Ways to raise capital for real estate investing…..

[Lance Thompson]

Good people,

Know I haven’t communicated in a while. Wanted to send out a message to give you all some “ideas” on several different ways that you can raise capital to help you make down payments for real estate. The main thing to take very serious is that “all” of the ways that I’m going to list out here are very “risky” ventures to get involved with, so it would strongly behoove you to do your due diligence before giving any of these methods a try. Always remember, this is your hard-earned money we’re talking about so don’t ever just throw yourself into any of these types of ventures without reading at least 1 if not 2 books about the subject first. For each of these different ways to make money I am also going to recommend a book or 2 that you can search for at your local Barnes & Noble or on Amazon.com. Here are a few suggested ways to raise capital for you to look at:

 

#1. Playing poker – Needless to say, playing poker has the stigma of “gambling” attached to it which of course can be addictive. That’s the danger of it…..but the thing to realize is that poker has become a huge trend around the country & around the entire world where many people are leaving very respectable professions such as medicine, law, engineering, finance, architecture, information technology and many others to play poker full-time. Here’s a really good example…..World Series of Poker Champion & World Poker Tour Champion Joe Hachem? He was a Chiropractor for 13 years over in Melbourne, Australia before he developed a rare blood disorder that affected the blood vessels in his hands. No longer able to practice medicine, around 1995, while taking time off to consider his future, he started to play poker with greater frequency, mostly in casinos, as well as online.  Hachem said he was too temperamental when he first started playing poker and had to learn to control his temper. Around 2000, after years of casual playing, he started playing regularly in tournaments at the Crowne Casino & Entertainment Complex in Melbourne, Australia where he often ended “in the money”. Hachem spent another 5 years playing regularly on the Melbourne tournament circuit before setting his sights on the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2005 he came in 1st Place at the World Series of Poker with a 1st Place prize of $7.5 Million dollars. He now plays poker full-time after once having had a very rewarding and distinguished career as a Chiropractor. Whenever you’re watching the World Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker or the Heartland Poker Tour, take notice of how many of these whites & asians that the commentators talk about who started playing poker “from their college dorm room”. Our young African American & African kids should be doing the exact same thing. We ought to start experimenting with playing poker from our college dorm rooms at these Historically Black Colleges and Universities.  The thing to always be aware of is that you don’t want to become a “gambler”……you want to become a “professional poker player”. There’s a big difference. There are things that you’re going to have to figure out before getting involved in playing it. First question is, are you going to be a cash-player or are you going to be a tournament player? Like for me? Being a tournament player makes much more common financial sense…..specifically the smaller guaranteed tournaments. I only play No-Limit Hold ‘Em poker tournaments. In the tournaments that they have at the MGM Grand National Harbor outside of DC or at Maryland Live Casino up near Baltimore the tournaments are formatted this way:

-1-Day tournaments, 2-Day tournaments or 3-Day tournaments where you pay $350-$500 as the buy-in and you get $5,000 – $100,000 in “tournament chips” with a guaranteed prize pool of $25,000 – $100,000. Most of those tournaments will be on a casino’s website advertised as “No-Limit Hold ‘Em – $350/$50,000 Guaranteed” or “No Limit Hold ‘Em – $450/$100,000 Guaranteed”…..First place for most tournaments is always right around 20% of the prize pool total…..so if the tournament prize pool is $100,000 – First place is usually right around $20K possibly even higher if there’s a high number of entrants. So for most tournaments you’re paying a $350 – $500 fee for the chance at winning $10,000 – $25,000 for 1st place. PLUS, another great thing about tournaments is that, at least in many tournaments, before each hand they take what they call an “ante” which keeps going up each round…..one round your ante is $200…..the next round your ante is $400…..the next round your ante is $800…..the next round your ante is $1,000….the next round your ante is $1,200….the next round your ante is $1,500. I love that particular aspect of playing in tournaments because it “forces” you as well as the other 9 players at the table to “play hands”. You can’t just sit back and wait to make bets because if you do you’ll be getting constantly “attacked” by the rest of the table and you’ll find your stack getting wittled-down to $0. Tournaments “force” players to play real poker. Again, be advised that we’re talking about the “smaller” tournaments. If we’re talking about the World Series of Poker Main Event? The buy-in for that tournament is $10,000…..it has a 1st Place prize of $8.5 Million as of 2018, and it lasts for 14 days. It’s the Grand-daddy of poker tournaments.

-Now for cash-games, $1 gets you a $1 chip…..$100 gets you $100 in chips…..$1,000 gets you $1,000 in chips….$5,000 gets you $5,000 in chips, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on. In cash games, there is no ante that players have to pay, there is no “rush” and players are never placed under any pressure. Players can just sit back and wait on the best hands to be dealt to them, they can only bet 1 hand per hour if they want and they’ll just sit there the whole night and keep on “nursing” their stacks. That’s why I don’t even waste time with cash games. I would much rather play tournaments that place my competition “under pressure” and force them to make mistakes where they’ll end up giving me their chips. You may play cash games and find out that you’re much better suited for cash games…..in fact, you may find that you’re much much better at cash games than you are at tournaments. It’s an individual decision and you have to figure out what works best for you.

Anyway, I’ve talked with more than a few white guys and Asian guys at the poker table that are playing poker to raise money for investing in real estate. If they’re doing it?? We need to take a serious look at doing it too. And the thing about many whites, Asians, Indian and Middle Eastern people that I meet at the poker table is that they do it “as a family”…..their wives or husbands & children are right there at the casino supporting them. With them? It’s a family activity. Watch some of those poker tournaments on ESPN or on other sports channels and quite often you’ll see a player’s spouse out there cheering them on in the crowd. It’s time for THE BLACK FAMILY to start playing poker as “a family activity”. I want to see more black husbands, wives & children out there in the crowd supporting their spouses at these tournaments!! Some recommended books to read before getting involved in the game of poker are as follows:

-Mike Caro’s Book Of Poker Tells

-Bobby Baldwin’s Winning Poker Secrets by Mike Caro

-Doyle Brunson’s Super System

-Power Hold ‘Em Strategy by Daniel Negreanu

-Watch the movie Rounders starring Matt Damon & Edward Norton

-Watch poker videoclips on YouTube….watch YouTube videoclips on this brother named Phil Ivey, the #1 African-American poker player in the World…..Phil is no-joke and has won several World Series of Poker bracelets. He also has a poker teaching website called Ivey League….check it out. Also keep an eye out for this brother named David Williams….he too is a brother who is one of the top poker players in the U.S. ALSO, be sure to watch some of the poker tutorials on YouTube that teach you how to play poker as well. The poker tutorials by PokerStars.net on YouTube are outstanding. It is extremely important for you to know how to play “out of position” vs. how to play “on the button”, how to deal with losing chips to players “on your left” at the table, how & when to “raise” players on your right, and how to know good starting hands, how to know mediocre starting hands, and how to know terrible starting hands. You canNOT succeed in the game of poker if you don’t know all of those particular aspects of the game. There’s a reason why you should always fold a 7-2 as a starting hand in No Limit Hold ‘Em…..7-2 is the worst starting hand you could ever play in that game and you need to know why. YES, receiving 2 Aces as a starting hand is the strongest starting hand you can ever be dealt, but “statistically speaking” you’re only going to be dealt 2 Aces once every 221 hands, so that tells you that you can’t sit around in a tournament waiting to be dealt 2 Aces or 2 Kings. In tournament play you find yourself quite often having to play mediocre starting hands simply because tournament play is totally different from the way you play cash games. Reading & studying up on the game will teach you all of these things. When it comes to playing in position in poker you have to know the names of all 9 positions PLUS the range of hands to play from each position:

-What are the range of hands you should & should not play from the small blind? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from the big blind? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from Under The Gun (UTG)? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from UTG+1? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from UTG+2? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from UTG+3? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from the hijack position? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from the cutoff position? What are the range of hands you should & should not play from the button? You should be watching tutorials on YouTube to teach you the hands you should & should not play from each position. It is absolutely imperative that you learn that…..unless you’re just trying to sitdown at the poker table and give all of your money away to your opponents??

-Sharpen your game by playing poker online. Whether or not you want to play online “for free” or play online “for money” is a personal decision for you to make. For me? I prefer to play online “for free”. I’ve never played on any of the websites where you play for money. Playing online for money gets sticky because it is outlawed in several states. Make sure that it’s legal in the state where you reside. Two of the websites that I like to play on for free are Replay Poker (www.replaypoker.com) and World Series of Poker (www.wsop.com).

-Investigate all of the different types of poker that are played at your local casinos. Although Texas No Limit Hold ‘Em is MY favorite type of poker to play, there are many many different poker games. The big question is exactly what pokers do they play at the casino near where you live? Here’s a list of all of the different poker games……

1). Texas No Limit Hold ‘Em

2). Omaha

3). Seven-card Stud

4). Razz

5). Five-card Draw

6). Omaha Hi-Lo

7). 2-7 Triple Draw

8). HORSE

9). Irish Poker

10). Badugi

 

At the end of the day, whatever poker you choose to play, buy & read books and watch YouTube tutorials on “how to play” and on “how to win” at it.

 

#2. Stock investing – This also is a great way to raise seed-capital for investing in real estate, but again, that’s IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. There are plenty of good books and courses taught on stock investing and here are a few:

-How To Make Money In Stocks by William J. O’Neill (founder of Investor’s Business Daily), also find IBD Meetups taking place in your local city and attend those meetings when you can. Go to those meetups with a notepad prepared to take notes.

-Peter Lynch – Beating The Street

-Stock Charts for Dummies……that’s exactly what is taught on Investor’s Business Daily’s website and their CANSLIM acronym for analyzing stocks and the underlying companies. It’s all about learning how to read the charts to help you determine points of resistance on the upside, where the bottom is on the downside, when or if to go long, and when or if to go short, points of entry and points of exit.

-How We Trade Options by Jon & Pete Najarian from CNBC

-You Can Be A Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt

-The movies Margin Call starring Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Jeremy Irons, Simon Baker & Demi Moore…..Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy & Dan Akroyd, The Big Short starring Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell & Brad Pitt and Wall Street starring Michael Douglas & Charlie Sheen are must see films if you’re going to be involved in the stock market.

-If you’re going to be involved in the stock market you’re going to need to become obssessed with watching CNBC & Bloomberg on cable, on downloading the apps for both channels on your smartphone and on watching Bloomberg livestream channel on YouTube in your spare time. You can’t trade stocks without constantly watching market news on a daily basis.

 

#3. Cryptocurrency investing – Needless to say this is quite a new area of investing and one that is definitely very “volatile”, but where it was once thought that world governments would eventually ban them, that hasn’t happened at all. In fact, world governments are now EMBRACING cryptocurrencies as a legitimate investing instrument that you can use to buy goods & services, or just trade for profit. Most cryptocurrencies have been at a “standstill” in 2018 and the reason for that is because a lot of world governments including the G-20 aren’t sure how they’re going to “classify” them……Are they going to classify them as stocks? Are they going to classify them as currencies? Are they going to classify them as commodities? They don’t know yet and some countries, not all, but some including China & India have shutdown cryptocurrency exchanges until they figure it out. A number of pundits on CNBC & on Bloomberg are calling this 2018 standstill in cryptocurrency prices as “a buying opportunity”. A number of them are bullish on cryptocurrencies for 2019. Take a serious look at investing in a few cryptocurrencies that are priced in hundreds of cases down below $1.00……Cryptocurrencies are predicted to be the wave of the future. Time for Black America to take a serious look at investing in them. Some recommended books on cryptocurrency investing are as follows:

-Cryptocurrency Beginner’s Bible by Stephen Satoshi

-Cryptocurrency – How To Make A Lot of Money Investing & Trading in Cryptocurrency – Unlocking The Lucrative World of Cryptocurrency by Andrew Johnson

-Cryptocurrency – How Bitcoin And The Blockchain Are Challenging The Global Economic Order by Paul Vigna & Michael J. Casey……(I just finished reading this one and it is an outstanding book….I highly recommend it)

-Mastering Bitcoin For Dummies: Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Technologies, Mining, Investing and Trading by Alan T. Norman

Just be advised that you cannot buy cryptocurrencies on any stock brokerage websites. You can’t buy them on TD Ameritrade or on E-Trade or on Scottrade or on Charles Schwab. You have to buy cryptocurrencies on a cryptocurrency exchange website. The top 3 cryptocurrency exchange websites in my opinion are:

1). Coinbase at http://www.coinbase.com

2). Binance at http://www.binance.com

3). Cryptopia at http://www.cryptopia.co.nz

You can buy any and all cryptocurrencies available on those 3 websites. Most cryptocurrencies are linked or coupled to the Big 3 cryptos available for purchase on Coinbase……Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. For nearly all cryptos you have to buy one of those 3 first on Coinbase, then shift what you’ve purchased out of your Coinbase wallet and into your Binance or Cyptopia wallet and then buy any of the others you may want to purchase. Watch CNBC & Bloomberg to keep abreast of the current trends in cryptocurrencies, just be advised that the business channels only cover cryptos as “an occasional subject” like any other topic. They don’t cover the cryptocurrency market 24/7. If you want up-to-the-minute news on what’s happening in crypto, go onto Google and type the words “Cryptocurrency news today” in the search box and the results will give you articles that have come out in the last 5 days all the way down to articles that have come out in the last 5 minutes. Google is the best way to keep up with up-to-the-minute news and trends in the crypto market, especially up-to-the-minute news regarding new policies of world governments concerning crypto.

 

#4. Flipping houses – This is a way of making money that still goes back to the same old formula as the other 3 above…..it’s a great way to make money IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING. And this is another area where you need to read & study in doing your due diligence before jumping into it. Make sure that you’ve boned-up on how it works because just like in any of these other money-making endeavors that I’ve laid out, you can lose your shirt if you’re not careful. Here are several recommended books for you to read on the subject of real-estate flipping:

-Flipping Houses for Dummies

-Fix & Flip Your Way to Financial Freedom by Mark Ferguson

-The Business of Flipping Homes: Short-Term Real Estate Investing for Long-Term Wealth by William Bronchick & Robert Dahlstrom

-The Book on Flipping Houses – How To Buy, Rehab & Resell Residential Properties by J. Scott

-Oh, now here’s a show you need to regularly tune-in to if you want to know how to flip houses…..tune-in to the show The Deed on CNBC with Sidney Torres. Now that’s an outstanding tutorial on how to flip houses!! Want to know the big things Sidney teaches on there about how to successfully flip houses?? First off, you need to make out a budget for how much it’s going to cost to renovate a property…..Secondly, YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THE PEOPLE YOU HIRE TO RENOVATE THE PROPERTY ADHERE TO A VERY STRICT DEADLINE for completing the renovation. Property-flipping centers around very tight deadlines and so when it comes to the people you hire to renovate a property for you, the #1 thing I’ve learned from watching Sidney teach flipping on that show is that you do NOT hire “friends” to renovate your properties for you because you may have to “fire” them at the drop of a hat if they’re not doing the work with the sense of urgency you need them to have. On one episode that I tuned in to that’s exactly what this one lady’s problem was….she had a team of people renovating her property which were a group of guys she had been “friends” with for years. So of course, what were those guys doing when Sidney would send his workers over unbeknownst to her to check on the progress of them renovating her property?? Sitting around “cold-chilling”…..mellowaxing….cooling-out. After Sidney fussing at the woman and helping her realize that her “friends” were about to make her lose this property and all of the money she had invested in renovating it she finally fired 2 or 3 of them and then the rest of them “got the message”. After that Sidney sent his manager over to oversee the completion of the renovation in order to meet the set deadline. That show gives you all of the examples of why you do not hire “friends” to handle business for you.

Now at the end of the day? Buying & holding rental property will ALWAYS be “the most stable way” to make money in investing. But it’s not “the only way”. Take your time to think about which of these particular methods you think may work for you. For me? Playing poker and cryptocurrency investing makes the most sense. You may find that none of these ways of making money work for you…..or you may find that all of them do. You’ve just got to take your time, study the subjects and then make your own decision.

I sincerely hope this helps. Happy investing.

[Lance Thompson]

Today is Tuesday, July 3rd, 2018 and the World Series of Poker is being televised from 7:00pm – 11:00pm EST on ESPN from July 2nd through I believe July 13th or 14th.

I’m tuning-in AND recording it. Nothing like watching “the pros” in action. Taking place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in beautiful Downtown Las Vegas.

 

Exciting stuff.

[Lance Thompson]

Yeah……it was a hard fought marathon between the final 2 players but congratulations to John Cynn on winning the 2018 World Series of Poker’s Main Event No Limit Title in the wee hours of the morning this morning, Sunday, July 15th, 2018. He better enjoy it cause with 7,900 entrants every year, these days the possibility of ever winning the event for a 2nd time is slimmer than slim. It’s not like back in 1980 when they only had 300 entrants. I only say that to any of you who aspire to save up the $10,000 and go out to Vegas for 2 weeks in early July one of these years to play and compete in the World Series. Don’t be even slightly deterred or defeated if you don’t make it to the final table, or don’t even finish “in the money”. Back in the 1970’s & 1980’s when guys like Doyle Brunson, Phil Helmuth & Johnny Chan were winning more than 1 WSOP Main Event bracelet they had fewer than 400 entrants. That was a much easier field to dominate than today where nearly 8,000 people enter the tournament. Here are some of the big named poker players that I spotted on tv the past 2 weeks who played in the 2018 WSOP who got bounced out and sent home with either an “in the money” winning, or in other cases got sent home with nothing but a “story”……and be advised that these aren’t any run-of-the-mill poker players…..ALL OF THESE PEOPLE play poker for a living…..this is their “profession”, it’s how they make a living….it’s how they pay the bills…..and every last one of them are multimillionaires:

#1. Daniel Negreanu

#2. Phil Ivey

#3. Joe Cada (did make the Final Table)

#4. Antonio Esfandiari

#5. Phil Hellmuth Jr.

#6. Johnnie Chan

#7. Michael Mizrachi

#8. Patrik Antonius

#9. Chris Moneymaker (that’s not his nickname, that’s his family’s real last name)

#10. Maria Ho

#11. Fedor Holz

#12. 2016 Main Event Champ Qui Nguyen

#13. 2017 Main Event Champ Scott Blumstein (got sent packing on Day 1 if I’m not mistaken)

 

From watching these guys on tv and from listening to what they’ve been saying, since poker has become such a worldwide craze and phenomenon, while they do enter the WSOP every year and while they DO take it seriously, most of them are now entering a lot of other poker tournaments in other parts of the world. Most of them are going over to Europe for the European Poker Tour tournaments (EPT), they’re entering tournaments in Australia, tournaments in Brazil and tournaments in China, Japan, Singapore and all over Asia. So yeah, they still enter the WSOP, but they’re playing in so many other tournaments that now the WSOP has turned into a small blip on their calendars.

That’s why I was saying before, check your local casino and I’ll guarantee you that they’re hosting at least ONE big tournament every month……at least one. Like at Maryland Live they do a $450 Buy-In/$100K Guaranteed tournament every month with a guaranteed 1st Prize of $20k minimum…..many times that 1st Prize swells up to $35k. That’s nothing to sneeze at.

Main thing to always remember before you get involved in playing poker or in any of these other suggested forms of investing is to ALWAYS be checking with the guys at H&R Block regarding “how much” of you tournament or cash-game winnings should be paid to the federal government for taxes. If you win tournaments, many times the casino is going to write you a check…..and when they do, they’re reporting that to the IRS. So if the casino is reporting it to the IRS, YOU HAVE TO TOO. Always report your earnings for money you make from playing poker, from cryptocurrency investing, from stock investing and from flipping houses, and ALWAYS pay your taxes good people.

 

Last thing you want is the IRS knocking on your door…..you don’t want “those kinds of problems”.

 

http://www.espn.com/poker/story/_/id/24102522/john-cynn-wins-2018-world-series-poker-main-event

[Lance Thompson]

What a coincidence…..this article that just came out yesterday perfectly dovetails this subject regarding the many multiple ways that people from other countries & people from other races are using “multiple streams of income” to raise money for investing in real estate. Real estate millionaire Dolf de Roos says in his book Real Estate Riches that “The rich either make their money in real estate or they hold their money in real estate” and as I was saying earlier in this thread, quite often when I’m at the poker table, Asians, whites, Middle Easterners and people from India are talking about the many multiple ways they are raising money to invest in real estate, including but not limited to playing poker, cryptocurrency investing, stock investing, flipping property as well as many other methods taught in the boardgames Cashflow 101 and Cashflow 202 that you can find on Robert Kiyosaki’s website http://www.richdad.com

 

Hope you enjoy this article……..

 

China’s Crypto Millionaires Are Using Bitcoin to Buy Real Estate Abroad

https://www.coindesk.com/china-bitcoin-crypto-millionaire-real-estate/

[Lance Thompson]

World Series of Poker Main Event Champion John Cynn the following day after he won the World Series doing an interview on CNBC…..and guess one of the things they asked the World Series of Poker Champion about??

Cryptocurrency investing!!………..As well as his other “investing” plans with the First Place Money he won in the poker tournament. Hmmmm……..what a coincidence.

Check out the interview………………………

 

 

[Lance Thompson]

Good people,

Below is a link for each state in the U.S. and exactly how many gaming properties they have in each state. Gaming properties would include casinos, horse tracks, dog tracks, etc. When I talked about playing poker that is “totally different” from other types of casino games like Blackjack, 21, Roulette, Craps, electronic slot machines and others. Whenever I enter a casino I remain “restricted” to poker & poker only where I’m playing only against “other people”, not the house. The old adage that “The house always wins” is true in the rest of those games, but doesn’t apply to poker. That’s always something to bear in mind. Checkout the link for the list of gaming properties in the state where you reside………..always play “responsibly”, and remember to always be in the habit of getting up and GOING HOME when the money runs out. If you get bounced off the table or get bounced out of a tournament and have to wait for 2 weeks, a month or 2 months before you have the money to come back? That’s the way it goes!! Losing simply is a part of playing poker. If you can’t handle “the swings”, meaning the downs as well as the ups then you would be better suited never playing the game.

 

Want you to think real long and hard about that.

 

http://us.casinocity.com/

[Lance Thompson]

Here he is…..The Man….The Myth….The Legend…..Phil Ivey aka No Home Jerome aka The Tiger Woods of Poker winning his 5th World Series of Poker bracelet at the tender young age of 28 over Robert Williamson in the 2005 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship……Phil’s payday was $635,000 for winning that event……………..

 

[Lance Thompson]

How To Play Poker Tournaments by PokerStars.net

 

[Lance Thompson]

Trailer for the movie The Big Short………………..

 

[Lance Thompson]

Trailer for the movie Margin Call…………………………

 

[Lance Thompson]

Trailer for the movie Rounders & although the chosen profession studied in the movie is poker, it’s really a movie that teaches you about risk-taking period………Oh by the way, wanna make sure that you all have a very “deep” understanding of 1 particular scene where you can miss it if you’re not careful. The scene near the end of the movie where Worm gets busted cheating by the state troopers and ends up getting both him & Mike’s a$$es whipped. What Worm was using was an illegal dealing method called “base-dealing” where the dishonest dealer is dealing off of the bottom of the deck. When the Sarge says “Okay, if you boys aren’t working let’s let the cards do the talking. Stu, turn over his cards” and when Stu flipped the cards over there were three 7s and an Ace right? Then the Sarge says “One more thing, let me see the deck…..” and when Stu handed him the deck, the Sarge shows everybody the bottom card which was a second Ace that Worm was just about to give to Mike. Well that would have given Mike two Aces and three 7s which would have been a Full House. Out of the Top 10 Ranking Poker Hands, Full House is the 4th highest ranking hand you can have. The only other 3 hands that beat a Full House are a 4 Of A Kind, A Straight Flush and a Royal Flush and it was next to impossible that anybody else at the table would have had any of those 3 hands……not completely impossible but NEARLY impossible. Worm basically handed Mike what they call in poker “The nuts” which in poker lingo means “nothing beats it”…..he was dealing him a hand that could have cleaned out several stacks at the table…..that’s why those cops were so angry and reacted the way that they did.

That’s why the #1 thing I took away from that movie is whatever you do, STAY AWAY from playing poker in underground spots. Only play in the casinos where there are floor managers & cameras in the ceilings watching “every move” of the dealers. I’m not saying that it’s “completely impossible” to cheat in casinos, but it’s extremely difficult……extremely difficult. The movie Casino with Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone shows you how intense the monitoring that takes place in these casinos really is, and that was back in the day BEFORE they began installing surveillance cameras in those establishments. So casinos are pretty trustworthy, at least U.S. casinos. Can’t necessarily vouch for the casinos in other countries but I’m betting that in most “advanced industrialized” countries that they have systems setup pretty similar to what they do here in the U.S.

 

[Lance Thompson]

An outstanding tutorial on “Playing in position” in poker. Enjoy. Be sure to understand 1 thing about playing tournament poker…..it’s not only about your level of knowledge when it comes to “how to play”, another huge piece of succeeding at tournament poker is “tenacity”…..just having an understanding that you WILL get bounced out of most tournaments and sent home with nothing but a story. The question is are you willing to fail multiple times until you make that Final Table?? Are you willing to fail multiple times until you win one?? Are you willing to fail your way to success and come back again & again & again & again & again & again & again??…..If you don’t win the tournament on May 20th are you willing to come back and give it another try on June 20th?? And on July 20th?? and on August 20th?? And on September 20th?? And on October 20th??…….Needless to say, tournament poker is different than cash games but if there’s anything that I’ve learned it’s that tournament poker is all about “failing your way to success”.

 

[Lance Thompson]

Yeah………here’s the text of an e-mail that was just sent out by Robert Kiyosaki, author of the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad on this morning, Thursday, September 20th, 2018. Enjoy.

The question I’m asked most is about crypto and people wondering if they should care about it.

There is so much DIS-information that it is hard for anyone to KNOW anything about this new asset. But that is what cryptocurrencies are… assets.

And assets put money IN your pockets. So… yeah. Better learn about crypto.

When I talk with Jeff Wang – the smartest crypto guy I know – he says Crypto is…

What the airplane was in the 1930’s
What Rock-n-roll was in the 1950’s
What the internet was in the 1980’s
What the smart phone was in the 2000’s

In other words, crypto is one the biggest, most innovative movements we may ever see in our lifetime. And that’s simply because…

Crypto is going to change MONEY!

So, what do you think? Should you take the time and energy to learn about something that is changing money? And in changing money, changes our whole life, society and culture?

Imagine what will happen if you don’t? You could lose everything you’ve been working for. Now imagine you do learn. You are lucky to be alive because you are at the birth of a new asset class. That’s like being alive at the Big Bang or creation… the birth of gold.

The problem is the media is not honest about it… or ignorant.

Crypto currencies are the secret weapon on front lines of the currency wars. It’s called a currency war because people will literally live or die based on the outcomes. And when it comes to cryptocurrency outcomes…

The potential profits are HUGE!

So, do I care about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin?
You bet I do!

[Lance Thompson]

Oh by the way good people,

Anybody who “deeply understands” the movie The Big Short, please don’t hesitate to call me and explain exactly what a credit default swap is & how it works. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched that movie dozens of times and I get the general gist of it…..the official definition of a CDS according to Investopedia is as follows:

A credit default swap is a particular type of swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between 2 or more parties…..A credit default swap is the most common form of credit derivative and may involve municipal bonds, emerging market bonds, mortgage-backed securities or corporate bonds. A credit default swap is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer in the event of a debt default (by the debtor) or other credit event.

 

Okay so the big banks created & sold these CDS’s to Dr. Mike Burry, Mike Baum’s group, Charlie Geller & Jamie Shipley in the movie expecting those investors who bought them from them to pay them premiums for the rest of the time they owned them right? I get that. They sold those CDS’s back in 2004 – 2006 thinking there was no way they could ever lose simply because the nation & the world had never ever experienced a real estate crash. But once we had mortgage delinquencies skyrocketing on us in 2007 & 2008, why were the investors who held those CDS’s willing to sell them back to the big banks? If the agreement was that the big banks would pay the buyers of those CDS’s in the event of mass mortgage defaults, why sell them?? Can’t you just collect premiums from the big banks for, I don’t know…..maybe not into perpetuity but maybe for a much longer period of time??

Somebody who understands, please educate me on them when you get a chance.

LT

[Lance Thompson]

For all interested, below is a link to a list of all cryptocurrencies available for purchase & trading by the general public, as well as their ticker-symbols. My 3 favorites are Tronix, Dogecoin & Ripple. Which ones do you like?

 

https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/

 

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