5 min read

Gambling and investing in your daily schedule. Can it be done?

I love waking up in the early morning and begin investing right from the start of the day. The mind is clear, I am well rested and eager to spot the first investing or gambling (for many) opportunity that will set the ball rolling for the day. Now I understand that is not the case for most readers who do have a day job. How can we fit our gambling or investing activities in our daily schedule? There will be sacrifices along the way, that is for sure.

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.