Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Responsible Gambling Steps

There has been a great deal of talk in recent times about responsible gambling, which is perhaps largely due to the huge increase in popularity that it has enjoyed in the digital era – thanks to online casino sites and other internet gambling options. Indeed so seriously is this taken, that most online casino sites will now feature information about how to gamble responsibly, as the industry seeks to ensure that it remains an enjoyable way of spending leisure time, rather than a problematic addiction. At the heart of responsible gambling is the management of two things: finances and time.

The first of these is probably the most important, although they are arguably interlinked, as not being clear on how much you can afford to spend gambling each month will lead to financial catastrophe. If you intend to play at casino sites whether it is on the PC or through mobile sites like MobileCasino.co.nz – or any other type of online gambling – on a regular basis, then you must work out a budget based on your monthly income. Once you know exactly what you can afford to spend, there is a lot of sense in putting that money into a separate account, as this keeps the cash used for the likes of food and bills out of temptation’s way.

Unless you have a significant disposable income, your monthly gambling budget is likely to be tightly restricted, but the key to making it last through the month is to impose limits on the amount of time you can spend gambling each week. Aside from this, such time management is also crucial to ensure that gambling remains just one part of your life – rather than becoming an all-consuming obsession. Limiting both time and money available will also help you to avoid common mistakes like continuing to bet in the hopes of making up losses, which generally just leads to even greater losses. Furthermore, remaining sober while you gamble will also help you to retain the self-control to know when to walk away.

Photo by Triin Q

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Is Lending Club Getting Sketchy?

Two of the key search items that I have looked at when investing in Lending Club have been the "Verified Income" field and the "Review Status" field. Verified Income is particularly important to me because when gauging the likelihood of repayment, knowing how much a person makes is obviously very valuable information. While not as important, knowing whether a loan is approved already is very helpful--when you decide that you want to buy a note on a particular loan, you want that money to be invested as quickly as possible and not have to wait  for Lending Club to finish its approval process.

Unfortunately, over the last few months, when I have been browsing notes on Lending Club, and I have limited my search by either of those fields, absolutely no notes return.

I might be able to explain away the fact that no notes have been approved by considering that perhaps Lending Club has been inundated with new notes and has therefore pushed back the approval process until after loans secure full funding, but I can't think of a single good reason why loans would not have verified income. While not all applicants had verified income previously, there were still a good number that did, and (to me, at least) it seemed very prudent to give those notes priority attention.

I did some tentative searching but was unable to come up with a reason for these searches coming up blank. One article from April of this year even suggested that we should start seeing more notes with verified incomes.

Fellow Lending Club users: did I miss an announcement of some kind? Why have already approved notes from loans with applicants with verified income disappeared from the Lending Club platform?

Photo by photosteve101