Do you really need a business plan when investing online? I thought I didn’t, until my way of living interfered with my investments and severely affected the efficiency and results of my investing. Yesterday I discussed how to fit online investing in your daily schedule and towards the post’s end I suggested making a plan before investing your first dime. So, today I thought to pick up where we left off and see how to make a business plan that will guarantee less stress while investing online.

First and most importantly we have to decide what kind of investing we are interested in. As we explained yesterday, our daily schedule will greatly influence our decision. But it’s not just our family duties or day job that will force us to give up some of the options available. Investing is about making money, correct? So, shouldn’t we first find out if we can actually make money by investing online?

We have heard stories that there are people making a living from gambling. Sorry, I meant to say investing. In fact, investing and internet gambling can mean the same thing! Anyway, traders, bettors and poker players brag about theirprofits, so they seem to be able to make money out of stock trading, sports betting or online poker. I regard all of them as investors. Actually the ones that beat their game. Because the rest of them just give away their money to online brokers, stock and sports exchanges and to the opposition. We don’t want to be one of those (chances are you are going to fail in the beginning), we should really try and belong to the elite group of winners.

So, we spend a lot of time studying books, reading endless forum threads and finally come up with a proven, confirmed and verified winning strategy (backtesting your system is absolutely paramount). According to that strategy and in combination with our daily schedule we can now answer the following questions confidently:

• Will we trade stocks?
• Does forex trading appeal to us?
• Should sports betting be our top priority?

Those are some of the online investing ideas for income. You may have found some other kind of investing (photography maybe?) where you do have an edge and you are able to exploit your opponents. Remember, other people must lose money before you begin making some, so you need to be better than your opponents, whatever the investment (even in photography, customers buying photos from a newcomer such as yourself (bringing new ideas and techniques) means that established professionals will experience a decrease in sales).

Now that we do know we have the time and way to make money investing online, let’s move on and write a business plan. Nothing too fancy, a draft business plan will do just perfectly.

Don’t get worried of the term “business plan”. It’s just a plan that will keep you on track during the bumpy ride of online investing! There will be downswings and drawdowns that will test your discipline and patience, not to mention your financial security!

How to make a business plan for investing online

1. Write down how many hours you are expecting to spend investing online per investing day. Remember, you already did that when you organized your daily schedule. Also an investing day for stock trading is a day when the stock market is open, while investing days for sports betting should mostly be Saturdays.
2. How many investing actions will you take during those hours? In other words, how many stock or forex trades are you going to make, how many bets are you going to place? Count the times you are risking money.
3. Calculate the average risk per investing action. That is the money you are supposed to lose if the stock price plummets or if the team you picked loses the game.
4. Multiply the number of actions per day with the average risk. You now know how much money you are going to risk through the day. That number is known as daily turnover or just turnover.
5. Calculate your daily expected profit. It’s not as hard as it sounds. You just multiply the turnover with your edge (percentage). You did calculate your edge, right? If not, go back to your investing strategy. There are crucial things missing. So, for example if your edge is 1 per cent and your daily turnover is a thousand dollars, you are expected to make 10 dollars per day. The size of the edge differentiates in accordance with the investment.
6. Finally multiply that expected profit with the investing days of the month for the expected monthly income. 12 times that equals to your expected profit by the end of the year.

Our business plan for online investing now includes the following key metrics:

• Type of investment.
• Time spent.
• Expected income.

According to our business plan, we are an investor of X/Y/Z, who needs T hours per month to make M dollars per month. Was that too difficult? Surely it was much easier than finding your edge and developing a winning strategy! Yet, so many investors neglect writing down a business plan and have no idea where they stand by the year’s end. I suppose it’s not that they don’t know how to make a business plan, rather than not seeing the point of it.

This business plan will also raise flags in case the strategy underperforms, leading us to revisit it and possibly make some changes. You know that saying?

Adapt or die

The stock markets and the gambling world is a living creature, always developing, always changing. If we do not adapt, our winning system will experience decreased profits or it may convert into a losing one! Once upon a time a “buy and hold” strategy was sufficient to show a profit in stock trading (I guess), 3betting preflop increased the winrate enormously in online poker, trading horse racing betting odds was easily done than said (or shown). And if we don’t have a business plan because we haven’t spent 5 minutes to learn how to make a business plan, we are driving towards a cliff without even knowing it! So, write down a business plan and also a backup plan, just in case your investing career ends prematurely!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

First of all, I don’t have a day job and I myself find it difficult to fit everything in the daily schedule. There are so many fields of interest when you try making money online by investing, that spending 6 or 7 hours sleeping may sound like a waste of time! Yet, a good sleep is necessary if you want to recharge your batteries and have the energy to keep on risking money all day long. So, let’s start with that.

Does your daily schedule allow you to gamble online?

• Sleep: Apparently 8 hours of sleep is recommended for healthy living, but I have cut it down to 6 or 7. I do sleep rather early (at about 11PM) but I normally wake up at 5:30 or 6 without an alarm, believe it or not. I honestly look forward to waking up and continue where I left off the previous night! So, I guess 7 hours of sleep is an acceptable figure and the 24-hour day quickly decreases to 17 hours.

• Eating: What was that Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko used to say in the original Wall Street movie?

Lunch is for wimps

Assuming we have breakfast, lunch and dinner and we don’t cook for our meals (hint: married), eating would cost us 2 hours of our daily schedule. Obviously if we are used to eating out, that will cost us more time, not to mention money! But let’s just leave eating time at 2 hours as an average number, including snacks. 15 hours left.

• Going to day job: Given my background I will make quite a few assumptions here. I suppose very few people work on the building next door. Thus, half an hour of commuting to go to work should be enough. 30 minutes includes the time to get dressed (no need to take your pijamas off when you stay and work from home), walk to the car/motorbike, start engine, drive through rush-hour traffic, park and walk to the office. Double that time for the return trip and that’s another hour spent of our daily schedule. We are down to 14 hours.
• Day job: A day job would cut down about 8 hours of the day on average. There are now just 6 hours available for investing or gambling away our money!
• Family/Friends time: We do want to socialize right? Unless you are really the lonely kind of person who doesn’t care of door bells or return calls, you will want to share a story with your friends or spend valuable time with your family. Sometimes you may not meet and talk to anyone, but from time to time you’ll sit down and talk for a couple of hours – or listening to boring chit-chat. I will take an hour off your day for doing that on average. And I totally neglect the time needed for shopping, groceries and picking up milk. 5 hours left.
• Gym: I can’t stress enough the need for exercising. Most importantly if your day job puts you behind a desk for 8 hours, you really need to hit the gym or at least spend time walking, running or biking. One hour per day will be enough. Even if walking for just half an hour might sound a lot, you have to take into account the time spend to prepare for the activity and bath time. So, there are still 4 hours to try making money online!

4 hours for sports betting, stock market, forex, poker online? Think again!

Is that a lot for gambling? Well, 4 hours are really not enough if you actually want to come out a winner from the investing world! First you need to decide on the gambling activity you are going to focus. Depending on your daily schedule, your options will be limited. For example, if your day job is during the time the stock market is open, stock trading is out of the question. If you are working in the afternoon/evening, you’ll find out poker rooms are rather empty in the morning. Peak times for online poker are usually at night time when the family is asleep.

How about sports betting or forex trading that are available 24 hours? Well, that is not entirely true. If you are based in Europe, most probably you’d be more familiar with European sports. Therefore, by the time you sit down at your computer at say 8PM, some football games will have already started, leaving you less games to bet on. Betting on US sports while living in Europe? You are going to turn into a vampire and sleeping at 3AM isn’t actually a healthy living, especially if you need to wake up at 7! Forex on the other hand isn’t that active all day long. You will find out that there are periods during the day that nothing seems to be moving. Spending your 4 hours of free time watching the market trying to find a direction, isn’t the best forex trading strategy. Straight lines aren’t exactly the perfect setup to trade! If money doesn’t move the markets, there is really nothing to take advantage of.

Someone needs to lose money, in order for you to make money!

You also need time to prepare for your investing or gambling. You don’t just sit down and start betting in the dark! You’ll have to read news, check on the latest teams’ updates, keep up with what you missed while being at work and finally consult your favorite tipping website. All that takes precious time and 4 hours will quickly feel like 5 minutes! Have you heard of a story that will drive EUR/USD up? Quick, login to your trading account and buy some Euros. Wait, the chart shows a decline, how come no one seems to respect that story you read about? Are you going to trade against the trend, trusting the story? Or are you going to follow the trend and dismiss the news you’ve heard? It’s now decision time, and what do you know!

Desicon making also takes time!

The phone rings and you need to pick up your son, because your wife is stuck at work. Your schedule becomes tighter but now you risk losing your concentration. And apart from time, you need to be well prepared and focused before spending even a dime on online gambling! Before deciding how to fit your gambling activities in your daily schedule, I suggest you make a plan. Then you’ll feel more conformable, your family and friends will not disturb – hopefully, and you really stand a better chance to make money. But before you try adapting your daily schedule to your gambling needs, I strongly recommend spending more time studying the markets and reading books. When the time comes to risk your first dollar, all that time will pay off.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

This new Facebook bingo app, developed by 888.com, allows both experienced and inexperienced players alike to enjoy bingo on a simple, user-friendly platform, with an innovative social side and a number of fun, instant side games also on offer.

Bingo Appy’s range of bingo games includes 75-ball and 90-ball variations, with both free and paid card games spread across a number of rooms. Up to six tickets can be chosen for any one game, with prices depending on the room and time of day. £1,000 in cash prizes is given away on a daily basis, with the main £200 jackpot to play for at 8.30pm every evening. Various bonus offers are available throughout the day too, including an ‘Early Bird Special’ between 5am and 9am that gives players the chance to play games with cards priced at just 1p each.

In terms of the app’s presentation, numbers are bold and clear on the screen, meaning that they’re easy to see when the balls start rolling out, while an authentic-sounding caller’s voice not only adds to the atmosphere of the game but also alerts you when games are about to start, so you can check your Facebook messages while you wait for that first number to be called.

If the idea of playing Facebook bingo for real money sounds appealing and you’re looking for simplicity and enjoyment in your gaming experience, then Bingo Appy is a great app for whiling away your free time and winning cash prizes playing bingo. Plus, at the time of writing, new players receive a 250% welcome bonus on their first deposit.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Of course raising with this premium poker hand is almost always the correct play. After all, it’s a premium hand, right? We are supposed to raise for value with premium hands, such as Aces, Kings and Queens. Yet, if we always raise with AK, suited or not, we don’t mix up our game. Other players at the table will easily read our hand when firing 2 or 3 barrels at an Ace high board. Even worse, if we cold called preflop, AK is certainly out of our range if they have never seen us do that! Thus, they wouldn’t have to worry about the nut straight on a QJT board! And that is a small giveaway of our hand that can cost us money from time to time.

The opposition will have trouble reading our hand if we occasionally cold call their preflop raise with a premium hand. Note that I am not talking about slow playing our premium hand here. Against bad players we must raise Ace King every time we hold such a monster hand, since bad players are expected to call our raises out of position ridiculously often! Therefore, we should begin building up the pot and extract value from the very first round of betting. But what about regulars and competent players?

Let’s see the following hand (shared via the BoomPlayer).

http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/3193561_8700AC8F76

A good regular player open-raises preflop from Under-the-Gun position. His range includes mostly premium hands and he hasn’t yet shown some kind of fancy play from that position, like opening small suited connectors or Axs. Against his tight range the Big Slick beats only Ace Queen, which he will fold in case we 3bet. So, by raising there we stand the risk of confronting with a 4bet and possibly risking our stack against a range that beats us about 80% of the time (20% we hold the same hand).

We cold call and flop comes a dry Ace high board. Not surprisingly UTG bets, which he would do with any Ace and sometimes with KK/QQ or any bluff hand, taking advantage of the scare card (the Ace). We could have called and let him bluff, in case he is the super-aggressive type of player who 3-barrels with air. But he is not and we elect to raise, as we would have done with A5/A2/34/22/55 trying to get value from his AK/AQ or with air, trying to force him to fold Queens, Kings, Jacks or even Ace Jack. Villain knows that our range includes those hands, so we can represent them easily and let them guessing of our hand.

He calls and we only have to worry about Aces having hit a set, although the chances of that are really slim, given we hold the 4th Ace in that case (22 or 55 are more likely). Turn is a relatively safe card, since we would expect him to have folded AJ and Jacks by now. If our turn bet is raised, we are done with the hand and have an easy fold right there. Remember, villain should have put us on a set or two-pair hand by now, thus his turn raise would be made strictly for value. If he wants to catch us bluffing, he should just call and let us bluff all the way to the river.

Villain folds showing Ace King. Is that really a mistake (the fold, not the show)?

Consider playing with hands face-up. We know each other’s hand, so we would go to the river no matter what (unless someone hits a flush). Our turn bet would not drive him away since he holds the same hand.

Are you nuts? Why are you betting into me with the same hand? I’m not going anywhere! Call!

Instead by folding he makes a mistake and we take a pot that would not go to our side if we had chosen to raise/3bet preflop (split pot and having hard time calling down his preflop shove).

What do you think of cold calling with AK in position? Should it be avoided? Have you ever folded top pair/top kicker in the villain’s spot? Let me know in the comments below!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Casino Goes Big Time

The multimedia aspects of online casinos, especially in the case of their live real-time dealers, are expanding and becoming increasingly bound with this game genre as a whole. Gone are the days of playing very flat, basic-looking card games on a desktop computer.

Now we have realistic graphics that show your hand and game table in 3D depth, with windows for a live dealer feed. In the case of sports betting sites, managing one’s bets is augmented by live streams of the very sports events that are the subjects of such wagers. Sports spectatorship has joined with betting entertainment, converging in the Web browser.

Why Tablets Rock As Mobile Casinos

With all that happening on your screen, inside a Web browser, smart phones do not provide a big enough window to interact. A tablet does. Whenever live video is incorporated into the mobile casinos, you will see it in the correct life-like dimensions.

Another reason tablets are superior, especially for card games, is right under our noses: there is an almost exact size correlation between actual playing cards and the cards seen on the larger tablet screen. This detail is not to be underestimated.

You can see both the video feed of your live dealer’s hands, and, a graphical representation of them that updates exactly. Tapping and swiping with fingertips upon a 3-5-inch smartphone’s touch screen seems dinky by comparison. The life-like feel of correct dimensions makes a huge difference to gameplay and overall lucidity while playing.

The Future of Web Gaming

It’s hard not to muse a bit about what we have, looking down at a tablet screen showing a virtual Poker table. It’s a window upon another location that serves the game and wagers, with living humans there. It’s cards online, however, it could be any sort of entertainment, including Web programming and interactive newscasts: we’re witnessing the birth of the real World Wide Web.

Part of this current boom is a very simple thing: the Web’s first global upgrade since 1999 is happening now, and it’s called HTML5. The bottom line about this development for casino lovers is the fact that HTML5, as the Web’s native language, permits games and other entertainment to run in-the-browser from their source.

It has subsumed the performance of advanced technologies like Flash into the Web’s standard code. This means a casino’s card game is a Web page rather than fragmented into countless versions of the games running as native apps on players’ phones or tablets.

Tablet Revolution

In terms of audio, a tablet is more likely to have decent or even outstanding speakers than a phone. With earphones, they perform the same. The place where the tablet will shine most is ergonomics, due to its more compatible size for casino playing

Above and beyond these features we’ve highlighted, tablets have been heralded from their big time breakthrough, with the iPad, as the world’s best mobile gaming platform. Their increasing power and impressive displays make them competitive with home game consoles.

Consider this gaming prowess in light of our new freedom from apps brought by HTML5 and the commencement of a unified browser-based multimedia experience. One begins to wonder at the many years ahead of mind-blowing advancements in Web-based gaming and entertainment, driven by tablet computers in large part.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

With the growing popularity of online marketing, people have started focusing on SMO activities more and more. While social media sites are cracking the rooftops across the online industry, it leads to a question mark on the relevance and importance of search engine optimization (SEO) in the current and future scenario. No doubt, both SEO and SMO are two highly distinct processes however both are aimed at the same target.

SEO versus SMO

Social media optimization (Photo: DigitalMagnify.com)

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps in generating large volume of traffic. In short, it is a process to improve your website and webpages whereas SMO (Social Media Optimization) helps in generating Publicity. In short, it is a process of increasing the awareness of a product, brand through publicity by using social media and social networks.

While SEO helps to target the right people through search engine on the other hand, SMO brings a lot of traffic but doesn’t target the right people. While SEO is a field where we need to invest money; SMO can be done by anyone who is well known and registered on various social media or networking sites and that too for free.

No doubt, SMO serve as a great tool for brand promotions, creating awareness, seeking suggestions and to get noticed in the social media but SEO has been consistently proving its significance over the past several years. So, it could be risky for you to ignore the importance of SEO.

Although in past few years, SMO has emerged as the dominating sword of online marketing as it is targeted on users whereas SEO is done in order to seek attention from search engine spiders. Usually, for SMO we need impressive content as per user’s perspective, whereas in SEO, we need informative, genuine and keywords-rich content in order to grab the attention of various search engines.

If SMO offers a huge scope for brand promotion then SEO integrates two important aspects of online business namely – ethics and quality. SMO can help you to create a personal feel. It gives you an opportunity to personally talk to your valuable clients and solve their queries, which is very essential for the success of a business but at the same time strong visibility in search engines is also essential which can be achieved by SEO only.

Although both SEO and SMO are interrelated and are frequently used together as a part of comprehensive online marketing campaign but still they are quite different from each other. While SEO encourages link building through article submissions, Q&A, press releases, and various similar mediums with an objective of driving traffic from search engines; SMO focus on driving traffic through online social media sources, such as blogs, networking sites, podcasts, discussion forums etc.

Conclusion

Both SEO and SMO are an integral part of online marketing. Both plays a vital role and help to increase the visibility of web site, improve ranking, and increase traffic.

So we can conclude that both SEO as well as SMO need to go in hand to hand as it provides both relevance and recognition to a website.

Since, both are unavoidable part of online marketing so it is necessary to implement a smart blend of both SMO and SEO activities. Using the two together is a unique formula for a faster growth and long lasting success.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Since upgrading my Windows 7 desktop PC, I decided to go with Windows 8. The negative reviews and comments suggested I should steer away from the latest version of the Microsoft’s operating system, especially when deciding to install Windows 8 on a desktop computer with no touch-screen monitors. On the other hand, I didn’t want to setup (and buy) Windows 7 on the brand new motherboard, which is expected to last 3 to 5 years. So, I opted for a fresh install of Windows 8 on my quad monitor desktop PC. It turns out that setting up Windows 8 with 4 monitors is a bit easier than Windows 7.

Initially, I had doubts about whether a 4-monitor setup will really work on a Windows 8 desktop PC or if upgrading to the newest version of Windows will have any benefits over Windows 7, when expanding my workspace to 7680×1200 resolution (24-inch monitors of 1920×1200 resolution each). One of the most common problems Windows users come up with when using a multi-monitor desktop computer, has been the taskbar that is only shown in the main display. In plain words, when you fire up an application and move it to a secondary monitor, the shortcut shown in the taskbar doesn’t move to the secondary monitor; that is because there is no taskbar at the bottom of that display after all! Although there are third-party solutions that extend the taskbar to other monitors via software, they don’t come for free. Additionally the “Start” button and clock remain on the main display. Microsoft fortunately listened to those users and Windows 8 does offer some additional options when the user accesses the taskbar properties in their Windows 8 desktop PCs.

Did I just say “Start” button? Many PC users have tried Windows 8 before and most of them complained about the removal of the user-friendly, cute and easily accessible Start button. I have been a Microsoft Windows user since… Windows 3.10 and I myself have been quite familiar with the Start button. I expected a challenge when Windows 8 loaded for the first time, but it was a matter of minutes, before I began using an alternative “Start” button: the Windows key found in almost all keyboards between control and alt keys! In fact, it’s even quicker than dragging the pointer all the way to the bottom left corner of the display! And when you work on four monitors, that can be quite an area for the pointer to travel; the mouse pad might be too small sometimes (hint: change your mouse scanning sensitivity – DPI)!

Yet, by working on a Windows 8 desktop PC with 4 monitors, another question pops up: Where (and how) does the boot-up screen load when pressing on the Start key? If like me you set up your multimonitor desktop computer with ATI Eyefiniti, you end up with a large (5760×1200) display instead of 3 separate monitors of 1920×1200. In that case, Windows 8 start menu takes up all three monitors of the Eyefinity group.

If you don’t want to use Eyefinity in your Windows 8 desktop computer, each monitor can be used separately but you give up on the Eyefinity functionality (most notably in gaming). In my case, the fourth monitor offers an alternative place to feature the Windows 8 logon screen and allow me to keep Eyefinity enabled (that glowing mouse is a Logitech G600).

All this can be easily handled by either the Windows 8 display properties or via your graphic card’s properties. What I also find quite useful is the display-split function, that allows me to keep the Twitter feed (or any other application) in a pre-defined portion of the screen. Now I can access Twitter instantly on the one third of my left-most monitor of the Windows 8 desktop PC, while checking my emails via Outlook 2013 (taking advantage of the subscription offer of Office 2013 for up to 5 licenses for €100/year). That applies even when I am racing at iRacing on the other 3 monitors, although I switch over to iSpeed to keep track of my best times and other car details.

So, can I continue working on my Windows 8 desktop PC as I used to when Windows 7 was installed? Obviously yes and I must admit it is even more comfortable. Playing poker online, trading stocks and blogging haven’t changed a bit. I certainly don’t miss the Start button, I welcome the display-split functionality and I enjoy gaming with graphics set at maximum settings. But that is due to the new Intel i7 3770, which replaced the good old Q6600. Oh, did I mention that 4 monitors run on just one ATI graphics card (an ATI 5770)? That is because the fourth display is actually driven by the CPU itself, leading me to move the ATI 5450 to the living room’s Home Theatre PC (HTPC). Well, I guess I will be discussing about that in the next post!

Photos taken with a Samsung Note 2.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

If you’re a football fan, just like me, you will have heard this sound many times before. It’s the sound of passion. It’s the sound of failure. It’s the sound of beer. Most of all, it’s the sound of money going down the toilet.

When embarking on one, two or a whole season’s worth of bets you must always go in with a strategy; it’s the way that experienced gamblers work to make a living from it. Every pro knows that only fools rush in, but it’s hard when you’re lean, keen with a handful of green not to play on instinct. If the last sentence sounds a tad close to home, just see if you can wait ten minutes as we lay out some basic ground rules and strategies to get you started.

First of all, take stock of your finances; professional bettors are successful because they only stake what they can afford. You can bankroll game-by-game, weekly or for the whole season, as long as you stick to it and don’t get cocky. While on a hot-streak you might be tempted to up the ante for the next game in order to get a fat return but think about the bigger picture; you could hit a dry patch any time so hold out for a cool payoff come Super Bowl Hang over Monday.

Knowing your onions about the sport on which you are betting is a given, as you wouldn’t get far if you can’t tell a power forward from a point guard. Betting, however, is so much more than mere sport and brings into play a whole new class of facts, figures and fun. Get a good quality notepad immediately and start writing down every bet, every line and every result for reference in future years. For now, however, there is plenty of information available online and make sure you research every bet weeks in advance.

Now you’ve managed your money and collected your data it’s time to go shopping! No, we’re not going to buy a new leather jacket – that will have to wait until you’ve made a profit. For now we’re shopping around every reputable online sportsbook seeking out the best lines for each wager. Believe it or not, despite the thousands of betting sites online not many sports gamblers shop around. The best tactic is to sign up with three or four and compare lines game-to-game; any more than that and things get confusing. Also, sticking to websites with your currency and sports of choice is a must. For example, you may need to narrow your selection to sports betting sites in Canada that have good options, betting tips and odds for football.

After those three boxes are ticked and you’ve made your bet it’s time to sit back, watch the game and enjoy a cold beer; it tastes great and your team is leading so it turns into two, and three, and soon you’re calling in for another 2-4. But what’s this? They throw the game just before final whistle and all of a sudden you’re down $200, so you move to the computer devastated and drunk in a bid to win your money back on the next available game while your passions are flared.

Freeze. Step away from the Internet. A professional bettor takes every gamble seriously and never, ever lets emotions get the better of him (no pun intended). Whether you’re just tipsy and feeling good or if you’re sober with a point to prove: stop for a second, maybe take a nap and wait until you have calmed down before spending any money. If you want to have a profitable season you can’t afford to make decisions under the influence; also stay away from cars and heavy machinery.

Sports betting is often seen by the uninitiated as a reckless, unpredictable pastime but as long as you dedicate significant hours to planning, budgeting and research you will have a very good chance of turning a profit by the end of the season. You won’t always win – in fact, nearly half of your bets are likely to make a loss – but as long as you stick to the strategies I’ve outlined here then you won’t be disappointed when the season comes to a close.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

For example, if someone is making relatively small wagers on each serve in a tennis game, as opposed to simply betting on the game itself, are they setting themselves up for a loss in the long term? Does micro betting push people down a dangerous road where betting patterns unravel into complete and total abject chaos?

Last year, the Australian government released a draft review of the 2001 Interactive Gambling Act, which received attention worldwide for its distillation of over a decade of data relating to the specifics of online gambling worldwide. One of the recommendations (#25) from the report deals specifically with the issue of micro betting, specifically stating that this type of gambling can pose a threat:

Because of the greater harm associated with ‘micro-betting’ from a problem gambling perspective, ‘micro-betting’ should be prohibited irrespective of the electronic medium (that is, telephone, internet, etc.) by which the bets are placed.

The question becomes the following: where, exactly, are these associated harms? The report makes the assertion that this form of betting is a problem, but the report is less forthcoming with the actual reasons why.

A Micro Analysis of Micro Betting

Sally Gainsbury, a Financial Times reporter based in London, sides with the report believing #25 to be entirely on point in its assessment. She expressed her thoughts shortly after the release of the report with an interview on ABC NewsAustralia: 

“If you are looking at something that’s like ball-by-ball betting on outcomes that are popping up within a game, this is a form of gambling where gamblers could chase their losses, could spend more than they intended, and it really could be an excessive form of gambling.” 

However, it would appear that if the self-professed “independent gambling researcher” did, in fact, read the report, she did not read it very well.

Her own comments are directly challenged a little later on in the report—in the same section, even. It goes on to read the following: 

According to a report conducted by the UK Gambling Commission in 2009, there is no evidence that online in-play betting (including ‘micro-betting’ after an event has commenced) poses a “specific, identifiable risk to problem gambling as opposed to other forms of betting or online gambling.

In reality, the draft struggles to ground the criticisms of micro betting to any study or professional body outside of the report itself.

Micro or Macro: It’s All Relative

The reality is that micro betting is no more or less detrimental for the majority of those people partaking in online gaming, problem gambler or otherwise.

Whether or not you are betting a lot or a little, the odds are not changing.

Critics of online gambling are also reminded by commentators such as Mark at SocialLiberalEconomicRational.com (who claims he used to run an online gambling business that accepted micro bets) that people who utilize the “micro” approach of betting less more often have historically been shown to simply win (or lose) less money, more often, with the long term outcomes remaining about the same.

Mark makes another point: when you look at the speed in which bets can be made around the world, there really is no objective standard for what constitutes ‘quick’ betting. It is entirely possible to place a bet for a horse race every couple of minutes, which is about the same frequency as the aforementioned micro wagers on individual tennis serves.

In other words, it is all relative.

The difference really seems come down to semantics. Depending on who you talk to, and how much money they have, what could be considered “micro,” or otherwise small and fast betting for one person could very well turn out to be too little and too slow for the more seasoned professional who is used to making a decision every 30 seconds.

Ultimately, it’s not the size or frequency of the bet that makes the winner or the loser. As always in gambling, it’s all about the decisions that you make.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

That’s my 4-monitor poker setup I shared at Twitter. My computer setup allows me to blog, invest and trade stocks effectively. It also allows me to play poker more efficiently. Much more efficiently than most online poker players. And it didn’t cost me a fortune, buying and selling tens of monitors or computers in the process! For example, André Coimbra posted the history of his sick setup for Pokerstars and I truly lost count of the poker setup’s changes in 4 years’ time! Come on people, have some plan before investing in technology for crying out loud!

Although this kind of post should normally fit into the “technology” category, I opted for the “poker” category as my main subject here is why successful poker players neglect on their computer setups! Or at least don’t plan ahead when spending their money on computer stuff. Yes, I know, “easy come, easy go”. The cost of a large 30’’ monitor might be the equivalent of playing at mid-stakes of poker for just a couple of hours (EV adjusted winnings), but come on! That isn’t an excuse for building a new computer setup every year! Build and forget! It shouldn’t be that hard to find the most suitable setup for playing poker online before spending on new screens!

History of my poker setup

So, what is the short history of my sick poker setup? As a side note I don’t consider it a “sick” poker setup; I just include the word for SEO reasons, meaning the keyword “sick setup” is being quite popular lately in search engines due to the Pokerstars’ contest! Sick, huh (no pun intended)?

I began playing poker on an Acer laptop. Sorry, no photo. It must be lying at the attic somewhere. Besides, I only spent about a couple of months playing poker on a laptop. I quickly moved to a desktop computer with a dual monitor setup. That was in 2006. André hadn’t even started playing back then according to his post. Not that it makes a difference as I presume he is far more successful in poker. I’ve since become a poker dinosaur!

Fast forward to 2011 and I add 2 more monitors to the previous setup. Unbelievable, right? Me doing business with the same setup for 5 years! I also exchanged parts between the media server of the living room (newer, bought in 2009) with the desktop computer in my office.

As a result, the 2006 desktop computer is now used as a media server for the family and occasionally for playing games with friends. The office computer used for poker among other things is powered by a 2009 CPU, a 2011 graphics card and a 2012 SSD hard disk. Two of the monitors are still the ones I originally bought in 2006, still in perfect condition (knock on wood).

And that is the history of my sick poker setup concluded. Period. The end. No need to burn more cash! And you’ll probably agree that André’s 2013 poker setup is pretty much alike, with fewer but larger monitors. If only though my wife would also make Supernova like André’s girlfriend! Then I too would lend some of my old monitors to her, like André did and replace them with 30-inch ones! We all tend to keep the new stuff to us, eh boys? It’s a man’s world!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Casino players have heard it before: The house always wins. They do accept the fact that they are going to lose money but at least they are going to have fun. In the process they tend to forget that and begin devising new methods and strategies, in order to beat the dealer and come out winners. Eventually they are doomed to fail, since the science behind casino games is nothing more than mathematics. And mathematics never lies. Playing blackjack online isn’t any different, given that online casino science is pretty much the same.

Blackjack Basic Strategy and Rules

Blackjack basic strategy is tailored towards specific blackjack rules. Depending on 6 rules of the game, there can be basic strategy variations, so that the dealer’s edge is minimized in each occasion.

1. Number of card decks: There are a definite number of decks in each shoe. Most casinos use 6 decks of cards, although you may find games with as low as 2 decks or as high as 8! Many decks favor the casino, less decks reduce the house’s edge.
2. Soft 17 (S17): you may have noticed on the blackjack tables: Dealer stands on soft 17 (S17). In other words, they have to stop drawing cards when their cards are A6. The opposite is H17 and favors the casino.
3. Double any two cards: Blackjack players usually have the option to double any two first cards they get dealt. Even when the sum of the cards is as low as 5! You may also double A9 according to that rule (I still remember when I did that back in my card counting days!). Alternatively you may be allowed to double only when the cards’ sum is between 9 and 11 (D9) and even worse when the cards’ value is either 10 or 11 (D10).
4. Double after split (DAS): Assuming my hand is 88 I decide to split my hand. In case a 2 or a 3 is dealt at either card (for a sum of 10 or 11), I may want to double. As long as the casino offers me that option and I double, the house’s edge is decreased.
5. Surrender: Quitting before we hit or stand and losing half of the wager at the start of the hand is called surrender. There are two types of “surrender” depending on the choice given before or after the dealer checks their hole card for a likely blackjack; the very rare “early surrender” and the “late surrender” (ES and LS respectively). You should sit at blackjack tables that offer any type of surrender, as that rule favors your odds.
6. US/European style: In US blackjack tables, dealers are dealt two cards, one facing down. In Europe the dealer is dealt just one card facing up obviously.

Blackjack basic strategy: 6 decks, S17, DAS, No surrender, European

These are the rules of the blackjack game I used to play almost on a daily basis before the introduction of the automatic shuffling machines. Every new player, who wanted to play “correctly”, had to memorize the following Blackjack chart. They wouldn’t make money in the long run, but their hobby would cost them the minimum.

Blackjack basic strategy chart (www.blackjackinfo.com)

Blackjack basic strategy examples

• Me (35), dealer (9): My cards’ value is 8. Reading the 4^th line of the blackjack chart I am instructed to hit my hand, given the “H” under the dealer’s “9” column. Besides, whatever the dealer’s card, I must take a card. The real issue here isn’t whether I hit my hand or not. It’s about a “double” being a better option.
• Me (64), dealer (10): Holding a combined 10 and according with the 6^th line of the blackjack Basic Strategy, I have to just hit and avoid doubling up. That course of action (double) should be taken if the dealer’s card was anything but a 10, J, Q, K or an Ace.
• Me (J2), dealer (5): The blackjack basic strategy’s 8^th line prompts me to stand on 12! This applies when dealer shows a 4, a 5 or a 6; otherwise I need to draw a card.
• Me (97), dealer (K): Basic strategy (12^th line) says I have to hit. No matter my position at the table I have to follow that rule. Even if I am sitting at the last seat of the blackjack table, I MUST hit. Although other players sitting at the same table will negatively comment on my action and recommend me to stand on 16, it’s a mistake mathematically to stand.
• Me (A4), dealer (4): Blackjack basic strategy recommends doubling if the dealer’s card is a 4 to 6. In any other case, I should just hit. In that instance we should consider our hand as a “5” and not a “15”. If a ten comes along, our cards’ value is “15” and basic strategy’s 11^th line advises to stand.
• Me (44), dealer (5): I need to split my 4’s. If the dealer’s card was any other card than a five or a six, my hand would have been a plain eight.
• Me (55), dealer (9): Double. In case dealer was showing a ten or an Ace, I should hit. Of course you should never split fives. Don’t lose focus when the dealer asks you “Split sir?” when you double your bet. They are trying to win more money from you!
• Me (99), dealer (7): Blackjack basic strategy’s recommended action is to stand. If I split my nines, I would lose more money in the long run.

Advantages of blackjack basic strategy

By applying blackjack basic strategy when playing blackjack you effectively decrease the casino’s edge. If you follow the rules shown above without making any mistake, the house has a 0.55% edge against you. This means that for every 10 dollars you bet, you lose 5.5 cents long term. If you play 50 hands per hour, your entertainment will cost you about 3 dollars!

The more I deviate from blackjack basic strategy’s rules, the more the casino’s edge increases. If I begin standing on 16 against dealer’s ten, not doubling my nine or not splitting my threes against dealer’s two to seven, the house’s edge might increase more than 1%! I would then lose money twice as much per hour! Making even bigger mistakes, such as never splitting Aces, hitting 15 versus dealer’s six or doubling my 11 against dealer’s low card, my disadvantage could easily skyrocket more than 3%, donating more money to the casino!

Memorizing the Blackjack chart of the basic strategy is necessary if you want to play blackjack correctly. Learning blackjack basic strategy is also required if you also want to become a card counter later. Finally, by adopting basic strategy when playing blackjack, you’ll earn the respect and trust of other good blackjack players, who might bet on your hand, when the odds are in their favor!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

The Logitech G600 mouse can be found for 70-80 euros or 65 pounds, shipping included. Surprisingly, there isn’t significant price difference between online and retail stores. Yet, I grabbed mine from an Ebay seller that offered the Logitech mouse for 55 euros! That is even cheaper than a brand new G500, my broken Logitech mouse!

I usually do a lot of research before spending my hard-earned money on anything, even for items with a price tag less than 10 dollars. In this instance though I didn’t spend much time reading reviews about the Logitech G600 or watching video reviews. Given my overall satisfaction of other Logitech products, it didn’t take much research before convincing myself to buy the specific Logitech mouse. I could have watched the following 30-minute video review, but I was too busy searching for the lowest price available.

On the other hand Logitech mouses are not perfect. They do wear out. The Logitech G5′s tracking beam that I bought in 2006 failed a couple of years ago and its replacement, G500, is experiencing the double-click issue I described above.

The double-click problem of the Logitech mouse is so common for this particular model, that there are many helpful posts online about how to fix your double-clicking mouse by yourself (Do-It-Yourself repair)! Of course that fix will void the warranty, so you’d better contact Logitech first before reaching for the screwdriver. Although I did open my Logitech mouse, I didn’t go through the whole process and re-assembled it, so that I can continue working until my new Logitech mouse arrives!

My previous experience with malfunctioning Logitech products was a Logitech remote control. The control’s infrared beam was dead after a year or so. I sent an email to Logitech support attaching a video back then, where I explained the problem. I held the Logitech remote control next to a random (Samsung) remote control pointing to the web camera and pressed some buttons on both devices. It was pretty obvious that the Logitech remote wasn’t transmitting anything (How To Test a Dead Remote Control using a Digital Camera). Logitech support confirmed the device’s fault and sent me a new remote without me returning the faulty one or charging me for shipping! Two thumbs up for Logitech support!

Another device that has failed is the Draytek router I recommended in the past!

Maybe I should have checked my Logitech G500 receipt before removing the screws. Logitech usually offers 3-years warranty for their mouses, so I might have got a replacement for free. Honestly I don’t remember when I bought the faulty Logitech mouse. This time however I am making sure I don’t forget when I bought my Logitech G600 mouse with this very blog post! Hopefully I won’t be linking back to this article in the next 3 years!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

The last time I played a version of SimCity was SimCity 4 Deluxe, which was published in 2003. Ten years later Electronic Arts and Maxis decided to create a new promising SimCity game, but the game release must have been one of the worst ever, given the negative reviews online about EA’s server issues and not being able to play single game without an internet connection. That didn’t cause much damage to EA at the stock market though, as EA stock has gained 20% this year.

Back to building a gambling city in SimCity 2013, it was a bit of surprise for me to find that feature in the game, as Simcity is played by mostly youngsters. Society has been trying to keep teenagers away from gambling for years. Obviously it won’t be a life-changing experience for young players getting accustomed with building casinos and creating a virtual gambling city. I’m not saying that they would turn to gambling because of their success in this video game. After all it’s about gambling as a business and not as a hobby, meaning they have to manage casinos’ income and expenses. Yet, by having gambling take such a big part in SimCity might generate some talks. It’s one thing to allow players to build a casino to help the digital city’s funding (and increase its crime rate like in early versions of Simcity) and another to have an entire city’s success depend on gambling!

Say for example a 11-year-old Simcity player create a profitable city that is specialized in trading. Perhaps that would lead them subconsciously to pursuit a career in merchandizing. Imagine the same scenario in gambling. I suppose it would be more tempting to become a gambler rather than a casino businessman!

Anyway, enough with the “responsible” talking! Simcity experts have already uploaded numerous videos online, showing how to manage your sim city profitably and sharing their gameplay strategies depending on the specializations. It turns out gambling as specialization in Sim City is regarded as tourism and experts use strategies that are best employed by tourist guides. For example, SimCity 5 producer goes on to explain in this first sneak peak of the game back in October, how building a railroad station next to his new casino immediately showed a profit for the gambling business.

Jump to 7:00 of the video:

But that was just an introduction to the gambling specialization of Sim City and admittedly right to the point. For a more thorough analysis of the Sim City gambling specialization, there are a couple of Sim City gambling guides at Youtube. For instance, in the next 5 minutes of the tutorial video made by IGN Entertainment, SimCity players are advised to begin investing in a gambling city only after they have created cities with enough population to spend money on the casino business. Otherwise their casinos will just hurt their monthly budget.

After spending some time reading reviews about Sim City 2013 and watching a couple of videos, I am putting SimCity in my gaming watchlist. The game is selling for about 50-60 euros, while the deluxe edition goes for 80 euros, which I find quite expensive. For the time being I might re-install SimCity 4 and wait for the price to come down. Until then I may do a research and come up with my personal Sim City gambling strategy by the time I build my first cities at SimCity 5!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Of course before you start thinking of mastering card counting and day dreaming of beating casino games for a living, you’d better learn the Blackjack basic strategy you’ll find in the infographic below. Although it’s a very basic strategy, blackjack players should try memorizing the table, even if they don’t plan to make money by playing Blackjack. Basic strategy will minimize the casino’s edge and eventually keep their losses to a minimum. Whatever deviation they try based on their intuition will just increase their disadvantage against the dealer. A Blackjack secret is never become a victim of superstitions.

According to the infographic by 24hPoker, there are 5 books you should read if blackjack is your favorite game. I can’t recommend any of those, since I haven’t read any book about Blackjack during practicing card counting or visiting the casinos. Yet, I managed to win at blackjack by studying information that I found free online. And I suppose it is still accessible for free.

Finally I agree with this piece of advice: do not drink alcohol during the game. You will lose your concentration and make bad decisions that will cost you money.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

The idea of this post first crossed my mind when I read the excellent article by Trent Hamm discussing why he never uses stock market predictions to invest his money. Now you know how I ended up with this post’s title! In summary, Trent claims that if by any chance he had a profitable strategy in stock market, he would no longer be able to get great returns, as soon as he shared his strategy with anyone. He asks his blog’s readers the very common question I usually address to friends:

If you had found a secret way to make money year in and year out, would you tell anyone that secret?

Why try to make money by selling tips, when you’d make far more money by keeping them to yourselves! Although he refers to investing tips, the same discussion can be made regarding sports betting tips. If you had found a winning betting strategy, would you sell your knowledge instead of actually make money by adopting your own strategy? Why not take advantage of your skill to find value bets and restraint yourself from inviting people to improve their football or horse racing betting – Click here!

There is a saying that goes like: if you can’t win, teach. Making money from online betting or gambling in general isn’t for the faint-hearted. On the other hand, making money by selling betting tips is all about marketing. The betting experts just need to persuade people that they are good in tipping winners. A fancy website, a well-designed promo webpage, a couple of testimonials and an impressive ascending Profit & Loss graph are enough to convince desperate gamblers to subscribe to the tipping service.

Of course that is not the whole truth. As Trent mentions in his post, a private hedge fund is far more trustworthy and his second choice after securing his family’s wealth. Obviously a few people will get to know of the fund, since they wouldn’t want to spread the word around and lose their edge. That makes it difficult to find such a fund and be allowed to invest your money. Likewise, there are private groups of sports bettors who don’t welcome newcomers and keep their secret strategies to themselves. They share their knowledge among the group and are able to bet at value odds before bookmakers are forced to change their lines due to the demand. If hundreds of people heard from your tipping service that Arsenal’s odds at 2.50 should have been 1.70 before you placed your bet, you could have trouble finding acceptable odds yourself in a matter of minutes.

I tend to agree with Trent there when he says to avoid falling for people trying to sell investment strategies or tips. Do your homework, study the mathematics behind the game of sports betting and improve your own skill to tip winners. And if your betting tips are unsuccessful, you can always teach people how to do it!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

The first time I came across the new Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone was back in October. A good friend of mine had just let me know of the soon-to-be-released smartphone, that he himself was planning to purchase. Youtube videos featuring the Samsung phone were already online along with some very promising previews of the Samsung product. Those very videos, previews and reviews led me to consider replacing my Sony Ericsson mobile phone with the Samsung Galaxy Note 2. Yet, the new Note 2 was priced quite high, although the phone was getting cheaper every week due to new offers made by retail and online shops. I was also able to find the Galaxy Note 2 considerably cheaper in French Amazon.

Still I didn’t pull the trigger until Christmas time when Samsung made an offer I could not refuse. Samsung Galaxy Note 2 was selling for €550 at that time at local shops and Samsung offered a €100 discount, deposited in the customers’ bank account! In effect, I could now buy the Samsung phone for €450! Funny thing is that in October I had told my friend that I was not going to buy that phone for anything more than €450! Given I considered that a fair price, I have been a Samsung Note 2 owner ever since. And I haven’t regretted it for a minute!

Investing with a Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Buying or selling stocks via the Galaxy Note 2 is very easy. Of course my broker’s mobile software also helps. Interactive Brokers offer a very user-friendly solution to their traders who need to have access to their portfolio wherever they are. The software is available for all platforms including Android phones apart from iOS and Blackberry. The big screen of the Galaxy Note 2 is a huge plus when it comes to placing orders, accessing the market’s depth via the BookTrader and even when analyzing the charts! I cannot imagine how difficult it would have been to trade stocks on the small touchscreen of my Sony Ericsson Xperia phone!

Investing also refers to internet gambling as I have previously discussed. Thus, placing bets online via the Samsung Galaxy phone is also an easy task, depending on the bookmaker’s website or Android application. I suppose the Note 2 doesn’t offer such a big advantage here as with online trading, but some cool options, like the multitasking bar come in handy when you want to access your Excel spreadsheet to confirm your bets. If you take your gambling business seriously and keep track of your betting activity, these features will save you both time and effort.

Blogging with a Samsung Galaxy Note 2

When it comes to blogging, using the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is similar to always carrying your laptop with you; or even better. You see with a laptop you actually need to type words in order to write your next post. With the Note 2 you simply speak the words! With a couple of neat Android apps that allow compiling SMS, emails or any document via speech recognition, bloggers can now dictate their next blog post! Still, that is possible with almost any new Android smartphone.

What I found extremely helpful was the ease of publishing guest posts sent in my email address. Receiving posts from my blogs’ co-authors, editing their DOC or RTF files on the fly, copying and pasting their words into WordPress and managing the posts’ images are all now accomplished from the 5.5’’ Note’s touchscreen. I no longer need to carry my 4lb laptop when going for coffee or visiting friends. I don’t have to worry any more if a co-author will send me a post that features breaking news and need to publish their post in the next couple of minutes while I am on the road. Sure it may take some more time to complete the whole task compared with a laptop. However I prefer carrying around my mobile phone instead of a heavy laptop bag, especially in summer time!

Since I bought a Fujitsu T900 Tablet in 2010 I consider the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 my next best purchase! Perhaps I am missing the small size of my previous Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 mini pro, but I am glad I made the change. Apart from the increased functionality and infinite features the Samsung phone offers, being a lot less stressful when away from office is truly priceless. And I owe that to the Samsung Note 2!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Building a website with WordPress eventually leads to installing numerous WordPress plugins. Although bloggers are advised not to use a lot of plugins in their websites due to reduced loading page speed, there are a couple of must-have WordPress plugins that not only make the blog more attractive, but also improve the blog’s user experience, like related posts, sharing buttons or comments. One of the problems bloggers often deal with is about the loading order of the WordPress plugins, specifically in the end of their posts. How can WordPress users change the order of those plugins?

The answer lies inside the WordPress plugins’ code. The line that is responsible for the loading order of the plugins at the end of the posts should be similar to the following:

Note that XX represents a number according to which the specific plugin is loaded. As an example I will use the plugins I am using for this blog. At the end of each post I am including a bar of social buttons, a related posts plugin, a subscription plugin, an author plugin and the Disqus commenting system. Most often than not the comment section in a WordPress theme is well defined and the commenting system finds its appropriate placement without any change in the code. What happens though when at the end of your last paragraph your plugins load in an undesirable order?

When I first installed the aforementioned plugins, I got the author box first, social buttons, related posts and finally the subscription sign-up. Obviously I wanted social buttons to load first, since readers would find it convenient to share a useful article immediately after they finished reading it. In addition, the plugin that should load at the bottom end of the posts’ content would be the author box, given the blog is my personal one, thus readers would already expect me to write most of the posts! No need to force readers reading my bio repeatedly and possibly driving them away from the blog.

Changing the WordPress plugins’ loading order in posts

• Decide on the exact order of the plugins. Duh!
• Go to the plugins’ editor inside the WordPress blog’s admin dashboard.
• Edit the php file of the plugin you want to load first – in my example the social media buttons’ plugin.
• Search and find (ctrl+f usually) the code above – search for “filter” and scan through the results until you find a line similar to the code. Pay attention to the term “content”, because you’ll find some instances referring to the “excerpt”.
• Add or change the XX value to 10. Save the file.
• Edit the php file of the plugin you want to load second.
• Follow the same steps and add/replace XX value with 200. Click save.
• Continue the process for each plugin, using a higher number each time for the XX value. The plugin that will load last should have the highest XX value.

Experiment with the values until you get the desired result of the loading order. I am in no way a WordPress expert and definitely not an expert in PHP code. Yet, I have encountered this specific problem in almost all of my blogs and given I found this solution recently on my own, I thought to share it with other WordPress bloggers. There is also a WordPress plugin by Reveloper.com that claims to load WordPress plugins the way you need them. However due to developer’s lack of time, users report the plugin does not work since the latest WordPress updates.

If bloggers use WordPress to build their website, sooner or later they will face this kind of issue. I guess if they aren’t afraid of some minimum coding, changing the loading order of WordPress plugins should not take more than 5 minutes. And now readers can share the post right at the end of the posts’ last sentence! Neat huh?

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

According to the study, European countries have begun regulating the online gambling market during the past few years and the map is continuously redrawn. During 2011 the following countries regulated the internet gambling market, began discussions or passed legislation.

This continuous regulation of online gambling has led to the 2012 map of Europe’s internet gambling market that is published in another GamblingCompliance’s study. The map confirms that UK is the only European country to offer an open gambling market, while most of the countries require online bookmakers and online casinos to acquire a local license.

European countries seem to adopt the Italian model of regulating the online gaming market. Italy, the pioneer of ring-fenced markets, has greatly influenced other countries to impose website or/and payment restrictions to their residents, who are blocked from accessing unlicensed gambling operators. Although the study does mention that website and payment blocking can be circumvented, the experience coming from the ring-fenced markets suggests that these methods inform customers whether a website is legal or illegal in their jurisdiction and differentiate legal and illegal offers. At the same time, regarding gambling tax UK announced a shift from point of origin to point of consumption regulation, so that the betting duty would be payable wherever the gambling operator is located.

Drawing of the map of online gambling in Europe is far from finished. With plenty of countries still in the process of regulating the online gambling market, we should expect a redraw of the map by the end of 2013. Meanwhile, a couple of US states (Delaware, Nevada and possibly New Jersey) have legalized online gambling lately and most probably it would be the time to begin drawing the US map of internet gambling as well!

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

It feels like we are not living in such a free world after all. As Fred Foldvary states at The Progress Report:

“In a completely free society, with a pure free market and true free trade, there is no restriction or tax on peaceful and honest human action.”

I strongly recommend his latest article that deals with the recent US ban from predictions market. According to the US law, U.S. persons are no longer able to engage in InTrade predictions trades! Note that although InTrade is located in Ireland, U.S. government prohibits U.S. persons from holding an InTrade account world-wide! I first found InTrade when discussing about predictions of 2012 presidential election. What a coincidence to read Foldvary’s words:

“In fact, the Intrade market for the U.S. presidential election of 2012 correctly predicted the win by Obama, whereas the polls were evenly split.”

I myself had also talked about the divergence between the markets and the polls! Other than that, Foldvary makes some excellent points about freedom of expression and reading, along with interventions that reduce the efficiency of the economy. “Keep adding more rocks, and eventually the ship will sink”.

But it’s not just the U.S. ship that is getting overloaded. The anti-gambling campaigner and independent senator in Australia, Nick Xenophon, said sports betting across the country should be banned. That naturally led to online bookmakers’ warning that betting ban will increase the power and potency of match fixers targeting Australian sportmen. Australian Wagering Council boss, Chris Downy, argued a ban against online betting would lead to the spread of illegal bookmakers with no obligation to inform law enforcement agencies of any irregularities. Furthermore, a betting ban would also cripple the entire gambling industry, as Punter Paradise’s chief executive said. Although his business is based on advertising, they do attract gamblers who are interested in placing bets and looking to buy (or sell) tips and access form guides and live results.

In the meantime, I am sure you have all heard that European authorities are trying to regulate online gambling in some countries. Betfair has revoked access to all Greek punters and they stopped offering their exchange service to Germany. Numerous other online bookmakers have also withdrawn from the Greek market, while regulators have made online gambling a risky business in Italy, Spain and Belgium among others. For instance, it’s been two months when Bwin.party’s co-CEO was detained by Belgium authorities. European Union’s plan for online gambling has put online gambling regulation on the UK government’s agenda as well.

What do you think? Would a fully regulated gambling industry operate more efficiently in US, Australia or Europe?

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.

Unlike in the US which has a strict federal ban against online gambling, Canada takes a more relaxed approach to digital bets.  Several provinces have established their own regulated online casinos, while provincial gambling agencies such as the OLG or the Atlantic Lottery Corporation provide online lottery and keno links to players.  Online gambling remains very popular in Canada and an amendment to the country’s sportsbetting law – if passed – would make online sportsbetting more convenient and rewarding.

However, many Canadians remain confused about which online casinos they can trust.  Several virtual casinos have been exposed as scams that rob players of their money, and violate the country’s gambling laws.  Unfortunately many of these fraudulent casinos look so similar to legitimate gaming centres that it’s very difficult for an average player to recognize which are genuine and which aren’t.

Using a Canadian online casino guide like Onlinecasino.org that identifies the best regulated betting sites available, players can ensure they only play inside the most trusted gaming sites.  This ensures that a safe gambling experience is available for all players interested in an online casino, and reduces the reach of fraudulent sites.

Identifying trusted casinos is becoming even more important as the gambling industry adapts to mobile gambling services as well.  Online casinos have designed apps for their sites that players can download to their phones in order to play a game on the go.  The mobile market is still relatively new, so it’s important to recognize which apps are valid and others that are scams.

Canada loves to take its gambles, but does so cautiously – players should do the same by checking if a casino is properly regulated before providing access to financial information.

Originally appeared on Jim Makos Blog.