Originally Posted by girlfriday View Post
Glad to be back and see such a discussion, however flighty and off topic it may be. But I'll address everything I've seen. I was an actuary at an insurance company prior to joining B of A, so I believe I understand the math dialogue in these discussions.

When someone files a loan app as a professional gambler without any other income source going forward, no matter if he or she argues that they are an ap with big ev promised, no loan ever gets approved on that alone. To the gentleman who asserted that applying as a pro gambler is no different than anyone who files as self-employed, you are mistaken. If a self employed person shows business and income stability, then it would safely be assumed his income would continue going forward because it is a business with real revenue, meaning real income. A gambler would expect to secure a loan based on things going his or her way and not the casino's way, thereby leaving future income up to chance. That means an automatic denial. As I mentioned, a steady, real income source in addition to expected gambling income would be required in other to have any chance at securing a home loan. Those are typically tough in their own right, and for obvious reasons. One more point to remember, loan officers and underwriters are like most business people, irs auditors, and so forth. They don't believe anyone wins on a consistent basis gambling. Anyone. So that's what you're up against from the start of the process.

Now I'd like to address this issue revolving around the theory of EV. I believe we all can agree that EV represents something expected, but not certain, in the future, and it is never actual money right now. I did read about the person who said they had the best EV day in a whole, but unfortunately they list $8k at the same time. There us something to that, but in large part, it does not pass the reality check.

For instance, I believe I play blackjack with a very slight edge. Always. But if I play for 11 hours today and lose money, the +ev I went in with, even though it was injected with a dose of hope, means nothing for future sessions. I believe the person who said it was a good thing is only trying to make him/herself feel better about the loss. Yes, the person can proclaim their having hours of positive expectation as something great, but as far as future gambling sessions are concerned, the same thing could happen time and time again. +EV can in fact have a negative cash flow value attached to it. The good and positive expectation never has, had, or is meant to have any real monetary value attached. If you understood the intricacies of whole life and term insurance policies and their differences, you'd understand what I'm trying to explain.

I'll try to get to playing blackjack and some of the comments I've read here about it. My knowledge is good, but probably nowhere near some of the experts here.
KJ has made well over a million dollars in 14 years of playing blackjack. He started with a 4K bankroll and slowly built from there. He doesn't work everyday but 14 years is about 5000 days. He's had hundreds of losing days, even days where he has lost 8K or more. But he has still out run the game by well over a million dollars. He's damn good at what he does. He ramps up his bets in the big +EV situations. Short term negative variance causes a big losing day sometimes. But short term positive variance creates big winning days too. In the long run it all smothes out.