Playing With Money
If you have some cash saved, there are options for what I
call "playing with money," and which do not involve
complicated businesses or boring bank accounts. Even if you do
not have cash, if you have credit cards which allow cash advances,
you can pay 18% interest and still make money with the money
raised in that way. These are ways which mostly aren't quite
a business because you can do them once or only when you feel
like - they have a beginning and an end.
Loan Sharking
There are people that occasionally need money for a short
while. A friend for example, that got a good paying job because
I loaned him $300 to get drywall stilts. I never charged less
than a $5 / week loan fee (don't call it interest). I haven't
done this for many years now, and the legality is a question
in some places. If you have any qualms, check the laws in your
area and put it all in writing. Also, if you want total security,
take collateral.
Investing In The Expertise Of Others
My buddy John had to show me several car magazines before
I understood why an old fiberglass car was a good deal at $2,300,
because I know nothing about cars. He eventually convinced me
to put up the money, and after a new transmission for $900, he
sold the corvette for $4,300, netting us about $1,000. I took
half the profit ($500) for putting up the money for the two weeks.
I've done this several times with friends that know cars but
don't have cash. By the way, if I had paid 18% interest and a
$50 cash advance fee to raise the money with a credit card, my
profit would still have been over $400, and John did all the
work. I love playing with money. Do you have any friends who
know everything about boats?
Buying And Selling Estates
We recently met a couple who buy out estates, sell some of
the things at flea markets, then run the rest through auctions.
They've made a living doing this for years. They load up a trailer
after negotiating to buy a whole house full of stuff. Then, if
they don't want to do the flea market thing, they just auction
everything on Sunday afternoon for a nice profit.
If you are a good judge of value and have a regular auction
nearby, you could do the same with rummage sales. Just offer
$100 for everything and then auction it off piece-by-piece. The
auction near us lets anyone sell their stuff, with no fee to
enter. They just take a 25% commission.
Playing With The Casino's Money
I worked at a casino for years and I saw a lot of people foolishly
writing down the numbers that came up on the roulette wheel.
Foolishly, I say, because their their theories were nonsense.
Casinos will always welcome these players and even hand them
the pen and paper.
One guy, however, was actually scientific about it. By finding
a bias in the wheel, after "charting" it for 5,000
spins, he made thousands betting on just one or two numbers.
When a number comes up, it pays 35 to 1, but one of the numbers,
because of manufacturing imperfections or whatever reason, was
coming up 1 in 27 spins, instead of the average 1 in 38 spins.
So all he had to do was bet $10 a spin, and he profited $80
for every 27 spins of the wheel in the long run. That's about
$100 per hour. The ups and downs are dramatic though, so this
is not for the faint-hearted. In this case, I saw him lose as
much as $700 in a night. Also, not all wheels have biases (they
eventually replaced that wheel). So have you ever tried
"card counting" in blackjack...?
By the way, the rest of that story and the exact formula used
to beat the roulette wheel is in my ebook, You
Aren't Supposed To Know - A Book Of Secrets.
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