Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 409 posts

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#261

Post by danenania »

ameister14 wrote: post #233
danenania wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, playing correctly against a maniac, novice, or otherwise unpredictable player can be more difficult and have higher variance, but it's also as lucrative as it gets if you know what you're doing. All the strong players I've known would be elated to play against people like that.

>Sure, playing correctly against a maniac, novice, or otherwise unpredictable player can be more difficult and have higher variance, it's also as lucrative as it gets if you know what you're doing. All the strong players I've known would be elated to play against people like that. I don't know about you, but when I was grinding, I didn't really want to increase variance. I wanted a stable mental state with low focus…

My understanding after spending a lot of time digging into and discussing this stuff was that playing better and increasing your win rate has a much greater effect than style of play (whether yours or your opponents'). So while your short term swings might be bigger, you'll have a lower chance of a losing month (or a longer slump) and make more overall by eking out every last drop of EV.

It doesn't mean you were a bad player, but it sounds like you might have been avoiding some potentially +EV situations due to lack of comfort with trickier opponents/situations. That's fair enough if it worked for you--it's not at all necessary to play every situation perfectly to have a healthy win rate. Towards the end of my poker career I was playing mostly heads-up, which teaches you to be pretty fearless about exploiting any and every edge, and to get comfortable with aggression. But there was a point in my progression where I'd get thrown off as well. And even after I felt like I was pretty damn good, I knew players who were clearly head and shoulders above me, so it's all relative.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#262

Post by kgwgk »

paulpauper wrote: post #231
kgwgk wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where are the 3x funds that pay 3x the dividends?

futures and swaps do not pay dividends, so the dividends on 3x funds are imputed in the nav, adjusted incrementally everyday . I compared a 3x of the DIA (UDOW) to the 1x version and found that the 3x outperform in such a way that the only reason for the discrepancy is 3x dividends.

Ok.

Leveraged ETFs are very dangerous animals, though.

UDOW lost 17% in 2020 while DIA went up 8%.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#263

Post by namdnay »

nunez wrote: post #149
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #78

Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. When brokers did it it was OK, when algorithms did it in milliseconds (when common people can only operate with delays of hours and days, and with deterrent fees) it was OK, but now that there are platforms that allow more or less anyone to speculate, we start publishing moralistic pieces in the media and…

SPACs are the perfect example of this. Before SPACs, retail couldn't get into IPOs at anything lower than $40/share...and even that was _after_ missing the initial pop that happens once the ticker starts trading. Now that retail can get into (support) exciting companies at a MUCH lower floor ($10 for commons, $2.50 for warrants), "SPAC bad" hit pieces are a dime a dozen and some brokers (Merrill Lynch, for example) w…

> Are they any riskier than IPOs (which can and do trade lower than first-day valuation)? I don't think so

There are significant regulatory and disclosure differences that make it easier to be shady with a SPAC. If WeWork had gone with a SPAC there’s probably a lot of stuff they wouldn’t have needed to share

If the aim is to open trading directly to retail, a direct listing (like Coinbase) is all you need.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#264

Post by mrfox321 »

ameister14 wrote: post #130
jayd16 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices...but putting that aside... I think the emphasis is more about how there's no other game in town that can compete, not that gambling is new. Interest rates are so low that there isn't a simple/safe…

>I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices... There are a few cases I can think of immediately where this applies - gambling with novices in Blackjack, for example, is not ideal. They'll screw up the flow of cards and can cause your math to go haywire. The same happens with Hold-em or Omaha Poker - you want people to have enough skill to play the game…

Your blackjack outcome is independent of other player's decisions.

This is a statistical fallacy.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#265

Post by enraged_camel »

Aunche wrote: post #237
bondarchuk wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices... The existence of a financial elite hinges on the existence of a non-elite that actually does the work. If workers are putting 25% of their paychecks in an index fund and retire a few years earlier, instead of paying off their too-expensive car loan or something, it will be bad for the current financial eli…

> If workers are putting 25% of their paychecks in an index fund and retire a few years earlier, instead of paying off their too-expensive car loan or something, it will be bad for the current financial elite. Nobody is complaining about people placing their paychecks in index funds though. Index funds are a reasonably good proxy for the future health of the economy, so your gains from it will likely represent real g…

>> Index funds are a reasonably good proxy for the future health of the economy

Were.

Index funds were a reasonably good proxy.

They have been completely detached from reality for at least a year, and arguably for several years.

S&P has doubled over the past 5 years. Does that mean the economy has also gotten twice as healthy?

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#266

Post by bennysomething »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #78

Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. When brokers did it it was OK, when algorithms did it in milliseconds (when common people can only operate with delays of hours and days, and with deterrent fees) it was OK, but now that there are platforms that allow more or less anyone to speculate, we start publishing moralistic pieces in the media and…

This is really broad stroke. Everything we do is a gamble. Investment firms work for their clients if they didn't they wouldn't last very long. Contrary to what most people think they play a important roles. For example spending time with firms to decide if they are worth investing in. Capitol allocation is really important. It allows someone like me to delegate investment choices for my pension. This funds things new medicine development, new technology etc. Sure there are things like high frequency trading. But taken as a whole I know who'd I prefer to give my money to to invest: people with something to lose if it doesn't work out. I'm not sure how else to allocate capitol with out totally eroding personal choice.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#267

Post by bennysomething »

bondarchuk wrote: post #115
jayd16 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices...but putting that aside... I think the emphasis is more about how there's no other game in town that can compete, not that gambling is new. Interest rates are so low that there isn't a simple/safe…

> I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices... The existence of a financial elite hinges on the existence of a non-elite that actually does the work. If workers are putting 25% of their paychecks in an index fund and retire a few years earlier, instead of paying off their too-expensive car loan or something, it will be bad for the current financial eli…

Money being lost or won is not that. It's a signal that the public as a whole has benefited from the endeavour or not. Loses are a really important signal to stop wasting scarce resources .

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#268

Post by Tenoke »

ycombinete wrote: post #235
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #78

Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. When brokers did it it was OK, when algorithms did it in milliseconds (when common people can only operate with delays of hours and days, and with deterrent fees) it was OK, but now that there are platforms that allow more or less anyone to speculate, we start publishing moralistic pieces in the media and…

I don’t quite believe that there was no moralistic sentiment directed against it when high frequency started, or even before that when whatever changed changed. The fact that people weren’t currently writing about the status quo, but then write about a change to it isn’t surprising.

The NYT had a pretty well received article on it back in 2009. Michael Lewis published a book criticizing HFT back in early 2014 which is a pretty good sign there was indeeed moralistic sentiment against it.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#269

Post by Tenoke »

mLuby wrote: post #170
whatgoodisaroad wrote: post #68

Weird how finance suddenly becomes "gambling" when a bunch of regular people join the table.

Yeah, it gets harder to believe there's "smart money" when your friend Alice made bank following some meme stock and Bob down the road became crypto-rich off Dogecoin.

I know people who won at the roulette or the slots but that doesn't make me think there's no smart money - in that case the Casino.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#270

Post by swiley »

realce wrote: post #25
swiley wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boomed according to certain metrics but fewer people could afford housing and transportation so I'm not sure I agree.

It's hard NOT to have the metrics of a "boom" when the Fed just buys up any bad asset on the market and puts it in a black bag.

Not being able to get to work or live inside because of a national financial issue is not a boom.
Post reply on HN