund starts buying hundreds of thousands of the same stock, it gets noticed and becomes the start of a trend.

Hi Shadroch,
yes a good point, you must have a game plan whether playing blackjack, or the stockmarket, and a lot of folk have neither, they use their emotions, and some win but most lose.
Most people rely on fund managers to run their portfolios, and they cannot buy and sell stocks in the same manner as can individual persons because of the bulk of transactions and company regulations.
The reason why a lot of people play the stock market is because of greed ;
and they hope to get rich overnight, long term investment as Buffett does, is
a better approach as the effect of inflation and greed helps the market rise, and if it falls as it does, then if you are doing your own portfolio you do not sell, as it will and always has done, rise again to new heights, it may take time, but that is what long term means.
And as I mentioned I only invest into the index, never into individual stocks, as very few stocks ever out perform the index, as I said it goes up and down but never kaput.!
Just as a matter of interest I buy into the index every month, and I bought all the way down when the market had its "correction" and I am still in front;
Elkobar..

 

[matt21]

I found this thread very interesting reading.

I view my $100 bankroll as being available to be used for several purposes simulataneously - for example I trade FX - my trades typically are 0-3 hours in duration. Is it incorrect to say that I can also use the same bankroll to go online bonus hunting and for playing blackjack. Surely I can use the figure of $100 for calculating all the appropriate bet sizes regardless whether its an online bonus, a hand of blackjack at TC+3 or shorting USDYEN. As long as I know my edge in each situation I can use the $100 figure.

Thus I view my bankroll as my asset for exploiting inefficiences I can find in any market.

Though the key is that I dont undertake more than one bet/trade at any point in time. (Thus this wouldnt work for long-term stock investments for example).

Is my view distorted or is it correct?

In terms of comparing one opportunity against another the biggest factors for me are the EV, the SD (and therefore N0) and the frequency at which the relevant opportunity arises.

Counting cards has a high SD compared to EV but, subject to heat, can be played relatively often. Bonuses are limited to a certain number per month but have much better EV/SD ratio. Finally FX trades also have a much better EV/SD ratio, but you might only get half a dozen per month (and you dont need to trade/play through any negative counts!).

Matt21