@Cameonut said:
Well, the scam is not a success with me. If I want to gamble, I think I get better odds in the lottery or the local casino.
I have no problem with the first part but the "better odds in the lottery" is absurd.
1 in 6 people get a red core. Those who don't get some value back. Using @ElKevvo 's math above, the expected return for all VB purchasers is 71 cents on the dollar. Few will profit, even fewer will make a big profit. And yes, blackjack or roulette and even slots are better odds (although some of the "side bets" can start to approach the low odds).
But when the Powerball was at a $2 billion jackpot the expected return was 16 cents on the dollar. And MUCH less with a smaller prize pool.
Yes and no. I don't know where your specific Powerball number is coming from, but lotteries in general return around 50% of the take as prizes, as compared to 90%+ in a casino. As a result, anything near 70% for a private, unsupervised, unregulated lottery that is not supplementing tax revenue by funding public projects is really kind of inexcusable.
That said, everyone knows the deal, so anyone who chooses to line VB's pockets is more than free to do so.
When Powerball jackpots explode due to prize pool rollovers, the expected return often exceeds 100%, even though your individual odds are still 1 in hundreds of millions, so I'd LOVE to know where 16% comes from.
How could the expected return on a $2 billion top prize, plus all the other prizes, POSSIBLY be anywhere near 16%, even accounting for the present value of the $2 billion annuity? How many hundreds of millions of tickets could they have possibly sold for that single drawing to get to that number? Simply impossible.
@Cameonut said:
Well, the scam is not a success with me. If I want to gamble, I think I get better odds in the lottery or the local casino.
I have no problem with the first part but the "better odds in the lottery" is absurd.
1 in 6 people get a red core. Those who don't get some value back. Using @ElKevvo 's math above, the expected return for all VB purchasers is 71 cents on the dollar. Few will profit, even fewer will make a big profit. And yes, blackjack or roulette and even slots are better odds (although some of the "side bets" can start to approach the low odds).
But when the Powerball was at a $2 billion jackpot the expected return was 16 cents on the dollar. And MUCH less with a smaller prize pool.
Yes and no. I don't know where your specific Powerball number is coming from, but lotteries in general return around 50% of the take as prizes, as compared to 90%+ in a casino. As a result, anything near 70% for a private, unsupervised, unregulated lottery that is not supplementing tax revenue by funding public projects is really kind of inexcusable.
That said, everyone knows the deal, so anyone who chooses to line VB's pockets is more than free to do so.
When Powerball jackpots explode due to prize pool rollovers, the expected return often exceeds 100%, even though your individual odds are still 1 in hundreds of millions, so I'd LOVE to know where 16% comes from.
How could the expected return on a $2 billion top prize, plus all the other prizes, POSSIBLY be anywhere near 16%, even accounting for the present value of the $2 billion annuity? How many hundreds of millions of tickets could they have possibly sold for that single drawing to get to that number? Simply impossible.
@hfjacinto said:
Personally I think Vault Box is a money losing proposition but it’s not my money. I spent money on 3 vacations last year that I’ll never see back. My vacation is someone’s vault box.
and unlike a vacation, vaultbox purchases have at least some residual value left over, so not a 100% loss. I like gambling, but prefer a softer house edge.
I guess, if you consider living life and having experiences a "100% loss."
@hfjacinto said:
Personally I think Vault Box is a money losing proposition but it’s not my money. I spent money on 3 vacations last year that I’ll never see back. My vacation is someone’s vault box.
and unlike a vacation, vaultbox purchases have at least some residual value left over, so not a 100% loss. I like gambling, but prefer a softer house edge.
I guess, if you consider living life and having experiences a "100% loss."
Is opening a vaultbox also not an experience?
Sure, I guess. Comparable to a cruise or a week on a beach somewhere, or even a dinner and a movie? I guess that depends.
Interesting thing though is the fact that I will spend $20.00 (waste my money) on Powerball and/or Megamillions Lottery tickets when the prize exceeds $500,000,000.00.
@Cameonut said:
Well, the scam is not a success with me. If I want to gamble, I think I get better odds in the lottery or the local casino.
I have no problem with the first part but the "better odds in the lottery" is absurd.
1 in 6 people get a red core. Those who don't get some value back. Using @ElKevvo 's math above, the expected return for all VB purchasers is 71 cents on the dollar. Few will profit, even fewer will make a big profit. And yes, blackjack or roulette and even slots are better odds (although some of the "side bets" can start to approach the low odds).
But when the Powerball was at a $2 billion jackpot the expected return was 16 cents on the dollar. And MUCH less with a smaller prize pool.
Yes and no. I don't know where your specific Powerball number is coming from, but lotteries in general return around 50% of the take as prizes, as compared to 90%+ in a casino. As a result, anything near 70% for a private, unsupervised, unregulated lottery that is not supplementing tax revenue by funding public projects is really kind of inexcusable.
That said, everyone knows the deal, so anyone who chooses to line VB's pockets is more than free to do so.
When Powerball jackpots explode due to prize pool rollovers, the expected return often exceeds 100%, even though your individual odds are still 1 in hundreds of millions, so I'd LOVE to know where 16% comes from.
How could the expected return on a $2 billion top prize, plus all the other prizes, POSSIBLY be anywhere near 16%, even accounting for the present value of the $2 billion annuity? How many hundreds of millions of tickets could they have possibly sold for that single drawing to get to that number? Simply impossible.
EDIT: My number is excluding the jackpot. With the jackpot included it's 43% expected return. My mistake.
It's not that interesting at all. It falls into the category of "lies, damn lies, and statistics." You can manipulate numbers to show whatever you want. At the end of the day, lotteries typically pay out around 50% in prizes. Not 16%. Powerball is no exception.
As with VB, ignoring the amount of each ticket that is required to fund the mega prize leads to a misleading result. 16% in this case. Or even 43% with your edit. It is still wrong. If VB was viewed the same way, its payout would be measured as closer to 30% than 70%.
It's just math, and it's obvious. When prize pools roll over from drawing to drawing, the expected value for a given drawing goes up, not down, until eventually exceeding 100%, even if your individual odds are still 300 million to 1.
$2 billion top prize, plus a bunch of smaller prizes. Each ticket costs $2, and you can discount the $2 billion to something below $1 billion to account for the present value of the annuity. To get to 16%, you'd still have to sell over 3 BILLION tickets, at $2 each, for that drawing to get to that number. 43%? You're still talking about a billion tickets at $2 each. Do you really think that's how many tickets they sell when the jackpots get that high?
Just step back and think about it logically. 43% is probably close to the actual number when a jackpot resets. It only goes up from there, as the prize pool rolls over after each drawing. Otherwise, the numbers you are talking about simply make no sense, because they don't sell a billion tickets 3 times a week.
To get to the 43%, the article you are citing talks about taxes and split jackpots. They are irrelevant to the odds and expected payout from a prize pool.
When you have 300 million people who collectively paid $600 million to be in a pool with a $1 billion top prize, plus other, smaller prizes, the expected return on a single ticket is far higher than 100%, even though your odds of actually realizing it are as close to zero as when the expected return was 43%.
After the winner buys $500 million worth of VBs, their return will be reduced to 30%. Would that also be relevant? Not winning reduces the return to 0%. Also irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is the actual return. Not what happens if multiple people win, or that you have to pay taxes on the back end. It's all nothing more than someone screwing around with numbers to make a point. "Lies, damn lies and statistics."
Apparently Vaultbox was enough of a success to have one seller on Whatnot create a knockoff product that didn’t go so well. From reading some of the Reddit threads it sounds like calling what happened a “dumpster fire” would be an insult to dumpster fires.
Here is a link to one of the threads with the explanation about what allegedly went down about half way through:
@jeffas1974 said:
Apparently Vaultbox was enough of a success to have one seller on Whatnot create a knockoff product that didn’t go so well. From reading some of the Reddit threads it sounds like calling what happened a “dumpster fire” would be an insult to dumpster fires.
Here is a link to one of the threads with the explanation about what allegedly went down about half way through:
Whatnot is full of homemade mystery boxes in just about every category. People love them, apparently.
They aren't packed by an independent organization, nor do they really need to be. Typically they have like 25 or 50 packages, with one to ten big items. I saw one in comics the other day that had a minimum (retail) value of $50 with 10 of 50 that had a $500 value. They auctioned them off one at a time and opened them live.
I'll make 3 observations:
1. Gamblong games are against Whatnot policy, although it depends on the specifics. Mystery boxes are allowed under certain conditions: all boxes stay visible at all times, must be opened live, and the floor and ceiling must be stated.
2. I would do it myself but I can't figure out what stops someone from just filling a chargeback if they don't win.
3. The prices paid were typically at or only slightly above the "minimum value" of each box.
@jeffas1974 said:
Apparently Vaultbox was enough of a success to have one seller on Whatnot create a knockoff product that didn’t go so well. From reading some of the Reddit threads it sounds like calling what happened a “dumpster fire” would be an insult to dumpster fires.
Here is a link to one of the threads with the explanation about what allegedly went down about half way through:
Yea. Watching that streams “old holder” boxes made Vaultbox look like a bargain. People paying hundreds for $75 worth of coins. The streamer who apparently lost his job during that is back working at another dealer. The dealers actually selling them are still as popular as ever. Go figure.
If it did not Jump the Shark before, this might be the time.
Many thanks for the TTT, but does this even belong in the US Coin Forum? If not, good luck riling up whoever may be frequenting the Ancient Forum.
Why would ancients be "jumping the shark"? I've been advocating for this very thing since the beginning. For a random pull, ancients make more sense than US type.
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
@124Spider said:
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
But the cult-like following bemuses me no end.
Do we know there is a "cult-like" following? I have no idea how many different people have dipped in a toe and then not returned.
@124Spider said:
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
But the cult-like following bemuses me no end.
Do we know there is a "cult-like" following? I have no idea how many different people have dipped in a toe and then not returned.
I certainly have observed on this board a few who seem cult-like in the way they spread the "gospel" of VaultBox!
However, I see the gambling center of the brain and the collecting center of the brain as existing in different areas. The vault box thing plays 99% to one, and only 1% to the other. I doubt anyone is buying them hoping to fill holes in their core collection.
If it did not Jump the Shark before, this might be the time.
Many thanks for the TTT, but does this even belong in the US Coin Forum? If not, good luck riling up whoever may be frequenting the Ancient Forum.
Why would ancients be "jumping the shark"? I've been advocating for this very thing since the beginning. For a random pull, ancients make more sense than US type.
Because it hardly seems like the card pack breaking gamblers they were initially targeting with their NGCX American bullion lottery would also have an interest in ancients. Given how thin the market is for them, and how difficult they are to value, it just seems to me like this is now Jumping the Shark, insofar as I'm not even sure how people would know the extent to which they are being screwed on every box.
The secondary market for the last round seemed to fizzle, so it will be interesting to see how these do, given how much smaller the collector base is for ancients. The primary market has always seemed to be heavily weighted towards flippers rather than gamblers.
I'm glad you are finally seeing something that interests you, but you seem to me to be the exact opposite of loose with your money, so this is your chance to finally go all in and put your money where your mouth has been on VB. Or, to finally admit that they are just terrible deals for all but the sellers, no matter how attractive the grand prize is. And, as always, that's even before getting into legitimate questions regarding how prizes are distributed.
@124Spider said:
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
But the cult-like following bemuses me no end.
Do we know there is a "cult-like" following? I have no idea how many different people have dipped in a toe and then not returned.
I certainly have observed on this board a few who seem cult-like in the way they spread the "gospel" of VaultBox!
@124Spider said:
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
But the cult-like following bemuses me no end.
Do we know there is a "cult-like" following? I have no idea how many different people have dipped in a toe and then not returned.
I certainly have observed on this board a few who seem cult-like in the way they spread the "gospel" of VaultBox!
@124Spider said:
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
But the cult-like following bemuses me no end.
Do we know there is a "cult-like" following? I have no idea how many different people have dipped in a toe and then not returned.
I certainly have observed on this board a few who seem cult-like in the way they spread the "gospel" of VaultBox!
I would love for this hobby to find the space for everyone to have fun, and enjoy the excitement of others. Being happy for others is easy... you just have to put that person first, and not yourself.
To those that say, "this will ruin our hobby", think about how your unkind words to someone will only expedite that collector's exit. We have three choices... be supportive and kind, say nothing at all, or be disparaging. Which one will you be today?
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
Vault Box just isn't for me, but it might be alright for thee. It looks like it's geared more for stackers and people with gamer mentality. For someone that collects mostly classics, this product has almost no appeal - to me.
One thing I have leaned is that if I want my future threads to get at least 50 responses, I'll give them titles like:
"New toned Morgan Vault Box purchase!"
"Coin show report from Podunk, TX. Possible Vault Box sighting"
"Weird 1999 Lincoln cent. Could it have come from Vault Box?"
"Which place sells the best graded coins? I'll say Vault Box"
I encourage people to visit Whatnot and see all the games that go on. It is part of the culture there and people are having fun and buying coins and entering giveaways and buying mystery boxes.
I stumbled into a Vault Box box break yesterday. 30 to 40 people in the room bidding to win a box that was opened for them on camera. And the damn fools actually looked to be having fun. What is wrong with them?
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
I would love for this hobby to find the space for everyone to have fun, and enjoy the excitement of others. Being happy for others is easy... you just have to put that person first, and not yourself.
To those that say, "this will ruin our hobby", think about how your unkind words to someone will only expedite that collector's exit. We have three choices... be supportive and kind, say nothing at all, or be disparaging. Which one will you be today?
This is not hobby, it is more like, buy for $1200 get $200 back. How is that a hobby? If being had is having fun, well then, have fun................
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
Now you had to go and throw my beloved Cowboys into this lol. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the most likely outcome of purchasing a Vaultbox is a loss of 50% or more of the purchase price but that by itself shouldn’t immediately allow something to be labeled “unsafe”.
Under that criteria alone, my home insurance policy is a unsafe purchase because pretty much every year I get back 0% of my cost. Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.
If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.
As others have mentioned before, the price for Vaultbox needs to be measured against probabilistic/expected value plus some amount of entertainment value. Although I doubt I would ever buy one myself, I do find it interesting and have no issues with the product (with the caveat that distribution and allocation is on the up and up) and if it brings in more people to the hobby then that’s a net benefit IMHO.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
Now you had to go and throw my beloved Cowboys into this lol. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the most likely outcome of purchasing a Vaultbox is a loss of 50% or more of the purchase price but that by itself shouldn’t immediately allow something to be labeled “unsafe”.
Under that criteria alone, my home insurance policy is a unsafe purchase because pretty much every year I get back 0% of my cost. Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.
If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.
As others have mentioned before, the price for Vaultbox needs to be measured against probabilistic/expected value plus some amount of entertainment value. Although I doubt I would ever buy one myself, I do find it interesting and have no issues with the product (with the caveat that distribution and allocation is on the up and up) and if it brings in more people to the hobby then that’s a net benefit IMHO.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
Now you had to go and throw my beloved Cowboys into this lol. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the most likely outcome of purchasing a Vaultbox is a loss of 50% or more of the purchase price but that by itself shouldn’t immediately allow something to be labeled “unsafe”.
Under that criteria alone, my home insurance policy is a unsafe purchase because pretty much every year I get back 0% of my cost. Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.
If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.
As others have mentioned before, the price for Vaultbox needs to be measured against probabilistic/expected value plus some amount of entertainment value. Although I doubt I would ever buy one myself, I do find it interesting and have no issues with the product (with the caveat that distribution and allocation is on the up and up) and if it brings in more people to the hobby then that’s a net benefit IMHO.
I'm sorry, but this TOTALLY mischaracterizes the entire reason behind insurance. It's not "an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event."
In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's the transference of the risk of the huge downside of an extreme event in return for a relatively small cash premium.
In the home insurance example, the gamble would be not buying insurance. This has absolutely nothing to do with VB, which, at the end of the day, is simply an unregulated, unsupervised lottery wrapped around coins to allow it to be legally marketed.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
Lmao. So? Walmart doesn't sell bread out of a sense of civic virtue. And VB is every bit as voluntary as your beloved lottery.
And your state lottery takes most of its money (voluntarily) from the people who can last afford to give it up. 🙄 I know you're trying too hard when you are defending lotteries as charities.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
Lmao. So? Walmart doesn't sell bread out of a sense of civic virtue. And VB is every bit as voluntary as your beloved lottery.
And your state lottery takes most of its money (voluntarily) from the people who can last afford to give it up. 🙄 I know you're trying too hard when you are defending lotteries as charities.
Understood. But, I don't compare Walmart to the lottery. You, OTOH, compared VB to it.
Not defending lotteries at all. I think they are a vile regressive tax. As you said, primarily on those least able to afford them.
That said, they do some public good. So, I REALLY wouldn't compare an unregulated, unsupervised private version like VB to one, and then justify it by saying that at least the returns are better, since there is at least circumstantial evidence that the prizes are not fairly distributed, and there is no claim that the profits are put to a public use.
Walmart is known for low prices. Not for selling goods at a significant markup to full retail. TERRIBLE analogy.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
Now you had to go and throw my beloved Cowboys into this lol. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the most likely outcome of purchasing a Vaultbox is a loss of 50% or more of the purchase price but that by itself shouldn’t immediately allow something to be labeled “unsafe”.
Under that criteria alone, my home insurance policy is a unsafe purchase because pretty much every year I get back 0% of my cost. Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.
If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.
As others have mentioned before, the price for Vaultbox needs to be measured against probabilistic/expected value plus some amount of entertainment value. Although I doubt I would ever buy one myself, I do find it interesting and have no issues with the product (with the caveat that distribution and allocation is on the up and up) and if it brings in more people to the hobby then that’s a net benefit IMHO.
I'm sorry, but this TOTALLY mischaracterizes the entire reason behind insurance. It's not "an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event."
In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's the transference of the risk of the huge downside of an extreme event in return for a relatively small cash premium.
Isn’t that what I’ve stated in this section of my post that you’re objecting to?
“Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.”
I’m not sure how the above is a misrepresentation of insurance although it probably would have been better to switch out the word standalone for subsequent.
I further agreed that it’s the exact opposite in the next paragraph:
“If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.”
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
Lmao. So? Walmart doesn't sell bread out of a sense of civic virtue. And VB is every bit as voluntary as your beloved lottery.
And your state lottery takes most of its money (voluntarily) from the people who can last afford to give it up. 🙄 I know you're trying too hard when you are defending lotteries as charities.
Understood. But, I don't compare Walmart to the lottery. You, OTOH, compared VB to it.
Not defending lotteries at all. I think they are a vile regressive tax. As you said, primarily on those least able to afford them.
That said, they do some public good. So, I REALLY wouldn't compare an unregulated, unsupervised private version like VB to one, and then justify it by saying that at least the returns are better, since there is at least circumstantial evidence that the prizes are not fairly distributed, and there is no claim that the profits are put to a public use.
Walmart is known for low prices. Not for selling goods at a significant markup to full retail. TERRIBLE analogy.
The analogy is not about the pricing but about the virtue of v private enterprise. It is an excellent point. You're just too blinded by hatred to see it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business making a profit.
You are hung up on P/L. VB provides amusement. If the users of that service are happy, I don't know why you give a rat's ass. You get zero return on greens fees, magazine subscriptions, vacation costs or any other form of amusement. But your hatred puts VB in a different category and you will twist any argument to support that opinion.
You don't like box breaks? Fine. No one is telling you to feel otherwise. Lots of people hate box breaks and mystery boxes. But Whatnot proves that a lot of people also like them. That must really burn you. All those people having inappropriate fun, voluntarily.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
Now you had to go and throw my beloved Cowboys into this lol. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the most likely outcome of purchasing a Vaultbox is a loss of 50% or more of the purchase price but that by itself shouldn’t immediately allow something to be labeled “unsafe”.
Under that criteria alone, my home insurance policy is a unsafe purchase because pretty much every year I get back 0% of my cost. Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.
If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.
As others have mentioned before, the price for Vaultbox needs to be measured against probabilistic/expected value plus some amount of entertainment value. Although I doubt I would ever buy one myself, I do find it interesting and have no issues with the product (with the caveat that distribution and allocation is on the up and up) and if it brings in more people to the hobby then that’s a net benefit IMHO.
I'm sorry, but this TOTALLY mischaracterizes the entire reason behind insurance. It's not "an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event."
In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's the transference of the risk of the huge downside of an extreme event in return for a relatively small cash premium.
Isn’t that what I’ve stated in this section of my post that you’re objecting to?
“Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.”
I’m not sure how the above is a misrepresentation of insurance although it probably would have been better to switch out the word standalone for subsequent.
I further agreed that it’s the exact opposite in the next paragraph:
“If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.”
Perhaps my post was a bit of a TLDR?
Maybe, and maybe I just misunderstood what you were trying to say. I read it as homeowners insurance being a bad bet gamble on a big payday, just like VB, rather than the opposite, which is paying someone to take the gamble of a big loss.
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
Lmao. So? Walmart doesn't sell bread out of a sense of civic virtue. And VB is every bit as voluntary as your beloved lottery.
And your state lottery takes most of its money (voluntarily) from the people who can last afford to give it up. 🙄 I know you're trying too hard when you are defending lotteries as charities.
Understood. But, I don't compare Walmart to the lottery. You, OTOH, compared VB to it.
Not defending lotteries at all. I think they are a vile regressive tax. As you said, primarily on those least able to afford them.
That said, they do some public good. So, I REALLY wouldn't compare an unregulated, unsupervised private version like VB to one, and then justify it by saying that at least the returns are better, since there is at least circumstantial evidence that the prizes are not fairly distributed, and there is no claim that the profits are put to a public use.
Walmart is known for low prices. Not for selling goods at a significant markup to full retail. TERRIBLE analogy.
The analogy is not about the pricing but about the virtue of v private enterprise. It is an excellent point. You're just too blinded by hatred to see it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business making a profit.
You are hung up on P/L. VB provides amusement. If the users of that service are happy, I don't know why you give a rat's ass. You get zero return on greens fees, magazine subscriptions, vacation costs or any other form of amusement. But your hatred puts VB in a different category and you will twist any argument to support that opinion.
You don't like box breaks? Fine. No one is telling you to feel otherwise. Lots of people hate box breaks and mystery boxes. But Whatnot proves that a lot of people also like them. That must really burn you. All those people having inappropriate fun, voluntarily.
Great! Now that you have ancients, I anxiously await your reports on all the fun you will certainly be having. And, if you resist, for whatever reason, you really should reconsider all the cheerleading and scolding of people who disapprove.
Some people gamble because they enjoy gambling. I know several people who say the costs of gambling is the price to enjoy themselves. While they want to win, it's not the only reason they gamble.
My ex-wife preferred gifts of one-time events. (sports, concerns, vacations, etc) over physical gifts. It's a one-time dump of money and she will only have her memory of the event when it's over.
Personally, I love the game of Poker but recoil at the thought of losing money from gambling. So I only play with friends and our "buy-in" is change and it's limited how many times you can buy in to keep them honest if they care to continue playing throughout the evening.
Buying these vaultboxes is like buying "unsearched" coin rolls on Ebay. Except at least you know your odds are 100% you are going to lose as you might actually get one of those winners. (red dot coins or whatever they are called)
It's gambling and the longer you do it, the more you will likely end up losing in the end. Though, if you enjoy the process. Then by all means! Go for it!
@NeophyteNumismatist said:
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
Lmao. So? Walmart doesn't sell bread out of a sense of civic virtue. And VB is every bit as voluntary as your beloved lottery.
And your state lottery takes most of its money (voluntarily) from the people who can last afford to give it up. 🙄 I know you're trying too hard when you are defending lotteries as charities.
Understood. But, I don't compare Walmart to the lottery. You, OTOH, compared VB to it.
Not defending lotteries at all. I think they are a vile regressive tax. As you said, primarily on those least able to afford them.
That said, they do some public good. So, I REALLY wouldn't compare an unregulated, unsupervised private version like VB to one, and then justify it by saying that at least the returns are better, since there is at least circumstantial evidence that the prizes are not fairly distributed, and there is no claim that the profits are put to a public use.
Walmart is known for low prices. Not for selling goods at a significant markup to full retail. TERRIBLE analogy.
The analogy is not about the pricing but about the virtue of v private enterprise. It is an excellent point. You're just too blinded by hatred to see it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business making a profit.
You are hung up on P/L. VB provides amusement. If the users of that service are happy, I don't know why you give a rat's ass. You get zero return on greens fees, magazine subscriptions, vacation costs or any other form of amusement. But your hatred puts VB in a different category and you will twist any argument to support that opinion.
You don't like box breaks? Fine. No one is telling you to feel otherwise. Lots of people hate box breaks and mystery boxes. But Whatnot proves that a lot of people also like them. That must really burn you. All those people having inappropriate fun, voluntarily.
Great! Now that you have ancients, I anxiously await your reports on all the fun you will certainly be having. And, if you resist, for whatever reason, you really should reconsider all the cheerleading and scolding of people who disapprove.
I had quite the run of people asking for ancients in last night's Whatnot auction. Unusual cluster of requests.
I've never done any cheerleading. I've never told anyone to buy one.
I don't like date/mint mark collecting. I think it's a waste of money. I don't scold everyone who does it. And I would scold anyone who did.
I don't particularly like box breaks or mystery boxes, but I will scold anyone who tells other people how to have fun.
Simply not true. Find me a single quote where I ever told anyone to buy one or what a great deal it was or anything of the kind. I simply dislike people telling other people how to have fun.
Comments
Yes and no. I don't know where your specific Powerball number is coming from, but lotteries in general return around 50% of the take as prizes, as compared to 90%+ in a casino. As a result, anything near 70% for a private, unsupervised, unregulated lottery that is not supplementing tax revenue by funding public projects is really kind of inexcusable.
That said, everyone knows the deal, so anyone who chooses to line VB's pockets is more than free to do so.
When Powerball jackpots explode due to prize pool rollovers, the expected return often exceeds 100%, even though your individual odds are still 1 in hundreds of millions, so I'd LOVE to know where 16% comes from.
How could the expected return on a $2 billion top prize, plus all the other prizes, POSSIBLY be anywhere near 16%, even accounting for the present value of the $2 billion annuity? How many hundreds of millions of tickets could they have possibly sold for that single drawing to get to that number? Simply impossible.
Have a look, very interesting:
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/math-of-powerball/
EDIT: My number is excluding the jackpot. With the jackpot included it's 43% expected return. My mistake.
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
Is opening a vaultbox also not an experience?
Sure, I guess. Comparable to a cruise or a week on a beach somewhere, or even a dinner and a movie? I guess that depends.
No Vault Box for me.
Interesting thing though is the fact that I will spend $20.00 (waste my money) on Powerball and/or Megamillions Lottery tickets when the prize exceeds $500,000,000.00.
I wonder why that is??????
It's not that interesting at all. It falls into the category of "lies, damn lies, and statistics." You can manipulate numbers to show whatever you want. At the end of the day, lotteries typically pay out around 50% in prizes. Not 16%. Powerball is no exception.
As with VB, ignoring the amount of each ticket that is required to fund the mega prize leads to a misleading result. 16% in this case. Or even 43% with your edit. It is still wrong. If VB was viewed the same way, its payout would be measured as closer to 30% than 70%.
It's just math, and it's obvious. When prize pools roll over from drawing to drawing, the expected value for a given drawing goes up, not down, until eventually exceeding 100%, even if your individual odds are still 300 million to 1.
$2 billion top prize, plus a bunch of smaller prizes. Each ticket costs $2, and you can discount the $2 billion to something below $1 billion to account for the present value of the annuity. To get to 16%, you'd still have to sell over 3 BILLION tickets, at $2 each, for that drawing to get to that number. 43%? You're still talking about a billion tickets at $2 each. Do you really think that's how many tickets they sell when the jackpots get that high?
Just step back and think about it logically. 43% is probably close to the actual number when a jackpot resets. It only goes up from there, as the prize pool rolls over after each drawing. Otherwise, the numbers you are talking about simply make no sense, because they don't sell a billion tickets 3 times a week.
To get to the 43%, the article you are citing talks about taxes and split jackpots. They are irrelevant to the odds and expected payout from a prize pool.
When you have 300 million people who collectively paid $600 million to be in a pool with a $1 billion top prize, plus other, smaller prizes, the expected return on a single ticket is far higher than 100%, even though your odds of actually realizing it are as close to zero as when the expected return was 43%.
After the winner buys $500 million worth of VBs, their return will be reduced to 30%. Would that also be relevant? Not winning reduces the return to 0%. Also irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is the actual return. Not what happens if multiple people win, or that you have to pay taxes on the back end. It's all nothing more than someone screwing around with numbers to make a point. "Lies, damn lies and statistics."
Apparently Vaultbox was enough of a success to have one seller on Whatnot create a knockoff product that didn’t go so well. From reading some of the Reddit threads it sounds like calling what happened a “dumpster fire” would be an insult to dumpster fires.
Here is a link to one of the threads with the explanation about what allegedly went down about half way through:
https://www.reddit.com/r/whatnotapp/comments/188rrw0/serious_question_what_happened_to_moon/
Whatnot is full of homemade mystery boxes in just about every category. People love them, apparently.
They aren't packed by an independent organization, nor do they really need to be. Typically they have like 25 or 50 packages, with one to ten big items. I saw one in comics the other day that had a minimum (retail) value of $50 with 10 of 50 that had a $500 value. They auctioned them off one at a time and opened them live.
I'll make 3 observations:
1. Gamblong games are against Whatnot policy, although it depends on the specifics. Mystery boxes are allowed under certain conditions: all boxes stay visible at all times, must be opened live, and the floor and ceiling must be stated.
2. I would do it myself but I can't figure out what stops someone from just filling a chargeback if they don't win.
3. The prices paid were typically at or only slightly above the "minimum value" of each box.
When P.T. Barium’s name appears in a forum for the one thousandth time he materializes.
Yea. Watching that streams “old holder” boxes made Vaultbox look like a bargain. People paying hundreds for $75 worth of coins. The streamer who apparently lost his job during that is back working at another dealer. The dealers actually selling them are still as popular as ever. Go figure.
My Ebay Store
A Beavis and Butthead coin, now I truly have seen everything there is to see...oh wait, I saw a pickle coin.
TTT
https://vaultbox.com/series-info/series-vi-information/
If it did not Jump the Shark before, this might be the time.
Many thanks for the TTT, but does this even belong in the US Coin Forum? If not, good luck riling up whoever may be frequenting the Ancient Forum.
Why would ancients be "jumping the shark"? I've been advocating for this very thing since the beginning. For a random pull, ancients make more sense than US type.
I don't care one way or the other about VB. I don't begin to understand "gambling for coins you don't even collect," but apparently there is a significant appeal to many people (so that's fine for them).
But the cult-like following bemuses me no end.
Do we know there is a "cult-like" following? I have no idea how many different people have dipped in a toe and then not returned.
I certainly have observed on this board a few who seem cult-like in the way they spread the "gospel" of VaultBox!
I have no dog in the fight…..
However, I see the gambling center of the brain and the collecting center of the brain as existing in different areas. The vault box thing plays 99% to one, and only 1% to the other. I doubt anyone is buying them hoping to fill holes in their core collection.
Because it hardly seems like the card pack breaking gamblers they were initially targeting with their NGCX American bullion lottery would also have an interest in ancients. Given how thin the market is for them, and how difficult they are to value, it just seems to me like this is now Jumping the Shark, insofar as I'm not even sure how people would know the extent to which they are being screwed on every box.
The secondary market for the last round seemed to fizzle, so it will be interesting to see how these do, given how much smaller the collector base is for ancients. The primary market has always seemed to be heavily weighted towards flippers rather than gamblers.
I'm glad you are finally seeing something that interests you, but you seem to me to be the exact opposite of loose with your money, so this is your chance to finally go all in and put your money where your mouth has been on VB. Or, to finally admit that they are just terrible deals for all but the sellers, no matter how attractive the grand prize is. And, as always, that's even before getting into legitimate questions regarding how prizes are distributed.
@jeffas1974 ? He's the one who bumped the thread.
Among others.
I'm not sure how posting a link is "spreading the gospel".
I would love for this hobby to find the space for everyone to have fun, and enjoy the excitement of others. Being happy for others is easy... you just have to put that person first, and not yourself.
To those that say, "this will ruin our hobby", think about how your unkind words to someone will only expedite that collector's exit. We have three choices... be supportive and kind, say nothing at all, or be disparaging. Which one will you be today?
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
Vault Box just isn't for me, but it might be alright for thee. It looks like it's geared more for stackers and people with gamer mentality. For someone that collects mostly classics, this product has almost no appeal - to me.
One thing I have leaned is that if I want my future threads to get at least 50 responses, I'll give them titles like:
"New toned Morgan Vault Box purchase!"
"Coin show report from Podunk, TX. Possible Vault Box sighting"
"Weird 1999 Lincoln cent. Could it have come from Vault Box?"
"Which place sells the best graded coins? I'll say Vault Box"
10-4,
My Instagram picturesErik
My registry sets
I encourage people to visit Whatnot and see all the games that go on. It is part of the culture there and people are having fun and buying coins and entering giveaways and buying mystery boxes.
I stumbled into a Vault Box box break yesterday. 30 to 40 people in the room bidding to win a box that was opened for them on camera. And the damn fools actually looked to be having fun. What is wrong with them?
This is not hobby, it is more like, buy for $1200 get $200 back. How is that a hobby? If being had is having fun, well then, have fun................
Let me know when VB has a red core with EID MAR in it, even I might gamble then..............
Gambling is a hobby. I don't gamble, so VaultBox is not appealing to me. I am not saying that VaultBox collecting and traditional numismatics are the same thing. I am just saying that people should feel free to spend their money however they want in a legal, safe way. I am not going to throw a rock at anyone who buys VaultBox. I wish them the best of luck.
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
Key to your statement is 'safe'. I am not sure this is safe when one loses typically 50% or more of what you pay in and it is an immediate loss and nearly certain to happen. So I don't call that 'safe', but risky gambling. The appeal is there for some but high risk is certainly not safe IMO.
HST, gambling on a Cowboy SB win in 2025 would likely have better odds LOL.
Now you had to go and throw my beloved Cowboys into this lol. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that the most likely outcome of purchasing a Vaultbox is a loss of 50% or more of the purchase price but that by itself shouldn’t immediately allow something to be labeled “unsafe”.
Under that criteria alone, my home insurance policy is a unsafe purchase because pretty much every year I get back 0% of my cost. Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.
If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.
As others have mentioned before, the price for Vaultbox needs to be measured against probabilistic/expected value plus some amount of entertainment value. Although I doubt I would ever buy one myself, I do find it interesting and have no issues with the product (with the caveat that distribution and allocation is on the up and up) and if it brings in more people to the hobby then that’s a net benefit IMHO.
I prefer to know what I am buying exactly.
And your state lottery would have worse odds...
You are not shrill enough...
I'm sorry, but this TOTALLY mischaracterizes the entire reason behind insurance. It's not "an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event."
In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's the transference of the risk of the huge downside of an extreme event in return for a relatively small cash premium.
In the home insurance example, the gamble would be not buying insurance. This has absolutely nothing to do with VB, which, at the end of the day, is simply an unregulated, unsupervised lottery wrapped around coins to allow it to be legally marketed.
Yes, it certainly does. But, it has the virtue of being a voluntary tax that is used to fund items that benefit the public. The proceeds from VB benefit no one other the private interests behind it.
Lmao. So? Walmart doesn't sell bread out of a sense of civic virtue. And VB is every bit as voluntary as your beloved lottery.
And your state lottery takes most of its money (voluntarily) from the people who can last afford to give it up. 🙄 I know you're trying too hard when you are defending lotteries as charities.
Understood. But, I don't compare Walmart to the lottery. You, OTOH, compared VB to it.
Not defending lotteries at all. I think they are a vile regressive tax. As you said, primarily on those least able to afford them.
That said, they do some public good. So, I REALLY wouldn't compare an unregulated, unsupervised private version like VB to one, and then justify it by saying that at least the returns are better, since there is at least circumstantial evidence that the prizes are not fairly distributed, and there is no claim that the profits are put to a public use.
Walmart is known for low prices. Not for selling goods at a significant markup to full retail. TERRIBLE analogy.
Isn’t that what I’ve stated in this section of my post that you’re objecting to?
“Granted this view ignores the fact that it lowers my pre-existing risk profile but it highlights that people are willing to enter into a standalone transaction that is both most likely to lose money and has an expected payout lower than the cost in order to avoid the downside of an extreme tail event.”
I’m not sure how the above is a misrepresentation of insurance although it probably would have been better to switch out the word standalone for subsequent.
I further agreed that it’s the exact opposite in the next paragraph:
“If you take the converse of this, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some people are also willing to enter into an expected money losing transaction to have a chance at experiencing the upside of an extreme event.”
Perhaps my post was a bit of a TLDR?
At this point, who really gives a rats..?
The analogy is not about the pricing but about the virtue of v private enterprise. It is an excellent point. You're just too blinded by hatred to see it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business making a profit.
You are hung up on P/L. VB provides amusement. If the users of that service are happy, I don't know why you give a rat's ass. You get zero return on greens fees, magazine subscriptions, vacation costs or any other form of amusement. But your hatred puts VB in a different category and you will twist any argument to support that opinion.
You don't like box breaks? Fine. No one is telling you to feel otherwise. Lots of people hate box breaks and mystery boxes. But Whatnot proves that a lot of people also like them. That must really burn you. All those people having inappropriate fun, voluntarily.
Maybe, and maybe I just misunderstood what you were trying to say. I read it as homeowners insurance being a bad bet gamble on a big payday, just like VB, rather than the opposite, which is paying someone to take the gamble of a big loss.
Great! Now that you have ancients, I anxiously await your reports on all the fun you will certainly be having. And, if you resist, for whatever reason, you really should reconsider all the cheerleading and scolding of people who disapprove.
Some people gamble because they enjoy gambling. I know several people who say the costs of gambling is the price to enjoy themselves. While they want to win, it's not the only reason they gamble.
My ex-wife preferred gifts of one-time events. (sports, concerns, vacations, etc) over physical gifts. It's a one-time dump of money and she will only have her memory of the event when it's over.
Personally, I love the game of Poker but recoil at the thought of losing money from gambling. So I only play with friends and our "buy-in" is change and it's limited how many times you can buy in to keep them honest if they care to continue playing throughout the evening.
Buying these vaultboxes is like buying "unsearched" coin rolls on Ebay. Except at least you know your odds are 100% you are going to lose as you might actually get one of those winners. (red dot coins or whatever they are called)
It's gambling and the longer you do it, the more you will likely end up losing in the end. Though, if you enjoy the process. Then by all means! Go for it!
I had quite the run of people asking for ancients in last night's Whatnot auction. Unusual cluster of requests.
I've never done any cheerleading. I've never told anyone to buy one.
I don't like date/mint mark collecting. I think it's a waste of money. I don't scold everyone who does it. And I would scold anyone who did.
I don't particularly like box breaks or mystery boxes, but I will scold anyone who tells other people how to have fun.
WTF?
you lead the cheer squad.
Simply not true. Find me a single quote where I ever told anyone to buy one or what a great deal it was or anything of the kind. I simply dislike people telling other people how to have fun.