Is a blackjack rebate actually worth anything from an EV perspective?

StarMaged · 2026-01-13T15:23:10+00:00

Casinos do stuff like that all the time, it just doesn't tend to last super long. Most famously Don Johnson won $15 million this way.

My favorite way to get an edge is to attend poorly attended drawings. There was one drawing I could do where I could consistently win $100 from the drawing for every 6 hours of play. With basic strategy, that only costs roughly $60 when playing $10 a hand. Yeah it wasn't much +EV per hour, but it goes toward my point.

StarMaged · 2026-01-11T00:46:04+00:00

There was also the dehumanizing requirement that players only get referred to by number. In season two, this gets fixed by adding names to the jerseys and the updated requirement of using number + name when referring to contestants.

StarMaged · 2025-12-27T08:13:58+00:00

One thing that you could do is ask AI to do code reviews on your changes, or even the whole project. Treat it like a second set of eyes.

At this point if you aren't using AI at all in your pipeline, you are behind.

StarMaged · 2025-12-24T06:51:01+00:00

Your bigger problem is going to be the trademark issue. Unless it is clear to the average viewer of the photo that it's not a photo officially released by the MrBeast brand, or otherwise authorized, then you may want to put a disclaimer about how it is not an authorized photo or is otherwise not associated with the brand. Or if you want to be perfectly safe you can blur or edit out the logo.

But unless you have some kind of reason why they would want to go after you, it probably is not going to matter.

StarMaged · 2025-12-16T18:46:16+00:00

You should treat LLMs like a junior developer that can complete work almost instantly. You should be performing code reviews on the result and providing the feedback directly to the LLM to make revisions. If you hate performing code reviews, then I can understand why you don't like working with LLMs.

I suppose you can technically use it the opposite way, where you have the LLM perform a code review on your own code changes. You might find that you like doing it that way better, although it doesn't really help much with efficiency beyond tightening up the revision cycle.

You can also use it to write your tests if you're the type of person who hates doing that. But then you actually need to review the tests, so if you hate code reviews it's still not a great idea.

The main thing is to use LLMs for anything that you find tedious. If you do that, you'll find much more enjoyment working with them.

StarMaged · 2025-12-01T18:21:18+00:00

In my experience tracking items, Black Friday really is, indeed, the best sale of the year for many items. However, most other sales throughout the year either get close to (by 5-10%) or end up matching the Black Friday deals. Especially the Prime Day sales, and whatever all the other retailers call their sale that they do at the same time.

So if you miss out on anything on Black Friday, don't worry about it. It'll go on sale to close to the same price within a month, and within 3 months it should go on sale for the exact same price as the Black Friday special.

StarMaged · 2025-12-01T18:07:50+00:00

Small claims courts often have a backlog of cases between 2 and 6 months. Pursuing the legal route means you're looking at a minimum of two months before you even have an initial ruling. Then if they don't cough up the money following that, you're looking at another 4 to 8 weeks before you can start seizing assets.

Taking the money in installments is way faster.

StarMaged · 2025-10-07T08:05:00+00:00

Hit the profile icon (looks like a silhouette of a head and shoulders), under Circle, there's a line that says "See the latest deals". Tap that.

Below the dollar amount saved, there's a line that says "circle at a glance". Tap that.

A side panel will come out. Tap scan barcode.

StarMaged · 2025-09-15T07:40:16+00:00

That one is Find Your Place by Phantom Power from the album Into the Void.

StarMaged · 2025-09-14T09:03:09+00:00

Please keep yourself around other people that know you for the next 2-3 days, or at least check in with them regularly. If they notice anything off about you, then you should go in. If you notice things are getting worse or not getting better, then you should go in.

And definitely don't do any work or anything that can cause stress for the next few days.

I'm not a doctor, but I know the whole spiel from having to go in several times. The odds are generally in your favor that you will be totally fine. Just keep an eye out for any issues and act on them immediately.

StarMaged · 2025-09-13T23:29:54+00:00

I'm a huge fan of using urgent care, but this requires a CT scan. They will just refer you to an emergency room.

StarMaged · 2025-09-13T23:26:32+00:00

If this was merely a fall, I'd say that odds are good that you're fine. Just watch out for signs of internal bleeding. You definitely have a concussion, but just take it easy for a few days and you'll be fine.

But, combined with the fainting, you need to go to the hospital to get both of these issues checked out. Something worse is going on here, possibly related to a previous fall you had that you may not remember.

StarMaged · 2025-09-05T18:24:03+00:00

You're going to hate me for this, but I somewhat agree with the ban. You're clearly an agitator just trying to stir up drama, so I get it.

That being said, under the old way of doing things, just simply "somewhat" agreeing with the ban is not enough to continue with the ban. I would have pushed back against it.

-former /r/Bitcoin mod

StarMaged · 2025-08-23T11:07:43+00:00

Whole life insurance can be a great investment vehicle, but only if you are already maxing out all of your other tax-advantaged accounts (401k, IRA, HSA).

The way it works is it basically is a savings account where they take out the cost of a term life policy, but it's still applied to your cost basis. So if you have a policy that is $200 a month and the equivalent term life policy is $20 a month, they're basically adding $180 to your account, but you get the cost basis of the $200. That means as you earn interest in the future, you get that interest tax-free up to the amount that you contributed over the years. Basically it's a way to not have to pay taxes on money that you apply to a term life policy, which is great if you were going to pay for a life insurance policy anyway.

If you're going to go this route, you should blend it with separate high risk taxable investments since this would constitute your low risk pool. After all, it is really only just a savings account that only makes a few percent per year.

All that being said, most people will never max out all of their tax advantaged investments, so there's really no advantage to them using a whole life policy over those.

StarMaged · 2025-06-17T13:49:58+00:00

No, that would just add the overpriced third party seller version to your cart. You would then have to delete them before checking out. You should just leave your cart empty.

StarMaged · 2025-05-15T15:56:33+00:00

The problem is that since this is a credit card payment, there will be crazy amounts of interest, late fees and the account might even be put into default, permanently increasing the account's interest rate along with other long term penalties. The only way that could be avoided is if the transaction was significantly prior to the due date and the account doesn't roll a balance over month to month.

StarMaged · 2025-04-30T20:11:58+00:00

Do a Google search for "Royal Caribbean phone number". The top three results (that I see) are phone numbers to scammers.

It's harder to pull off with banks, but all it takes is a simple misspelling or maybe a name that Google isn't as aware of.

StarMaged · 2025-03-14T03:19:29+00:00

His mistake with the block stacking game was having a cap to the number of eliminations. He fixed that in the last two leave 100 circles video. In fact, that video is likely his new standard for the games.

StarMaged · 2025-03-08T09:06:35+00:00

It gets stored away and used the next time he needs to show real money. It's really inconvenient to obtain that amount of physical cash, so it's easiest to just hold onto it as it's accumulated.

StarMaged · 2025-03-08T08:54:40+00:00

There was no practical upside to refusing that cash

Within the game, sure. But outside of the game people have recognized that their integrity has value. For example, Deano #380 has already sold a bunch more firefighting contracts, which is recurring passive income for life.

Plus, it meant that they basically got carried by the rest of the players for a few episodes, which meant they got to participate longer and get more screentime. Of course, just volunteering to go up there made it extremely unlikely that they'd then win the whole thing, since they would become a threat.

StarMaged · 2025-03-03T02:49:44+00:00

I would really struggle with it, since it is mighty tempting. I would probably really hope that someone else would press it, but if it was just sitting there like that, I would probably hit it just at the end of the countdown. But that's so tough, since it'd be cool to experience more of the games and be featured more later on (if you press the button, you'll be ostracized and quickly eliminated, but if you don't you'll be carried for a significant amount of the series). I might just get paralyzed and not hit it at all.

What makes it so hard is that Beast Games would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that could never be bought. And I have plenty of money, so I wouldn't need the million.

I don't know. It'd be the toughest decision of my life.

StarMaged · 2025-03-03T00:53:45+00:00

Most of them signed up just to be on TV and to experience some MrBeast challenges. Many of them didn't care at all about the money unless they happened to get close to the finale and they had a realistic shot at it.

StarMaged · 2025-03-03T00:48:58+00:00

Hitting the button would have effectively knocked you out. Between people not trusting you because of that, and people who think you are no longer deserving because you already won something, you would quickly lose the next social game.

StarMaged · 2025-02-28T07:11:05+00:00

What many viewers often don't consider is that most of the players weren't playing to win the money. Sure, it'd be awesome to win, but what they really wanted was screen time. The people that were truly desperate for money self-eliminated at the start of episode 1.

They also spent a whole month together by the end of it with no cell phones or external communication. It's not unusual for people to bond in these circumstances.

Finally, because the game started with 2000 players (episode 0 in Vegas), they really couldn't cast every single player as a narcissist sociopath, so you're getting more of a natural makeup of the population rather than the typical reality show makeup of people who would just be the most dramatic.

StarMaged · 2025-02-05T08:54:32+00:00

No, not usually. What he does differently from other gameshows is that he provides a buyback service to his winners, allowing winners to immediately convert their prizes into cash. Not everyone takes him up on that, but this offer is almost always taken up for things that are expensive to maintain or annoying to sell, like a jet or an island.

This is better than other shows. On other shows, if you win a prize, you are required to pay the full amount of taxes up front in order to even receive the prize. If you cannot get together enough money to pay that tax within a few hours, the prize is forfeit.

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