Gambling, gaming, and investing

So, you probably think i'm going to talk about the gambling side of investing, right? I mean, I'm as guilty as the next person of thinking I can make a guess about the direction of the stock based on the same information as everyone else and be more right than the person sitting next to me. I can't. I don't.

No, instead, to combine my love of games (#steemace) with my desire for financial independence, I'm going to talk about epicdice.

First, a little context. A few years ago, I was playing Magic: the Gathering Online, which still exists, and which was a precursor to Arena... a way to play magic online, essentially. It really replicated the real world, with collections that could be bought, sold, and traded. There was some functionality missing from mtgo, like being able to create and play your own formats or playing with a cube you designed, but for all standard formats, it had everything you could want. In the game, you could trade, buy, and sell cards from other users. And this was my first introduction into arbitrage. It didn't happen all the time, but there were certainly days when I could peruse the classifieds on the game and find a card being sold for $x and an offer to buy the same card for $x+1. These users had presumably not perused the offerings themselves... and honestly, most of them were bots who couldn't read anyways. So, I'd fix the problem for them and make a few dollars. There was never enough to make a bundle, but it was fun for me anyways and meant that I never had to add money to my account.

(screenshot from https://www.mtgotraders.com/mtgo-guide/)

Now there's Epicdice. Now, gambling is gambling. The house always wins, and they are transparent about that. It's a game for fun and luck, and I recommend seeking professional help if you find yourself losing more than you can afford. There's no winning strategy in gambling. IT IS NOT INVESTING.

But you can invest in the casino itself. Epicdice is selling tokens on steem-engine. Holders share the daily profits depending on how many tokens they hold.

Now, a few months back there was MagicDice, and it was an exit scam, and I don't know that this isn't that, right? No idea. So far it's been good for me. I put in about 70 steem and I own about 2 million tokens, and over the past 2 months, I've received about 30 Steem in dividends. I think at current market prices, it'd cost about 200 steem to buy 2 million tokens. So I guess I got a good deal. But if dividends remain this good, that's still 180 steem/year. Which would be a dang good return on your investment. Of course... the possibility of it being an exit scam remains. Magic dice has made me wary. And how would anyone know? The creators seem cool on their discord, but I imagine people thought the creators of magic dice were cool, too. Anyways. Not financial advice. Just something I've done. Let me know if you know anything I don't know!