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Limits on Bovada's prop builder tool? "Max wager exceeded" after one bet with a large payout.
I was able to make a $5 parlay that pays over $2000 with the prop builder tool and now I'm not able to make any bets that payout over $135. I get an error message that says "max wager exceeded". Their support was not help at all. Anyone know why this is or how to get around it? Thanks in advance! https://imgur.com/a/9Pu2yNY
I was playing the high limits 3 hand poker and i was betting max bets for it ($50k ante, another $50k to play, and a pair-plus bet of $5k) and got the best hand you can get, a straight flush, which has a payout of 40-1 and got me $655k
hi is there any way to start a bet/poll with a command ??? example "!bet am i going win?, yes, no; multi, 50-250, 30%" for: am i going to win? 1: yes 2:no - multibet on, min-max bet, payout and the same for poll thx for the help
Not another fairy-tale ending - a word of warning for those entering the crypto scene
For myself, life over the past few years has seemingly gone from bad to worse - and before I go into the details -this isn’t a “pity-post” or a sympathy searching exercise, this is simply a warning, and hopefully a lesson to others who are entering the crypto scene. My crypto journey began back in earnest at the start of that famed 2017 “bull run” – I had a little bit in savings and had done my due diligence – this really was the future, and it could potentially set me and my family up for life. I bought in with every bit of money I had to spare. All told, it was about £6,500, and the price of Bitcoin sat at just under £9,000. This was exciting. The price continued to increase and I religiously opened and closed the Coinbase website to see the price soar by the hundreds and into the thousands. Work took a backseat and I became consumed with the markets, red and green candles being the first and last things I saw in the day. I wanted more. I became envious of those that had bought into cryptos years before. So I looked at alternate avenues to increase my Bitcoin holdings… this was going to be the making of me! Sadly it turned out to be quite the opposite. Scams, Scams everywhere… The first venture I looked into was a third party bitcoin mining platform which promised exponential growth. It sounded too good to be true (spoiler: it was). I used a credit card to buy more Bitcoin. First mistake. I maxed the card and sent around £6,000 in Bitcoin to a mining company known as Crypterra. The reviews were good, the discord was active, people were seeing payouts – it was all looking legitimate. But of course it wasn’t. Payouts dried up. The devs went silent and the site disappeared and re-appeared sporadically before going offline indefinitely. It was over and I had lost most of the £6,000 from my credit card. Robots are the future? The price of Bitcoin was still holding strong and I’d made small gains with my original investment which was still untouched. Perhaps I could increase by Bitcoin gains elsewhere and pay off the credit card I had maxed out. Again, I looked into ways to bolster my Bitcoin reservesI looked into trading platforms, cryptocurrency bots in particular. How hard could it be? As long as the price of Bitcoin went up, it should balance out any losses as I learned the ropes. There were a few that caught my eye. And following what I thought was sage “youtuber” advice – I dove into the world of trading with bots – linking up a Binance account and setting up my automated systems to work their magic and trade whilst I was asleep/working/sitting on the toilet, you name it. As you can imagine, these bots weren’t the holy grail they were promoted to be, and I was losing Bitcoin left, right and centre. I became more and more “experimental” with the strategies… doubling my stakes, tripling my stakes to recoup what I had lost. I didn’t see it as real money (despite paying with hard earned money to fund these accounts) – it was magic internet money, just ones and zeroes – so the reality of it didn’t hit home how much I was actually losing. Shock horror, I lost it all. Taking it to the bookies… I had effectively been gambling my money away, and in my increasingly agitated state I sought out other communities to try and regain my money. Sports-betting communities, gambling communities, Twitter “tipsters” and Facebook groups who had all the inside knowledge. I was down over £12,000 from my savings and the £6,500 from the credit card combined. I decided to open another two credit cards. One to fund my betting account and the other for backup. I quickly went through the first card’s funds, but I was ‘still learning’, this was ‘Ok’ – next time I would get it right. The second card (third in total) was quickly exhausted, and I was now close to £20,000 in the hole from when I started, all within just a few months. The hole grew ever darker As I write this now I am actually afraid and embarrassed to share the total losses I have made over the past few years (it’s actually much worse than I could have ever imagined). I have no-one to blame but myself; the greed, stupidity and at times, pure arrogance have lead me down this path. A path which at the moment seems irreversible for me. To see the price of Bitcoin now makes me feel physically sick – if only I had been patient. If only I hadn’t chased my losses, if only I hadn’t played with money that wasn’t mine - I wouldn’t be in this predicament. As the debt mounts ever higher and interest rates on credit cards are crippling me, it will be an incredibly long time before I have any financial stability again. It has made me mentally unwell and I’m still figuring out the next steps which I know include professional support and removing my head from the pile of sand in which I have buried it. I sincerely hope that those who read this account of my situation don’t fall into the same trap. The world is once again hyped for crypto, and with it come the pitfalls and scams and false promises of financial freedom and becoming rich. Don’t try and cheat the system, don’t chase your losses and don’t use money that isn’t yours in the first place. TLDR: To put it succinctly, the above is a very short overview of the financial hole I have found myself due to greed, arrogance and stupidity over the past few years. Hopefully a warning to others. Don’t chase losses, don’t look for the next get rich scheme and don’t invest money that isn’t yours to start with. Basically, don’t ruin your life like me. If only I had just held. EDIT: A quick edit to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read the above and replied in the comments. I've had some very honest and insightful responses and some incredibly useful suggestions about how I can bring myself back from this dilemma. I'll be seeking professional help both for the gambling and the debt management and hopefully get myself on the right track for the sake of my own sanity and that of my family's.
Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls, I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps. I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders. While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months. Any feedback or additions are appreciated Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer. Here's what I tell options beginners: I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot. I like this beginner book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7 Helpful websites:
Tasty Trade (TT) and Ally Invest have helpful articles and videos.
ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.
Basics / Mechanics
Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.
General Tips and Ideas:
Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
“Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
Understand Liquidity and volume.
Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
Time in market vs timing the market:
It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.
Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation
If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out onby not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.
Trade Planning & Position Management Tips
As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
Covered Calls:
If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.
-Advanced Beginner- Spreads
Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
Spreads usually require margin trading.
Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
Vertical Credit spreads:
Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
Short Straddle:
Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation
Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
Short attacks:
Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
Some people say short ladder attacks don't exist. I've seen some very strange stock nosedives off low volume, so I tend to think they do.
If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
Due to this video I don’t fully trust Cramer. His show can give you stock ideas to buy (or inverse), but you never know where his true loyalties lie.
Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306
-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)- You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another. Options Strategy Finder This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below. https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx Short Strangle / Straddle
Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
Limited risk / limited reward.
Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Debit to open.
LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)
PMCC / PMCP
PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.
Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.
Disclaimer: I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you. I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.
Hi all, Writing for a friend, so basically he had a 9 fold under 1.5 goals bet. 8 had come in and the real cash value was around 60k with the last one to make it 189k total pay out. He called them up to cash it out and they basically pointed out the max payout was 50k and so they could only offer 15k in cash because that equates to around about the 2/1 for the last game over 1.5 goals. He took it because he really needed the money, but surely the bookies should have voided the last selection and paid him his 50k because that was the value of the bet at the time. Small independent bookies... any thoughts, has he been done?
On Play Alberta, I was playing with free money, but the payout rates should be the same as if I was playing with real money. Playing Fortune Coin, max bet of $180. 100 spins. Total spent was $18,000 total win was $1,575. Highest single payout was $255. No bonus or coins. This is the winnings, in order. 105, 15, 30, 30, 30, 255, 75, 90, 15,45,15, 45, 90, 15, 45, 150, 60, 60, 15, 90, 30, 30, 90, 30, 60, 60. Total winning spins were 26, meaning 74 spins won 0. This is not gambling this is stealing.
Options Trading Part IV (Leveraging Margins and Long-Term Options to Amplify Returns)
Hello investors, So far, we have talked about the following trading plans for executing options trades. I'll quickly go over them below to ensure that everyone is on the same page. I want to be sure we are aware of the reasons why we are buying certain types of options and the mechanics of realizing profits from them. Options Trading Part I (Which Options to Buy)- 11/16/2020 https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/jvivvt/options_trading_part_i_which_options_to_buy/ This post basically explains the concept of getting the maximum convexity on your return profile, which is a fancy way of saying getting the best returns for a unit of risk you are taking. For instance, if you are betting a $100 on a company, you might as well do it using options because you could potentially get higher returns for a little more, if not the same, amount of risk you are taking. You want to play a game where you will receive $300 for every $100 you bet, 3:1 payout ratio, not $100 for every $100 you bet, 1:1 payout ratio, which is the case for owning shares in a company. Name of the game, purchase options with the best risk/reward scenarios. (To determine the payout profile, almost all brokers offer the calculations to show what happens to the value of the option if stock price goes down by 30% or up by 30%.) Options Trading Part II (When to Exit or Rollover Positions) - 11/28/2020 https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/k2yluoptions_trading_part_ii_when_to_exit_or_rollove The next post explains when to close out your positions. Again, it goes off the idea of understanding your risk/reward for every position that you have and either existing your positions or rollover them based on how the situation has changed. For example, if you purchased an OTM call option expiring in 12 months and 4 months later, you're already in-the-money with 4x your initial investment in unrealized capital gains. At this point, your payout profile will look much worse than when you first entered the trade, meaning for every $1 upward movement in the stock price, you will gain $10 and a $1 downward movement in the stock price will decrease the value of your options by roughly $10, resulting in a 1:1 payout profile, which is almost the same as owning shares in a company as we discussed above. Therefore, you need to answer the following question:
Are you bullish or bearish on the stock in the next 8 months (the remaining life of the option)? Will there be external market forces that could hurt the stock's performance?
If the answer is bullish, then I would say either keep the options or rollover into more OTM option. You would keep the options if you think the stock will still appreciate in the next 8 months but the upward movement won't be anywhere explosive, so you're essentially owning shares in the company at this point. You would rollover into more OTM options at the same expiration date when you're still feeling very bullish on the company in the next 8 months and think that the stock could rise another 30% so you want the best payout profile. This also limits your risk by cutting down the weight of this option in your overall portfolio. Options Trading Part III (Fighting the Theta Decay) - 12/13/2020 https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/kcpzpq/options_trading_part_iii_fighting_the_theta_decay/ Lastly, this post was about how theta plays a role in calculating your returns. It basically says that shorter period options are risky considering how much more theta decay plays a role compared to the intermediate and longer period options. Please see the summary below: 1) Invest in the best risk/reward option terms. 2) Manage your risks by either keeping your options position or rolling them over and limiting your exposure, assuming you're still bullish on the stock. 3) Be aware of the risks of theta decay when buying short-term (3-6 months) options. Which brings me to the topic for today's post: Leveraging Margins and Long-Term Options to Amplify Returns. I believe that the optimal strategy to invest in a company that you believe in is to buy LEAPS on the company's stock. (LEAPS are "long-term equity anticipation securities", another fancy word for long-term options.) Why? Because it has the three key characteristics we are looking for: 1) Best risk/reward option terms. 2) Easier to manage risks. 3) Lower theta decay risks. I'll go into the details of why LEAPS are suitable for our purposes. 1) Best risk/reward option terms. The reason why LEAPS offer the best risk/reward scenarios, in my opinion, is that it gives you two things: 1) time to play out your thesis and 2) self-discipline.
It gives you sufficient time to play out your thesis. Say you buy LEAPS on a company thinking that its next year's earnings will crush the estimates due to the amount of pricing power that the company has or the success of their international expansion plans.
On catalysts like these, you need more time for the stock to play true to the company's financial performance. For instance, you bought Thor Industries, a recreational vehicle manufacturer, thinking that people will go for outdoor camping more due to COVID. What if Trump came out and said that the US will raise tariffs on aluminum, a key component of RVs? This will temporarily depress the stock price and if you had short-term options, you will likely realize losses. If you had bought 2-year option, however, the stock would be given enough time to recover and actually rise above your entry point given that the tariffs news fades away and Thor Industries reports earnings that crushes the consensus estimates. The key aspect to remember is the leverage involved in an option. Leverage is when you put $100 to bet on a company but you actually get $1000 exposure, meaning you get 10x the exposure. When you buy an option, you pay $1k in options premium to buy 1 call option contract on NIO to get $2800 of stock exposure ($56 stock price *100 shares * 50% delta) because each options contract is in units of 100 shares of the underlying stock. (Delta is the sensitivity of the option price movement given $1 change in the underlying stock price. If Delta is 50% and the stock increases $1, your option price will increase by 50%.) The point I wanted to make is that options in general provide you a leverage, which amplifies your return. Therefore, for the amount of risk you are taking (the hefty premium paid for longer-dated options) against the reward you are receiving (the stock appreciation amplified by leverage), LEAPS offer good opportunities. 2) LEAPS also offer self-discipline. By incentivizing you to hold on to your LEAPS when the market panics and the stock sells off, it allows you to be more disciplined, which is a key factor in a successful investing as I alluded to here. https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/kpfx3h/investing_philosophy_part_iii_can_you_actually/ And of course, people will be more incentivized to hold onto their options to benefit from long-term capital gains tax. 2) Easier to manage risks. LEAPS are easier to manage risks because you know the amount of money you're risking to lose and you know what your returns will look like in different scenarios because it's a relatively same payout profile as owning shares but magnified due to leverage. More importantly, it's easier to keep track of their performances as we have less complex trades, compared to say a box spread trade that requires more complex strategy. 3) Lower theta decay risks. Longer options have lower impact from the theta decay. For instance, a 2-year option price will decline by only 10% if the stock price stays the same after 5 months, whereas an 8-month option price will decline by 30-40% if the stock price stays the same after 5 months. I also sell naked put options on a short-term basis to benefit from the theta decay but since it limits the upside potential, I tend to express my view on a company through LEAPS. The situations where I will sell naked put options is when I think the stock is overvalued and want a chance to buy the shares at a lower price but still want to collect some income if the stock price appreciates in the short-term. For instance, a 4-week $350 OTM put option on Costco was trading at $4 premium and the underlying stock closed at $361 on 1/15/2021. If I thought COST was overvalued, I would want to sell this put option and collect $4 premium. If the stock declines to $345, I am more than happy to cover my put options by buying shares at $350, a price lower than $361 on 1/15/2021. Sell puts at the lowest price when you want to buy a stock. When price goes down, you can purchase the stock. This is a bullish view. And since I firmly believe that Costco won't fall by 20-30% given the low volatility of the stock, I'm also not worried about losing lots of money when the stock goes down. Alternatively, sell call option at exercise price where you think the stock will max out at. This is when you already own the stock and you want to cash out at a certain price point. This is all to say that theta decay risks are lower for LEAPS and if you want a step ahead, you could potentially sell put options in the short-term to collect income. And btw, this is also a strategy that Warren Buffett uses all the time. To summarize, LEAPS offer a way to both limit our risks and amplify our returns, while also gaining the tax advantage. I wanted to also mention using margins in this post since we discussed the concept of leverage. I am all in favor of using margins and if managed properly, it can be a great way to gain advantage as an individual investor. Every single hedge fund and private equity uses some type of leverage, whether in the form of futures, margins, or options, to magnify their returns. If you were receiving 10% return on a very diversified, safe portfolio in a year, I believe margins will offer a way to magnify that return while limiting risks. Say $100k is invested across 50 very safe, low volatility stocks and you borrow $100k on margin to invest $200k total. What are the chances of your entire portfolio going down by 50%? Aka $100k and losing all your money? Not to encourage you to take so much risk but adding margins while properly managing risks is a great way to enhance your performance. Thanks for reading everyone and as always, please feel free to suggest any topic you want to discuss! Cheers.
Ended my gambling career (for now) on a high note - jackpot handpay to end 2020. My thoughts and ramblings as a now-retired gambler.
Warning: long rambling stories ahead. I am bored and waiting to get through my first day back at work since before Christmas. You've been warned! I've been going to the casino pretty regularly for the past few years. Before that, I played occasionally. I exclusively play slots. I view it as a night out - first with friends back when I brought $50 and played penny denom minimum bet spins and prayed to win $20, and then eventually shifting my mindset to playing higher bets and denominations. I hit my first jackpot handpay a couple of years ago. I hit $3700 on a $27 bet on a Geisha machine. I've hit a few other jackpots here and there, culminating with my biggest jackpot ever this past summer. I hit $12K on a $50 bet on a Pompeii slot machine. Well, the long story short is that I have fallen out of love with gambling. I have somehow managed to have a positive ROI on gambling. I track my withdrawls and win on a spreadsheet. To put it bluntly: I have been extremely lucky over the past few years. I know that slots are not a viable way to win money in the long run, so I made a decision a few months ago to "retire" from gambling at the end of 2020. I went to my local casino last Wednesday. It just so happens when I hit a jackpot that I usually do it within the first half hour or so I'm at the casino. Well, it happened again. After going up $600 or so on another slot machine (I don't remember the name), I went to one of my most hated/favorite old school slots - Zeus dollar denomination. One of my worst moments in all of gambling was a few years ago. I got a bonus round on the Zeus dollar denomination on max bet of $45 a spin. I was BEYOND excited. I've seen Youtube videos where people have won tens of thousands of dollars in that exact scenario. Much to my shock, I won nothing. In that game, you don't win anything for triggering the bonus. So I actually *lost* $45 on getting the bonus. I cashed out and left immediately. Anyway, last week I hit a modest $4500. It was exciting...but not as exciting as I thought it should be. I was cool, calm, and...detached. The wins didn't mean much to me, and the losses mean absolutely nothing. My wife and I are in the EXTREMELY fortunate position that losing $500 or so every week or two at the casino is affordable. I'm not ignorant to how lucky we are to be in this position. After getting paid out, I played a bit longer. But that hand pay drove home the realization that I had a few months ago: it was time to stop gambling. If I can't get pumped about a big win like that, and if I'm not even phased a little bit by losing, it's just not worth gambling any more. I used to go for entertainment, but even now gambling doesn't provide that much. As I sit now, I am up roughly $18K over three years of slots. Not bad, but not life changing. Enough that I bought my wife a Burberry and Louis Vuitton handbag on separate occasions. The rest if stashed in savings or in an investment account somewhere. But I am 100% committed to being done. At least for 2021, and probably longer. If anyone is interested in hearing my thoughts on how to win...I don't have any insight to share. It's luck. I got lucky. I know I got lucky. The usual tropes about setting win and loss thresholds is good advice. Sometimes I chased payouts and hit them. Sometimes I chased and lost. But I managed to hit more than miss, and for that I'm lucky. And thankful. Anyway. I don't have a major takeaway or anything. I don't have many people I can talk about this with in my personal life, so I figured I'd share a bit of my story here. If you do gamble, please do so responsibly. Good luck, and try to have fun. If you're not having fun, it's probably not the right way to spend your time or money. EDIT: I just wanted to say to anyone who reads this in the future that I appreciate the nice responses and PMs from people. It's nice to share a positive experience with others! I sincerely hope that if any of you choose to play in the future, you choose to do so responsibly. Gambling can be a hugely problematic lifestyle for some people. Stay safe. (end of preaching here). I also want to take a second to address some comments from some people about slots being skill based. This is 100% false. The concept of slots being skill based in any way is demonstrably untrue with three seconds of reasonable thinking. If we accept that there is a hypothetical slot game which is based on skill and not pure luck, what are the consequences of that? First of all, this information would leak out. There would be no way to contain it. If one person can solve the system, another an as well. Subsequently, someone would write a book on the subject. Think about all the poker and blackjack strategy books out there. These are games where skillful play can increase your odds of winning. Last I checked, there aren't any books or Supersytem-level analyses from prominent individuals willing to stake their names and reputations on publishing a "slot technique" book. There's a reason for this. And also - think about this: casinos still carry blackjack tables for a reason: they still have an edge to win. If there is a surefire way for individuals to win when playing slots, casinos would 100% for sure take these games out of circulation. Casinos are not in the business of giving away money. Any claim there is a foolproof way to win money playing slots does not make sense when critical thinking is applied to the circumstances. Slots are not like card games. Finding and playing only games where there is a "must win by" progressive is not the same thing as skillful play. That's more akin to something like card counting in blackjack. Many people who design slot machines and engineer the software behind the scenes have posted on Reddit and elsewhere that wins are based on random number generators running behind every spin. There is literally no skill involved - you win or lose each spin based on pure random luck. I am saying this because there are a number of people who come to this subreddit to look for ways to cheat the system and get easy money. I see posts like this fairly often, and I'm only browsing this subreddit occasionally. Gambling is not, and should not, be a way for anyone looking to make a quick buck. If you're looking to get an edge playing slots because you need to pay bills or make a quick buck, you are already in serious trouble. Do not buy into the delusion that you can get an edge or guarantee a win. People saying this are snake oil salesmen who do not care for you or your well-being. Anyway. I'm going to stop monitoring this post. I'm still open to receiving PMs or messages, but I've had my fun with this so far. I could do with fewer trolls, but this is the internet. I knew what to expect. Bon chance, everyone!
Deshaun Watson's trade value and destinations, plus what the Houston Texans do next Jeremy FowlerESPN Staff Writer The potential -- inevitable? -- Deshaun Watson breakup with the Houston Texans is running its natural course, with four stages cleared and more coming: Stage 1: Watson's unhappiness over ownership decisions goes public. Stage 2: Watson doesn't return phone calls from the Texans. Stage 3: An Adam Schefter tweet reminds us that, yes, this is real. Stage 4: Watson and his marketing agent like an Instagram account showcasing a New York Daily News cover saying the New York Jets must do "WATever it Takes" to get Watson in a trade. Not everyone around the league is convinced the Texans will trade Watson. But we know how these things usually go. And we know the next stages: Stage 5: Houston will "listen" to offers, but isn't actively trading Watson. Stage 6: OK, so now they are initiating trade talks. Stage 7: Teams that really want him try to downplay his importance by pumping up the quarterbacks they already have, but don't like as much. This is the NFL's circle of life, and short of new GM Nick Caserio going full John Cusack with the boombox outside of Watson's window, a trade feels very possible. This is wild to say about a top-five quarterback in his prime. Which is also why the Texans can, will and should try everything possible to reconcile this. But Watson clearly is frustrated by the Texans' business dealings, and he's showing the power he wields without saying a word. Embattled executive Jack Easterby, a former chaplain and character coach, is fighting for his job, influencing decision-making at the top and rankling a faction of the locker room with a disingenuous mix of faith and football, according to investigative work by Sports Illustrated. Owner Cal McNair said he would involve Watson in the process of hiring a general manager and head coach, but swiftly hired Caserio, with whom Easterby has a relationship from his days in New England. This usurped Watson's desire for a culture change, and a source close to Watson told ESPN's Chris Mortensen that firing Easterby would not resolve the issue, saying that "Cal McNair would have to fire Cal McNair." This is a massive story that deserves treatment from all angles, setting the stage for perhaps the biggest blockbuster deal since the Minnesota Vikings traded away eight draft picks, including three first-round selections, five veteran players and more to acquire Herschel Walker in 1989. After several talks with NFL personnel, here's what to expect from the Watson saga, the teams people in the league are talking about as best fits, and why it could take an unprecedented haul to get the 25-year-old out of Houston. What does Watson's contract look like? In September, Watson signed a four-year, $156 million extension with a $27 million signing bonus, an average annual payout of $39 million and $73 million guaranteed. Watson had two years left on a rookie deal that included a fifth-year option, so the Texans worked that remaining money into the deal for a total haul of around $180 million over six years, expiring after the 2025 season. The Texans had an offseason to forget. They foolishly traded away DeAndre Hopkins for Day 2 draft capital. They were reeling and needed a move to instill confidence and spin the franchise forward. Signing Watson to the second-richest contract in NFL history behind Patrick Mahomes' 10-year, $450 million deal was an easy call. Why is the deal friendly to prospective teams? Because the Texans must keep the signing bonus on their salary cap, which means Watson's payout and salary cap on a new team would be $10.54 million in 2021, a serious bargain for any quarterback, let alone a top-five passer. The next two years are heavier lifts: $35 million in 2022, all base salary, and $37 million in 2023, including a $20 million salary and a $17 million roster bonus. So a team acquiring Watson would pay $45.5 million over the next two years and $82.5 million over three years. For comparison, that's roughly the same amount the Eagles are scheduled to pay Carson Wentz (three years, $81.9 million) over the same span. "A bargain," said an NFL salary-cap executive. "I bet many teams would do that in a heartbeat." Watson's $32 million base salaries in 2024 and 2025 are not guaranteed, so most teams would focus on the three-year window with Watson. Can Watson really pick his new team based on a no-trade clause? Sort of. Watson's contract states that the Texans are not permitted to trade Watson unless the player gives the team written consent to do so. So, in the realest sense, Watson has to sign off on a deal. If the Texans have a deal lined up with Team X and Watson doesn't want that team, he can withhold that consent. Max, Stephen A. slam Texans for situation with Deshaun Watson Max Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith break down how the Texans have fractured the relationship with Deshaun Watson, their franchise quarterback. If this process goes far enough, the Texans and Watson's agent, David Mulugheta, can discuss teams that would generate approval from Watson, so it's a nonissue once a trade gets close. While the no-trade clause is leverage in the typical sense, Watson also has something else on his side. "He's the franchise QB that speaks on behalf of a frustrated locker room," an NFC exec said. "If he's not happy, those guys in the locker room will follow him. And that can have a lasting impact on your entire team's performance in 2021." What does all that mean for the Texans' options? If a trade happens, it means the Texans would have paid $29.4 million to Watson for the 2020 season, then taken on $21.6 million in dead salary cap for trading away a generational player -- unless they can make a case through NFL's management council that the new team should absorb some of the signing bonus, which doesn't often happen. No draft haul will ease that pain. "I've talked to GMs who say why would you give away a player who's so talented and young and such a building block?" an NFL personnel man said. "Especially as you just paid him $27 million a few months ago." Caserio looms large here. What's clear is Watson didn't like the process by which the new GM landed the Texans' job; this implies he's not exactly thrilled by the hire, though his problems seem directed at the people doing the hiring. But several people in the league say the Watson drama has camouflaged the home run hire Houston just made. Caserio was a key component to New England's run and is well-respected around the league. He also embodies the Patriot Way, which means he'll move in calculated silence. "The one thing I know about Nick is he'll do what's best for the Texans -- if that means Watson stays, he'll stand firm on that," an AFC personnel man said. "I believe that." The Texans' leverage is simple: Players show up when the money is in jeopardy. An extended absence from the team could eventually default Watson's contract, which puts paying back signing-bonus money on the table. But that would ignite an already-wounded locker room. Good luck with that. "I'd be hard-pressed to believe they want to get out of this deal," an NFC exec said. "Something doesn't add up." How does the NFL view Watson as a player? Watson was the No. 4 quarterback in our top 10 series ranking players at each position with input from more than 50 NFL coaches, execs and scouts, narrowly defeating Drew Brees with toughness and dynamic playmaking. Teams laud Watson's special playmaking despite a subpar offensive line for the better part of his four seasons in Houston. Clutch performances are a trademark for Watson, whose 10 game-winning drives in his first three seasons were the most of any NFL quarterback from 2017 to '19. Comebacks were hard to find during the Texans' 4-12 season in 2020, but Watson didn't hurt his stock with a career-high 112.4 passer rating along with 4,823 yards, 33 touchdown passes and seven interceptions, completing 70.2% of his passes. He was top five in several categories: yards per attempt (second, 8.3), Total QBR (fourth, 69.9), percentage of throws that result in a first down (second, 39.9%), expected points added as a rusher among QBs (second, +69.0) and completion percentage above expected, per NFL Next Gen Stats (fourth, 64.5%). Still, NFL personnel evaluators maintain Watson isn't the easiest player to assess because he has taken a jarring 174 sacks, isn't considered elite with pocket maneuvering and, in the eyes of one NFL coordinator, could use more offensive structure and tough coaching. Watson takes sacks on 8.3% of his dropbacks, the most of any NFL player with 20 or more games played. Only Russell Wilson has more sacks since 2017, during which the Texans' offensive line ranked 13th in pass block win rate, indicating you can't totally blame blocking for the sack numbers. Watson has a 3.0% interception rate when his team has the lead, which is fifth worst in the league. "Deshaun can continue to improve as a quarterback, which is probably the most exciting thing about him," an NFC exec said. "He's a high-level guy with all the tools and he's still got nuances that he can master, and he seems to be chipping away at those each year." Watson is hardly a slam dunk to earn the No. 4 spot in this year's rankings, though, with Josh Allen coming on in a big way. What will Watson's trade value be? All those numbers stress how unprecedented a quarterback of this stature being potentially available really is. Since 2000, eight veteran NFL players were traded for multiple first-round picks. The only quarterback on that list is Jay Cutler, who went from the Broncos to the Bears in 2009 in exchange for Kyle Orton, back-to-back firsts and a third-round pick. Several of these deals came recently. In 2019, the Los Angeles Rams and Texans gave up two firsts for cornerback Jalen Ramsey and tackle Laremy Tunsil, respectively. That 2021 pick from Houston gives Miami the No. 3 overall selection, thanks to a deal former coach Bill O'Brien executed before his 2020 firing. Last offseason, the Seattle Seahawks sent two firsts to the Jets for safety Jamal Adams. Then there's the Robert Griffin III trade in 2012, with the Washington Football Team giving the Rams two future first-round picks for the right to move from No. 6 to No. 2 overall in that draft. Technically, no player since Herschel Walker has garnered three first-rounders. That would definitely change with Watson, several evaluators say. "Oh yeah -- he's worth at least that," one NFC exec said. "The haul would be pretty insane." NFL front-office personnel are unanimous in this, with several saying additional draft capital might be necessary. It largely depends where the picks in the first round might fall. Many pointed out that if Adams, Ramsey and Tunsil garnered two firsts, Watson should get far more because of the importance of the quarterback position. When could Watson be dealt? Trades can't be executed until March 17, the first day of the new league year, but teams can agree in principle to a deal well before then. A hard deadline might be April 29, the first day of the draft. It makes little sense to do it after, since any pact would likely need to include a first-round pick this year. Perhaps the Texans could play hardball and push this through the offseason, knowing the draft capital will be there for future years. Maybe Caserio doesn't like the quarterbacks in this year's draft. That also gives Watson more time to change his mind. But evaluators agree that pre-draft is the time to do it. What are the potential destinations for Watson? Acquiring Watson might require not only three first-rounders, but at least one very high pick, multiple evaluators say. That's why those same evaluators consistently point to two teams: the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins. Both teams have two things in this year's draft that others don't: a top-three pick, and multiple firsts. New York has the second overall pick and the 23rd pick, acquired in the Adams trade. Miami selects third and 18th overall. Working with these two teams gives Houston the chance to draft Watson's replacement or take on their respective current starters, Sam Darnold or Tua Tagovailoa, if they want one of them. "If Houston does a deal with one of them, I bet they go after both firsts in this cycle, because that immediately helps them get better in a year they have limited capital," said an AFC personnel man, referring to Houston's lack of picks in the first two rounds this year. "In future years, you don't know what those picks are going to be." Both teams easily could absorb Watson's contract. The Jets' $69,385,570 in projected cap space is enough for Watson and some free-agent wide receivers to join him. The Dolphins have $24,876,158 in space -- and no state income tax, which Watson has gotten used to playing in Texas. The Texans could ask teams to throw in star or ascending players to sweeten the deal. The Jets' best asset might be left tackle Mekhi Becton, but GM Joe Douglas probably won't want to part with his first draft pick. Becton looks like a future All-Pro. The Dolphins have interceptions leader Xavien Howard and intriguing young pass-rushers, for starters. Multiple execs estimate anywhere from 10-15 teams would at least consider giving up major draft capital to get Watson. There are simply too many QB-starved teams out there. The Carolina Panthers have been linked to Watson if he were to become available, and it's true that they see Watson as a player worth serious draft capital. That doesn't mean they would go all the way. But they are a team to watch. They don't appear completely sold on Teddy Bridgewater and are poised to select a quarterback high in April's draft. They have $14.3 million in cap space, the eighth overall pick and are in the process of getting younger. Watson, a Georgia native, would be getting back to the Southeast. Bridgewater's three-year, $63 million contract signed last year isn't crippling for Carolina long term. His $17 million salary is guaranteed for this year, but the team could actually save $1 million in cap space by designating Bridgewater a post-June 1 release, according to ESPN's Roster Management System. In 2022, they can walk away with $21 million in cap savings. Don't laugh, but another sleeper team that a few NFL people have mentioned as a potential fit is the Chicago Bears. There are people in that building who are very high on Watson and they could be looking for a reboot at the position as Mitchell Trubisky's contract expires. GM Ryan Pace could essentially get a mulligan on the 2017 draft. Pace might not have favored Watson then, but he has more, uh, evidence now. Their $10.2 million cap deficit is a stumbling block, but cutting or restructuring veteran contracts can help. Releasing tight end Jimmy Graham and guard Bobby Massie takes care of $13 million in space. The Bears pick 20th in the draft and might have to throw in an extra Day 2 pick to compensate for the lack of high standing. Whatever it takes to get Chicago's first 4,000-yard passer in franchise history. And for as bad as the NFC East was this year, there's an improving team with $35.4 million in cap space and tons of intriguing young players who could make a move: the Washington Football Team. "I think they will be involved in the QB sweepstakes in a big way," an NFC exec said. "They know they are close." Will a trade really happen? Team officials are torn on this, because trading him makes little sense logistically, but the story isn't going away. "He just signed his deal, what, five months ago," one AFC exec said. "You've got to think they had plans to stay together long term when they did this. I know things have changed but if the right people get on the phone and cooler heads prevail, maybe they can squash all this." The hiring of the coach will be significant. Even if Watson isn't returning calls, the Texans know the QB favors Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy for the job. Bieniemy virtually interviewed with the team Monday and is considered a legitimate candidate. One NFL personnel exec brought up a concern over giving up so much draft capital and absorbing the financial commitment for a player who appears to be forcing a trade. What if the player turns around and does the same to you, he asked? And he wonders if that would give enough teams pause to halt a deal. But Watson might have documented behind-the-scenes stories that illustrate an even deeper Texans problem than expected. And Watson, by all accounts, has been a high-character guy throughout his football career. "It seems like he might just be fed up," an AFC personnel evaluator said. "And if he's willing to dig in on it, there might be no coming back and the team figures it has to do a deal when draft capital is so precious in today's game."
Options Trading Part IV (Leveraging Margins and Long-Term Options to Amplify Returns)
Hello investors, So far, we have talked about the following trading plans for executing options trades. I'll quickly go over them below to ensure that everyone is on the same page. I want to be sure we are aware of the reasons why we are buying certain types of options and the mechanics of realizing profits from them. Options Trading Part I (Which Options to Buy)- 11/16/2020 https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/jvivvt/options_trading_part_i_which_options_to_buy/ This post basically explains the concept of getting the maximum convexity on your return profile, which is a fancy way of saying getting the best returns for a unit of risk you are taking. For instance, if you are betting a $100 on a company, you might as well do it using options because you could potentially get higher returns for a little more, if not the same, amount of risk you are taking. You want to play a game where you will receive $300 for every $100 you bet, 3:1 payout ratio, not $100 for every $100 you bet, 1:1 payout ratio, which is the case for owning shares in a company. Name of the game, purchase options with the best risk/reward scenarios. (To determine the payout profile, almost all brokers offer the calculations to show what happens to the value of the option if stock price goes down by 30% or up by 30%.) Options Trading Part II (When to Exit or Rollover Positions) - 11/28/2020 https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/k2yluoptions_trading_part_ii_when_to_exit_or_rollove The next post explains when to close out your positions. Again, it goes off the idea of understanding your risk/reward for every position that you have and either existing your positions or rollover them based on how the situation has changed. For example, if you purchased an OTM call option expiring in 12 months and 4 months later, you're already in-the-money with 4x your initial investment in unrealized capital gains. At this point, your payout profile will look much worse than when you first entered the trade, meaning for every $1 upward movement in the stock price, you will gain $10 and a $1 downward movement in the stock price will decrease the value of your options by roughly $10, resulting in a 1:1 payout profile, which is almost the same as owning shares in a company as we discussed above. Therefore, you need to answer the following question:
Are you bullish or bearish on the stock in the next 8 months (the remaining life of the option)? Will there be external market forces that could hurt the stock's performance?
If the answer is bullish, then I would say either keep the options or rollover into more OTM option. You would keep the options if you think the stock will still appreciate in the next 8 months but the upward movement won't be anywhere explosive, so you're essentially owning shares in the company at this point. You would rollover into more OTM options at the same expiration date when you're still feeling very bullish on the company in the next 8 months and think that the stock could rise another 30% so you want the best payout profile. This also limits your risk by cutting down the weight of this option in your overall portfolio. Options Trading Part III (Fighting the Theta Decay) - 12/13/2020 https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/kcpzpq/options_trading_part_iii_fighting_the_theta_decay/ Lastly, this post was about how theta plays a role in calculating your returns. It basically says that shorter period options are risky considering how much more theta decay plays a role compared to the intermediate and longer period options. Please see the summary below: 1) Invest in the best risk/reward option terms. 2) Manage your risks by either keeping your options position or rolling them over and limiting your exposure, assuming you're still bullish on the stock. 3) Be aware of the risks of theta decay when buying short-term (3-6 months) options. Which brings me to the topic for today's post: Leveraging Margins and Long-Term Options to Amplify Returns. I believe that the optimal strategy to invest in a company that you believe in is to buy LEAPS on the company's stock. (LEAPS are "long-term equity anticipation securities", another fancy word for long-term options.) Why? Because it has the three key characteristics we are looking for: 1) Best risk/reward option terms. 2) Easier to manage risks. 3) Lower theta decay risks. I'll go into the details of why LEAPS are suitable for our purposes. 1) Best risk/reward option terms. The reason why LEAPS offer the best risk/reward scenarios, in my opinion, is that it gives you two things: 1) time to play out your thesis and 2) self-discipline.
It gives you sufficient time to play out your thesis. Say you buy LEAPS on a company thinking that its next year's earnings will crush the estimates due to the amount of pricing power that the company has or the success of their international expansion plans.
On catalysts like these, you need more time for the stock to play true to the company's financial performance. For instance, you bought Thor Industries, a recreational vehicle manufacturer, thinking that people will go for outdoor camping more due to COVID. What if Trump came out and said that the US will raise tariffs on aluminum, a key component of RVs? This will temporarily depress the stock price and if you had short-term options, you will likely realize losses. If you had bought 2-year option, however, the stock would be given enough time to recover and actually rise above your entry point given that the tariffs news fades away and Thor Industries reports earnings that crushes the consensus estimates. The key aspect to remember is the leverage involved in an option. Leverage is when you put $100 to bet on a company but you actually get $1000 exposure, meaning you get 10x the exposure. When you buy an option, you pay $1k in options premium to buy 1 call option contract on NIO to get $2800 of stock exposure ($56 stock price *100 shares * 50% delta) because each options contract is in units of 100 shares of the underlying stock. (Delta is the sensitivity of the option price movement given $1 change in the underlying stock price. If Delta is 50% and the stock increases $1, your option price will increase by 50%.) The point I wanted to make is that options in general provide you a leverage, which amplifies your return. Therefore, for the amount of risk you are taking (the hefty premium paid for longer-dated options) against the reward you are receiving (the stock appreciation amplified by leverage), LEAPS offer good opportunities. 2) LEAPS also offer self-discipline. By incentivizing you to hold on to your LEAPS when the market panics and the stock sells off, it allows you to be more disciplined, which is a key factor in a successful investing as I alluded to here. https://www.reddit.com/Midasinvestors/comments/kpfx3h/investing_philosophy_part_iii_can_you_actually/ And of course, people will be more incentivized to hold onto their options to benefit from long-term capital gains tax. 2) Easier to manage risks. LEAPS are easier to manage risks because you know the amount of money you're risking to lose and you know what your returns will look like in different scenarios because it's a relatively same payout profile as owning shares but magnified due to leverage. More importantly, it's easier to keep track of their performances as we have less complex trades, compared to say a box spread trade that requires more complex strategy. 3) Lower theta decay risks. Longer options have lower impact from the theta decay. For instance, a 2-year option price will decline by only 10% if the stock price stays the same after 5 months, whereas an 8-month option price will decline by 30-40% if the stock price stays the same after 5 months. I also sell naked put options on a short-term basis to benefit from the theta decay but since it limits the upside potential, I tend to express my view on a company through LEAPS. The situations where I will sell naked put options is when I think the stock is overvalued and want a chance to buy the shares at a lower price but still want to collect some income if the stock price appreciates in the short-term. For instance, a 4-week $350 OTM put option on Costco was trading at $4 premium and the underlying stock closed at $361 on 1/15/2021. If I thought COST was overvalued, I would want to sell this put option and collect $4 premium. If the stock declines to $345, I am more than happy to cover my put options by buying shares at $350, a price lower than $361 on 1/15/2021. Sell puts at the lowest price when you want to buy a stock. When price goes down, you can purchase the stock. This is a bullish view. And since I firmly believe that Costco won't fall by 20-30% given the low volatility of the stock, I'm also not worried about losing lots of money when the stock goes down. Alternatively, sell call option at exercise price where you think the stock will max out at. This is when you already own the stock and you want to cash out at a certain price point. This is all to say that theta decay risks are lower for LEAPS and if you want a step ahead, you could potentially sell put options in the short-term to collect income. And btw, this is also a strategy that Warren Buffett uses all the time. To summarize, LEAPS offer a way to both limit our risks and amplify our returns, while also gaining the tax advantage. I wanted to also mention using margins in this post since we discussed the concept of leverage. I am all in favor of using margins and if managed properly, it can be a great way to gain advantage as an individual investor. Every single hedge fund and private equity uses some type of leverage, whether in the form of futures, margins, or options, to magnify their returns. If you were receiving 10% return on a very diversified, safe portfolio in a year, I believe margins will offer a way to magnify that return while limiting risks. Say $100k is invested across 50 very safe, low volatility stocks and you borrow $100k on margin to invest $200k total. What are the chances of your entire portfolio going down by 50%? Aka $100k and losing all your money? Not to encourage you to take so much risk but adding margins while properly managing risks is a great way to enhance your performance. Thanks for reading everyone and as always, please feel free to suggest any topic you want to discuss! Cheers.
Hi all, was looking for some input on this before taking it to the state agencies. I recently bet the under goal minutes pointsbetting on a couple soccer games and the players didn't score. According to the terms of the bet, this resolves as 0 goal minutes which should result on a max payout on the under. PointsBet instead graded it as 0x, rather than (goal minutes - 0)x. Here is a screenshot of the specific terms of the bets: http://imgur.com/a/4OGU6Nt Example: oveunder 30 minutes. If a goal at 75 minutes results at 75, and the over pays 75-30= 45x, then shouldn't the under on no goal pay at 30-0 = 30x? (Or 0-30= -30x if you bet the over) Some of these bets are around 10 minutes... If 0 is resolving as a void, it's be absurd to ever bet unders. I was going to contact state board, but wanted a second opinion before doing so. I have 3 of these under bets that all resolved as pushes and my reading of the rules says they shouldn't. Edit: forgot to add I had a long conversation with support and they confirmed the bets were graded correctly. No response on Twitter.
The Keeper as a whole is a flawed, broken, and RNG-heavy challenge compared to everything else. (Essay/Discussion + Mini-Rant)
tl;dr, The Keeper promotes a playstyle that's too unreliable, RNG-based, and gimmicky to be a proper challenge character. Introduction: After finally beating Hush + Delirium as Keeper after a negative 24 win streak, I realized to myself that it wasn't fun. My run was saved a lucky combination of Fanny Pack, Head of the Keeper, Swallowed Penny, and Piggy Bank, and despite the fact my Keeper gets a penny and I get a bent penny in my item pools, I didn't feel satisfied nor felt like I had any real fun playing as the Keeper, I was just taking out my frustrations on the monsters when I finally got a good run. It then hit me like an out-of-control the truck, the Keeper is flawed, like really flawed. Compared to Edmund's other games, the difficulty there is also paired with a high amount of fun, momentary highs, and excitement to boot, and usually it comes from learning the game and mastering the challenges thrown. Even when looking at other challenges like The Lost, it still brings a similar amount of fun and adrenaline sided with its challenge or never taking a hit (or 2 with holy mantle). Despite of this, the Keeper exists. In this little text post/essay, I will discuss every aspect of the Keeper there is, and possibly ways to fix it. I may say hopeful of a challenge character being buffed, but Bethany is getting a rework that makes her more interesting to play and the Lost got some buffs when Afterbirth came out, so I hope my heart will be in the right place. Comparison to the Lost + Benefits: The Lost and Keeper both fall in the category of challenge characters, where they have incredible and detrimental downsides that change how you play the game, similar of a "Can you beat X without doing Y run" from VGMyths. Binding of Isaac doesn't really have a way to "master" it, just become an expert in it because of the procedural generated layout of the floors + room, so the game doesn't really expect the impossible out of you, and because of this, these two characters do have upsides. For the anyone unfamiliar with the Lost, their stats are:
Has one coin and no bomb.
Has the D4, Flight, Spectral Tears, and an unlock-able Holy Mantle.
Whenever the Lost is not taking damage, their health is always set to half a soul heart and is invisible on the hud, effectively making him a no hit run character.
And for the Keeper, their stats are:
-0.15 Speed, More damage, more tear delay, -2 Luck.
+1 unlock-able coin, 1 unlock-able Store Key.
Triple shot and an unlock-able Wooden Nickel.
All heart drops and forced hearts are converted to flies, certain hearts giving more flies.
Their health is replaced with Coin Health and the Keeper cannot have more than 2 coins or any other kind of health. Coin Health always takes 1 full heart of damage no matter what, meaning 2 hits and he's out. Coin Health can be replenished by substituting any coin, and temporary versions of the heart are permanent. They are treated as Red Hearts by most other items and ingame mechanics.
Because the Lost has no health, this means that he doesn't get the common health upgrades in the game (especially those in boss item pools), but luckily get devil deals for free, effectively forcing him the route of taking Devil Deals, sometimes at a better payout of a pair of 2 heart deals vs. not having 1 health upgrade, compared to normal characters who can't frequently take the amount of deals at that cost with the boss item. The Keeper however doesn't get such luxury, he can usually only take a single 1 heart deal, and usually only if he can ever get to a devil deal since he cannot hold soul hearts, and if the boss item is an HP up, otherwise he'll be stuck at death's door 1 health. What that accumulates to is that if you want a devil deal as the Keeper, you'll need to play perfectly (no hit whatsoever), while having weaker stats, no flight or spectral tears, and you'll have to be lucky to get an HP up from the boss pool or sometimes the treasure pool. It's legitimately insane, and I cannot even believe that Edmund was able to beat Delirium without getting insanely lucky as me. Speed: In a bullet hell game like BOI, speed is everything. Remembering enemy patterns, avoiding hazards, going from room to room, even speed running to reach boss rush or the Hush, its one of the 3 main traits every RPG focuses on alongside offence and defence. The Keeper has -0.15 speed, and alongside a bad starting DPS thats worse than the default triple shot, you need to be lucky and hope you get a good speed upgrade to help you with everything in this game. The worst part is that he doesn't have flight, so he will waste more time than usual avoiding floor hazards and manoeuvring around pits, but he's still getting a vanity noose. Coin Health + Decay mechanic: Keeper's Coin Health is the name of the game, and that game is heavily weighted on luck. The main problem with coin health as a whole is the limitation of the 2 hearts + you cannot have any other type of hearts, making you susceptible to lack of devil deals. It was already discussed that the Keeper can't take devil deals often because he has health that isn't shielded and he only can really take devil deals if he can supplement with an HP up, but what's worse is the bad implementation of the Decay mechanic (where the pickup hearts are converted into flies). Let's say the Keeper picks up and HP upgrade while at his max 2 coin heart limit, how many flies would he get? Would he get 10 since 1 eternal heart is 5 flies and an HP up is essentially 2 eternal hearts? Maybe it's just 3 flies because its 1 heart? Nope, nada, not a single flying fuck. While most players exchange their HP up for an item in the devil deal, and the Lost doesn't even get an HP up but can take free devil deals, the Keeper cant utilize the coin health or the decay mechanic properly unless you get lucky. Also while this seems petty, the amount of flies from each heart seems cheap. 6 flies from a golden heart, if I was able to get a golden heart that'd be a godsend for the Keeper, but here its literally 2 uses of Guppy's head. Starting Items: The last thing I can talk about are the Keeper's unlock-able starting items; his wooden nickel and his store key. The wooden nickel is basically a 1 room charge 50/50 of dropping any coin, usually a penny. The wooden nickel is practically the only way you're able to play as the Keeper, and it's insane to think that this has to be unlocked by beating Isaac first as him. What's worse is that because its a 50/50 (luckily unaffected by the luck stat and the Keeper's -2 luck) it usually allows you to take an expected value of 0.5 hits a room, compared to the Lost who is guaranteed to take up to 1 hit a room with his holy mantle. This also means curse rooms are a no-go unless you have enough bombs to go in or have some contingency plan for your black carpet visit. The store key isn't as great either, and for a few reasons. If you take a look at the item pools in BOI, you'll notice two types of item themes they'll follow, gameplay, or cosmetic. For example curse room item pools are associated with curse or evil-like items, angel rooms focus on defensive and holy items, golden chests have items that are part of the head, are a head, or bags, and devil beggar items focus on drugs and evil items. The shop however focuses on items that support builds rather than make them (and also has items that are common to find in the real world), similar to the game-play affect of trinkets, with very few combative items. If you played TF2, Overwatch, or really most MMOs or DOTAs, you'll know that stacking nothing but supports with no defence or offensive capabilities is not going to result in victory. While the Keeper's wooden nickel usually can give out a nickel or a dime, and typically he is able to get more many than most other characters early game, whats the point if he can't buy good items? Conclusion + My balance suggestions: To summarize what I said, the Keeper has shit manoeuvrability, shit offence and ways to get offence, shit defence and ways to get defence, shit starting items, all of which can only be remedied by being lucky most of the time. Out of all of the challenges Edmund has thrown in his career (Super Meat Boy, End is Nigh, DLC-less Lost, Delirium), this is by far the worst due to how only luck is able to save this character unless you are an absolute god at this game, which is near impossible due to the randomized floor layouts, items you get, rooms, and sometimes, the enemies themselves. When you watch a streamer or youtuber play BOI, you'll see them play one of the characters for fun, like Judas for glass cannon strats, Azazel for a good early run, ??? or the Lost for a game constantly on the edge, but I bet that you have NEVER seen someone play the Keeper for legitmate fun and not for their completion marks. So what would I do in order to remedy this salted lemon in the potato-peeled wound? Well I have quite a bit of buffs and nerfs I would apply if I had access to Isaac's game, whilst still making him a relatively tough challenge character.
Buff (the biggest and most important one): Keeper can have a maximum of 3 coin hearts (but still starts with 2) by default, allowing him to take 2 heart devil deals without instant death, and putting him on the edge with 1 coin heart and a good item.
Buff: The Keeper's vanity noose (coming in Repentance) will fully form and give him flight upon entering the Womb (or possibly cathe/shoel), allowing for a bit more movement options if he has been lacking them before the run.
Buff: Double the amount of flies from all decaying hearts. Double red hearts become the equivalent of 2 red heart of flies (4 normally, 8 with double flies). Collecting an HP up while at the maximum amount of hearts gives the equivalent of 2 eternal hearts of flies (10 normally, 20 with double flies).
Buff: Empty Vessel works on the Keeper if they have just 1 coin heart.
Buff: The Wafer and Zodiac's Cancer will increase the maximum amount of coin hearts by 1 and give an HP up.
Fix: Fix Maggy's faith not giving any eternal hearts, jesus christ. I WANT MY FLIES.
Change: The decay mechanic only works when the Keeper touches the heart to convert into the flies, preventing him from auto-collecting all the flies in the room. When the Keeper touches a heart, it contributes to items that activate on heart pickup such as immaculate conception, maggy's bow, and allows dark bum or the jar to pick them up, or for a D20 affect to occur on them if needed.
Change: Wooden Nickel instead of having a 50/50 of giving a coin, instead gives a coin every second use of it, allowing for more calculated plays, especially when using things that sacrifice health like curse rooms or devil beggars.
Change: The Keeper can only have a maximum of 6 coin hearts at a time, unable to go past that from effects such as Greed's Gullet (and the suggested Wafer + Cancer hp extension buff idea)
Nerf: Swallowed Penny only has a 33% of activating on the Keeper. Orange champions still take coins without dropping them on the floor.
Nerf: All sources of healing are disabled, and are instead replaced with 1-3 flies each time it would've occured, such as Pyromaniac, Placenta, Charm of the Vampire, and Leech.
Really if only one of these suggestions were to be implemented, I'd want it to be the maximum of 3 coin hearts so 2 heart devil deals are an option and so it isn't immensely brutal to be on the edge because of the 50/50 wooden nickel, and maybe the change in the decay mechanic, but I feel I'm getting too hopeful for a character designed to be challenging getting buffed, despite that challenge coming from all the wrong reasons. Really I'd like to hear what you all think about the Keeper and ways he could buffed (either as something for Repentance or as an idea for a workshop mod), and I hope you enjoyed my analysis on the Keeper, and why he flat out sucks to play. All I can hope is that the Keeper, while still being a difficult challenge character, can atleast be fun to play as sometime.
There's a LOT to cover, so this update will be split into multiple messages. Holiday Changes - (Mostly to be reverted at the end of the month) - Changed bot avatar to be festive - Added new holiday random events (and disabled the rest until after the holidays) - Increased the chance of random events spawning by 3% for everyone - Added north pole to search (and disabled the rest until after the holidays) - Increased coin payout and banknotes possible from giftboxes - Changed vote rewards to include gifts to send to friends - Added two new jobs: Santa and Elf. Santa is the highest paying job to date. - Beg items are all holiday themed for now New Commands - pls highlow - This SEEMS like a gamble command, but it's not really. It's more like beg. You don't put any money up, and you get a random amount back. The bot will pick a secret number between 1-100, and a hint number. You look at the hint number, and guess if the secret number is higher, lower, or the same (jackpot). Guessing correctly gives you some coins, guessing a jackpot pays out a lot higher. - pls snakeeyes - This is a gamble command. You make a bet, and you try and get snake eyes (which are two ones on the dice). One eye pays out 1x your bet, two pays out 5x. This will be the hardest gamble command to date for making money, but it also has the highest payout yet. Give it a go! In a later blog post, we'll be showing you the inner workings of this (And the other) gambling commands as well. - pls taxcalc - Shove in a number and get the amount you'd pay in taxes back out. Good for those who trade a lot. Major Currency Changes - Level cap is now 5,000 up from 1,000. This comes with new titles, and level 5,000 comes with something fun that you'll have to discover for yourself. - New Item: Pizza :pizza~1: - Made for people with money to burn, this item can be consumed to gain a single level. - Changed tax rates (use pls taxcalc to figure them out) - You can now work every 30 minutes rather than every hour - Max item stack up to 100k - Min bet amount down to 100 - Removed commands: fortnite, hourly, yearly, (and asktrump which isn't currency but doesn't deserve it's own section) - Removed entire quests system. It was broken, unrewarding, and a mess of code. It'll be back but 100x better in the rewrite. - Postmemes is slightly different. Chance to break your laptop is MUCH lower. Major Design Change Because it's often verbose to constantly say "500 coins" rather than something like "$500", we decided to adopt our own currency symbol. There was a tweet to vote for the new one (follow us @dankmemerbot for future stuff like this). From now on, you'll see a lot more currency stuff that looks like this: "⏣ 5,000" rather than "5,000 coins". Quality of Life Changes - A majority of currency commands now ping you, easier to see your responses in busy channels - You can now open up to 1000 lootboxes at a time - You can now use more than one bank note at a time - pls profile has a lot more info now - Lowered a ton of cooldowns, raised one or two to be consistent with others - Added all new dank memer server mods to pet name multi for mods - events now accept more than first answer (good for if you typo or smth) - Tons of small QoL changes requested over the last week or so Bug Fixes - Duplicated level up rewards/notifs are finally gone - Blacklisted users can no longer be heisted - Pets will no longer gain any useless levels (past 31) - Blacklisted users can no longer join heists - All jobs should be able to be promoted now - Tons of weird edge case bugs fixed - Tons of inconsistent formatting fixed - Tons of typos fixed - Lots of other smaller bug fixes that I've probably already forgotten. Conclusion I've put a lot of time and thought into this update, and I hope it makes your quarantined holidays a little bit more fun. This is the last update of 2020 (minus one to remove holiday stuff), and it was a blast to hear what you all wanted changed for this. This update is just a small portion of what I've got planned for the next few months until the rewrite is ready to go. Happy holidays, from the Dank Memer team.
The payout is directly correlated to the odds of winning (barring a hidden loss function, but I don't have a reason to believe one exists yet)
The odds of winning are specified at the start of each event
We have a reasonably good idea of how these odds are used to determine the outcome
To summarize the post, the odds for each horse is converted into a raffle system where each horse gets a corresponding number of raffle tickets for their odds. A ticket is then picked at random to determine the winner. Since the payout is directly correlated to the odds, this means that if there are less than 100 tickets between all horses, then each horse now has a higher chance of winning than their payout suggests (and if higher than 100 tickets, then a lower chance of winning). Determining if one should bet on a given race, then, is easily scriptable:
def shouldBet(odds): """ Determines if the player should bet on a race given the known raffle logic. :param odds: A list of ints, representing the denominators for each odds. "Evens" is represented with 1. :return: True if the player should bet, False otherwise. """ running_sum = 0 for item in odds: num_tickets = 100 / (item + 1) running_sum += num_tickets if running_sum <= 100: print("Bet: {}".format(100/running_sum)) return True else: print("Do not bet: {}".format(100/running_sum)) return False
I used this script to determine my betting behavior for an hour and ended up with this: https://imgur.com/skv6DMW Obviously, I can always run multiple trials to make this more accurate, but preliminary results suggest an income of $240k/hour. It requires a lot of typing/clicking and is easier with multiple screens to switch back and forth between GTA and the script, but otherwise is pretty brainless to do. The script does not specify which horse to bet on, because as mentioned the payout for each horse directly correlates to its odds of winning, so the expected value for each horse is the same (a horse with 50% chance of winning will 2x your money, a horse with 1/8 chance of winning will 8x your money, and so on). However, it makes the most sense to bet the max on the horse with the highest odds (assuming the round is expected to be profitable in general), which is what I did for this trial.
I love doing stupid parlays like these sometimes, but I have to wonder...If this ended up ever hitting, would DraftKings even pay out or would they find a way out? https://imgur.com/a/XKvmrEk
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Stuck on finances and moving....what should we do?!
I'm so stuck with what to do!! Please someone give me some advice. I read all these posts on here with 50+ comments, and I get one/two responses on a post. Please help! Currently live in small town Ontario. Bought our house 8 years ago on Power of Sale and got a huge century home & land cheap. We've done a lot of work to it and now it's just too much for us being just 2 (originally had his 2 kids with us as well--grown up and out now) Husband and I both work 1 hr away in City, however, I've been off for 2 years for some medical issues, and now am returning to work next week. We've been discussing moving closer to work since house prices are great for selling (would make about 300k profit) but opposite for buying. We are 10-15 years away from retirement. We are barely at home, and the house/property is just too much for 2 of us (first world problems!) We both make 100k. We have good pensions, some small investments and a cottage with a VTB mortgage of 260,000 at 3.64% with 3 years left on it. We're looking at moving with in 20 min commute to work and a closer commute to the cottage (we go every possible chance). He commutes 5/week. I will be gradually working up to 5 days, but with the varied time/hours, we won't be able to commute together for 3-6 months. So two cars doing 60+k commuting (1 hour each way=4 hours a day). After 6 months, it might be possible for us to work the same hours and commute. The closer we get to city/work, the higher the price of the house. We're trying to stay below 525,000!! So here's my dilemma. To sell or not to sell---AND If we sell the house (for what we expect) what do with the 300k profit?? Option 1--Put down on new house. Reduce mortgage payment, no mortgage insurance and some equity into property. Basically keep all payments same as there are now with a shorter commute. Option2--Put down on Cottage. Spoken to vendor. It's a fixed 5 year term, and he won't let me break it without a considerable penalty (haven't discussed terms, but online it suggest 10-15k). Over the course of the next 3 years, I have calculated interest payments to be 25k--which would be gone if I paid it outright. Eliminate this monthly payment from my overall budget at this (currently high) interest rate. This payment would be absorbed into the new house mortgage amount---still paying less then I would be with the two separate. Option 3-Save/Invest the profit, use it to pay off the cottage for monthly payments and annual 15% payment option and basically pay it off at the end of the 3 years without paying the penalty of option 2, but loose 25k in interest paid out over the remaining term. Where to stock pile the profit? We both have TSFA, but mine is maxed and he only has about 80k room. Neither of us put in RRSPs, and would need access to the funds for monthly/yearly payout. ***Retirement plan is to sell everything and live at the cottage year round--so my priority has been to pay this off *** Option 4--Stay put. Deal with the commute, hopefully works out to commute together (so really no change from the last 2 years). This is my least favourable option, but the least complicate, familiar and safe bet. Please send me some guidance. Thx.BF76
If you max bet on a penny machine, does your payout improve? STATUS: Mixed. Payback percentage is traditionally set per denomination, but there are plenty of games that require a max bet to unlock all pays, which improves your payback percentage. When it comes to the actual payback configuration of a slot, the traditional configuration of payback is based on game and denomination: If a game is Maximum Payout Customers should note that multiple bets can be placed that exceed the limits stated, BetVictor accept no liability for accepting bets that breach the limits below and will not void them, it is the Customers’ responsibility to ensure that they are aware of the maximum pay-out applicable to the Sports product they bet on. Where a multiple bet has been placed which involves I bet the max on both candidates $850. About $750 of the Bloomberg bet has filled so far. Fills have been trickling in for over an hour. About $750 of the Bloomberg bet has filled so far. Fills What is the max payout on bet365? Max payout is the maximum amount of winnings that the website will pay within a 24 hour period to the player. The maximum payout differs for each sport. When multiple bets have been placed across different events, the lowest stated limit applies, and the winner is given the max payout accordingly. Note: max payout amount varies by sport, above we have listed the biggest payouts possible across all sports. What is the maximum stake for online bookmakers? The maximum stake for online bookmakers varies from site to site as some use a max stake and some use a max payout amount. Technically Bet365 have the highest as their max payout is £2,000,000 so you could bet £1,000,000 at evens on In cases where your winning bet exceeds the maximum payout, don’t expect any bookie to pay you a single penny above it. For example, They’re also head and shoulders above any other sportsbook when it comes to Scottish football, setting a £2 million max payout for the Scottish Premiership, and £1 million for the lower leagues. As for other sports, William Hill match bet365 maximum Payout rules; Ok, so you are an experienced (or a very lucky) bettor, and you’ve found that golden line to take home the biggest 22bet return possible. What to do? 22bet Payouts. The max payout at 22bet is limited to €600,000 (or equivalent) per bet. To achieve this payout, you will require a combination of both big stakes and very high odds. Max payout. Exchange back odds 3rd bookie odds. Back stake Stake-Lock in adjustment + Add part back bet. Bookie. Exchange. Total. If team wins If team draws If team loses Bookie 1. Bookie 2 . Bookie 3. Total. If selection wins If selection loses As you can see, the calculator tells you that you should lay £49.56 against Wolfsburg. Lay £49.56 against Wolfsburg @ 2.32 = Potential liability of Here at Max Payout, we want to bring you the best content and offers available. To help us to keep the website running as a free service, some advertisers may pay us a commission if you use the links provided on any of our pages. Maximum Betting Payout . Online sports betting is big business, and in today’s world of big accumulator wins making sure that you place your football, horse racing NEW CUSTOMER OFFER! As well as offering a market-leading £2m maximum payout on a multitude of football markets, bet365 also offer new customers up to £100 in Bet Credits – click here for further details! The bonus code SPORT100 can be used during registration, but does not change the offer amount in any way. 18+, T&Cs apply.
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