Playing With Money - And Making
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By Steven Gillman |
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Ready to start playing with your money Not interested in
complicated businesses or boring bank C.D.'s Here are some
methods that aren't quite a business because you can do them
once, or just whenever you feel like it. Start small and the
risk is small.
Loan Sharking
Years ago a
friend got a good job when I loaned him $300 to buy the
necessary tools. I charged a $6 per week loan fee (don't call it
interest) until he paid in full. That's more than 100% annual
interest, and yes, we're still friends. Check the laws in your
area if you try this, and take collateral. I don't loan shark
any longer, but in my early twenties I loaned as much as $2,000
at a time ($100/month loan fee), and only once was stiffed on a
small loan.
Investing In Other's Expertise
John showed me several car magazines before I understood why an
old fiberglass car was a good deal at $2,300. What's a Corvette?
He convinced me to put up the money, and after a new
transmission for $900, he sold the 1976 Corvette for $4,300,
netting us $1,000. I took half the profit ($500) for putting up
the money for the two weeks.
I've done this many times
with friends who know cars but don't have cash. Incidentally, if
I had paid a $50 cash advance fee and 18% interest to raise the
money with a credit card, my profit would still have been over
$400, and John did all the work. I love playing with money. Do
you have any friends who know about boats?
Buying
Estates
My wife and I met a couple who buy out
estates, sell some of it at flea markets, then run the rest
through auctions. They've made a living at this for years. After
negotiating to buy a whole house full of stuff, they load up
their trailer. If they don't want to do the flea market thing,
they auction everything on Sunday afternoon for a nice profit.
If you're a good judge of value and have an auction nearby, you
could also do this with rummage sales. Offer $100 for
everything, then auction it off piece-by-piece. An auction near
us lets anyone in, with no fee to enter - just a 25% commission
on anything sold.
Playing With The Casino's Money
When I worked the roulette wheel at a casino I saw many people
foolishly writing down the numbers that came up. Their theories
were mostly nonsense. Casinos welcome these players and even
hand them the pen and paper.
One man, however, was
actually scientific about it. He found a bias in the wheel,
after "charting" it for more than 5,000 spins. A number pays 35
to 1, but one of the numbers, due to manufacturing imperfections
or whatever, was appearing 1 in 27 spins, instead of the average
1 in 38 spins.
He bet $10 a spin, and he profited $80 for
every 27 spins of the wheel in the long run, or about $100 per
hour. Since the ups and downs are dramatic, this is not for the
faint-hearted. Even though he made tens of thousands, I saw him
lose as much as $700 in a night. Remember too that not all
wheels have biases (the casino eventually replaced that wheel).
Have you ever tried "card counting" in blackjack |
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