Gambling for the Unemployed

If you’re unemployed, and you have a lot of free time on your hands, you may get an urge from time to time to take your next unemployment check to the casino.  Don’t do it.  I have spent the better half of a lifetime trying to make a profit at the casino, and while it’s possible to walk out a winner, chances are over time it will just cost you money.  However, if you do occasionally get that bug to gamble, there is an alternative that will give you a thrill, and give you much better odds.

Up until just recently, the only people who bet on foreign currency markets were a handful of billionaires and 3 or 4 of the major banks.  Today, thanks to the internet, anyone can play.  Betting on whether one currency will rise or fall against another currency is becoming a popular alternative to day trading stocks or commodities.  The Forex (Foreign Exchange), gives you incredible leverage, and liquidity.  The amount of money traded in the Forex is roughly 3 trilion dollars a day, about 10 times that of equities (stocks).  Plus the Forex is open 24 hours a day, so when you find yourself tossing and turning at night, wondering where your next dollar is coming from, you can get out of bed at 3:00 in the morning, and go trade some currencies.

Now you’re wondering how to get started, right?  Well, you’d be surprised how much free information there is on the internet.  In fact, there is so much information it’s mind boggling, and most people get lost in all of it.  That said, I am going to recommend only 2 sites.  The first one is Easy-Forex.  Easy-Forex is a great broker to get started with, because, well, it’s EASY.  Open an account with your credit card with as little as $100.  Trade directly from their site, without having to download anything, open and close a position in any currency pair, then have your winnings credited to your credit card!  They have tons of free information on their site, starting with the history of Currency trading, along with everything you ever wanted to know about Forex.

The other free site is Babypips.  This is absolutely a free site when you can actually attend Forex “School”.  Check it out.

Now, here’s a tip:  Don’t buck the trend.  The trend is your friend.  Don’t bet (this is not investing) more than you can afford to lose.  And, the past does not equal the future.  At some point you will want to download a good charting program, that will give some good charts that you can use as references.  Once you do that, I will give you a good winning strategy.  The strategy follows:

Set up your charts to show Stochastics, and Bollinger bands.  Look at 15 minute, and 5 minute charts.  When they appear to be in sync, that is if the trends are all going in the same direction on all charts, long and short term, wait for a dip, and watch stochastics.  When a dip occurs (in an up trend, or a spike in a downtrend), wait for Stochastics to bottom out, and appear to be just curling upwards, then open your 1 minute chart.  Look for synchronization between the 1 minute, 5 minute, and 15 minute charts, then place your bet.  All of this is explained at Babypips, but you should open an account at Easy-Forex first, since it may take a day or 2 to set up your account before you can trade.

This is a skill you can acquire, and possibly make some money with, if you’re disciplined.  Read, learn,and implement.  If, on the other hand, you’d like to take the lazy man’s route to trading currencies, you can always get a robot.  I’m serious.  There are actually programs that you can interface with your broker that will make trades for you, while you sleep.  I did find one particular robot that had some interesting results.  By that I mean, that I could see how it could make money for you, but you still would need to participate somewhat.  I hear they have a new program that is having some amazing results, but I haven’t tried it.  More information can be found here.

Oh, one other thing.  Don’t be greedy.  Bulls win, bears win, but pigs get slaughtered.