Online Trading Account - Adult Gambling?

Do you like to gamble? Living out in Los Angeles I saw a lot of people spend money and credit like it was going out of style. Part of living in Southern California was a lifestyle to go to Las Vegas (4hr drive or 45min flight) every quarter or so during the year. This again was during the boom where everything was going good in the economy. I have seen friends drop thousands of dollars while being drunk and spending their hard earned money. They might as well have been throwing money out the window on their way there.

I for one spent my fair share of money in Vegas too…and have to admit I enjoyed every minute of it. My friends and I had an on going joke with me every time we went to vegas. One night we were out and a friend turned to me on the way to the next casino and asked how much I was up. I told him 85 and he looked at me knowing I was not a huge gambler and said “Damn go ahead with your bad self”. I immediately stated that I was up 85 cents from playing the 25 cent poker at the bars. We all had a good laugh.

Now once again I am not a big gambler with my money but I will gamble if my fun vs time/money ratio is worth it. I rate this ratio based on if I spend $100.00 for 4 hours on blackjack- was my time worth it -$25/hr – I would say in Vegas $25/hr is about right for me which is why Vegas is rich and everyone else is not.

I am a huge sports fan and I enjoying watching sports. I got put onto sportsbook ,which is an online gambling service. You have to put money into the account before you can bet, so you cannot put a credit card down and go to town. I usually put $50.00 in and take the minimum($5.00)bets and put it on a Basketball or football game I am going to watch. I have to say it makes the game have more of an interest. I know I will probably get killed by a lot of PF bloggers about this, but it is something I like and it last 1/2 year?(unless I go on a cold streak) What can I say…I don’t do it make money but for entertainment value, is the $5.00 worth the 2hrs?, no doubt!!

So I have a friend who works really hard and makes a really good living. He seems very informed with finances, and makes more than he probably imagined he would at this point in his life. I recently visited him and asked if he is still gambling on sportsbook and he mentioned that he had graduated from it. He was putting a lot more money down, lets say $25-50 per game. He said he was gambling on the stock market and that he opened up a Sharebuilder account. He has about 4-5% of is paycheck going in that money market account where if he comes across a stock he likes or reads an article he will go in and buy some shares. He looked at me and said “its adult gambling son”…I got a good laugh.

But is he on to something? I know a lot of people will disagree, but both my friend and myself have high risk tolerances. Who doesn’t like buying stock when the prices are so low too. He told me straight up that he enjoyed watching his “play money”. He also is using it to learn about stocks and reading more about them and paying more attention to it. I know they say don’t spend your money trying to learn to play the stock market but instead learn the stock market and then play it.

First off I don't have that kind of money...so I am not doing it. That night as I was talking with him about it, he was in front of his computer and went and bought a few hundred dollars in a company stock. When we woke up the next day (PST) it had already lost 4%...he looked at me and laughed! Might seem like he is dumb with his money but after all can we live just a little?