How about gambling as a form of investment,
I'm trying to see if can make some money at it.

I've putting small bets £5-£20 on Befair over the last two months
mainly on footie and a few on politics, started with £50
now its at £153...

I think if you can make money gambling if you are careful..

My friend turned £10 into £78 over the past month with three bets on motogp. He knows his stuff and it seems to be working for him. I started with £50 this year and am betting on interest rates and motogp. I'm exactly evens at the moment.

I dont think it would be something worth doing with larger amounts though. It has to be treated like a game or you could end up losing a lot. With gambling you cant exactly get your money back by waiting like you can with a bad stock market pick.

Yeah bad idea. I know families that have fallen apart due to it going wrong.

You're on the wrong forum mate.

You should try www.punterslounge.com/forum

Very friendly and full of sound advice for anyone from beginners to pros.

The beauty of this form of "investment" is that it is tax free. I have taken an interest in financial spread betting instead of owning shares. It need not be any more risky than buying shares from a stock broker, and can be more rewarding, particularly on low yielding shares.
I see betting on sports as a pastime, and would never gamble large amounts. Usually I lose.

have turned £100 into £15000 over 3 years abusing the deposit match promotions at online casinos. Basically playing blackjack to optimum strategy, turning over enough cash to be able to withdraw the bonus as cash.

Not as lucrative as it used to be, but still make £200-400 per month

Good man!

How many hours do you have to play to make £200-400 per month?

Can you card count on online blackjack?

Hrm, most such bookies offer skewed pricing and dubious execution. In short, they are crooked.

The companies make their money on the spread, but I haven't come across anything I would describe as skewed. Would you like to elaborate?

I fully understand the dangers of uncontrolled gambling, I know
two people who have lost everything gambling on horses one of them is still in denial...
but the same can be said about alcohol a few social drinks doesn't make you an alcoholic.

I think controlled gambling in subjects where you have a bit of knowledge
can make you a bit of money...

Example bets I won on:

Sarkozy to be next French president
SNP to have most seats in scottish parliment
Austalia to win cricket world cup
Blair to have resigned as leader of Labout by end of June(to be settled)
Portsmouth to beat Liverpool(liverpool played their reserve side)

bets I lost on:
number of corners in a match (wont be betting on that again)
also never bet on a end of season match, where one/both
teams have nothing to play for..

Hmmmmm.......

No you don't.

Honestly mate you're on the wrong forum. You wouldn't expect to get sense from the punterslounge on a house price debate so I don't know why anyone would expect to get any sense on gambling on this forum.

lol. errr yes I do actually.

If the house edge on BJ is ~0.5%, then for every £1000 wagered you would on average lose a fiver. If you get a £50 bonus and have to wager 1000 quid to be able to keep that bonus then you expect to walk out with £45 after meeting the terms and conditions. Cash out the money and repeat at the next casino. The aim is not to win or lose money, just to meet the T&C's and cash out the bonus. The first few months I made £1k per month, now I just do 7-8 monthly offers and the occasional sign-up netting me £200-400 per month.

3 years later, I'm £15k up. The fact that you can't get your head around that fact doesn't make it untrue.

I've been with finspreads.com for 5 weeks now; dabbled with spread bets a few years back, lost £600, decided I just wasn't cut out for it at that point. Week by week, made 80, lost 240, made 100, made 70, made 270, and am up another 165 so far this week. I've got £3,000 in the account, but don't really use more than £1,000 of that as margin at a time.

Having said that, you really do have to pay attention to what you're doing with spread betting. Grabbing a rolling position instead of a few months in the future position can prove rather expensive (and vice versa, if you really want to just dip into the market for a couple of days). Also need to make sure the spread isn't going to wipe out any profit you think you can make, and that the future positions aren't already as far up/down as you think the share will go. Finspreads do an 8-week "intro period" where you can bet for 1p a point, which is nice. Used City Index the first time around (http://www.cityindex.co.uk/), who had a trial area where you could bet with fake money.

OK.

Show me 8 offers from this month where this is possible (with reputable casinos).

If you did this 8 times per month for 3 years that would have to be 288 casinos offering favourable promotions. Now, being a little closer to the industry than most I know that there aren't 288 online casinos offering favourable promotions. So you're either multi-regging (i.e. acting fraudulently) or lying. I think you're lying.

If you're not, prove it.

err ok....

intercasino US, $100
intercasino UK, £50
coral, £25
eurobet £25
paddypower £75
riverbelle £75
william hill £25
cherry casino $30
ladbrokes live dealer $25

the first 8 on the list I do the same offer EVERY month, and have done for 3 years. So there's about £350 just there in bonuses offered every single month of which you'd expect to take home 250-300. So your figure of 280+ casinos needed is just random guesswork based on incorrect assumptions. I've probably only joined 70 or so, and only been banned by 3 for bonus abuse...no multiple accounts at any of them

results for the last year:

Apr 07 +£216
Mar 07 +£220
Feb 07 +£714
jan 07 -£332
Dec 06 +£485
Nov 06 +£510
Oct 06 +£155
Sep 06 +£207
Aug 06 +£868
Jul 06 +£435
Jun 06 +£348
May 06 +£99

just under 4k in the last 12 months then, or an average of £333 per month. pretty close to my estimate of 200-400 per month.

So in conclusion it would appear you know f*** all about what you're talking about.

For accuracy, I felt I should mention I lost £247 today

That's a bit harsh. I am sure there are people on punterslounge who are well aware of the situation regarding house prices, so why shouldn't the OP post this here. At least he chose a forum dedicated to investing, rather than the main
discussion forum. The original question remains valid. Can gambling be considered a form of investing?

Peemac

I had about 9k profit over a year out of casinos doing the same thing with the bonuses & cashback sites, though I don't bother any more with the monthly bonuses as they are getting a bit too wise for it nowadays, the turnover rates seem to make it too much of a gamble.

Having said that, I did lose just about all of my free time over that period - small bets and steady turnover are the way to go. I treated it as a second job really.

I still think theres some money too be had for 'new player' bonuses though, especially if you team it up with quidco cashback etc.

Its well worth a look if you're numerate and have lots of spare time!

Do you have to keep cancelling the accounts?

heres a good one for anyone wanting to give it a try

http://www.888.com/?sr=366306&lang=en&flag=0000

(Its a sponsored link, any money I get will go on beer, thanks )

a £100 deposit is needed to get a £100 deposit. You then need to turn over £2000 (20* bonus) to take out the bonus.

If you play correct blackjack strategy (its very simple - table at www.wizardofodds.com) the house should have <1% edge.

So in £2000 of £1 bets (keep them small to keep the variation down) you should expect to lose under £20

This leaves you with 180 to cash out.

Of course, it doesnt always work, but the odds are very much on your side. You'd need to be very unlucky to lose on this offer - maybe a mathematician can give us the odds?

no. every month I deposit and the bonus appears in the account. You meet the wagering requirement then cash out back to your bank account. next month you just do the same.

So they aren't one off sign-up bonuses?

Very approximately, you can estimate the variation of your returns on this strategy by using a binomial distribution. Assuming 1% house advantage and assuming you place 2000 £1 bets your profit would, with 95% sureity lie between £35 and £125. The chance of actually making a loss would be about 0.03%

If, instead you made 1000 £2 bets your profit would, with 95% sureity lie between £16 and £143. Your cahnce of making a loss would be about 0.6%.

For 400 £5 bets your profit would, with 95% sureity lie between -£20 and £180. Your chance of making a loss would be about 6%.

Clearly, patience is a virtue :-)

Do you really just do optimum strategy blackjack to play through those bonuses? Are you really, really sure about that?

you still seem slightly disbelieving despite evidence from myself and now another poster that decent money can be made doing this, so to explain in more detail:

Where blackjack is allowed I do....all from the wizardofodds website http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack

Paddypower only allows video poker for the bonus (10 play jacks or better is the one to play) which has a similar house edge to blackjack but increased variance i.e. your balance will swing up and down more playing VP than BJ, but ultimate return is about the same. Optimal strategy for that is at WOO too.

Riverbelle has a huge wager requirement for BJ these days (too many bonus abusers lol), but money still can be made by depositing £75 and getting the £75 bonus then sticking it all on one hand of baccarat as banker. If it wins you withdraw straight away and the £75 bonus is removed. So you cash out £225 of which £75 was your deposit for a net profit of £150. If the first hand loses you lose £75. So with baccarat it's a 50/50 shot for either a £150 profit or £75 loss. A gamble I'd take every day given the chance. It's actually a bit less than £225 you cash out due to the house taking a bit...can't remember the exact amount off hand but it's something like 215 quid.

interuk and us increased the WR for BJ last month so I didn't do them last month as I was too busy anyway but they are still +ve expected value. Coral, eurobet, cherrycasino, laddies, and will hill are all bj. There are plenty of other monthly offers doing bj...all listed at rpoints.com (referral link)in their "casino crazy" forum (you will need to register), for example VCcasino has a deposit £100 wager 3750 on BJ, collect £100 bonus, littlewoods have a £25 bj offer (but I am banned from receiving bonuses there), 32 red have a deposit £54 bonus with a 1500 WR BJ allowed in addition to their usual £32 bonus, lastminute.com (video poker), bjheaven (BJ), casino for me (VP), playboy (BJ or VP), betdirect (VP), and 2 further ladbrokes bonuses on the the 7th of may and 28th of may (both BJ with very low wager requirements).

As I know the optimal strategy for both games now it's all automatic....just sitting there clicking the mouse. none of this "should I hit or stick with my 13 vs dealer 6". Strategy says stick so I stick. Anything else is gambling and increases the house advantage.

Thanks D'oh you clearly have a far better maths brain than me

Do you dabble with the casino's yourself?

How many hours of play did it take you before you could cash out?

Also, how do they stop you card counting?

Nope...have thought about doing what's been suggested, but not sure playing 2000 hands of black jack for £100 is worth it.

Might give it a try one day.

Fair point. It's probably not even minimum wage! That's why I asked how many hours it takes.

Its been a while since I did it, but you do get very quick once you know the table off by heart. Also, if things are going well (ie you are up a bit) you can really speed it up by upping your bets - though probably best for a beginner to stick to the small stakes. One technique I used to like was doubling up after every two consecutive wins - once had 1k on a £50 bonus for this (cheers victor chandler!), but its a *lot* more risky (and hugely quicker)

If you assume 10 seconds per hand (and thats pretty slow - you'd probably be more like 6-7 secs when up to speed) thats 5.5 hours or £14 ph tax free. Beats minimum wage if you ask me! The more impatient would probably go £2 a hand and do it in half the time, but the higher you stake, the more your likely outcome will vary (as D'oh kindly made so clear for us)

I really went to town on it and did it for loads of mates too, its certainly a life stealer, but get yourself a decent screen & you can do it while reading HPC and drinking beer

By the miracles of modern technology, the dealer shuffles the pack every hand! shame that....

I might give it a go. I like the idea of beating the system more than than the money, and I already play near perfect Blackjack.
I've played Blackjack in casinos in the UK and on cruise ships, and I am amazed at how people throw money away by not learning the basics. Is this true online? Also, are there lots of stupid people playing poker online, or is it rife with sharks?

If my flatmate is anything to go by, yes. But generally you play solo on the online casinos (you can play with others but it slows things up horribly - not what you want if you are bagging bonuses)

Pokers a whole different ball game - certainly not my cup of tea. From what I understand the poker rooms are full of bots & cheats - its relatively simple to set up a few different accounts and play them on the same table to fleece newcomers. Also there is no such thing as playing 'perfect poker' unlike blackjack, as its a much more mental game with bluffing etc.

If you give it a go, please use my little link I'll buy you a beer if I ever make it to a HPC meet.

http://www.888.com/?sr=366306&lang=en&flag=0000

Plenty of stupid poker players online, but it's very volatile as the anonymity lets players make terrible calls without embarrassment, which in turn lead to some outrageous bad beats (but long term profitability). Unfortunately the fish has just left my table

I'd never play blackjack though. Having been mildly addicted to fruit machines during my early 20's I stay clear of any form of gambling based purely on luck. Even with optimal strategy you need luck to beat the house edge and I can't be bothered bonus chasing.

my friends betfair trading blog....
http://betfarian.blogspot.com/

I thought I would give it a go - tried Paddypower and they have stopped giving bonuses on blackjack.

Not sure about the others, but I guess they have probably all wised up?

GVC.L the only gambling investment thats a dead cert made me 3.5K GBP so far this year

Fair play to those who have made money on it, but my understanding was that the wagering requirements were extremely high when cashing out bonuses compared to 4 or 5 years ago, which means with the natural win/loss variations, you have a reasonably large chance of losing everything before you meet the cash out requirements.