Hello everyone! I have only been on Reddit for a few months but I learned so much from it that I figured I should try and give back to the community. English is my second language and this is the first time I ever write a full-length article, I hope you will enjoy reading it and I would be very thankful if you could provide some feedback about my writing, about the topic, or about anything else really… So here goes!
Why you should learn poker and game theory:
My story is similar to that of many: I learned about the game 10 years ago (during the golden age of online poker) when some friends of mine invited me to play a home game. Although I initially thought of poker as just another game of chance akin to playing slots or roulette in a casino, I quickly came to realize that there is a lot more to it as my more experienced friends would repeatedly get the best of me during these home games, which led me to start watching videos and reading strategy books to improve my skill… Little did I know it’d be the start of a journey that would impact many different aspects of my life way beyond the game itself, as most of the fundamental principles learned through poker can be applied to your decision-making outside of the game, especially when it comes to money management and investing. Now, let’s dive into a few of these principles:
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- Risk management (i.e. Bankroll management)
When learning about how to be successful playing poker, the first big piece of advice most people come across is bankroll management or BRM. To understand BRM, you must first realize that poker has a lot of variance: you might be vastly ahead in a given hand but there is almost always a slim chance that you will lose in the end if one specific card hits. This implies that you will sometimes lose even though you were a 99% favorite, and that you will sometimes get unlucky and lose 2, 5 or maybe even 20 such encounters in a row. THIS is variance. It doesn’t mean that you played bad or that you made bad decisions, but rather that you got unlucky. Over time you will have lucky streaks and unlucky streaks, and these will average out in the long term… It’s just the way the game goes.
Now that we understand variance, let’s get back to BRM. What is it exactly? Let’s say you are the best poker player in the world but you only have 1000$ that you can EVER use to play with. Taking your whole 1000$ on one table and multiplying your stack at an exponential rate might seem like a good idea. Surely nothing can go wrong since you’re the best player in the world right? But variance can be a bitch ;) Even if you’re the best you will lose regularly and you will sometimes get unlucky, it’s just part of the game. The correct move here is to apply BRM, which means only using a small % of your available capital for each game you play in order to reduce the risk of going broke. Using only 100$ per game would already be a lot safer, but you still run the risk of going under on a streak of bad luck. If you only allocate 10$ per game you play, then it becomes virtually impossible for you to ever go broke, even on a huge streak of bad luck. Sure it’s not as exciting and you won’t be making money quite as fast as you could, but this is the way to go to make sure you don’t go broke…
This approach to risk management translates very well to investing:
- Only invest what you can afford to lose. Once the money is on the table it’s as good as gone, which is why you should only use your “spare” cash and never invest with your living expenses or worse, borrow money to invest.
- Diversify your investments. There is always a chance, however slim it might be, that you will lose most of your investment. This is why going all-in on a specific investment is generally a bad idea (this applies particularly well in the crypto space).
Proper BRM allows you to make sure that you will come out ahead in the long run if you play well, which basically comes down to making more good decisions than bad ones. But that’s assuming you don’t let emotions come in the way of your decision-making, which brings us to our next point…
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- Emotional management (i.e. Handling tilt/Positive mindset)
Nobody likes losing… In the same way we enjoy winning because of the dopamine rush, we feel bad when we lose which is totally natural. Overcoming this and avoiding tilt (irrational decisions made out of angefrustration) is an essential skill for any successful poker player. You might play a sound game of poker and apply good BRM, but you will still lose if you let your emotions get the best of you.
After a loss, rather than being angry and frustrated, you should evaluate your decision-making. If your decision-making was good, you just got unlucky and you shouldn’t worry about it since you are playing for the long run (remember that variance teaches us that anything can happen in the short-term). If your decision-making was bad, you need to learn from your mistakes and move on. The key here is to always have a positive mindset: making mistakes is part of the learning process and should be seen as an occasion to improve. Being angry and ranting, on the other hand, rarely result in anything positive.
Again, this translates very well to investing:
- Don’t be impulsive, don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should not FOMO because the price is pumping, nor should you sell because of FUD or price corrections. If you believe in a project, short-term price changes (did I hear someone say “variance”?) shouldn’t bother you.
- Don’t get stuck up on losses. You bought the top and it crashed immediately after? You sold the bottom right before a huge rally? Don’t let this bother you: what’s done is done and you just need to move on and make the best of your current situation.
- Have a positive mindset. Anger and frustration lead to nothing. Yes you could have bought in 2009 when you first heard about it, hindsight is always 20/20. Stay positive and keep learning/improving yourself.
The good thing about all this is that it goes way beyond poker or investing. Being aware of your emotions and how they affect you, learning how to handle losing even when you were “supposed” to win, etc… All this can tremendously help you in all aspects of life by making you less impulsive and more rational in your decision-making. Now, this leaves us with our last fundamental principle of a sound poker strategy:
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- Basic stats and probabilities (i.e. Expected value/Odds)
To become an accomplished player, you will inevitably have to learn about these simple mathematical tools that poker players use all the time in their decision-making process, such as odds and expected value. To make it very simple, the expected value (EV) of any bet is (REWARD \ WinRate - RISK), meaning that if you can bet 1000$ with a chance to win 10k$ half of the time, your EV is *(10000\0.5)-1000 = +4000$**. Obviously these are great odds to take as long as you have enough capital to overcome variance. But things would be very different if the odds of winning were only 5% as your EV would then be negative *(10000\0.05)-1000 = -500$.*** Now this is clearly a bet you should not take…
Now that you know probabilities, statistics and game theory are useful decision-making tools in poker, guess what? They are also extremely useful in investing! Even better, the study of game theory with problems such as the “Byzantine generals” or the “Three prisoners” has been, along with cryptography, the foundation on which blockchain technology was built, enabling the trustless and decentralized services that are about to revolutionize our world…
Assuming this was enough to pique your interest and make you want to dig deeper, I’ll just add that just like the other topics we discussed and as you might have guessed, this translates very well to investing and also to pretty much anything in your life:
- Learn how to break down complex situations. Logical thinking paired with a statistical approach will help you break down any complex problem into several easier problems, making the whole thing a lot easier to approach/comprehend.
- Base your decisions on a methodical and rational approach. List every possible outcome along with its associated upside/downside, estimate the probability of each outcome to occur and make the best decision based on the information available.
My point here is that risk management, emotional management and statistics/game theory are all awesome tools that you should definitely add to your arsenal. Not only will it improve your money-management and investing, it will also be beneficial to your decision-making and to your life in general. Of course poker is not the only way to learn about these, but I personally found it to be the best practice ground to refine and improve them, which is why I strongly encourage you all to try it out and study the game.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and I wish you all a happy 2021 bull run! May we all come closer to retirement and financial independence!
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TL;DR: more than a game, poker is a school of thought. It teaches you to be reasonable, to assess the risk of every single choice you make, to overcome you emotions, to play the long game rather than the short game, to make informed decisions, etc… This has made me a lot wiser in every aspect of my life, which is why I strongly encourage to try it out and read about poker strategy.

(22 M)This is hard. It’s been hard. I know in my heart gambling has done nothing but rip me to shreds mentally and ruin a good chunk of my life, but some how quitting has a stronger feeling than losing a long term friend or disappointing a loved one. Between 19-22 I have lost over $240,000 and counting. My entire life I have been stingy about cash and never spent a nickel on anything for myself, until I found gambling. Prior to gambling I was a happy, self made 19 year old working from home as a live streamer with a large platform I built for myself making more money than 90% of people my age with a hefty savings to show for it, had a girlfriend that I loved to death and wanted to make a real life with. Then it happened. Roughly 3 years ago I discovered online casinos and realized I only had to be 18 instead of 21 like my local casino so I decided to try it. Deposited $50 and turned it into $200, loved the feeling. Lost a deposit or two not long after, then the worst thing that has ever happened in my life occurred. I deposited my usual $50 and over the course of 10 hours playing online blackjack/roulette turned it into $30,000. At 20 years old I was sitting in front of a computer doing $500 spins on black while most people my age where splitting apartments so they could afford $500 for rent. That night I lost all conception of what money truly means and is. The same night I proceeded to lose the entire balance at the crack of dawn with my girlfriend sleeping 5 feet away from me. No words and actions could describe the shame and guilt I felt when I looked to my right. Not even an hour before that I could have stopped and woke her up to the news that I made $30,000 and it would’ve made a massive change in our life. Instead I blew it and was too ashamed to tell her or anyone for that matter. But now something clicked in my head and my brain said “you can win that again, you just need to deposit and take your time”. this mindset turned to a boiling rage, soon my deposits went from $50 to $200, to $500. Until my (joint)bank account was dry. I had gone completely broke at age 21 after being one of the most on track kids I knew at 19. The shame and anger I still feel now is like being forced to do a naked halftime show at the super bowl. After losing all the money I became enthralled in making more money so I could play. I slowly started to lose interest in everything around me that wasn’t gambling. Starting with my job (which I fucking loved and was so blessed to have) then my hobbies (lost interest in anything that costs money since that would be taking away my ability to gamble said money) and finally my love life. My girlfriend would invite me to do things and I’d blow it off so I could stay home and blow all my money or drive to the casino with my entire weeks pay to blow it at the tables and drive home furious to the only thing (which I didn’t see at the time) that mattered or cared about me, my girlfriend. Seeing the disappointment in her eyes as I blew everything we had and eagerly waited for the next sum of money to come from a paycheck or selling something I didn’t use anymore was the worst of it. The only person who ever truly cared for me and loved me, and instead of seeing that I was blinded in the fog of rushing to the atm to slip in my debit card like a junkie stabbing a needle in their arm. I am disgusted at the sheer thought of what my life could’ve been if I had never deposited that initial $50, but it’s something I now have to live with. And if I ever want to have a different version of a happy life aside from the one I missed this gambling shit has to stop. 4 months ago that same girlfriend left me (much later than she should have) and it crushed me more than a big loss at the casino ever could. The hardest part in my head to this day is I never got to find closure in my guilt or shame, and to my actions I don’t deserve it. Last month I didn’t have enough money in my account to pay for my dentist appointment up front so I lied to the receptionist about calling my bank, stood in the lobby and deposited the $25 I had into pokerstars, ripped it into $100 and withdrew to pay for my appointment. How sick and pathetic is that? What the fuck is screwed wrong in my brain and how do I change it? I honestly don’t know why I’m posting this, maybe I think I’ll find closure maybe I just want someone else to read my experience so they don’t make the same mistakes, maybe I just need it off my chest so I can stop living this guilt and shame. But I need to quit and I need help, I’m fearful to do it alone and I can’t figure out why. I feel a fear stronger than any fear I’ve felt before and it’s crippling me, it feels like gambling is my only true friend. I want to stop now. Thanks for reading I apologize for the length but I don’t have anyone in my life I can tell my story too comfortably so maybe the Internet can be that person. Please, don’t gamble.

TLDR: Met a guy on Tinder while lonely and depressed. We talked every day on the phone, but couldn't meet because of Covid. He invited me to join him on a Chinese investing app. I didn't question him because I was attached and blindly trusted him. Invested my entire life savings and took debt into the app to invest into "our future". I now can't withdraw that money and also found out I was catfished. Heart-broken, depressed, and will probably be homeless. The guy doesn't know this, and is still taking to me trying to get me to invest more.
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I met a guy on Tinder, he seems really nice and smart. We quickly moved to talking every day on the phone. He would frequently send me pictures of himself or what he's doing. We also started talking about hobbies and one of our common ones was investing. He lured me with screenshots of this Usdt investing / betting app, and all the hundreds of thousands of dollars he made.
I wanted in since he said that he analyses the data, and only bets when he has good data. He was very dodgy when I kept asking him what the data he is using is - and only saying he will teach me later down the road. So the betting app (yes he marketed as investing USDT, but it's purely betting roulette) has multiple tiers with min balance requirements - 0,20k,50k,150k. Over time , I made 10-15% principle each time I traded with him, so eventually I invested over 150k into the apo because he convinced me that the larger players have more steady volume for analysis. I'm so dumb, and it was all through bitcoins to an app that has no information other than the customer service whatsapp that takes my questions and deposits. He even encouraged me by continually matching my deposits in order to 'help' me earn more. He was such a sweet talker, painting the future we could have together traveling and buying houses around the world.
A couple hiccups - I tried to outsmart the system and placed bets on 4 different options, and since they had positive odds at the 150k tier, would have been guaranteed profits. This caused me to get flagged for money laundering where I then I had to cough up 3% of my balance as a penalty fee within 24 hours or risk my account getting frozen forever. Fine, I thought it was unreasonable, but my fault. I scrambled, asked for favors, and borrowed money to pay the 17k ransom (yes the amount grew with my and his deposits combined). After that resolved, we were ready to make some big money in Dec - since my tinder date says Dec has historically great data for betting. He also showed me a promotion the app was running where we could wnter as a couple, and win prizes depending on how much we deposited. The only one we were eligible for was the 500k deposit one, and of course, we both just needed 1-200k more to finish the challenge and win "free" money. I never should have agreed to this either, but my tinder date's optimism won me over. Now we are stuck in another drama where my tinder date convinced me to participate in the couples challenge, where if we deposit 500k each, we get rewarded 125k. Too good to be true? Yes, but I was blinded. Little did I know as well, that if you don't complete the challenge by the end of 2020, apparently the penalty is losing 3% of the balance every day until you lose 60%.
I'm at such a lost in trying to borrow more funds, as my tinder date continues to pressure me and guilt trip me as he helps me contribute tens of thousands in as well. It's a scam, I'm pretty sure he can manipulate the numbers. The pivot point that woke me up, was when I was forced to ask friends to lend me money (and that they were also going to get loans to help me out). In order to not screw over friends I decided to do more due diligence again. Then I found it, I finally found some of the pictures he used in our WhatsApp conversations online from a chinese real life people photo bank. I haven't revealed that I know about the scam and am still in conversation, but I'm still trying to figure out how i can possible get my money back on this.
I've literally deposited my life savings as well as took out loans and debt to try to complete the deposit challenge. I'm going to be in debt and living paycheck to paycheck for awhile. This is a good lesson - I was emotionally blinded by a guy that would sweet talk with me every day, asking about me, and caring about me. I so efficiently found money to deposit into this scam app, without doing my normal due diligence because I was blinded by .. love? I feel like crap and am just hoping to resolve this well somehow...
Update: I really appreciate the support from redditors here, and I hope this provides a story that others can remember that getting catfished sucks. I've contacted police, IC3, FTC, and a couple of lawyers. The only advise is to see if police will investigate, but I was told chances are slim to none because the culprit is probably not in the country. I'm still chatting with my scammer, and am so far holding family troubles as an excuse to not have any more money to give. He's very persistent though, and still has that silver tongue. Honestly I'm not sure what kind of outcome I am hoping for by not simply blocking him at this point.

Hey, it’s Coooolin!!! It’s Tuuesdayy! Terrific Tuesdaayy! Was it one for you though?! Tell me about your day, I’m interested! What did you do!? Let me know, doown beloow!!!
Here’s the new cards for today, thanks EA!

Silver Master Icons

Howie Morenz - 91 OVR - MTL / C - DIS² , PP²
Mats Sundin - 91 OVR - TOR / C - DIS² , T²
Scott Niedermayer - 91 OVR - NJD / LD - BAL² , SPE²
These require 9 Icon Collects — 6 if you have 88 OVR Scott Niedermayer
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Fantasy Hockey Upgrades

Sean Couturier 93 OVR - UT
Req. - Base Ivan Provorov , and Philippe Myers + 2 Gold Collects
Mark Stone 93 OVR - UT
Req. - Base Alec Martinez , Shea Theodore + 2 Gold Collects
Cale Makar 92 OVR - UT
Req. - Base Gabriel Landeskog + 1 Gold Collect
Brock Boeser 91 OVR - UT
Req. - Base Braden Holtby + 1 Gold Collect ... - wow I look dumb getting Vancouver guys
—-

Primetimes

(More to come , will update)

NHL

Leon Draisaitl - 95 OVR - EDM / C - LTL¹ , GLA¹
Antemi Panarin - 93 OVR - NYR / LW - PP¹ , MAG¹
Jeff Petry - 89 OVR - MTL / RD - HOW¹ , SH¹
Jamie Benn - 88 OVR - DAL / LW - WM¹ , WH¹
Brandon Carlo - 86 OVR - BOS / C - SH¹ , GLA¹
Joel Farabee - 83 OVR - PHI / LW - SPE¹ , T¹
Miles Wood - 83 OVR - NJD / LW - LTL¹ , WM¹
Yanni - 83 OVR - TBL / C - PP¹ , MAG¹ ... do you hear yanni or laurel
Artturi Lehkonen - 81 OVR - MTL / LW - HOW¹ , WH¹
Chris Driedger - 79 OVR - FLA / G - 6’4” / 208 lbs - BAR¹ , SPA¹
Michael Mcleod - 78 OVR - NJD / C -DIS¹ , GLA¹
Philipp Kurashev - 78 OVR - CHI / C - BAL¹ , HOW¹
Yakov Trenin - 78 OVR - NAS / C - DIS¹ , T¹

Other Leagues

Matt Moulson - 80 OVR - BEA / LW - H and S¹ , PP¹ ... this man was a GOAT
Miguël Tourigny - 79 OVR - ARM / RD - SWA¹ , SPE¹
Francesco Pinelli - 78 OVR - RAN / C - SPA¹ , LTL¹
Connor Roulette - 78 OVR - TBIR / LW - H and S¹ , MAG¹
Semyon Der- - 78 OVR - PET / C - BAR¹ , WM¹
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

23H / 40M remaining
Ultimate Choice Pack
and
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10 items, with at least 5 80+ OVR Players
• Prime Pack - 10k C / 200 P
10 items , at least 5 Players with at least 3 Gold Players and 2 NHL Players

P.S.

• Rivals Resets Today — 5pm EST
• Silver Master Upgrade for Howie Morenz, Scott Niedyy, and Matss Sundinn!

Hockey News Today

• Today in Hockey History
• NHL Rumours

Stock Market News

• Stock Market Rises
• AMC and GME update

Other News

• Willie sees his shadow
• Today’s Horoscope
——————

What’s to Come?

• SB Season Reset - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• Rivals Rewards - Wednesday at 5pm EST
• HUT Champ Rewards - Wednesday at 6am EST
• SB Rewards !! - Thursday at 5pm EST
• More Event Cards!! - Friday at 5pm EST
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Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is LEOONN DRAAIISAITLL OVR 95 with the syn LIIGHTTT THE LAAMPP and GLAADIIATORR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JEFFFF PETRRRYY OVR 89 with the syn SHUUTT DOWNN and HOWIITZZERRR
• Rivals Resets Today - where did you place?
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Important Notice

Make today the best day ever. Do something you wanted to do for a very long time. - within rules / legally - . You never know if tomorrow is blessed for you or not. Never take it for granted - its a blessing! Do something today that makes you feel way out of your comfort zone — because when you get out of your comfort zone, you’ll be super happy you did!

Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Feb 2
$ 141.81 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $4.27 / 3.10% ) —
You can listen to EA’s Conference Call here
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. Thanks*
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NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

• I made this for everyone. I’ll update it whenever I feel like it, but its been often!

DO YOU GUYS LIKE THE PLAYLIST?! For those not listening; How are you not listening to this playlist already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by “Nirvana” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
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Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
Want to make your dream team, and show others what you’ve been working on, and much more? I will redirect you HERE!.
Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
Want to know how the market is holding up? With a simple TAP! you will be on the newly fresh made website for the HUT market, made by one of the guys on the sub!
.... what do the stats on a card mean? Is my card I want / pulled good? Click here to find out!!
When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
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Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!
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Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS GROUNDHOG DAY!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)

As per the title my Dad is a gambling addict. The man has lost about £250k that I know of via gambling on online slots, roulette, blackjack, etc. He's lost most of his kids, personally - I dont talk to him because I cant stand the guy and have no respect for someone who gambles away all of his wages every month when he has a 4 year old daughter to look after.
This has been going on for years, but guess what he still thinks hes going to have "that big win", he still believes one day hes going to be rich. Simply put - he's deluded.
Also this dude has made money before from gambling in the past but guess what, he just gambled it all away because of greed and lost it all anyway.
This is why I cant stand WSB at the moment, I can recognise problem gambling because of my father, and WSB has become full of people chasing their loses like my dad. "well I'm down 5k, might as well buy 10k more of stock today!" NO!! Dont do that, cut your loses.
"Its not a loss until you sell". What a dumb thing to say, because when you do eventually sell the loss will be even bigger than if you had gotten out early.
Once the dust settles and people realise GME is dead I think reality will hit these people who have lost big. I just hope instead of chasing their loses they decide to quit instead of losing even more money.

I grew up in a small mountain town named Eureka. It was founded in the late 1800s during the gold rush, but after the mines dried up the town began its slow descent into decay. Half the houses are empty or abandoned now.
You can see a picture of the kind of houses here in Eureka:
First house
Second house
When a massive construction project began nearby, it was the talk of the town for weeks. Why would they build something in a sleepy dying town like Eureka? It wasn’t until my sister Selene talked to a few construction workers that we discovered they were building a casino.
A casino up in the mountains, over two hours away from Denver. None of us could understand why they’d chosen here of all places. After a few months of work, the casino was done.
I took a picture of the town with the completed casino in the background to the right. The ten-story-structure sticks out like a sore thumb off in the distance.
Town+Casino
After the casino opened, they hired a few dozen members of the town, offering high paying jobs to work as dealers or cleaning staff. I was already employed as a firefighter, but my sister Selene got a job as a blackjack dealer. She’s a widow with two young kids, so the paycheck was a real lifesaver.
Still, something about the situation seemed too good to be true. The jobs over there paid far too well, and the management was far too accommodating. The fire station where I work is located high on a hill overlooking the town, so I began watching the casino from a distance each day.
I had initially thought that the casino was located in a terrible location, but I was apparently wrong. True, Eureka was hours from any major city, but despite that, a bus full of people arrived every morning and left every evening.
One night I was over at my parent’s house and had dinner with Selene and her kids. I asked her about her experience as a dealer.
“It’s Ok,” she said. “Just a little boring I guess.”
“Boring?” I asked. “I’m surprised you don’t have your hands full.”
“Why’s that?” she asked. “It’s like you said, Eureka’s too small. I never have people playing cards. The casino is almost always completely empty.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. If the place was always empty, what happened to the people who I’d seen arriving on buses? “I’ve been keeping an eye on the building,” I said. “A bus full of people typically arrives around 9 AM every day.”
“Really?” she asked, looking confused. “If that’s true, I’ve never seen them.
“I can see it from the fire station,” I said. “If you head out for a smoke break at 9 AM, you’ll probably see them arriving.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I’ll do that. If they’re being processed for their organs or something, I’ll let you know.” She laughed.
“Har har,” I said sarcastically.
The next night she sent me a text calling me over. When I arrived, she was nearly breathless with excitement.
“Orin, You were right,” she said. “A big group of people did arrive, but they didn’t walk into my part of the casino. Instead, they all walked into an elevator at the back of the building. I’m not sure where that goes.” She looked thoughtful. “It was weird. They looked… How can I say it? Desperate? Something about the whole situation was very off. I’m gonna check out the elevator tomorrow.”
I told her to be careful, though, to be honest, I was excited to hear about what she discovered. When I visited my parent’s house the next night, I found her two kids there alone. They told me that Selene had never returned from work.
I called all her friends, then all our neighbors, but no one had seen her since she left for work that morning. Our conversations regarding the casino flooded my mind, then a plan began to form.
Early the next morning I walked across town in my nicest pair of jeans and a button-up shirt. I pushed through the door to the casino and saw that Selene wasn’t lying. The place was all but deserted. Three dozen slot machines crowded the walls surrounding a few tables interspersed throughout the floor of the casino. The only players in the whole building were Bob and Donald, two locals.
I walked up to a nearby table where Bridget, a girl I’d gone to high school with, was shuffling cards. She broke into a grin when she saw me. “Hey Orin, you here for a few rounds of blackjack?”
“I wish,” I said. “No, I’m here to ask about Selene. She never made it home last night.”
Bridget’s expression darkened. “Really? Have you asked around?”
“I already called around. Have you seen her?”
She shook her head. “No, our schedules rarely line up. I’ll be sure to let you know if I--” Her eyes focused on something behind me, and she cut herself off.
I turned around to see the casino’s pit boss watching us both. He was a tall thin man in an impeccably clean black suit. When I turned back towards Bridget, she was looking down at the table and shuffling cards absent-mindedly.
“Well, if you hear anything, let me know,” I said.
She nodded, so I turned around and headed for the pit boss. I stuck out my hand. The temperature of his hand was so hot that I had to pull my hand away after a few seconds.
“Have… have you seen my sister Selene?” I asked. “She hasn’t been seen since her shift here yesterday.”
He smiled. “Sir, this floor is for players. You’re more than welcome to head to the tellers for chips, but barring that I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
I stared at him for a long second before stalking towards the door. When I looked back, he was talking with Bridget.
I checked my watch. 8:55 AM, just as I’d planned. I walked around the back of the building and waited as the morning bus pulled around the building. I waited for the telltale hiss of the opening doors and the sound of people descending before I rounded the corner and joined the crowd. None of them paid any particular attention to me as I walked with them into the casino.
The crowd walked through a side door down a hallway to an elevator. Small groups of people entered the elevator as the rest of us waited for our turn. I shot a glance at the casino patrons, surprised at their diversity. There seemed to be people from all different countries and ethnicities. I heard one speaking Japanese and another speaking what sounded like an African language.
My turn came along with a few other patrons in the elevator. A sickly woman hobbled into the elevator beside me carrying an IV that was still connected to one of her veins. We piled in and rode up to the top.
The elevator rose for a few long seconds. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I steeled myself for something horrible. The elevator’s speaker let out a TING, then the doors opened.
We all walked out onto what looked like a standard casino. Another few dozen slot machines ringed the walls, but on this floor, they were almost all occupied by customers. I took in the scene, confused at why they’d have a ground floor that was almost completely empty when this place was almost--
Selene was dealing cards at a nearby table.
I jogged over and sat down at an open seat. None of the players around me paid me much attention.
“Selene!” I said. “Are you OK? Did you spend the night here last night?”
Her eyes were glassy and confused. She looked up at me with a dumb expression and didn’t respond to my question.
“Selene?” I asked.
“What’s your bet?” she asked me. “This table is for blackjack players only.”
“I…” I trailed off, looking at the players around me. None of them were betting with chips of any kind. “What’s the minimum bet?” I asked.
“Three years,” she responded.
“Three years then,” I said, not knowing what that referred to.
Selene nodded, then began dealing cards. I shot a look down at my hand. King and a 9. Selene dealt out cards for herself, showing a 9. I stood, then leaned forward again. “Should I call the police? Are you--”
“Congratulations,” she said tonelessly.
An almost impossibly warm hand grabbed my shoulder. I spun to see the pit boss I’d spoken to earlier. He gave an impressed smile. “Orin, was it? I’m impressed, truly. Would you mind if I had a word with you?”
I shot a look back at Selene who was dealing the next round of cards. Then I got to my feet, balling my hands into fists. “What did you do to her?”
The pit boss clasped his hands behind his back. “Nothing more, and nothing less than what I’m going to do to you. That is, offer you the chance to play.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The pit boss nodded his head towards a nearby slot machine. A woman in a wheelchair pulled a lever and watched the flashing numbers spin. They exploded in a cacophony of sirens and flashing lights. “WINNER WINNER WINNER!” The machine screeched.
The woman in the wheelchair put her feet on the ground and stood up on a pair of wobbly legs that had clearly never been used before.
“As in any other casino,” the pit boss said, “you must wager for the chance to win.”
“She... won the use of her legs?” I asked, feeling light-headed. “Wait,” I said. “I played blackjack just now. ‘Three years,’ Selene told me. What does ‘three years’ mean?” I asked.
“Three years of life, of course. Did you win?”
My mouth felt dry. “I-- Yes, I won.”
He smiled warmly. “Congratulations. I hope you enjoy them. I can tell you from personal experience that watching the decades pass is a bore. Give it some time and you’ll be back to spend them.”
I watched the pit boss’s face. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, and I was in my early thirties. I looked around at the casino. No one was playing with chips of any kind. “So what?” I asked. “I won years of life. That woman won the use of her legs. What else can a person win here?”
“Oh, almost anything. They can win almost anything you can imagine.”
A cold feeling settled in my stomach. “And what do they wager?”
His eyes flashed with greed. “Almost anything. They can wager almost anything you can possibly imagine. Anything equal in value to the item they want in return.” He nodded towards a nearby roulette table.
A man stood by the table, cradling his hands. “Another finger,” he called out. He only had three fingers remaining on his left hand. As I watched, the ball came to a stop, and another finger disappeared from his left hand.
The pit boss extended his hands. “Feel free to try any of our games. Bet and win whatever you’d like.” He reached out and snatched my hand. A feeling of intense warmth passed up my arm to my chest. “There,” he said. “I’ve even given you some house money to get you started. An extra decade of life, on me.”
I ripped my hand away, staring at him in horror. Then I looked back at Selene. Something clicked in my mind. “You offered her the chance to play. What did she want?” I asked.
“Her husband,” the pit boss said. “Quite the sad story. He died two years ago. She wanted him brought back to her.”
“What did she wager?” I asked.
“She wanted the chance to win a soul, the most valuable object in existence. I’m sure you can imagine what she needed to wager for the chance to win it. What she wagered is unimportant. The important question is: What do you want, Orin?”
I stared at Selene with a flat expression. “I’m sure you can imagine.”
His eyes flashed with greed again. “How wonderful. The casino could always make use of another dealer. Feel free to make your wager at any one of our games; I’ll be eagerly awaiting the results of your night. Oh, and do take advantage of our waitresses. We always supply food and drink for ‘high rollers’.” He walked away.
I spent the next few hours trying to decide which game to play. I was going to be wagering my soul, so I wanted the highest chance possible. Slots and roulette were out. I’d done some reading online about counting cards, so I figured that blackjack gave me the best odds.
I walked up to Selene’s table and sat down. “Bet?” she asked with that same toneless voice. “Three years,” I said.
I spent the next hour or so doing my best to remember how to count cards. I knew that low cards added one to my count and high cards decreased it by one, but the casino used three decks. I had read something about how that was supposed to change my calculation, but I couldn’t quite remember how.
Every time I won a hand, I cursed myself for not putting everything on the line. Every time I lost, I breathed a prayer of thanks that I’d waited. And all the while, I kept track of the count.
I had lost fifteen years of life when the count finally reached +5.
“Bet?” Selene asked.
“I wager my soul so you can be free,” I said.
The table around me fell silent. Selene’s eyes flickered, but she showed no other emotion as she dealt the cards. I watched my first card, punching the air in excitement when I saw a Jack. My excitement turned to ash when my second card was a four. Fourteen.
I looked at her hand. One card was facedown, but the faceup card was a King. I swore loudly, staring down at my hands.
“Hit?” she asked. The entire table was silently watching me.
“Hit,” I said, not looking down. The table erupted in cheers. I looked down to see a 7 atop my two other cards. 21. Blackjack.
I looked at Selene who flipped over her facedown card to reveal a 9. 19. I won.
The glassy look left her eyes immediately. She looked around in surprise, then her eyes locked on mine. “Orin?” she asked, then almost immediately began to cry. The entire casino broke out in cheers.
I grabbed her hand and headed for the elevator. The doors had begun to close when the pit boss reached out with a hand to stop them.
“Congratulations,” he said, beaming. He seemed to be honestly excited.
“Shouldn’t you be upset?” I asked.
“Not at all. Casinos love it when we have big winners. It inspires the other players to make larger bets. I imagine I’ll gain two or three dealers before the night is through from your performance.”
“Great,” I said flatly. “Now let us go.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You didn’t just win, Orin. You got a blackjack. And blackjack pays out 1.5 times your bet. You won your sister’s soul and more.”
I stared, not sure what to say. “What are you saying? I won half a soul extra?”
The pit boss grinned wildly. “Just remember what I said. You’ll find living for decades and decades to be a boring experience. After a few centuries, you’ll be back to gamble that half a soul away. Congratulations!”
He removed his hand, and the elevator doors slammed shut.
I helped Selene back to her house. Her children were relieved. I watched them cry, then moved into the kitchen to start making dinner.
It’s been a few days since that experience. The casino is still out there, and buses full of people still arrive. I… I cut my hand pretty bad a few days later. When I checked it an hour later, it had already healed, no scar or anything. I’m not sure exactly what I won at that casino, but there’s no way I’m ever going back.
X

I don't know how many people will read this, but if nothing else it will be therapeutic and perhaps something I can look back on. I'm 27, I've wasted the last 10 years of my life through this addiction. I have prioritised it over family, relationships, career, health and about every other aspect you could think of. Up until recently I've always been broke because of gambling.
However the past 6 months, I've been making good money with my online business. Sometimes 10k months, I used to think that when I get to earning that much I'll be afford to gamble and i'lll have money for everything else. Its a lie. I just upped my staked and gambled more and felt okay about it because the money was there. Ever feel like thats all your doing, working to gamble. Can't justify spending extra money on small items you need. New shoes, eugh, no I'm not spending £80. Yet will spend hundreds on gambling. I could have had a lot of money by now saved but it's all went to gambling.
I owe my parents thousands, I love them, did I pay them back when I started earning big, no, I rationalised it as I'll get a big hit and then pay them back. No win is ever enough. What takes days to build in an account is gone in seconds. It's not just the money, its the time I've lost over the years, every relationship I have been is has been ruined by me hiding this addiction and prioritising it over my significant other. Can't eat a meal without checking scores, laying in bed checking scores. How I treat everyone dependant on the next result. Never off my phone. I have a really good girlfriend at the moment who has started to pick up on it. I don't want her to know I have this problem until I'm actively dealing with it.
Every time I try to do this, I get drawn back in, its only £100, its only one bet, and I end up losing it all again. I have this weird complex where I think if i stop gambling I'll never have fun again or I'll never be able to make a lot of money and make it - even though NOBODY has become rich off this. I had dreams of making good money and travelling to watch tennis games and betting on them live - the rush would have been amazing. As I write this I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that if I'm to beat this thing. Today, the 26th of January has to be the day that I stop, there can't be another bet. If I start and win, its a loss. This addiction has taken too much from me and I refuse to let it take anymore. I will be logging in here for accountability and excited to interact with a community of people just doing their best to improve and get better. Thats fucking baller.
Tonight I lost a large amount and I took what was in my bank and spinned it on a roulette bet - I can honestly say I wanted it to miss. I wanted to be done. I am done. I am a person who needs this addiction replaced, I refuse to tell it ruin the rest of my life or steal any of my time. This is the first step.
If anyone has any advice of things that helped them stay away from Gambling or any ways to best help me understand. Please comment. I want to understand this on a scientific level so I can combat it and win. I refuse to be victim any longer. This is my day 1.

Hello everyone! I have only been on Reddit for a few months but I learned so much from it that I figured I should try and give back to the community. English is my second language and this is the first time I ever write a full-length article, I hope you will enjoy reading it and I would be very thankful if you could provide some feedback about my writing, about the topic, or about anything else really… So here goes!
​
Why you should learn poker and game theory:
My story is similar to that of many: I learned about the game 10 years ago (during the golden age of online poker) when some friends of mine invited me to play a home game. Although I initially thought of poker as just another game of chance akin to playing slots or roulette in a casino, I quickly came to realize that there is a lot more to it as my more experienced friends would repeatedly get the best of me during these home games, which led me to start watching videos and reading strategy books to improve my skill… Little did I know it’d be the start of a journey that would impact many different aspects of my life way beyond the game itself, as most of the fundamental principles learned through poker can be applied to your decision-making outside of the game, especially when it comes to money management and investing. Now, let’s dive into a few of these principles:
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- Risk management (i.e. Bankroll management)
When learning about how to be successful playing poker, the first big piece of advice most people come across is bankroll management or BRM. To understand BRM, you must first realize that poker has a lot of variance: you might be vastly ahead in a given hand but there is almost always a slim chance that you will lose in the end if one specific card hits. This implies that you will sometimes lose even though you were a 99% favorite, and that you will sometimes get unlucky and lose 2, 5 or maybe even 20 such encounters in a row. THIS is variance. It doesn’t mean that you played bad or that you made bad decisions, but rather that you got unlucky. Over time you will have lucky streaks and unlucky streaks, and these will average out in the long term… It’s just the way the game goes.
Now that we understand variance, let’s get back to BRM. What is it exactly? Let’s say you are the best poker player in the world but you only have 1000$ that you can EVER use to play with. Taking your whole 1000$ on one table and multiplying your stack at an exponential rate might seem like a good idea. Surely nothing can go wrong since you’re the best player in the world right? But variance can be a bitch ;) Even if you’re the best you will lose regularly and you will sometimes get unlucky, it’s just part of the game. The correct move here is to apply BRM, which means only using a small % of your available capital for each game you play in order to reduce the risk of going broke. Using only 100$ per game would already be a lot safer, but you still run the risk of going under on a streak of bad luck. If you only allocate 10$ per game you play, then it becomes virtually impossible for you to ever go broke, even on a huge streak of bad luck. Sure it’s not as exciting and you won’t be making money quite as fast as you could, but this is the way to go to make sure you don’t go broke…
This approach to risk management translates very well to investing:
- Only invest what you can afford to lose. Once the money is on the table it’s as good as gone, which is why you should only use your “spare” cash and never invest with your living expenses or worse, borrow money to invest.
- Diversify your investments. There is always a chance, however slim it might be, that you will lose most of your investment. This is why going all-in on a specific investment is generally a bad idea (this applies particularly well in the crypto space).
Proper BRM allows you to make sure that you will come out ahead in the long run if you play well, which basically comes down to making more good decisions than bad ones. But that’s assuming you don’t let emotions come in the way of your decision-making, which brings us to our next point…
​
- Emotional management (i.e. Handling tilt/Positive mindset)
Nobody likes losing… In the same way we enjoy winning because of the dopamine rush, we feel bad when we lose which is totally natural. Overcoming this and avoiding tilt (irrational decisions made out of angefrustration) is an essential skill for any successful poker player. You might play a sound game of poker and apply good BRM, but you will still lose if you let your emotions get the best of you.
After a loss, rather than being angry and frustrated, you should evaluate your decision-making. If your decision-making was good, you just got unlucky and you shouldn’t worry about it since you are playing for the long run (remember that variance teaches us that anything can happen in the short-term). If your decision-making was bad, you need to learn from your mistakes and move on. The key here is to always have a positive mindset: making mistakes is part of the learning process and should be seen as an occasion to improve. Being angry and ranting, on the other hand, rarely result in anything positive.
Again, this translates very well to investing:
- Don’t be impulsive, don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. You should not FOMO because the price is pumping, nor should you sell because of FUD or price corrections. If you believe in a project, short-term price changes (did I hear someone say “variance”?) shouldn’t bother you.
- Don’t get stuck up on losses. You bought the top and it crashed immediately after? You sold the bottom right before a huge rally? Don’t let this bother you: what’s done is done and you just need to move on and make the best of your current situation.
- Have a positive mindset. Anger and frustration lead to nothing. Yes you could have bought in 2009 when you first heard about it, hindsight is always 20/20. Stay positive and keep learning/improving yourself.
The good thing about all this is that it goes way beyond poker or investing. Being aware of your emotions and how they affect you, learning how to handle losing even when you were “supposed” to win, etc… All this can tremendously help you in all aspects of life by making you less impulsive and more rational in your decision-making. Now, this leaves us with our last fundamental principle of a sound poker strategy:
​
- Basic stats and probabilities (i.e. Expected value/Odds)
To become an accomplished player, you will inevitably have to learn about these simple mathematical tools that poker players use all the time in their decision-making process, such as odds and expected value. To make it very simple, the expected value (EV) of any bet is (REWARD \ WinRate - RISK), meaning that if you can bet 1000$ with a chance to win 10k$ half of the time, your EV is *(10000\0.5)-1000 = +4000$**. Obviously these are great odds to take as long as you have enough capital to overcome variance. But things would be very different if the odds of winning were only 5% as your EV would then be negative *(10000\0.05)-1000 = -500$.*** Now this is clearly a bet you should not take…
Now that you know probabilities, statistics and game theory are useful decision-making tools in poker, guess what? They are also extremely useful in investing! Even better, the study of game theory with problems such as the “Byzantine generals” or the “Three prisoners” has been, along with cryptography, the foundation on which blockchain technology was built, enabling the trustless and decentralized services that are about to revolutionize our world…
Assuming this was enough to pique your interest and make you want to dig deeper, I’ll just add that just like the other topics we discussed and as you might have guessed, this translates very well to investing and also to pretty much anything in your life:
- Learn how to break down complex situations. Logical thinking paired with a statistical approach will help you break down any complex problem into several easier problems, making the whole thing a lot easier to approach/comprehend.
- Base your decisions on a methodical and rational approach. List every possible outcome along with its associated upside/downside, estimate the probability of each outcome to occur and make the best decision based on the information available.
My point here is that risk management, emotional management and statistics/game theory are all awesome tools that you should definitely add to your arsenal. Not only will it improve your money-management and investing, it will also be beneficial to your decision-making and to your life in general. Of course poker is not the only way to learn about these, but I personally found it to be the best practice ground to refine and improve them, which is why I strongly encourage you all to try it out and study the game.
I hope you enjoyed the article, and I wish you all a happy 2021 bull run! May we all come closer to retirement and financial independence!
​
TL;DR: more than a game, poker is a school of thought. It teaches you to be reasonable, to assess the risk of every single choice you make, to overcome you emotions, to play the long game rather than the short game, to make informed decisions, etc… This has made me a lot wiser in every aspect of my life, which is why I strongly encourage to try it out and read about poker strategy.
Edit: I couldn't crosspost from cc so I just copied the post as I figured it is relevant here too :)

I met a guy on Tinder, he seems really nice and smart. We quickly moved to talking every day on the phone. He would frequently send me pictures of himself or what he's doing. We also started talking about hobbies and one of our common ones was investing. He lured me with screenshots of this Usdt investing / betting app, and all the hundreds of thousands of dollars he made.
I wanted in since he said that he analyses the data, and only bets when he has good data. He was very dodgy when I kept asking him what the data he is using is - and only saying he will teach me later down the road. So the betting app (yes he marketed as investing USDT, but it's purely betting roulette) has multiple tiers with min balance requirements - 0,20k,50k,150k. Over time , I made 10-15% principle each time I traded with him, so eventually I invested over 150k into the apo because he convinced me that the larger players have more steady volume for analysis. I'm so dumb, and it was all through bitcoins to an app that has no information other than the customer service whatsapp that takes my questions and deposits. He even encouraged me by continually matching my deposits in order to 'help' me earn more. He was such a sweet talker, painting the future we could have together traveling and buying houses around the world.
A couple hiccups - I tried to outsmart the system and placed bets on 4 different options, and since they had positive odds at the 150k tier, would have been guaranteed profits. This caused me to get flagged for money laundering where I then I had to cough up 3% of my balance as a penalty fee within 24 hours or risk my account getting frozen forever. Fine, I thought it was unreasonable, but my fault. I scrambled, asked for favors, and borrowed money to pay the 17k ransom (yes the amount grew with my and his deposits combined). After that resolved, we were ready to make some big money in Dec - since my tinder date says Dec has historically great data for betting. He also showed me a promotion the app was running where we could wnter as a couple, and win prizes depending on how much we deposited. The only one we were eligible for was the 500k deposit one, and of course, we both just needed 1-200k more to finish the challenge and win "free" money. I never should have agreed to this either, but my tinder date's optimism won me over. Now we are stuck in another drama where my tinder date convinced me to participate in the couples challenge, where if we deposit 500k each, we get rewarded 125k. Too good to be true? Yes, but I was blinded. Little did I know as well, that if you don't complete the challenge by the end of 2020, apparently the penalty is losing 3% of the balance every day until you lose 60%.
I'm at such a lost in trying to borrow more funds, as my tinder date continues to pressure me and guilt trip me as he helps me contribute tens of thousands in as well. It's a scam, I'm pretty sure he can manipulate the numbers. The pivot point that woke me up, was when I was forced to ask friends to lend me money (and that they were also going to get loans to help me out). In order to not screw over friends I decided to do more due diligence again. Then I found it, I finally found some of the pictures he used in our WhatsApp conversations online from a chinese real life people photo bank. I haven't revealed that I know about the scam and am still in conversation, but I'm still trying to figure out how i can possible get my money back on this.
I've literally deposited my life savings as well as took out loans and debt to try to complete the deposit challenge. I'm going to be in debt and living paycheck to paycheck for awhile. This is a good lesson - I was emotionally blinded by a guy that would sweet talk with me every day, asking about me, and caring about me. I so efficiently found money to deposit into this scam app, without doing my normal due diligence because I was blinded by .. love? I feel like crap and am just hoping to resolve this well somehow...
Edit: Really appreciate some of the responses here. I know that this is a scam in my head, but I was tricked emotionally and wanted so hard to believe that this was true (I found someone, we were going to work hard together to make money and live a great life). Frankly, if I didnt find his pictures online proving that he was a catfish, a part of me still wants it to be true and test it out...
For those that might have helpful ideas for tracking money : I've sent money to the scammer app in 2 ways. First was a small wire transfer to a bank in Puerto Rico. The second was just using bitcoin.
Things over tried: - submitted a report to the ICCC for cyber crime - submitted a report to FTC - called up some lawyers in China who's only helpful advice was to call the police
I have not actually talked to anyone about this. It's so embarrassing and hard to speak up about. I have not called local police, for example, thinking that it's a lot of embarassment for not much they can do.
Anything else I can do? What might work?

Don't really know exactly the point of this post. I do both since online gambling legalized in my state and am just consistently amazed by this. Hope everyone finds it insightful. Feel free to ask me any questions / make other points.
Online sports betting is now legal in a variety of states (most legalized this year) & is rapidly expanding to others. Sports betting is very, very similar to derivatives trading.
Similarities:
- It's a f'ing thrill.
- The markets move, quickly. We see this in derivatives trading with earnings, regulation changes, central bank policy, etc. Volatility can shoot up or crash down, the underlying price moves as people trade, expressing their opinions in the market. Similarly, the Ravens may be -400 before the game, but Lamar gets COVID and they're quickly -200. Or sharp bettors come in and massively move a line. In trading & sports betting, you are using mathematics, statistics and all of the information you have at the time to make informed "trades" (e.g. bets).
- This isn't investing where you're holding for years and hoping to realize some expected return. Especially for weekly/daily expirations, it's super similar to sports betting in that usually you know whether you were right or wrong fairly quickly. If you're buying a call option on AAPL for earnings, you'll know shortly after that earnings call if you're winning or losing. Just like buying an NBA team in a game and checking the score in the 1Q.
-You're trading/betting against algorithms.
- You can win. We see all the time here people consistently making money trading derivatives. It's the same in sports. This isn't slots or roulette; you can beat the house.
Differences:
- US sportsbooks are inefficient markets. Arbitrage exists. You can't go onto Fidelity and buy an option for $1 while simultaneously selling it for $1.10 on Robinhood. You can in sports betting; the books all have different, independent lines.
- Promotions exist; a lot of these sportsbooks (such as DraftKings, a $20 billion company) offer hundreds of dollars in site credit to new users when they join.

https://www.bovada.lv/contents/rewards
2500 points = $1
When earning points, there's a multiplier, depending on the game. For some games, even ones with moderately high house edges like roulette, it's 1x ($1 bet earns you 1 point). Not good. For straight sports bets, it's 3x. Meh. But for parlays, it's 25x!
And even though it's in the title, I'm gonna need to say this, because I know some people right now are screaming "Because they're parlays dude! That's why! They're horrible!" Nope, not true, at least not at Bovada. And from what I understand/assume, most online sportsbooks. (I'd be curious to know how many sportsbooks still butcher their parlays.) They pay exactly the same as if you bet at -110 and let it ride over and over. In the end it's the same ~5% house edge, you are simply increasing volatility (drastically, I might add, which I'm aware can ruin you, but that's not the point here). Another example of these butchered parlays, is your typical 5 team parlay. At Bovada (and probably most online sportsbooks), it pays almost 25:1. Yet go Google "what does a 5 team parlay pay" and you will get answers like 20:1.
Also, in general, these rewards are better than they look. Which they look like this... Sports pays 3x, and 2500 points is $1. So it requires $833 of bets to earn $1. "That's awful!" Except you're not spending $833, you're gambling it; the vast majority of that $833 will be returned to you. So let's multiply that $833 by 5% (roughly the house edge of sports betting and roulette) = only $42?! Yup, $833 is really $42 truly spent... So they're giving you $1 back for every $42 you're projected to lose. That's not insignificant, and is on par with other reward programs in life, such as your credit card. But still, $1 for $42 is not that great. OK well that's just regular sports bets that are 3x. Parlays are 25x the points (733% more points than straight bets, a shocking difference, thus why I made this thread), so now we're talking about getting $1 for every $5 you're projected to lose. Keyword projected, as you will be paid whether you win or lose. So mathematically, parlays pay 20% of the house edge back to you at Bovada, whereas straight sports bets only pay 2.4%. That's a considerable amount of house edge removed to consider playing more parlays, despite the variance.
Kind of strange if you ask me. Like the reason you still might not want to bet parlays, despite the lower effective house edge, is the swings. Agreed. OK, but swings don't affect the casino, so what reason would they offer this? It doesn't make them more money. Not unless the average person bets literally 9x as much when they bet parlays. Which obviously isn't true. So they're encouraging people to play parlays, giving them 8x the rewards, why?

TL:DR

• This is Part 1 of my two part deep dive on DraftKings (Ticker: DKNG, I will refer to the company as “DK”)
• This first part introduces you to (1) me, (2) the company, (3) my thesis on the company, and (4) digs into how they make money.
• The second part (already released, you can read it here - but get through part 1 first :) ) will go in depth to explore the question “Can we 10x from here?”
• DK is an exciting, disruptive company working to change how we experience watching sports and make it better.
• I am not a financial advisor and this is not investment advice. These are just my opinions to help facilitate learning and discussion.

Hello, welcome to my first deep dive write up.
My name’s Mark and I’m an accountant with a passion for investing. About two years ago, I used to work as an auditor at a public accounting firm and have been behind the scenes at many different publicly traded and privately held companies in the U.S. My goal is to bring my unique perspective from that past experience, my current experience working in a new role at a large corporation, and my understanding of accounting to help break down some of the most exciting growth stocks on the market today.
I’m a long-term investor. I am focused on finding great companies and holding them for a long time. I’m willing to endure volatility, crazy price drops, and everything that comes with this approach as long as the facts that led me to originally invest and believe in that company have not changed. If you want to learn more about this approach. I recommend reading the book “100 Baggers” by Chris Mayer.
Introduction
I think it’s fitting that my first stock pick has to do with sports. Sports has been a part of my life since I could walk at the age of 2. First with baseball and soccer, and then later in my childhood with golf. I’ve always played American football and basketball for fun as well and have always been an avid fan of all the major sports in the US.
I started playing fantasy sports (mostly just fantasy football) about 6 years ago and have always enjoyed it. Traditionally, with fantasy football you draft a team at the beginning of the year and those are your players for the rest of the season. If you have a bad draft, oh well. You can try to improve your team with trades and free agent additions but it is tough. Leagues usually consist of 10-14 teams (each managed by an individual) and there’s obviously only one winner at the end of the season (about 4 months after the draft). This can lead to the managers of the lower performing teams losing interest as the season wanes on. I believe DraftKings’ (DK) founders saw this issue and saw an opportunity. Enter, daily fantasy sports. Now, with the DK platform you can draft a new team every week. Or if you want, every day. This allows fans of fantasy sports to engage at whichever point of the season they want and at varying financial stakes.
The Thesis Statement
For every stock pick I make, I want to provide a quick thesis statement that can serve as a reminder for why I’m buying and holding that stock for the long term. I’ll always aim to make it just a few sentences long so it can easily be remembered and internalized. This helps during times when the price may sporadically drop and you need to remember why you’re holding this position.
The thesis statement I have come up with for DK is as follows:
“DraftKings: The leader in allowing fans to engage financially with their favorite sports, teams, and players. Having money at stake makes the game a lot more interesting to watch. The era of daily fantasy sports games, online sports betting, and online betting (outside of sports), is just getting started and DK is as well positioned (or better positioned) than anyone to capitalize off of this trend.”
Notice how I said “allowing fans to engage financially” as the first sentence and not necessarily “allowing fans to gamble”. There’s a reason for that. According to US Federal Law, Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) contests have specifically been exempted from the prohibitions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). DK has always been, and I believe will continue to be DFS contests 1st, sports betting 2nd, and other forms of gambling/entertainment 3rd. It is noteworthy that states at an individual level can still deem DFS contests illegal if they so wish, but as of this writing (11/26/20), 43 of the 50 US States allow DFS contests and DK, accordingly, is offering DFS contests in all 43 of those US States.
I’ll try to clarify the difference between DFS contests and sports betting real quick:
DFS Contest – Pay a pre-set entry fee to enter a contest. All entry fees go towards “The Pot”. “Draft” 9 players to be on your “Team” for 1 week. Enter your “Roster” into a contest with other players (could range from 1 other person to 1,000s of people, the DK user can choose). Whichever “Roster” amasses the most points for that week out of all contestants wins. The winner will get the highest payout, and depending on the nature of the contest, other top finishers will receive smaller payouts as well.
Sports Gambling – Team A is considered a 10 point favorite to defeat Team B. This means that Team A is expected, by the professional gambling line setters, to outscore Team B by 10 points. This is known as a point spread. You can bet on the underdog or the favorite. If you bet on the favorite, they have to win by more than 10 points for you to win the bet. If you bet on the underdog, you will win the bet as long as the underdog keeps the game within less than a 10 point defeat.
These are just a couple simple examples to help you see the difference. Sports Gambling (the 2nd priority of DK) is a very lucrative market just as the DFS contests are. However, in the US, Federal Laws and regulations are a lot stricter on Sports Gambling than they are on DFS. As of this writing (11/27/20), 22 states (including the District of Columbia) out of 51 possible allow sports gambling.
DK is still in the infancy stages of getting their sports gambling business going. In the 22 states where they could potentially operate, they currently have a sports gambling offering in 11 of those states. The sports gambling business model for DK can be broken into two main offerings – mobile sports betting, and retail sports betting. Mobile sports betting means you can place a sports bet online from the comfort of your own home, while retail sports betting means you must go to a casino and place a bet with the sportsbook in person. I personally believe mobile sports betting is the real potential cash cow for DK out of the two types of sports betting offerings due to the convenience and ease of access. DK is currently working on and encouraging customers to lobby their state lawmakers to legalize sports gambling in more states.
How DK makes money
At the very least, before you invest in a company, you better understand how they make money. In Chris Mayers’ excellent book, 100 Baggers, that I mentioned above, he continually references top line revenue growth as one of the main common indicators of a possible 100 Bagger. This isn’t to tell you that any stock I pick will be a 100 Bagger just because it has great top line revenue growth, but if I am looking at a growth stock to hold for the long term, revenue growth is one of the first things I look at.
For DK, their means of making money is quite simple. I already went into detail above about DFS Contests and Sports Gambling. In DK’s latest 10-Q filing with the SEC (filed 11/13/20), revenue is broken out into two main streams: Online Gaming and Gaming Software.
Online Gaming (82% of Total Revenue for 9 months ended 9/30/20):
Online gaming is the true core business of DK and includes the aforementioned DFS Contests, Sports Gambling and additional gambling (non-sports) opportunities. DK refers to their additional gambling (non-sports) as “iGaming” or “online casino”.
For the 9 months ended 9/30/20, Online Gaming revenue totaled $239M, up 30% YoY from $184M in the same prior year period. Keep in mind, that this is an increase that happened during a COVID-19 global pandemic that delayed and shortened many professional sports seasons.
Online gaming revenue is earned in a few ways that are slightly different, but very similar overall. In order to enter a DFS contest, a customer must pay an entry fee. DFS revenue is generated from these entry fees collected, net of prize payouts and customer incentives awarded to users. In order to place a sports bet (sports gambling), a customer places a wager with a DK Sportsbook. The DK Sportsbook sets odds for each wager that builds in a theoretical margin allowing DK to profit. Sports gambling revenue is generated from wagers collected from customers, net of payouts and incentives awarded to winning customers. The last form of online gaming revenue is earned in similar fashion to a land-based casino, offering online versions of casino games such as blackjack, roulette, and slot machines.
Gaming Software (18% of Total Revenue for 9 months ended 9/30/20):
While the Online Gaming revenue stream mentioned above is a Business to Consumer (B2C) model, the Gaming Software revenue stream is a Business to Business (B2B) model. The Gaming Software side of the business was born out of the acquisition of SBTech, a company from the Isle of Man (near the UK) founded in 2007 that has 12+ years of experience providing online sports betting platforms to clients all over the world. The acquisition occurred as part of the SPAC driven IPO in April of 2020 that combined “the old DK company” with SBTech so that they now are “the new DK company” listed as DKNG on the NASDAQ. SBTech is a far more important part of the story than just being 18% of today’s revenue. The reason for this is because DK will eventually (planned mid-late 2021) be migrating all of their DFS and gambling offerings onto SBTech’s online platforms. Currently, for DFS, DK uses their own proprietary platform but that will move to SBTech with the migration. Currently, for online gambling, DK uses Kambi, the same online gambling platform that services Penn Gaming (PENN), a DK rival. But that’s enough about the software migration for now, back to the Gaming Software revenue.
The Gaming Software revenue stream for DK is essentially a continuation of SBTechs’ B2B business model. DK contracts with business customers to provide sports and casino betting software solutions. DK typically enters two different type of arrangements with B2B customers when selling the gaming software:

1. Direct Customer Contract Revenue: In this type of transaction, the software is sold directly to a business (casino for example) that wants to use the software for their own gambling operations. This revenue is generally calculated as a percentage of the wagering revenue generated by the business customer using DK’s software and is recognized in the periods in which those wagering and related activities conclude.
2. Reseller Arrangement Revenue: In this type of transaction, DK provides distributors with the right to resell DK’s software-as-a-service offering to their clients, using their own infrastructure. In reseller arrangements, revenue is generally calculated via a fixed monthly fee and an additional monthly fee which varies based on the number of gaming operators to whom each reseller sub-licenses DK’s software.

As mentioned above, SBTech was an international company based in the Isle of Man before being acquired by DK. Thus, the majority of their business in their first 12 years of operating independently has always been international and outside of the United States. This has helped DK, which has historically been US focused, expand it’s international reach.
A perfect example of expanding this international reach occurred recently during October (technically Q4) in which DK’s B2B technology (powered by SBTech) helped enable the launch of “PalaceBet”, a new mobile and online sportsbook offering from Peermont, a South Africa based resort and casino company. The deal was headed by DK’s new Chief International Officer, Shay Berka, who previously spent 10 years working for SBTech as CFO and General Manager. Mr. Berka took on the role of DK’s Chief International Officer upon the merger in April earlier this year. I think this deal shows that DK has integrated SBTech and it’s business very well into the larger business as a whole. They are not wasting any time using their newly acquired resources to expand their reach and bring in new sources of revenue.
This is the end of my first article about DK. My goal is to drop Part 2 later this week. The focus of Part 2 will be an in depth answer of the question – “Can we 10x from here?”
Disclosure: I am/we are long DKNG. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

TL:DR

• This is Part 1 of my two part deep dive on DraftKings (Ticker: DKNG, I will refer to the company as “DK”)
• This first part introduces you to (1) me, (2) the company, (3) my thesis on the company, and (4) digs into how they make money.
• The second part (to be released later this week) will go in depth to explore the question “Can we 10x from here?”
• DK is an exciting, disruptive company working to change how we experience watching sports and make it better.
• I am not a financial advisor and this is not investment advice. These are just my opinions to help facilitate learning and discussion.

Hello, welcome to my first deep dive write up.
My name’s Mark and I’m an accountant with a passion for investing. About two years ago, I used to work as an auditor at a public accounting firm and have been behind the scenes at many different publicly traded and privately held companies in the U.S. My goal is to bring my unique perspective from that past experience, my current experience working in a new role at a large corporation, and my understanding of accounting to help break down some of the most exciting growth stocks on the market today.
I’m a long-term investor. I am focused on finding great companies and holding them for a long time. I’m willing to endure volatility, crazy price drops, and everything that comes with this approach as long as the facts that led me to originally invest and believe in that company have not changed. If you want to learn more about this approach. I recommend reading the book “100 Baggers” by Chris Mayer.
Introduction
I think it’s fitting that my first stock pick has to do with sports. Sports has been a part of my life since I could walk at the age of 2. First with baseball and soccer, and then later in my childhood with golf. I’ve always played American football and basketball for fun as well and have always been an avid fan of all the major sports in the US.
I started playing fantasy sports (mostly just fantasy football) about 6 years ago and have always enjoyed it. Traditionally, with fantasy football you draft a team at the beginning of the year and those are your players for the rest of the season. If you have a bad draft, oh well. You can try to improve your team with trades and free agent additions but it is tough. Leagues usually consist of 10-14 teams (each managed by an individual) and there’s obviously only one winner at the end of the season (about 4 months after the draft). This can lead to the managers of the lower performing teams losing interest as the season wanes on. I believe DraftKings’ (DK) founders saw this issue and saw an opportunity. Enter, daily fantasy sports. Now, with the DK platform you can draft a new team every week. Or if you want, every day. This allows fans of fantasy sports to engage at whichever point of the season they want and at varying financial stakes.
The Thesis Statement
For every stock pick I make, I want to provide a quick thesis statement that can serve as a reminder for why I’m buying and holding that stock for the long term. I’ll always aim to make it just a few sentences long so it can easily be remembered and internalized. This helps during times when the price may sporadically drop and you need to remember why you’re holding this position.
The thesis statement I have come up with for DK is as follows:
“DraftKings: The leader in allowing fans to engage financially with their favorite sports, teams, and players. Having money at stake makes the game a lot more interesting to watch. The era of daily fantasy sports games, online sports betting, and online betting (outside of sports), is just getting started and DK is as well positioned (or better positioned) than anyone to capitalize off of this trend.”
Notice how I said “allowing fans to engage financially” as the first sentence and not necessarily “allowing fans to gamble”. There’s a reason for that. According to US Federal Law, Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) contests have specifically been exempted from the prohibitions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). DK has always been, and I believe will continue to be DFS contests 1st, sports betting 2nd, and other forms of gambling/entertainment 3rd. It is noteworthy that states at an individual level can still deem DFS contests illegal if they so wish, but as of this writing (11/26/20), 43 of the 50 US States allow DFS contests and DK, accordingly, is offering DFS contests in all 43 of those US States.
I’ll try to clarify the difference between DFS contests and sports betting real quick:
DFS Contest – Pay a pre-set entry fee to enter a contest. All entry fees go towards “The Pot”. “Draft” 9 players to be on your “Team” for 1 week. Enter your “Roster” into a contest with other players (could range from 1 other person to 1,000s of people, the DK user can choose). Whichever “Roster” amasses the most points for that week out of all contestants wins. The winner will get the highest payout, and depending on the nature of the contest, other top finishers will receive smaller payouts as well.
Sports Gambling – Team A is considered a 10 point favorite to defeat Team B. This means that Team A is expected, by the professional gambling line setters, to outscore Team B by 10 points. This is known as a point spread. You can bet on the underdog or the favorite. If you bet on the favorite, they have to win by more than 10 points for you to win the bet. If you bet on the underdog, you will win the bet as long as the underdog keeps the game within less than a 10 point defeat.
These are just a couple simple examples to help you see the difference. Sports Gambling (the 2nd priority of DK) is a very lucrative market just as the DFS contests are. However, in the US, Federal Laws and regulations are a lot stricter on Sports Gambling than they are on DFS. As of this writing (11/27/20), 22 states (including the District of Columbia) out of 51 possible allow sports gambling.
DK is still in the infancy stages of getting their sports gambling business going. In the 22 states where they could potentially operate, they currently have a sports gambling offering in 11 of those states. The sports gambling business model for DK can be broken into two main offerings – mobile sports betting, and retail sports betting. Mobile sports betting means you can place a sports bet online from the comfort of your own home, while retail sports betting means you must go to a casino and place a bet with the sportsbook in person. I personally believe mobile sports betting is the real potential cash cow for DK out of the two types of sports betting offerings due to the convenience and ease of access. DK is currently working on and encouraging customers to lobby their state lawmakers to legalize sports gambling in more states.
How DK makes money
At the very least, before you invest in a company, you better understand how they make money. In Chris Mayers’ excellent book, 100 Baggers, that I mentioned above, he continually references top line revenue growth as one of the main common indicators of a possible 100 Bagger. This isn’t to tell you that any stock I pick will be a 100 Bagger just because it has great top line revenue growth, but if I am looking at a growth stock to hold for the long term, revenue growth is one of the first things I look at.
For DK, their means of making money is quite simple. I already went into detail above about DFS Contests and Sports Gambling. In DK’s latest 10-Q filing with the SEC (filed 11/13/20), revenue is broken out into two main streams: Online Gaming and Gaming Software.
Online Gaming (82% of Total Revenue for 9 months ended 9/30/20):
Online gaming is the true core business of DK and includes the aforementioned DFS Contests, Sports Gambling and additional gambling (non-sports) opportunities. DK refers to their additional gambling (non-sports) as “iGaming” or “online casino”.
For the 9 months ended 9/30/20, Online Gaming revenue totaled $239M, up 30% YoY from $184M in the same prior year period. Keep in mind, that this is an increase that happened during a COVID-19 global pandemic that delayed and shortened many professional sports seasons.
Online gaming revenue is earned in a few ways that are slightly different, but very similar overall. In order to enter a DFS contest, a customer must pay an entry fee. DFS revenue is generated from these entry fees collected, net of prize payouts and customer incentives awarded to users. In order to place a sports bet (sports gambling), a customer places a wager with a DK Sportsbook. The DK Sportsbook sets odds for each wager that builds in a theoretical margin allowing DK to profit. Sports gambling revenue is generated from wagers collected from customers, net of payouts and incentives awarded to winning customers. The last form of online gaming revenue is earned in similar fashion to a land-based casino, offering online versions of casino games such as blackjack, roulette, and slot machines.
Gaming Software (18% of Total Revenue for 9 months ended 9/30/20):
While the Online Gaming revenue stream mentioned above is a Business to Consumer (B2C) model, the Gaming Software revenue stream is a Business to Business (B2B) model. The Gaming Software side of the business was born out of the acquisition of SBTech, a company from the Isle of Man (near the UK) founded in 2007 that has 12+ years of experience providing online sports betting platforms to clients all over the world. The acquisition occurred as part of the SPAC driven IPO in April of 2020 that combined “the old DK company” with SBTech so that they now are “the new DK company” listed as DKNG on the NASDAQ. SBTech is a far more important part of the story than just being 18% of today’s revenue. The reason for this is because DK will eventually (planned mid-late 2021) be migrating all of their DFS and gambling offerings onto SBTech’s online platforms. Currently, for DFS, DK uses their own proprietary platform but that will move to SBTech with the migration. Currently, for online gambling, DK uses Kambi, the same online gambling platform that services Penn Gaming (PENN), a DK rival. But that’s enough about the software migration for now, back to the Gaming Software revenue.
The Gaming Software revenue stream for DK is essentially a continuation of SBTechs’ B2B business model. DK contracts with business customers to provide sports and casino betting software solutions. DK typically enters two different type of arrangements with B2B customers when selling the gaming software:
​

1. Direct Customer Contract Revenue: In this type of transaction, the software is sold directly to a business (casino for example) that wants to use the software for their own gambling operations. This revenue is generally calculated as a percentage of the wagering revenue generated by the business customer using DK’s software and is recognized in the periods in which those wagering and related activities conclude.
2. Reseller Arrangement Revenue: In this type of transaction, DK provides distributors with the right to resell DK’s software-as-a-service offering to their clients, using their own infrastructure. In reseller arrangements, revenue is generally calculated via a fixed monthly fee and an additional monthly fee which varies based on the number of gaming operators to whom each reseller sub-licenses DK’s software.

As mentioned above, SBTech was an international company based in the Isle of Man before being acquired by DK. Thus, the majority of their business in their first 12 years of operating independently has always been international and outside of the United States. This has helped DK, which has historically been US focused, expand it’s international reach.
A perfect example of expanding this international reach occurred recently during October (technically Q4) in which DK’s B2B technology (powered by SBTech) helped enable the launch of “PalaceBet”, a new mobile and online sportsbook offering from Peermont, a South Africa based resort and casino company. The deal was headed by DK’s new Chief International Officer, Shay Berka, who previously spent 10 years working for SBTech as CFO and General Manager. Mr. Berka took on the role of DK’s Chief International Officer upon the merger in April earlier this year. I think this deal shows that DK has integrated SBTech and it’s business very well into the larger business as a whole. They are not wasting any time using their newly acquired resources to expand their reach and bring in new sources of revenue.
This is the end of my first article about DK. My goal is to drop Part 2 later this week. The focus of Part 2 will be an in depth answer of the question – “Can we 10x from here?”
Disclosure: I am/we are long DKNG. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Posting this on a throwaway account but I think my beginnings into the world of gambling started the same as many if not most others. I started with small sports betting, betting on soccer and I was really good at it. I went from $200 to $55,000 in a couple of months and initially I was really calm and composed and made smart calculated bets and never really went crazy and I had gambled within my means/budget.
In fact, I even cashed out multiple times telling myself I'd never gamble again and to be satisfied with my winnings. But with sports, sports news are everywhere and I'd see news and highlights of soccer matches and I'd feel the regret in not gambling especially when I saw that the results would be something that I would have predicted. This was how I gradually got back into gambling and eventually became out of control. I started going on a losing streak and doubled each of my bets and slowly but surely dwindled all my winning. I then started using my credit cards taking advances and loans telling myself, surely I wouldn't be THAT unlucky and sure enough I lost everything. At this point in time I was about 20k in the hole, I told my mom about this and she helped with the credit card debts. Everyone around me persuaded me to cancel all my line of credit but I was so so confident that I wouldn't go back to gambling again and that I could and should keep my credit cards so that I could make use of cashback and rewards and what not.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the case and again I went through the exact same route and gambled everything using my credit cards again and I got bailed by my mom again. I think I am about 45k in the hole at this point in time. I started working towards repaying my debts but that long dreadful feeling of having to give my monthly paycheck towards paying my debts was just a painful thought and process and AGAIN I relapsed and gambled and gambled and gambled again. Now I owe another 40k and I had to get help from my estranged Dad to pay the banks. I wasn't expecting him to help but he did and at 85k down, surely I'd stop gambling right? This is the 3rd time I got bailed and I ought to learn my lesson, so I looked into other form of making money such as investing into stocks and crypto and I was doing well.
I took out about 30k to buy bitcoin at the beginning or midst of the bullrun when it was at approx 15-18k and as of the time of this post its about 34k? I guess I essentially doubled my money and I told myself you know what? Since I made some good profit, I guess I could spare a little money/sats and I decided to go online gambling and this time on Roulette with my btc and poof before I know it, it's gone. At one point, I lost half of my btc and I told myself If i won everything back I would stop and I actually did!! But I never stopped and kept on gambling till I lost everything. I am currently in debt of 85k to my parents and 30k to the banks and I have little to no way of repaying my debts.
I feel so sorry and horrible but I have totally no self control over myself. On many occasion I actually managed to recover what I had lost or at least a portion of it and every single time I'd tell myself I'd stop after recovering my losses but it never happened. So to the people out there, please quit gambling and cancel or take away any access that you may have to spare cash or line of credits because you will gamble it away. When you're deep into gambling it's no longer about the money but rather the thrill that you get from gambling. All for that short high and by the time you lose everything, you'll feel like shit and filled with immense guilt.
I am at a loss with myself and I don't know what I can do about my debt situation. I'm even contemplating killing myself because I feel so helpless. Even if by some miracle I manage to slowly clear my debts, what's there to say I won't relapse again and start gambling everything and anything I can like the past couple of times? My family has already done all they can financially to bail me out of my gambling debts and yet I've disappointed them again and again.
What should I do?

I grew up in a small mountain town named Eureka. It was founded in the late 1800s during the gold rush, but after the mines dried up the town began its slow descent into decay. Half the houses are empty or abandoned now.
You can see a picture of the kind of houses here in Eureka:
Abandoned House
Non-abandoned House
When a massive construction project began nearby, it was the talk of the town for weeks. Why would they build something in a sleepy dying town like Eureka? It wasn’t until my sister Selene talked to a few construction workers that we discovered they were building a casino.
A casino up in the mountains, over two hours away from Denver. None of us could understand why they’d chosen here of all places. After a few months of work, the casino was done.
I took a picture of the town with the completed casino in the background to the right. The ten-story-structure sticks out like a sore thumb off in the distance.
Town+Casino
After the casino opened, they hired a few dozen members of the town, offering high paying jobs to work as dealers or cleaning staff. I was already employed as a firefighter, but my sister Selene got a job as a blackjack dealer. She’s a widow with two young kids, so the paycheck was a real lifesaver.
Still, something about the situation seemed too good to be true. The jobs over there paid far too well, and the management was far too accommodating. The fire station where I work is located high on a hill overlooking the town, so I began watching the casino from a distance each day.
I had initially thought that the casino was located in a terrible location, but I was apparently wrong. True, Eureka was hours from any major city, but despite that, a bus full of people arrived every morning and left every evening.
One night I was over at my parent’s house and had dinner with Selene and her kids. I asked her about her experience as a dealer.
“It’s Ok,” she said. “Just a little boring I guess.”
“Boring?” I asked. “I’m surprised you don’t have your hands full.”
“Why’s that?” she asked. “It’s like you said, Eureka’s too small. I never have people playing cards. The casino is almost always completely empty.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. If the place was always empty, what happened to the people who I’d seen arriving on buses? “I’ve been keeping an eye on the building,” I said. “A bus full of people typically arrives around 9 AM every day.”
“Really?” she asked, looking confused. “If that’s true, I’ve never seen them.
“I can see it from the fire station,” I said. “If you head out for a smoke break at 9 AM, you’ll probably see them arriving.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I’ll do that. If they’re being processed for their organs or something, I’ll let you know.” She laughed.
“Har har,” I said sarcastically.
The next night she sent me a text calling me over. When I arrived, she was nearly breathless with excitement.
“Orin, You were right,” she said. “A big group of people did arrive, but they didn’t walk into my part of the casino. Instead, they all walked into an elevator at the back of the building. I’m not sure where that goes.” She looked thoughtful. “It was weird. They looked… How can I say it? Desperate? Something about the whole situation was very off. I’m gonna check out the elevator tomorrow.”
I told her to be careful, though, to be honest, I was excited to hear about what she discovered. When I visited my parent’s house the next night, I found her two kids there alone. They told me that Selene had never returned from work.
I called all her friends, then all our neighbors, but no one had seen her since she left for work that morning. Our conversations regarding the casino flooded my mind, then a plan began to form.
Early the next morning I walked across town in my nicest pair of jeans and a button-up shirt. I pushed through the door to the casino and saw that Selene wasn’t lying. The place was all but deserted. Three dozen slot machines crowded the walls surrounding a few tables interspersed throughout the floor of the casino. The only players in the whole building were Bob and Donald, two locals.
I walked up to a nearby table where Bridget, a girl I’d gone to high school with, was shuffling cards. She broke into a grin when she saw me. “Hey Orin, you here for a few rounds of blackjack?”
“I wish,” I said. “No, I’m here to ask about Selene. She never made it home last night.”
Bridget’s expression darkened. “Really? Have you asked around?”
“I already called around. Have you seen her?”
She shook her head. “No, our schedules rarely line up. I’ll be sure to let you know if I--” Her eyes focused on something behind me, and she cut herself off.
I turned around to see the casino’s pit boss watching us both. He was a tall thin man in an impeccably clean black suit. When I turned back towards Bridget, she was looking down at the table and shuffling cards absent-mindedly.
“Well, if you hear anything, let me know,” I said.
She nodded, so I turned around and headed for the pit boss. I stuck out my hand. The temperature of his hand was so hot that I had to pull my hand away after a few seconds.
“Have… have you seen my sister Selene?” I asked. “She hasn’t been seen since her shift here yesterday.”
He smiled. “Sir, this floor is for players. You’re more than welcome to head to the tellers for chips, but barring that I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
I stared at him for a long second before stalking towards the door. When I looked back, he was talking with Bridget.
I checked my watch. 8:55 AM, just as I’d planned. I walked around the back of the building and waited as the morning bus pulled around the building. I waited for the telltale hiss of the opening doors and the sound of people descending before I rounded the corner and joined the crowd. None of them paid any particular attention to me as I walked with them into the casino.
The crowd walked through a side door down a hallway to an elevator. Small groups of people entered the elevator as the rest of us waited for our turn. I shot a glance at the casino patrons, surprised at their diversity. There seemed to be people from all different countries and ethnicities. I heard one speaking Japanese and another speaking what sounded like an African language.
My turn came along with a few other patrons in the elevator. A sickly woman hobbled into the elevator beside me carrying an IV that was still connected to one of her veins. We piled in and rode up to the top.
The elevator rose for a few long seconds. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I steeled myself for something horrible. The elevator’s speaker let out a TING, then the doors opened.
We all walked out onto what looked like a standard casino. Another few dozen slot machines ringed the walls, but on this floor, they were almost all occupied by customers. I took in the scene, confused at why they’d have a ground floor that was almost completely empty when this place was almost--
Selene was dealing cards at a nearby table.
I jogged over and sat down at an open seat. None of the players around me paid me much attention.
“Selene!” I said. “Are you OK? Did you spend the night here last night?”
Her eyes were glassy and confused. She looked up at me with a dumb expression and didn’t respond to my question.
“Selene?” I asked.
“What’s your bet?” she asked me. “This table is for blackjack players only.”
“I…” I trailed off, looking at the players around me. None of them were betting with chips of any kind. “What’s the minimum bet?” I asked.
“Three years,” she responded.
“Three years then,” I said, not knowing what that referred to.
Selene nodded, then began dealing cards. I shot a look down at my hand. King and a 9. Selene dealt out cards for herself, showing a 9. I stood, then leaned forward again. “Should I call the police? Are you--”
“Congratulations,” she said tonelessly.
An almost impossibly warm hand grabbed my shoulder. I spun to see the pit boss I’d spoken to earlier. He gave an impressed smile. “Orin, was it? I’m impressed, truly. Would you mind if I had a word with you?”
I shot a look back at Selene who was dealing the next round of cards. Then I got to my feet, balling my hands into fists. “What did you do to her?”
The pit boss clasped his hands behind his back. “Nothing more, and nothing less than what I’m going to do to you. That is, offer you the chance to play.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The pit boss nodded his head towards a nearby slot machine. A woman in a wheelchair pulled a lever and watched the flashing numbers spin. They exploded in a cacophony of sirens and flashing lights. “WINNER WINNER WINNER!” The machine screeched.
The woman in the wheelchair put her feet on the ground and stood up on a pair of wobbly legs that had clearly never been used before.
“As in any other casino,” the pit boss said, “you must wager for the chance to win.”
“She... won the use of her legs?” I asked, feeling light-headed. “Wait,” I said. “I played blackjack just now. ‘Three years,’ Selene told me. What does ‘three years’ mean?” I asked.
“Three years of life, of course. Did you win?”
My mouth felt dry. “I-- Yes, I won.”
He smiled warmly. “Congratulations. I hope you enjoy them. I can tell you from personal experience that watching the decades pass is a bore. Give it some time and you’ll be back to spend them.”
I watched the pit boss’s face. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, and I was in my early thirties. I looked around at the casino. No one was playing with chips of any kind. “So what?” I asked. “I won years of life. That woman won the use of her legs. What else can a person win here?”
“Oh, almost anything. They can win almost anything you can imagine.”
A cold feeling settled in my stomach. “And what do they wager?”
His eyes flashed with greed. “Almost anything. They can wager almost anything you can possibly imagine. Anything equal in value to the item they want in return.” He nodded towards a nearby roulette table.
A man stood by the table, cradling his hands. “Another finger,” he called out. He only had three fingers remaining on his left hand. As I watched, the ball came to a stop, and another finger disappeared from his left hand.
The pit boss extended his hands. “Feel free to try any of our games. Bet and win whatever you’d like.” He reached out and snatched my hand. A feeling of intense warmth passed up my arm to my chest. “There,” he said. “I’ve even given you some house money to get you started. An extra decade of life, on me.”
I ripped my hand away, staring at him in horror. Then I looked back at Selene. Something clicked in my mind. “You offered her the chance to play. What did she want?” I asked.
“Her husband,” the pit boss said. “Quite the sad story. He died two years ago. She wanted him brought back to her.”
“What did she wager?” I asked.
“She wanted the chance to win a soul, the most valuable object in existence. I’m sure you can imagine what she needed to wager for the chance to win it. What she wagered is unimportant. The important question is: What do you want, Orin?”
I stared at Selene with a flat expression. “I’m sure you can imagine.”
His eyes flashed with greed again. “How wonderful. The casino could always make use of another dealer. Feel free to make your wager at any one of our games; I’ll be eagerly awaiting the results of your night. Oh, and do take advantage of our waitresses. We always supply food and drink for ‘high rollers’.” He walked away.
I spent the next few hours trying to decide which game to play. I was going to be wagering my soul, so I wanted the highest chance possible. Slots and roulette were out. I’d done some reading online about counting cards, so I figured that blackjack gave me the best odds.
I walked up to Selene’s table and sat down. “Bet?” she asked with that same toneless voice. “Three years,” I said.
I spent the next hour or so doing my best to remember how to count cards. I knew that low cards added one to my count and high cards decreased it by one, but the casino used three decks. I had read something about how that was supposed to change my calculation, but I couldn’t quite remember how.
Every time I won a hand, I cursed myself for not putting everything on the line. Every time I lost, I breathed a prayer of thanks that I’d waited. And all the while, I kept track of the count.
I had lost fifteen years of life when the count finally reached +5.
“Bet?” Selene asked.
“I wager my soul so you can be free,” I said.
The table around me fell silent. Selene’s eyes flickered, but she showed no other emotion as she dealt the cards. I watched my first card, punching the air in excitement when I saw a Jack. My excitement turned to ash when my second card was a four. Fourteen.
I looked at her hand. One card was facedown, but the faceup card was a King. I swore loudly, staring down at my hands.
“Hit?” she asked. The entire table was silently watching me.
“Hit,” I said, not looking down. The table erupted in cheers. I looked down to see a 7 atop my two other cards. 21. Blackjack.
I looked at Selene who flipped over her facedown card to reveal a 9. 19. I won.
The glassy look left her eyes immediately. She looked around in surprise, then her eyes locked on mine. “Orin?” she asked, then almost immediately began to cry. The entire casino broke out in cheers.
I grabbed her hand and headed for the elevator. The doors had begun to close when the pit boss reached out with a hand to stop them.
“Congratulations,” he said, beaming. He seemed to be honestly excited.
“Shouldn’t you be upset?” I asked.
“Not at all. Casinos love it when we have big winners. It inspires the other players to make larger bets. I imagine I’ll gain two or three dealers before the night is through from your performance.”
“Great,” I said flatly. “Now let us go.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You didn’t just win, Orin. You got a blackjack. And blackjack pays out 1.5 times your bet. You won your sister’s soul and more.”
I stared, not sure what to say. “What are you saying? I won half a soul extra?”
The pit boss grinned wildly. “Just remember what I said. You’ll find living for decades and decades to be a boring experience. After a few centuries, you’ll be back to gamble that half a soul away. Congratulations!”
He removed his hand, and the elevator doors slammed shut.
I helped Selene back to her house. Her children were relieved. I watched them cry, then moved into the kitchen to start making dinner.
It’s been a few days since that experience. The casino is still out there, and buses full of people still arrive. I… I cut my hand pretty bad a few days later. When I checked it an hour later, it had already healed, no scar or anything. I’m not sure exactly what I won at that casino, but there’s no way I’m ever going back.
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A /cscareerquestions College Survival Guide

With our final school year beginning, we were reflecting on how lost and confused we were when we first started university. We made a lot of mistakes (still am) along the way, but we’re in a much better place after learning from them and constantly putting ourselves out there. In hopes of shining some light and helping others, we decided to make a comprehensive guide for university students – based on our knowledge/experiences - on how to start your successful CS Career (or gain the wisdom to avoid CS altogether, more on this later).
rishiss Background: I am a 4th year student at UC Irvine majoring in Software Engineering. I am an incoming Software Engineer at a F100 company (received return offer after interning this summer). Before that, I interned at an R & D center for space, a small cloud company, and a small IT company. I have a 3.65 GPA, won a few awards at startup competitions/hackathons, and remain pretty active in my schools CS organizations.
chaitu65c Background: I’m a 4th year student at UC Irvine majoring in Computer Science. I’m currently a SWE Intern at a Unicorn and just wrapped up my 2nd internship at a Live Streaming Company(you can most likely tell who they are if you browse my history LOL). Before this, I interned at my school’s IT department, did research under a professor, and worked on a few small startups that other UCI students were building. I have a 3.3 GPA, won some awards along rishiss and was pretty active in my school’s CS clubs.
Disclaimer: “But rishiss/ and chaitu65c, you don’t work at a Big N, go to a target CS school, why should I take your advice?” You’re absolutely right; we are, by no means, ‘up there’ like some other folks on this sub. And, you don’t have to take our advice! Simply close this tab and do whatever else you want 😊. Our intent is to guide and prepare uni students for a CS career they enjoy, not work at Big N or get the highest TC. Life is much more than a dick-measuring contest, and the earlier you learn that the better.
We have also created a guide with our own personal advice/stories

Please, take this advice with a grain of salt. we’re not Tony Robinson or Tim Apple, we’re just two random reddit users.

Table of Contents:

This guide is divided into the following sections:

• Is CS Right For Me?
• Classes
• Projects
• Hackathons
• Resume
• Friends and Networking
• Freshman Year
• Sophomore Year
• Junior Year
• Senior Year
• Searching for Internships
• Searching for Full Time Jobs
• Final Thoughts

Is CS Right For Me?

The way we see it, there’s 3 types of people pursuing CS.

1. Those who know CS isn’t for them – They’re in it for the money, to appease their parents, for a minorequirement, some external factor. They hated programming while taking the introductory CS course and just try to get done with their class/degree ASAP.

Advice: The majority of people who fall under this usually burn out quickly, as they aren’t motivated enough to learn the material and to apply themselves. This usually leads to them cheating and getting kicked out of their major, minor, or university altogether. Even if you manage to earn a degree, we've seen a large number of these folks endure a 'pre-mature' mid-life crisis or simply get fired from their jobs. Before you even start this major, you should definitely understand that this isn’t going to be easy, and you do have to put in a lot of effort to succeed. If this isn’t your cup of tea, definitely look into switching into another major you like.
Some folks are really passionate about technology, but don't want to pursue an entire Computer Science major or see themselves as Software Engineers. That's completely ok! Try looking into related majors or minors. We know many students who switched from CS to majors like Informatics, Business Information Management, and Economics and are thriving in tech-related roles like Data Analytics, Product Management, UI/UX Design, and Technical Recruiting. CS is not (and should not be) for everyone, and there is no shame in having the wisdom quit and move on.

1. Those who don’t know if CS is for them – Where most of the CS community is IMO. These folks (like me, rishiss) are riddled with something called Imposter Syndrome: “the constant feeling of not being good enough or knowing enough to do your job well.”

Advice: For students, really take the time to learn and be open to anything you go through. Try sticking it out until you've taken a Data Structures course, one of the harder, more important courses out there. If you're not understanding the material or just aren't having fun with it, it’s definitely ok to switch majors/careers. Otherwise, CS just might be the career for you! Give it your best shot!
Admittedly, it's hard to provide stronger insight to overcoming Imposter Syndrome, as I am afflicted by it as well. For me, my IS derives from constantly comparing myself to others and confusing inexperience with incompetency. As such, I continue to work and focus on myself and take baby steps towards smaller goals I set out for myself. Knowing that I've put the effort to improve myself by just 1% everyday has made me a lot more confident.

1. Those who know for a fact CS is for them – The diamonds in the rough. Learning and practicing CS material gives them a euphoric high.

Advice: Broaden your scope and learn new areas of CS! Who knows, you might find another new field that you really want to work in. Other than that, definitely make new friends regardless of whether they’re a CS major or not. Even try pursuing other hobbies like weightlifting, reading, dancing, or even public speaking. Don't limit yourself!

Freshman Year

We recommend not taking more than 3-4 classes in your first quartesemester, as you shouold keep an ample amount of time to go to professional/social events, make new friends and hang out with them, and pursue your interests.
We've seen a lot of freshmen (and upperclassmen) CS folks get cooped up in their dorm rooms playing video games and watching TV. We understand that these two are a passion for many, but please be cautious to not get consumed by them.
You have the privilege of pursuing higher education, making valuable connections/memories, and setting up your CS career in the trajectory you want. This year is the best year to take advantage of all that university has to offer; make the most of it.
One of the best ways to get involved in your school’s/region’s CS community is by joining clubs like ACM and WICS and participating in hackathons (see ‘Hackathon’ section below). Try pursuing internships and positions in these organizations and events as well!
One, major issue we see with freshmen (even upperclassmen) is their ignorance on all the avenues available in the CS Industry. So we’ve tried to narrow it down (not exhaustive).

1. Cyber Security Engineer
2. Front-End Web Developer
3. Backend Web Developer
4. UI/UX Designer
5. DevOps/Cloud/Site-Reliability Engineers
6. Mobile Engineer
7. QA Engineer
8. Product Manager
9. Data Scientist (Machine Learning/AI)
10. Embedded Software Engineer
11. Systems Administrator
12. Database Administrator (The Wizards)
13. Networking Engineer
14. Hardware Engineer
15. OS Developer
16. Video Game Developer
17. Solutions Architect/Sales EngineeTechnical Account Manager

As a freshman, definitely take the time and see if you can picture yourself doing any of the listed fields. You should open yourself to all facets of CS and not just the “hot field” like Data Science and Machine Learning. Choosing a field because it’s “exciting” will usually lead to bad results as usually, other people are thinking just like you and will lead to over-saturation.
Our recommendation is to select the top 5 fields that have piqued your interest and experiment with the field. For example, if you are interested in Mobile App Development, try learning how to build an Android app from the ground up. A simple weather app or alarm clock is completely suitable for a first project/prototype. This lets you understand what skills you would need for this field and can serve as a forecast as to what your career would look like.
You should definitely look for an internship. Ignore the people that tell you to wait until you’re a junior, as it’s going to be very hard to get an internship if you don’t have any experience. Common places that most students don’t realize are available are usually IT departments at your school and even research with professors. Researching is highly recommended as you can definitely learn more about a field you can be interested in and if you’re interested in graduate school, that’s going to be a letter of recommendation that you can ask for.
If you’re considered a minority in Computer Science, look into first and second year internship programs as they’re meant to help you succeed. Here’s some programs that come to mind:
Google STEP
Microsoft Explore
Amazon Future Engineer
Uber STARInternhip
Facebook University
Another way to get internships is to research into smaller companies in your area. If the company is very small (<100 employees), consider reaching out to the CEO on LinkedIn. They might be able to help you! Also, take advantage of university recruiting websites like Handshake to see companies that directly hire from your school. More info on how to get an internship in the ‘Searching for an Internship’ section.

Sophomore Year

Now that you have basic programming knowledge, create your own website or GitHub account and start contributing to them with small personal projects. Nobody expects you to make a full-stack MERN project hosted and scaled on AWS at this stage. Focus instead on clean code, learning a framework or two on a language you like, and creating a small, robust feature. Grow from there!
If you weren’t able to find an internship/research opportunity as a freshman, community involvement, projects, and hackathons become especially important, as they are a great way to make you stand out on your resume and to recruiters when you reapply. As you brush up on your skills, apply again, and try your luck out.

Data Structures and Algorithms

In addition, you are most likely to take a Data Structures and Algorithms course this year. Make sure you are focusing on this class and writing good notes; you will need this knowledge when interviewing for internships and full-time jobs in the near future. Here is a link to our DS and A course (in C++) for reference

Junior Year

As a junior, companies are more willing to hire you for an internship, as they are likely to convert you into a full-time employee after graduating. This transition process is much easier than interviewing, and they'll usually offer you a higher compensation package if they want to convert you to a full-time employee. As you now should have knowledge of Data Structures and Algorithms, we highly recommend looking into coding interview prep sites like LeetCode and HackerRank or purchasing a prep book like CTCI or EPI (advanced).
Continue to attend hackathons, remain active in clubs/organizations, and grow your portfolio.
Classes will be much harder; expect the time for completing projects to double and the content covered to be much more difficult. We recommend taking no more than 2-3 upper-division CS courses and balancing your load with 1-2 GE classes. You should not be taking more than 16 units (assuming 4 units per course).
Start to get an idea of what field in CS you would like to pursue. Research what it takes to be successful in that field. You can do so by looking up job postings with that title on LinkedIn and looking at the requested skill set or take a look at Roadmap.sh. If you want to learn more about a related skill set and your school doesn't offer a course, consider picking up a class on udemy.com.

Senior Year

Focus heavily on your senior capstone, project classes, etc. as they're the last thing you can put on your resume before applying for full time. By now, you should have at least 3 polished, working projects on your GitHub that you can easily talk about with your recruiter. Preferably, they're aligned with the CS field you wish to enter.
If you were able to get a return offer from an internship, congrats! However, don’t immediately sign the offer. Once you have an offer, you should still try to interview at companies that you’re interested in by the deadline of the time to accept the offer. A good way of doing this is to reach out to a University recruiter for that company and explain the deadline you have. Usually, they’re really helpful and can potentially help skip interviews that you were supposed to do!
In addition, if your friends were able to intern at places you’re interested in, definitely ask for a referral or to send your resume to their recruiter. This usually reduces the risk of being ghosted by that company and increases your chances of getting hired!
Once you finally sign, definitely take the time to relax and enjoy. Just make sure you pass your classes and stay out of trouble

Classes:

What Classes should I take?

Should Already be Required:

• Programming in Java/C++/Python (OOP): This is how you’re gonna start coding.
• Boolean Algebra/Discrete Math: Teaches you some background knowledge to CS.
• Data Structures and Algorithms: Teaches you some ways data is stored and retrieved. Very important as you’re going to be using them a lot.
• Low Level Programming /C: Teaches you what coding used to be like in the old days.
• Computer Architecture: You learn what makes a computer a computer including things like logic gates, registers, memory, and more.

Must Take:

• Computer Networks: Highly recommended as it helps you understand Web protocols like HTTP, TCP, UDP, etc.
• Operating Systems/UNIX: Most important class. Teaches you important things such as the kernel, Threads vs Processes and Process Schedulers.
• Databases/SQL: It’s very likely that your job as a software engineer will be to interact with databases. It’s really good to understand what they are before you enter the industry.
• Programming Languages: Teaches you trade offs between languages like C and Python. It definitely helps when you need to pick up brand new languages!

Good to Have

• Full-stack web dev (pref MERN stack, our school offered both LAMP and MERN)
• Very deep understanding of at least one language. (You’ll be surprised to learn how many students who graduate fail to do this)/
• SemesteYear-Long Capstone course (pref working with a company) if your school supports it: an internship where you get school credits instead of money.
• Compilers: Teaches you how programming languages are implemented 'under the hood.'
• Human Computer Interaction: If you weren’t able to learn Full-stack web dev.

How do I succeed in these classes?

rishiss: You’re more than likely coughing up hundreds, if not thousands, to attend university. It makes no sense to not take full advantage of the course and course staff.

• Do the readings beforehand – Dr. K explains how studying before class is an OP mechanic, also highly recommend this video on how to study by him as well
• Attend EVERY lecture, sit at the front of the class – I’ve seen a metric fuck ton of students in the back of the class with their laptops shopping, trading stocks, scrolling through Reddit, even watching lesbian hentai. By sitting in the front of the class, you’re forced to stay engaged (and close your porn tabs).
• Take notes– People have many, different ways of taking notes; stick with what works for you.

The way I take notes: I learn from examples; I want to enter my code into the IDE to see what happens. I do a three way split; Google Docs on the left, IDE on top right and terminal (to compile, see output, make new file, etc) on bottom left. I note down the date and topic of the lecture and write questions I have in the comments on Docs. I make sure to highlight important information and possible test questions. I even share the link with friends!
​

• Make a study guide, even though the professor does not give you one – Using my Google Docs notes, I compile the highlighted information into a summarized study guide. It’s a fantastic review tool. I’ve even shared the study guide with professors/classmates and gotten their feedback and extra information.
• Go to office hours and become close with 1-2 professors – Some jobs and most masters/PHD programs require letters of recommendation. While you could get reccs from your work, its great to get a letter from someone in academia, especially if they’re established in the field you are pursuing. Get your ass to office hours and show professors that you are curious and motivated by asking questions about assignments, career, or even personal interests. They provide a cornucopia of opportunities, including research, letters of recc, or even the opportunity to pursue a PHD under them.
• Make friends! - Classes are a great way to meet new people with similar interests and expand your professional network. They can especially be a saving graves if you miss a class, don't understand a topic, and need motivation to prepare for an exam. Don't be afraid to say hello!
• START EARLY ON ASSIGNMENTS – I can’t count the number of times starting an assignment early saved my ass. Starting early gives you time to deal with the unexpected: the family emergencies, the late night hangout with friends, the memory leak on line 74. Procrastination is like playing Russian Roulette with your CS career, don’t take the chance. A helpful video on procrastination

In the quarters where I followed the steps above, I never got a grade lower than an A-.

Dealing with Bad Professors

During your time in college, you’re likely going to have at least one bad professor that might make it worse if you have to go to class. If that’s the case, it’s definitely fine to not go to class (as long as it’s not mandatory). However, if you do decide not to go, you must make sure you learn the material, so you won’t be behind on the coursework and studying for tests. In addition, you should be doing something productive on the side. If you don’t go to class and spend the time watching Netflix or playing video games, you’re losing time that you can spend on something that might be fun and can help you in the long run.

You can take Graduate Courses!?

chaitu65c: A highly underutilized set of courses you can take would be graduate courses. Graduate courses are usually very specialized in certain fields. If you were able to take all the undergraduate courses you wanted and still have spare classes to fill out, I'd recommend researching into taking Graduate courses! They’re a good way to build out your specialization and learn new, cool stuff! In addition, if you’re looking for classes to reach the required number of CS courses needed, your CS department might allow you to make the course count towards your degree!

Projects

They're super important.

How do I succeed in class projects?

• Reading the Project Requirements: Before starting to code, read the requirements and understand what you need to do in order to finish. Too many students ask for help that can easily be found in the requirements which wastes the student’s time.
• Learn to Debug: Learning how to debug saves you countless hours trying to read through code you might not understand.
• Learn to write Clean Code: With this and being able to debug, you’re going to be able to write very efficient code and to debug issues easily, thus not making you only successful in lab assignments, but also making you a better programmer.
• Plan your work out: This allows you to simplify the logic you are writing and this usually leads to clean code.
• Ask for help: If you ever get stuck on something and no matter how much you Google and you can’t figure it out, ask for help. It’s definitely fine to ask for help and is HIGHLY recommended you do so. Take advantage of the lab tutors and TA’s either through in person or Piazza/Canvas; they’re there to help you.
• Draw Pictures: If your project involves multiple things (AWS, Databases, Servers, etc), it’s definitely a good idea to draw a picture that shows you each thing interacts with and how it comes together. This is important especially when you enter the industry and build software for companies.

Personal Projects and your CS Career

rishiss: Projects are your saving grace, especially if you are lacking work experience. They show technical aptitude, willingness to take initiative, and leadership. I’ve seen people with only projects on their resume get positions at the Big N. Projects are good ways to expand your knowledge of CS as the possibilities are endless! It is best to have a variety of projects dealing with a variety of technologies. As such, you can open yourself up to more positions and have more talking points during the interview.
I tend to edit the ‘Project’ Section of my resume with relevant projects and technologies. For instance, if I made a full stack web application and applied to a DevOps organization, I would highlight my AWS, CI/CD, and Terraform experiences more than my React/Node js work.
It is recommend the project is about something that motivates you and are passionate about e.g. video games, movies, books, sports, etc., as it is very easy to give up half way due to stress or lack of motivation/interest.
Like anything else in Computer Science, projects require you to break it down into smaller pieces. Start with the end in mind and draw out the intended architecture/functionalities. Start with what you know and research on the parts you don't know after that. You will be using these skills often in industry for any project/feature planning.
Spending 15-30 minutes a day is all you need to make a successful personal project. Don't make excuses and get coding!

Open Source Contributions

If you’ve ever noticed popular github repositories such as torvalds/linux, these are repositories where people from all over the world can report issues with it and someone can fix it. If you are able to make a contribution to a huge open source repository, it looks really good on your resume.

Hackathons

What are Hackathons?

Hackathons are large scale coding events, where students from around the area come together and collaborate - usually in teams of 4 (but you can go solo or with a partner!) - to build some software. Companies like Amazon, Northrop Grumman, Google, and Twilio sponsor awards related to best use of their technology. After 24 - 48 hours of intensive coding, participants submit their projects, whether it be an Android video game, Chrome Extension, productivity web app, etc. Submissions are shared with the companies and other hackathon organizers, where they select the best projects and award teams with swag like keyboards, gift cards, and even summer internships at their company.
Participating in hackathons are one of the best ways to hone your coding skills, network with companies and other students, and get free comfy T-shirts. It is also one of the best ways to gain industry knowledge, as representatives from these companies and hackathon organizers create numerous workshops and answer any questions you may have. Winning awards at these hackathons are also great resume boosters and talking points during interviews.
The biggest hackathon organizer is Major League Hacking. Visit their website, and you can see all the hackathons (remote or local) they are partnered with. Make to be on the lookout for application release dates from the hackathons and apply early.
With Covid, you may miss out on the free goodies and the in-person networking with students and professionals. However, most hackathons are accepting many more applicants due to it being virtual/remote this year.

What Should I Do At Hacakathons?

Take advantage of the resources available at hackathons. You’re attending a mini CS conference and should be, besides coding, networking with professionals, learning about the different companies, attending workshops, asking technical/non-technical questions to mentors, and getting as much free shit as you can get. Besides T-Shirts, companies give out vouchers to their services, applications to their internship and full-time positions, pillows, notebooks, water bottles, sweaters, and even backpacks.
If you’re looking to get an award, judges at hackathons care a lot about the pitch and the idea rather than the actual execution of the idea. Having an idea beforehand is also helpful, so you can spend your time focusing on the MVP.

Friends and Networking

chaitu65c: I think it’s definitely useful if you have two different friend groups: One dedicated to career and Non-Career Group.
Career Group - When making a friend group dedicated to career, try to be the dumbest person in the group, you’re definitely going to learn a lot from them as you soak up knowledge! Best ways of meeting friends who are career-driven can be through major specific orientation (actually how I met rishiss), courses, major related clubs, etc.
Non-Career Group - While having a group that motivates you for your career is important, it’s also important to have another friend group that can help you relax and to enjoy your time! A really good way to find these friend groups can be anywhere from your hall to General Education courses, social clubs like Circle K, fraternities/ sororities(if that’s your cup of tea) and others!
This is what has worked for us; no need to follow this exact format.

Resume

rishiss: Here are the few take-aways on writing a resume that gets through the ATS.

• Make your resume accomplishment driven, not just a list of your responsibilities – This guy puts it best TL;DR: Your bullets should be in the format -> Accomplished X by doing Y as measured by Z.
• Don’t put school projects that every other CS student in your school has completed. Recruiters are able to figure it out and will look down upon this a lot, as it shows you’re not doing anything outside the classroom to forward your career. Capstone projects are perfectly okay.
• Make it a simple, one-column that recruiters can easily read through. There’s no need for pictures, graphics, colors, fonts, etc; the ATS can't parse this! Overall, keep it simple; the content should be carrying you.Exceptions: The company you are applying for is small, you’re going to a career fair and you know your resume will be hand-read, you’re a UI/UX person or a Graphic Designer.
• Have at least 3 minimum (I aim for 4-5) per work experience/project; it makes no sense when you have such amazing experience and only put two bullets.
• If you have a GPA lower than a 3.0, do not bother keeping it on the resume. If you have a 3.5 +, make sure to keep it.
• Make formatting consistent. This should be a no brainer, but I still see folks’ resume with different fonts, spacing, etc. It’s annoying; don’t do it.
• Focus on individual contributions and leadership, not the team. Recruiters are looking for self-starters and leaders that can see a project throughout the life-cycle, not just another code monkey.
• Expect to be tested on anything you put on your resume. If you don’t think you can answer questions about a skill, tech, or experience on your resume, don’t bother putting it in.
• Make sure to add these items in your resume: Name, School, GPA (unless its less than 3.0), Work Experience, Projects, Skills (one line for languages, one line for tools/platforms are what I’ve seen the most), relevant links (GitHub, Website, Portfolio).
• Take out any old or irrelevant experience. Nobody cares about that Tic Tac Toe game you made in high school.
• Get your resume reviewed multiple times by experienced people in tech. /csMajors and /cscareerquestions also has a weekly resume roast thread that you can take advantage of.

Searching for Internships

Searching for internships in CS is really different and harder from searching for internships in other professions. CS internship interview processes are often longer and much more technical on what you have learned as a CS major. We've prepped 2-3 months beforehand on CS concepts, whiteboarding, etc.

Timeline

This timeline primarily focuses on large, non-government/defense companies or competitive startups. This also assume you are applying for a summer internship.
August - September: Applications are opened to the public. Make sure to look out for positions and apply early, as most companies admit students on a rolling basis. A site that we used often is Apply.fyi. After applying, you may receive an automated (< 48 hours) invitation to complete an Online Assessment, consisting of multiple choice and/or coding questions about Data Structures, Algorithms, and Run Time Complexity. You will have usually 1-2 weeks to complete the assessment. Please that you may be rejected if you are not able to pass 90% of the questions on the assessment: Please also note that you may be instantly rejected due to things out of your control like years of experience, cancellation of internship, internal corporate issues, and more. Don't take rejections too seriously; just keep applying!
October - November: After passing the resume screen and the OA, you will be contacted by the company's recruiter for a phone screen. During the screen, you will probably be asked a few confirmation questions about your resume, sponsorship, years of experience with X, etc. and minor behavioral questions like what made you apply for this position, what are you pursuing outside of class, etc. You may also receive questions about your CS fundamentals e.g. what is a hashtable, whats the difference between a process and a thread, what is the runtime complexity of sorting a string, etc. As long as you're cool and confident (and not cringe/edgy), this part should be a breeze.
November - Mid January: If you made it through the two Thanos snaps, you will be invited to an onsite “Power-Day,” where interviewees attend 2-4 whiteboard interviews while being grilled on their technical skills and projects. Some companies make applicants go through a panel interview, where a team of 2-5 Software Engineers grill you on technical questions and your resume. You are often pampered with free travel, food, stipends, etc.
December - February: If you were deemed a good fit by the hiring committee, you will be extended an offer to intern at the company during the upcoming summer for 10-12 weeks. Remember, nothing is final until you receive an offer letter in your inbox. Some companies may also place you on a wait-list and offer you a spot if someone were to reject their offer letter.
For government orgs, defense companies, and smaller organizations, the recruiting season starts in February/March and usually ends in April and May. After applying online and passing the resume screen, you will usually be immediately pushed to an on-site interview. Most likely, you will be interviewing with your future boss/co-worker.
Please note that internships are not only offered in the summer, they are provided in the Fall, Winter, and Spring (rare) as well. The competition for these internships is usually lower, and the process usually starts 3-4 months beforehand.

How to get the Interview

Besides following resume tips, make sure to apply to as many places as you can. To get our first internships, we recall applying to approximately 250-300 places before we secured our internship plans for that summer. Also, if you do get ghosted, don’t take it personally, usually, university recruiters often spend so much time reviewing a lot of applications.
Other precautions to take to get noticed are to try attending career fairs if you can, you might be able to get an interview(worst case, free swag!). Other than that, try reaching out to upperclassmen or friends you know that interned and ask for referrals. It’s one of the best ways to get noticed!

What to expect

As part of the interview process, there’s 4 types of interviews that you should make sure you know.
Behavioral Interview: These interviews ask you questions about culture fit such as “Why are you a good candidate” and “Tell me about a time when you ...”
Coding/Technical Interview: These interviews ask you questions similar to what you see on Leetcode and Hackerrank. These interviews are designed to test your Data Structures and Algorithms knowledge.
System Design: System Design involves the interviewer testing your building to design a service/software and test your knowledge of understanding what things to use for the task and how you will integrate them together. You’re definitely not expected to know this and it’s not likely you’re gonna get asked this. Places that could ask you this are Unicorns, Trading Companies and Hedge Funds, and Big Established Companies.
Concurrency/Low Level Interviews: If the company’s biggest product involves low level principles such as networking principles and kernel stuff, there’s a possibility you can get asked this. Places that come to mind are hardware companies and trading firms.
Some companies may adopt only one of these interviews and some may adopt all.

How to Ace the Interview

It’s highly recommended that you look up the interview experiences that other students have faced so that you can potentially filter out companies with red flags and know what questions to expect. Common sources to search up on this would be Reddit (csMajors and cscareerquestions), Jumpstart (Relatively new portal for students), Glassdoor and maybe Blind (Aside from the toxic TC or GTFO culture, they do give good advice on interviews). With that said, here’s some advice we have when you approach each kind of interview we’ve seen.

Advice on Behavioral Interviews

Use the STAR method when describing your experiences. Being quantifiable with the impact of your actions will impress the interviewer.

Advice on Technical Interviews

Begin by reviewing your notes from the Data Structures and Algorithms class. Do not proceed further until you know how to implement these DS and As from scratch with the language of your choice(If you do know python, it’s recommended as there’s a lot of builtin features!). After doing so, we highly recommend a book like CTCI and EPI to gain a review on programming language details and your DS and As. Then, visit sites like LeetCode to practice real questions from major companies. A Facebook Engineer completed 600 LC problems and compiled the most important ones into a list here. During the interview, make sure to talk out loud about possible approaches and tradeoffs before whiteboarding. It is perfectly acceptable (often recommended) to ask the interviewer to ask questions about the problem and get clarification. Once you have an idea in mind and have talked about it with your interviewer, begin whiteboarding. While you talk about the final idea you want to use, write out pseudo code and comments about all the steps you need to implement in order to finish coding your solution. After that, start coding. Make sure to have proper function headers, syntax, spacing, classes/structs, imports, etc. After coding your solution, give a brief explanation and attempt to make it run with less space and in less time (if your solution is not as efficient as you think it can be).

Advice on System Design

These are somewhat hard to approach if you don’t have experience ever doing it. If you do have experience designing and building services in your spare time and as part of your work experience, definitely rely on your experience. An important thing is to definitely ask clarifying questions. There might be hidden requirements you didn’t think about that could drastically change the way you approach the solution.

Advice on Concurrency/Low level

Understand basic principles such as Processes vs Threads (A lot of people don’t know the difference!)TCP vs UDP and how to make an application thread safe. Other than that, it’s recommended that you familiarize yourself with basic OS concepts such as Deadlocks, locks that you can utilize to make an application thread safe, etc.

Searching for Full Time Jobs:

The big bucks.
The process for finding a Full-Time Job is usually very similar to finding an Internship. There’s three main differences are:

1. Harder Questions. Ex: Google usually asks Leetcode Mediums to Hards + the special Leetcode Hard question that Google asks it’s applicants (they create a new one every year).
2. More Rounds of Interviewing: For example, Microsoft makes interns do 2 rounds while New Grads do 4 rounds during the onsite part of the process.
3. Compensation: Interns usually get an hourly rate and, possibly, a housing stipend. New grads, however, are given a yearly salary and, possibly, a sign-on bonus, stocks, and benefits e.g. health insurance, vacation days, etc.

The process for finding a Full-time Job won’t really change as much as finding an internship, but keep in mind that the bar is higher. This is probably the biggest reason why you should look into interning early; by getting an offer at the place you like, you don’t need to go through the daunting process of finding a full-time role.
Get as many offers as you can this time around, so you can negotiate and select the position, company, compensation, and location that works best for you.

Negotiation

Negotiation is a really powerful tool that you can use in the interview process, even as an intern. There’s a lot of guides to negotiation and we recommend Nick Singh’s guide (Look at his LinkedIn and newsletters) for more.

Final Thoughts

University is a probably the most important time of your life and a foundational block of your CS Career. Like any foundation, it must be sturdy and takes a tremendous amount and energy of time to develop. Take advantage of all the resources (like this one) you can get your hands on. Definitely learn from the mistakes people have made and make sure you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
‘Stay hungry. Stay foolish’ - Steve Jobs