Why is it that when you put money into stocks it is called an investment and when you put money on a blackjack table it is called gambling? I don’t know, but I do know that both have the same risk. You can lose whatever money you put into either enterprise, albeit at a different rate with each venture. I could not help to think while I was watching the whole “sub-prime” debacle that each person who lost money somehow with the sub-prime mess, it seems that we all have in some manner, went into their investments with their eyes open and that there was a risk involved. Why is it, then, that governments felt obliged to “bailout” these institutions and investment banks that lost inconceivable amounts of money? I am not a complete laissez faire capitalist, but I do feel that if an investment is made with the knowledge that there is a risk of perhaps losing your investment, and it is lost, then you should have been prepared for that outcome. When I go to Las Vegas and lost $20 on blackjack there is not an IRS agent there to hand me $20. Economic downturns and busts are like forest fires, they purge what probably should not have been there in the first place. If a financial institution was not prepared for or cannot cope with such turbulent financial times than they should be allowed to fail. The term “too big to fail” makes no sense to me. Everyone can fail and it is failure that often pushes the greatest successes. Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.

I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” We should let people fail, for it is failure that breeds success.

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This week for the Last Man Standing, there are 8 of us left. Of those 8, I know 6 of them are my family, so our odds are looking pretty good. This week my best pick was the Cincinnati Bengals, along with 7 other people that are still in. The other person picked Dallas, and since they played on Thursday we all knew that he was definitely safe. Then, it showed that we had all chosen to go with Cincinnati so it was either going to be we were all still in the game, or the guy who picked Dallas would be the only one left if they lost. The game wasn’t too shocking, they were given a huge spread over Cleveland and won the game with out stressing me out too much. Dallas played Oakland, which wouldn’t have been an awful choice for me but I had already used Dallas last week. So, this week, we’re back at square one. All eight of us are still in it and we have to make another go at it. I hope that a few get out this week, hopefully not me. Then, I hope we get to go for one more week and it’s over. It has gone on for so long, and I’m glad I’m still in it, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to choose because I’m running out of good teams, and eventually we’re going to have to all pick a team that we don’t feel comfortable with. I hope next week it gets closer to the end and we don’t all pick the same team again!

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Last summer when we went to Las Vegas, I didn’t have a whole lot of play around money for the trip. I had set aside a bit for shopping, a bit for gambling, and some for souvenirs for all my friends. I flew in from Lubbock and met with my mom and my brother, and then my dad flew in and we stayed in Las Vegas for a few days before heading out to California. Just those few days I made some money on the craps tables, so I felt a lot better about getting to shop and have some more fun when we came back to Las Vegas after being in California for a week. Well, we got back and my mom surprised me with rooms at the Wynn, since it was my favorite hotel. While we were in there, I decided to sit down at a Monopoly slot machine, where I ended up winning around $1,500 dollars. I was freaking out, and had my member card in the holder, so they knew it was me that won. Now, I’ve been getting tons of offers through email and just found more that they had sent to my house to try and get me to come back and stay at their casino. They are offering really good rates, and come credit to play more on their slots. Now, I’m pretty sure they are just mad that I took money from them and they are trying to find a way to get it back from me. I’m not going to fall for it! I know that if I use that credit under my name there’s no way I am going to hit big again like I did. So, thanks for the bonus, Wynn, but I don’t think I’ll be gambling much at your expensive casino in the future!

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This week there were a lot of upsets in NFL. At the last minute I was debating between going with Dallas Cowboys or Cincinnati Bengals. I had put Dallas in on Wednesday, but when Sunday rolled around I got up and got back online to check some stats and make sure that is what I wanted to go with. I don’t really trust the Cowboys, I don’t care to watch them play and I don’t follow them and obsess over them like most Texans do. So, I decided to stick with them and left my apartment all day so I wasn’t around a TV until the game was over. I was shopping with my friend Jenny when I got a text that they had won. I had checked online on my phone a few times during the day, and all day they were losing. I expected this game to be a blow out, since Washington sucks and it was a home game for Dallas, and when I saw the score I was mad and didn’t want to know any more. But, they ended up BARELY pulling it off at the last minute, and won by one point. And, Cincinnati lost. Again this week, I got lucky and went with the right choice. Pittsburg also lost, and there were four people on each of those teams, so 8 were eliminated this week. That leaves 8 of us. So, all I need to do is knock out those last seven people and I will finally be the Last Man Standing!

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So this week for my Run Your Pool contest, I went with Miami. I was about three seconds away from doing with Denver, but I decided to change my pick. I had put in Denver on Wednesday since there was a Thursday game this week and I didn’t think I would be able to change it after the game. When I saw that I could, I decided to go with Miami since they were home and I just felt more comfortable with the game. Well, good idea Jana, because Denver lost. The Miami game was waaaay too close for comfort, they won in the last minute and a half. They were close the entire game, and in the fourth with two minutes to go they were behind, but scored. I had assumed I was already out and stopped watching the live updates from my computer, but continued to occasionally check the score from my cell phone while I was out. A friend of mine knew I had chosen them, and texted me right when they scored. I assumed I was getting played with, so I checked the score and saw it really happened. Two people picked Denver this week, and those are the only two people that got out so far. There is one person on Baltimore for tonight, but I think they are safe. Thank God, I really don’t want to be done with this competition. The person who is going to be the winner of the game cant lose… that isn’t really how it works.

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Poker is one of my favorite things to play. I love to play online, in person, against a computer, how ever I can play it I like to. For a long time we really got into playing in online tournaments for Texas Hold ‘em. A few different friends and family members would meet on the same website and get into these huge competitions, usually with three thousand people, and see who could go the furthest. It’s free, so you just log on and play around, and if you actually get in the top 90 players you win real money. It’s around 50 bucks for first place, but that is pretty impossible. I’ve gotten in there a few times, usually winning a little over a dollar to five bucks, but it’s really hard. It takes hours to get that far into it, and I don’t think playing a game for hours and only making a few bucks is worth anything. Most of the time you don’t make anything. I haven’t gotten on there in a long time, because it seems like once I start it up again I can’t stop, because every day I want to beat the place I had gotten that previous day. There are some smaller tournaments I can get into, but those usually cost money. I guess it would be worth it, though, less players, less time, more money. But that’s where everything goes wrong and you become addicted to online gambling and lose all your money. That’s something I should probably stay away from.

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A vacation spot my family frequents is a little town called Las Vegas, Nevada. We go there every year, meet up with all the family we have that lives in California and hang out for a week or so. I have been 21 for only two of these vacations, and I have to say it’s tons better that way. We’ve been doing this for years, I think the first time I went I was 6, but these last two have been insane. I have always been obsessed with playing cards, and now I was able to do it and make money. I love craps, poker, black jack, pretty much everything Vegas has to offer. My mom and I love to find the best slot machines and put money into them, we love the ones that have extra games in them so you can play more. The first time I went and was of legal age, I won a bit of money, all of it being on the craps table. This past time, we found these really fun machines that were Monopoly themed. We played them a few times, but one time when I was at The Wynn I actually won over a thousand dollars on the machine. It was awesome. Then, we went into the Sahara and found the same games, sat down and I won 500 bucks on it. They are fun, lots of different games to play on them, and really cool. The displays are really cool and have tons of strange graphics and noise. But, I guess I’ll have to say the best part was the money coming out at the end part for me.

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In my Last Man Standing competition I had a hard time deciding who I should go with this week, because I knew that my entire family was going to go with Atlanta. I wanted to do something different, just in case by some chance they lost. I didn’t want my mom and I to both go out, so I did my research and decided that my best option would be Seattle, because Detroit sucks. Yeah, my best option at stressing me out. The game was really close, they were losing the entire first half. At the end of the first, it was 17 to 0. I stopped looking at the updates because I was getting more and more worried about losing the competition, and started to bake some cookies to get my mind off of it. By the time I looked again it was half time, and Seattle was only a few points behind. In the fourth, Seattle was ahead by 5 when they caught an interception and scored. Thank God. I was so worried the entire game that I didn’t even want to watch it cause it was going to ruin my lazy Sunday. That was a close call, and I’m glad that I’m still in the game, luckily. Next week, I don’t yet know who I’m going to pick again. I like to wait until about Thursday to start doing research and figuring out a few options, but now that the competition is getting down to the wire maybe I should start preparing myself! I hope I win I’d love to have the money and let it be known to my entire family that I am the Last Man Standing!

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My family loves to get together and do lots of different sports competitions. We have a really intense fantasy football league, we do a last man standing competition, and my brother recently started a new competition that’s on
Yahoo where each week, you go in and pick which team you think will win on each game. Then, you assign an amount of confidence points to that game, usually ranging from 1 to 14. If you have a lot of faith that a team is going to win, you give them the most points and then when they win you get the points added to your final score. If you decide to go against the spreads and choose a team that you are not sure about, you give them less points so that if you are wrong you don’t lose a big amount. It can get complication, but once you get started it’s a really fun and competitive game to play with some friends. You can set it up for free on the website and then invite all your friends to play. This is the first year for ours, so we didn’t put any money down on it. I’m a part of a family that considers Las Vegas to be the ultimate vacation spot (and I couldn’t agree more with them), so we usually have a nice little pot for the person who wins. This year, my brother has bought a trophy. Now, money is great, but I want this trophy. You can’t put money in the living room and have your guests ask you why it’s there. Well, I guess you can but I’d rather spend it on something.

I want to have it in my living room to stare at everyday and know that I won. Buutt…. I’m doing horribly in the contest. I’m trying to catch up, but the first week I really didn’t know what I was doing. If not this year, I will have it next year. And, next year, we are also going to have a cash prize at the end so I think it will make the trophy an even sweeter sight in my apartment.

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My family and a few friends do a competition every football season called Last Man Standing. Each week, you have to go onto the website and choose any football team that you think is going to win. Each week, you have to go in and choose a different team and you are not aloud to pick the same team more than once. This year, we have over 50 participants and the prize is going to be over a thousand dollars. I have total claim on this prize because, well, I fucking need the money. I am determined to be the Last (wo)man standing. So far I’m doing really good, and over half of the people have been eliminated. Sure, this contest probably sounds easy, but when you realize that I no longer have any team that’s worth a damn going into week nine my chances of winning are slowly looking pretty bad. I haven’t taken any chances with it so far, but this coming week I am going to have to really go out on a limb because my options are slim. So far, I have picked: New Orleans, Minnesota, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, New England, and Chicago. So, to sum it up for you, I don’t have shit left. And the shit that I do have left are playing the teams that I’ve already picked, so I don’t want to pick them because the spreads are less than 5 points. I really want to stay in the competition and I know that a lot of people are going to get eliminated this week and I hope I am not one of those people. If you’re interested in starting one of these pools, just go to Run your Pool and set up an account. It costs a bit of money, but just have everyone throw in twenty bucks to cover the small fee and then the winner gets the rest of the money. It sounds like a pretty easy competition… until you get in the predicament I’m trapped in right now.

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