Money Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Lazy Man and Money

Is March Money Madness a Scam?

January 8, 2013 by Lazy Man 5 Comments

Another day, another scam (maybe?). As Buffy the Vampire Slayer once famously said, “… must be Tuesday”. (Since it is actually Tuesday, I don’t mind referencing that twice in the last few posts.)

I got a Twitter shout out from Rob Wilson about a collaboration idea. He seems to run a reputable Rob Wilson TV channel, which has quite a few clips of him on his local news affilate as an expert. One of the videos mentions that Wilson is a founder of Blazer Capital Management. Rob Wilson passed the sniff test. He definitely does not fit the scammer profile.

I told him to email me with his collaboration idea. Wilson explained something called the March Money Madness Bracket Challenge. His idea was to create a “financial education tool with a gaming component to use sports as a way to educate people about finance and investing (topics many people don’t find fun or interesting).” This is a concept that I can certain back as I’ve felt that an entertaining game is a good way to learn personal finance.

It is patterned after the March Madness basketball brackets with 64 stocks in 4 regions: Consumer, Industrial, Financial and Technology seeds based on their YTD returns as of the end of Feb. “The “games” between the stocks in the bracket occur during one week in the real life stock market. The stock with the highest return during the week wins the “game” and so on until a champion is crowned.

At this point in the explanation, I start to have my doubts. How much financial education comes into play for Apple to beat Google in any given week? I would think that making money investing would be more motivating than a game such as this.

Where do I come in? I would be a VIP player and others could match wits against me in this tournament (I guess no one told Rob that it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.) The offer was on the table to give me incentives to get people to play the game.

As I looked into the March Money Madness (MMM) website a little further I saw that there was a $5 entry fee and the winner would get 50% of the entry fees. This seemed a little like a 50/50 raffle… and perhaps a bit of an illegal lottery. I did a little searching and found this for my state of Massachusetts:

“Q: Can a nonprofit organization hold a 50/50 raffle or distribute a prize from the money collected from the sale of raffle tickets?
A: A nonprofit organization may hold a raffle to award various prizes that are announced in advance, such as a motorcycle, trip or television. If, however, the prize is cash (such as in the case of a 50/50 raffle where the winner receives 50% of the proceeds) or a portion of the prize is derived from the raffle proceeds, the raffle may run afoul of the prohibition against pooling contained in M.G.L. 271, s. 16A and 17.”

As far as I know MMM isn’t a nonprofit, but the rest applies almost exactly as Wilson has designed it. You’d think that for-profit entities would be even more strict.

I expressed this concern to Wilson and he came back with “March Money Madness is not a pool, lottery or a game of chance. March Money Madness is a skill based game. As is the case with fantasy football, March Money Madness is not an illegal competition. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act 0f 2006 (PDF) specifically excludes fantasy sports.” He also assured me that he worked with an attorney to ensure that the game is legal.

This reminded me that I read that office March Madness brackets every year are technically illegal. Surely, they would be a skill-based game. In fact, one could say that all betting on sports is skill-based to some degree. This was starting to remind me of bidding fee/penny auction scams where a strong case could be made that they are a game of chance while the ones running the auction claim it is a game of skill. In any case, since we had an easy parallel, I searched to see if the office pools were indeed legal as games of skill. Articles from LegalZoom and NPR confirm that they are not. The NPR one specifically states that making money off the bracket and crossing state lines are “almost certainly violating the law” as “virtually every state prohibits someone from conducting these types of gambling activities where they’re receiving profits for operating the gambling activity.”

I decided to check out the Unlawful Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) and after about 30 seconds of getting annoyed at the legalese (sometimes I earn my Lazy Man name), I decided to do more research elsewhere. That’s where I came across some of my strongest evidence in a Forbes article: Why Is Gambling On Fantasy Football Legal? According to the article UIGEA,

“carves out a safe haven for any fantasy or simulation sports game that:
‘…has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, or their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (but not chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events…
‘
In other words, fantasy sports are considered games of skill – not chance – if they can be won by successfully utilizing superior knowledge of the players involved. The Act adds that the game in question cannot have a prize that is determined by the number of players or amounts paid (think betting odds on game picks), but rather is established in advance of the game’s start.”

(I hope the quotes inside the quotes didn’t confuse you there.) At the very least this affirms the MA state law that the 50/50 part of the game is not legal as the prize would be based on the number of players and the price they paid.

The next question the article deals with is whether fantasy football counts as a game as skill, noting that losing a star player to injury could be considered bad luck. However, the article cites that this has been tested in the courts and they ruled “that fantasy sports are games of skill because players actively manage their teams, employing their sports knowledge and making strategic decisions.” So the skill would be in having good back-ups and navigating the bad luck that happens throughout the season. In the end, the author doesn’t seem to be believe that fantasy football counts as a game of skill noting that the high volatility of a player’s performance week to week could make it a game of chance. I have to agree. I played one season of fantasy football and I had the team that scored the most points overall in the league, but I finished with a 5-11 record as each week I got pitted against players who had their career days (Jahvid Best’s 220+ total yard game still stings.)

I strayed way too far from the yellow brick road there. Get back to the point, I don’t see how picking a bracket and submitting it once matches up with an active management. In fantasy football, there are many different options to deal with an adversity or under-performance such as pick up a free agent or make a trade. In MMM, if your top seed gets knocked out early, you can’t do anything about it except kiss your $5 goodbye.

Even if the UIGEA allowed it on a federal level, I would think that state laws would prohibit it. I realize that federal law supersedes state law. However, when a state makes something illegal like pumping your own gas in New Jersey, you can’t claim that safe-harbor due to the federal law.

As I publish this, I’m still waiting to hear back from Rob Wilson about the last several points. I suspect he’s slow in getting back because he’s getting a refund from his attorney. In any event, I won’t be participating in this scheme and I hope you don’t either.

Money Rules by Jean Chatzky Reviewed

April 3, 2012 by Lazy Man 4 Comments

What’s this? Two book reviews in two weeks? Are you really reading Lazy Man and Money? Have I gone mad?!?!

For years I’ve shunned book reviews. Why? Reading a book in addition to all the blogs and other things I read daily is a lot. It takes me 6 to read a book on a good day (I’m not a fast reader), and then writing up the review can take a couple more. It’s a commitment and not one that fits well with my cat-like attention span.

So why am I reviewing another book this week? There are two reasons. One is that it’s from Jean Chatzky. Despite the fact that I’ve been waiting three years for an email interview that her publicist promised, I think she’s got some of the best advice of any personal finance guru. The other reason I’m reviewing it? It is 109 pages and just about every page consists of just a few sentences. Some are simply pictures. I didn’t time myself, but I’m guessing that almost anyone can get through it in about 40 minutes.

Today’s book is Money Rules: The Simple Path to Lifelong Security by Jean Chatzky. The book itself consists of 94 rules. I’m surprised at the number. You’d think they’d stretch it to 100 or 101 for marketing purposes. It seems like it wouldn’t have been that hard to come up with a few more. Since the book is so short, this review will be as well. The 94 tips in general are pretty good ones, but ones that many would expect to know. For example, there was one about smoking, essentially pointing out the monetary costs to it. I’m on the fence about criticizing it because if it weren’t there, the book might seem incomplete, but by including it, it went a little bit into the common sense territory. I think the best tips were the ones that pointed out the psychology behind spending or saving.

I didn’t find myself agreeing with all the tips though. Tip #19 suggested that you carry $100 bills rather than $20 bills because psychologically it is more difficult to spend that big bill. If you combine that with rule #18, which says that you’ll spend less if you pay in cash rather than credit, you may find yourself not being able to purchase things like lunch. Not every place takes $100 bills and some places limit the change that they have on hand. Another of the rules, #39 was so vague that I don’t understand it all, “Always get three bids. Never take the high one.” It’s in the spend wisely section, so I guess this would mean that I should get three bids for landscaping and never take the most expensive one. That seems to be over simplistic. I’m sure there’s a case where the most expensive of three landscapers does offer a better level of service.

Oh and I like do with all the books I review, just to prove that I did read the book I’ll point out the page with the error. Page 101, which has tip #88 should be “leaving $20,000 to your kids”, not “leaving $20,000 to you kids.” The irony that I’m a great proofreader of other people’s writing and a terrible one of my own is not lost on me.

The Bottom Line: I’m of two minds on this book. On one hand, there’s great value in having something concise and to the point. On the other hand, it’s not a lot of information for $13. I could see it as a gift for someone graduating college. It’s got enough of the beginner tips, and it doesn’t require a commitment to read. It also says, “I spent nearly $15 on you and I care about your financial future”, so that’s a good thing.

Spring Cleaning of My Financial Mind

April 8, 2009 by Lazy Man 4 Comments

I’ve had a lot of small quick thoughts on my head lately. Time to clear them out…

How Much Does it Cost to Drive a Car – Watching the Today this morning… Christie Hyde from AAA says it costs 42 to 68 cents a mile to drive your car. Going from a small to medium sedan will raise your price from 42 cents to 54 cents. That seems like a big jump to me. She mentioned that one of the things people forget to factor with cars is depreciation. One of the suggestions to save money was to save money on gas, but they didn’t suggest buying a used car to cut on that depreciation.
California 9% Sales Tax – I don’t think it’s a 9% sales tax for every county, but it’s been raised up to 9% for me in Silicon Valley. A 10.25% sales tax has been proposed for nearby Oakland. I realize the money comes from different pots (Federal, State, County, City, etc…), but it’s strange to me that last year the government was creating a stimulus package to encourage spending. Now they are raising sales tax which encourages me not spend. Maybe I should advocate that everyone play the lottery a lot more so my taxes will go down… It’s almost crazy enough to work.
Hawaiian Airlines Rocks – This is no surprise to me or my wife but Hawaiian airlines were top rated. We flew them from Hawaii to Australia last year and it was an amazing flight. They had free beer and wine open bar, multiple meals (that were very, very good), and I’m not joking, but snack break with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. We always take the lowest-cost flight, so we weren’t expecting much, but it was incredible.
The Boston Globe May Be Closing? – Not long ago, this was completely unfathomable to me. The Boston Globe is central to the city – far more wide-read than the Boston Herald. It’s no secret that Boston and New York have a little rivalry going on (heard of the Red Sox and Yankees?), so can I start the conspiracy theory that the New York Times bought the Boston Globe, just so it could shut it down 15+ years later? I’m joking of course.
Hannah Montana Movie – I chuckle about the statement of “tired of living a double life” in the upcoming previews. Lazy Man hears what she’s saying.

Dog Costs for the First Month

March 17, 2009 by Lazy Man 14 Comments

A little while back, I had asked the question of how much does a dog cost. At the time, I was speculating based on the research I had done. Today I’m a little more prepared to answered that question from a position of experience. We’ve had our puppy, for around 11 days now and I finally feel like I can extrapolate the costs of the first month of owning a dog. It’s the most expensive month of dog ownership, because you have to all the start-up costs. We are probably over $1500 in dog costs already.

Here are some examples of costs that we’ve had so far:

Dog Itself – $300 – It is pretty hard to simply extract the cost of our puppy. It came with some of it’s shots, it’s tagging, it’s fixing, and a few other things that cost money.
Dog Training – $750 – We took an unusual route and with with Bark Busters. What’s unusual about them? Well for one, the price. At $750 it’s probably the most expensive training out there. What do you get for that kind of money? Everything. Lifetime, one-on-one training at your home on your schedule. We’ve had the trainer come by twice in the first 11 days. The first was because he was howling all night and we couldn’t get him to stop. The second was just last night because he has been wanting to jump up on and bite everything in sight. So far it’s very good money spent.
Dog Vet Visit – $79 – The first dog vet visit was free (since it’s a rescue dog), but the test of his stool wasn’t free – nor was the medication for the parasites they found. It’s not a big deal and I guess a lot of dogs have it, but it’s still another $79 more than we thought
Dog Supplies – $300 – I’m calling this $300, but here’s a quick breakdown of things we’ve already spent money on. Some toys ($25), a blanket ($10), a dog create ($40), a dog gate ($50), dog food ($40), bitter apple spray to stop him from biting stuff ($5), dog bath wash ($5), Febreeze ($5), dog training pads ($45). I’m sure there’s a few more costs that I forgot to add in. Surely, there will be others to add before the month is over.

All these costs have started to grate on me a little. It’s one thing if everything is rainbows and ~~puppy dogs~~ smiles all the time. However, there are times during this training period where I can’t help but think, “We paid $1500 so that you can continually bite mommy’s ankles. Hmmm…” Then there are the times when he just comes up, crawls in my lap and licks my hand. It’s hard to put a value on that.

Blogging Goals: What You’ll See Here in 2009

December 29, 2008 by Lazy Man 20 Comments

Thanks to Green Panda Treehouse for pointing me to Visionary Blogging’s 7 Strategic Blog Improvement Questions. That article serves as an outline for my blogging goals for 2009.

What will I accomplish with my blog in 2009? How will I make my blog more valuable in 2009?
There are a number of ways to determine the success of a blog. Here are just a few examples, with 2008s numbers and my goals for 2009:
- Traffic – Last year I averaged 37,794 visitors a month. This may put me in the top 99.9% of blogs or higher, but it’s really not where I want or need to be to make Lazy Man and Money truly successful. For 2009, I’d like to average at least 75,000 visitors a month.
- Earnings – In 2008, I made roughly $30,000 from my websites. I had hoped to make more in 2008, but instead of growing those sites to make more money, I put some into time into consulting making a guaranteed dollar. In 2009, I’m going to aim to make $60,000. Of course aiming to do something is one thing, having a plan in place and executing on it is another thing in it’s entirety.
- Value To Its Readers – I don’t know how one would go about quantifying this goal. The closest I can come is noting that I have 3000 readers who subscribe to Lazy Man and Money’s RSS feed. If that number grows it tells me that readers like what they are reading and are passing along the information to their friends. That’s an indication that my writing provides value to its readers.
- Value To Myself – One of the reasons why I blog about personal finance is that it really helps me with my own money. As I network with readers and other personal finance bloggers, I learn ways to not only manage my money better, but also find smarter ways to spend it.
How will I increase the authority of my blog in 2009?
The formula for a successful blog always seems to boil down to two basic ingredients: content and marketing. If you create content that people find valuable and deliver that content to them, you’ll find that your blog will be successful. Other than you to sincerely ask readers to send articles that they like to their friends and family, I haven’t come up with any new ways to market my blog in 2009. Which brings us to the next question?
How will I make my content more addictive in 2009?
In 2008, I often wrote and published my articles in the same day, with no proofreading. That’s a bad recipe for creating top content. Some may say that they enjoyed my content in 2008. However, if I revamp my process to be ahead of the game, it will give me time to review, improve, and edit the content before you read it.
In addition to focusing more on writing in advance, I’m going to look to create a new format for 2009. This is subject to getting ahead of the game with my writing. If I can do that expect the following format:
- Monday – I will focus on frugality and ways to save money. One of the quickest ways to financial freedom is to reduce expenses. I will focus on the value of a dollar spent. Sometimes it’s worth paying a little more for quality that you can count on.
- Tuesday & Thursday – I’d like to cover some of the basics of personal finance. In 2008, I didn’t do a lot of research on personal finance topics. I found it easier to write about some financial thought that came into my head. The advantage of this is that my writing comes from my heart – it stresses the “personal” in “personal finance.” However, I realize that I need to write about basic topics – ones that can help people in all aspects of their lives. Look for the following topics in 2009: banking, budgeting, career, credit, debt, entrepreneurism, investing, taxes, real estate, insurance, retirement, estate planning, college saving, and more. My biggest challenge will be making these topics interesting and engaging.
- Wednesday – I plan to use Wednesday to tell some story about my personal financial life, or something that I think you should know. There are the kinds of articles that regular readers will be used to. If you are happy with the way I’ve been writing in 2008, don’t think that I’ll this writing only to Wednesdays… If I have something to say, I’ll publish it as a second article from Monday-Friday.
- Friday – I think there’s a lot of value to many minds contribute their thoughts. With that in mind, I’m asking readers and/or personal finance bloggers to contact me and submit articles for this Friday slot. I promise submitters of quality content will garner instant fame and fortune. ¹. If I can’t get enough people to submit content for Friday, I may have to resort to bargains from Amazon’s Friday Sale or other lighter content to ease into the weekend.
- Saturday – Expect me to live up to my name here and take the day off.
- Sunday – In 2008, I used Sundays to write about something that might not be financial in nature – a small peek into my life. Along with that story, I will include some personal finance links from the last week that I found of interest.
If you have any feedback on this I would appreciate it.
How will I make my blog design more charming in 2009?
Readers, I need your help on this one. What design changes would you like to see? In 2008, I went with a new theme that focused on readability and scannability by shortening the column of content. I’ve heard from some people that the light green outline is a little bright on some monitors. Have you been seeing this? Is it bad? I also went out and had a professionally designed logo, which people seemed to enjoy.
How will I make my blog community funner in 2009?
It’s a good time to remind you that I didn’t come up with these questions. Friends say that I’m fairly funny in real life. Either I’m not that funny in writing or it doesn’t come through very well with personal finance topics. Perhaps the tax code is only so humorous. If I can succeed in making personal finance more interesting, not only will my blog be more successful, I think readers will look forward to learning together.
How will I melt my blog more fluidly into my business’s big picture in 2009?
I’ve started down the road with Twitter and I can tell it’s going to be a big part of the Lazy Man and Money brand in 2009. I will look into Facebook to see if I can leverage that to grow Lazy Man and Money. My wife has made me some sweet looking business cards. I will use these when I network with financial start-ups in Silicon Valley. Living near these start-ups allow me unique opportunity for “face time”, which helps me partner with brands that may become tomorrow leaders.

Those are my goals for 2009. Some may be aggressive, but my limited experience with day camp archery says that you have to aim a little high to hit the bullseye.

Notes
1. Fame in this case is defined by the electronic publishing of the article. I use the Dictionary.com version of “fortune” as “things that happen or are to happen to a person in his or her life”, not the one of “wealth or riches.