Online Gambling Debts

[Newmanseye]

I never said credit card companies were to blame, of course if you get in debt, it is entirely your own fault.

What I was saying, is that Credit Card companies (and the like) make it all TOO EASY to get yourself in this situation in the first place.

I honestly believe that if they made it harder to obtain credit (or at least made proper checks) then almost HALF of the people who are in overwhelming debt, just wouldnt be there.

Agree?

[M3boy]

Oh and by the way,,, I have No credit cards, and no loans or HP.

If I cant afford something, I just dont buy it - pure and simple.

(and yes, it wasnt always like that, but life is much less stressfull now)

[tikay]

I never said credit card companies were to blame, of course if you get in debt, it is entirely your own fault.

What I was saying, is that Credit Card companies (and the like) make it all TOO EASY to get yourself in this situation in the first place.

I honestly believe that if they made it harder to obtain credit (or at least made proper checks) then almost HALF of the people who are in overwhelming debt, just wouldnt be there.

Agree?

Entirely.

PS - Unlucky last night in the Grosvenor Super-Sat Paul - you were going like a train - I fancy it must have been a chip-leader - v chip leader confrontation, as you disappeared suddenly. Jim Reid won it - delighted for him. K-5 rules.......

[M3boy]

Yeah, thanks for that TK, I just felt like "it was my tournament and MY seat"

Everything I did was working, my hands were standing up, i was winning 50 50's , my bluffs were getting through.

Then when the blinds reached 400 800 I went horribly card dead for two levels, then at 800 1600 and with 10 BB i was all in UTG with 10 10, only to run into the SB with QQ.

[action man]

What an interesting thread. It reflects, beautifully in my opinion, the way society has changed.

In my day (OK, OK) we accepted rersponsibility for our own actions - of course, because that's the way life was. (and still should be).

But things have changed, very much for the worse. These days it's accepted that when one does something wrong, someone or something else can be blamed.

We get in debt? It's the Credit Card companies to blame.

One guy got a huge loan from his Bank to start a business, the business failed, he sued the Bank for loaning him the money, without which he would not have lost anything!

People commit crimes, & blame their parents for bringing them up wrong.

Sex offenders regularly say "it's because I was abused as a child".

In America, obese folks sued McDonalds for "making them fat".

Smokers sued the ciggie companies for making them ill.

Coming next - someone suing an Online Poke site because they lost.

And so on & so forth.

It's all nonsense, of course. We are all responsible for our own actions. I have gone down plenty of wrong roads in my time, but I've never blamed anyone except myself. It's actually quite character building to face up to one's failings & weaknnesses & then move on, usually sadder, poorer & wiser, but very much better for it.

Blame the Credit Card companies? Don't try that one on me, please.

good post

TOP POST my sentiments exactly

[Josh]

My assets are in cash and unmortgaged property...stay away from shares, bonds and the like until after the next downturn in 2007-08.

Imo, that's drivel, some of the best times to be investing in stocks and shares is when the market is volatile, as you can make the most money riding trough to peeks.

only a naive individual would invest in Footsie Shares right now.

Investing during volatility is not a good time to invest in shares, but it is - for some - in volatility indexes. Ask LTCM, who managed to fritter away $45 billion - BILLION - by investing in volatility during volatile markets. To invest in Shares, wait till the Market bottoms - some time away yet.

I wasn't aware the FTSE was the only share available.. and yes alot of people fail and lose money, but those that do are often made more obvious by stories in papers, the FT, Economist etc. but many people also make large amounts at the same time. Otherwise it wouldn't be the stock market...for a company to have lost $45 billion on the stock market, the same amount must have gone to owners of stocks. Obviously the more intelligent ones.

[tikay]

My assets are in cash and unmortgaged property...stay away from shares, bonds and the like until after the next downturn in 2007-08.

Imo, that's drivel, some of the best times to be investing in stocks and shares is when the market is volatile, as you can make the most money riding trough to peeks.

only a naive individual would invest in Footsie Shares right now.

Investing during volatility is not a good time to invest in shares, but it is - for some - in volatility indexes. Ask LTCM, who managed to fritter away $45 billion - BILLION - by investing in volatility during volatile markets. To invest in Shares, wait till the Market bottoms - some time away yet.

I wasn't aware the FTSE was the only share available.. and yes alot of people fail and lose money, but those that do are often made more obvious by stories in papers, the FT, Economist etc. but many people also make large amounts at the same time. Otherwise it wouldn't be the stock market...for a company to have lost $45 billion on the stock market, the same amount must have gone to owners of stocks. Obviously the more intelligent ones.

As you well know, the Footsie is not the only index of shares in which one can invest, but it stands as a yarsdstick for the share market as a whole. The rest of the Market shadows it without fail. In fact, contrary to what you suggest, the Footsie is not a share at all - it's a basket of shares, 100 in total, of the largest by Market Capitalisation. ""to invest in Footsie shares" is City-speak for "invest in shares".

The $45 billion was not in stocks - not a cent of it. They were investing in "convergence", it was in volatility derivatives, on "margin", a facility which, in practical terms, is not accessible to Joe Public.

[GlasgowBandit]

I am going to stick my tuppence worth in also.

When I got to the age that Iw as able to obtain credit, I found it very easy. I was a skint student and when in the Student Union there where peope there from copanies such as Provident, MBNA, Capital One etc only too happy to give me a credit facility.

It was also easy enough to walk into many of the high street stores and obtain HP for things such as computers of home entertainment equipment.

At the time I never thought much of it I was quite happy to take out credit, I was only spending what I could afford to pay back online gambling was something I never took part in at this point in my life. 

However one of the cards was stolen and although I had been convinced by the people offering the cards that I should take up payment protection and others uch add-ons I was expected to pay back almost 3,000 pound of credit despite the fact that it took almost 72 hrs for the credit card company involved to bar the card when the theft was reported.  As time passed it became clear they would not relent and expected me to pay the balance, moreover they where applying overdraft charges and late payment charges to teh card and the debt of almost 3k had spiralled to 5k within 9 months.

I made the decision at that point that I  was going to sun up as much credita s possible and screw every financial institution willing to give me credit. daft I know but at the time it sounded like a good idea.

So I proceeded to run up around 19k in debt on cards and HP, and loans bearing in mind I am still a student at this point and was finding it as easy as ever to get credit.

Some of the comapnies are still chasing me for the debts through a number of debt collectors but they ain't getting nothing off me!

These days I take more accountability for anything I do, however I think there has to be a system in place to limit the ammount of credit any one person can obtain, I also think there has to be greater restrictions imposed on irresponsible lenders by the FSA.

[M3boy]

Glasgow, they wont do anything except chase you.

Their only option is to file for bankruptcy, but they wont do that, cos they then know they will get nothing.

Before you get too far in life and obtain too many assets, I would seriously consider filing for bankruptcy yourself. With the current laws, I believe you will be debt free in about 18 months.

Its a simple procedure of completing a form and paying a fee of £250 to the court.

[Sark79]

It has been very interesting reading the posts in this thread.  I must admit, I am a bit naive when it comes to finance and all that kind of stuff.  I have always had low paying jobs until recently before I  went back to Uni.  So I have always stayed well away from loan companies, etc because I knew I wouldn't have been able to pay them back.

Cheers for the replies. I have learnt a lot.

Here is another question. If it is a bit cheeky, then I apologize in advance.   Because poker isn't considered a fixed income.  How do professional players go about getting bank loans, etc?  Will the banks not ask for proof of income when someone is depositing X amount of money each week.

[M3boy]

Sark, i am no expert, but this would be my take on it.

Poker is not considered a form of income. Most professional poker players have "other" sources of Income, which is what I assume they record as Income ?!?

But like i siad, this is just my take on the subject

[TightEnd]

I should reply to a view that part of one of my previous posts was "drivel"

Well it might not be correct, but I don't think its drivel. You are of course perfectly entitled to disagree...two views make a market and all that!

I have been involved in finance, economics and the stockmarket for 21 years firstly academically through degree and post graduate work (very sadly I'm actually a Doctor in Economics) and later through my career which involved me managing both traditional mutual funds, pension funds and latterly hedge funds until it finally burnt me out towards the end of last year...I lived and breathed it as I do most things that interest me or I am passionate about, but then life moved on. I'll be back at it one day in the not too distant future I'm sure.

Anyway...why would I not be investing in shares at the moment?

Put simply. Inflation. Its rising again. We all know about Oil prices and commodity prices and how this has fed through to higher energy costs, fuel costs and has began to cramp the average consumer's disposable income.

For several years these rising costs were felt by companies in reduced profit margins but were not felt at a "countrywide" level in the official statistics because the Western World had spare capacity and companies had no pricing power...in effect they were unable to pass these higher costs onto consumers.

Now spare capacity is dramatically reduced and the consumer is beginning to feel the bite of the extra costs...eventually the same consumer will ask for higher wages to compensate.

The effect of higher inflation and higher wages will be to drive up interest rates. This in turn will decrease economic growth and whilst it might not actually cause a recession, the days of boom and bust being behind us it seems, it will cause a period of adjustment in company earnings and the valaution that the market is prepared to put on those earnings.

After all, why was there a bull market throughout the 1990s? Disinflation thats why..increasing the predictability of earnings and the valaution attached to them. Even then this bull market temporarily ended with the misallocation of resources that led to the stockmarket technology boom of 1999-2000 and a 3 year bear market that followed due to both the effects of that misallocation and the severe political risk carried in market valautions by the threat of Al Qaeda etc.

Lets take a moment to consider why Oil and Commodity prices are rising and potentially casuing us these problems. The simple answer lies in one word. China. China is as we all know moving towards being the next economic superpower. Its demands for energy and commodities are immense. Supply shortages in the metals for example mean that there is a classic supply and demand imbalance. For example Shanghai has sunk half an inch in the last three years because of the volume of building in the city...and global usage of steel, copper and aluminium has soared.

At last this is now impacting us.

Onto the point about volatility. Josh is quite correct to say that in the majority of instances periods of stockmarket weakness are merely buying opportunities within a long term trend. However this could well be an important inflection point where rising inflation meets a severely overindebted Western consumer. Whilst such inflation would erode the real value of this debt, it only works if the person holding the debt has a job or means to service that debt. Early signs of rising unemployment are not therefore that encouraging.

My personal opinion remains that the likelihood of meaningful upward progress in Western stockmarkets on say a three year view is low. Thats not to say that there won't be bouts of strength and there won't be another bull market thereafter.

I myself exited the stockmarket with my holdings sold in February.

[Sark79]

Sark, i am no expert, but this would be my take on it.

Poker is not considered a form of income. Most professional poker players have "other" sources of Income, which is what I assume they record as Income ?!?

But like i siad, this is just my take on the subject

Ok, ty M3boy. 

[Indestructable]

So many points to this thread have come up, but one main thing about this case is that the guy (as i understand it) did not max his credit card, it was his parents. He must have thought along the lines of what a great idea this is, get the money off my dad's card, gamble it, repay the card and keep the winnings. What could possible go wrong?
He had no right to use his parents card and I am sure he will on reflection realise what a stupid thing this was to do.
As for the stock market, interesting post from Tightend and sure there are different views out there. Obviously depends on what markets you are in to, but I am in a hold and see what happens mode. In other words I haven't a clue so sitting on the fence! 

[RFC]

if the guy was using his parents cards could that not be classed as theft ?
With the parents claiming it all back on insurance ?