Funding Your Gambling Bankroll

As some of you know, I try to live up to my online handle of "gambler". I live in a place which has no gambling nearby, and therefore I try to make 3 to 4 trips per year to Vegas. When I am in Las Vegas, I hit the tables (especially craps) hard and play approximately 8 to 10 hours a day.

A recent blog talked about going busto and how over betting reduced that particular player's bankroll down to nothing and how they have to start building their gambling bankroll again. I thought it would be interesting how people fund their gambling accounts.

Personally, I have a bank account and an online stock account which is dedicated strictly for my gambling. I have enough money in my bank's checking account for casino markers and credit checks, and then use my online stock account for anything extra that I have. I personally like high paying dividend stocks for my gambling stock account, and one day hope to have enough money there to pay for my gambling losses. I would need about $500,000 at 4% dividends to cover my $20,000 in therotical losses per year.

Every month I place $1,500 into my gambling account. I know that this sounds like a lot of money, but this is separate from retirement accounts, normal spending, and personal investments. Gambling is my one and only vice, as I don't drink, smoke, chase women, or do drugs.

When I have enough money in my retirement accounts and personal investments to retire, I will probably volunteer a lot and continue to work part time to fund my gambling.

Well, that's me. How do you fund your gambling bankroll?

Interesting that you would mention 4%, as that is the buzz now for a quick estimate for how much money you need to pull off early retirement. In other words, decades-long retirement. It illustrates that $1 million in retirement funds, which might be assumed to allow early retirement, would not be enough for most of us, allowing $40,000 per year [the first year]. The idea is that the low 4% allows increases for the second year etc to allow for inflation. Personally, after the recent stock market bust, I like to use 3.5% for an estimate. For one thing I can't seem to make myself follow the guidelines and have too much in stocks by proportion. Shows I do like to gamble I guess [g].

I value my retirement funds too highly to take out income by plan. I want them to grow. So my gambling money comes from money we set aside from job income for vacations. Perhaps a case can be made that it doesnt matter where the vacation money comes from. I sure envy your half a million just for gambling, presumably in addition to your other funds for retirement. And you get credit for not planning to blow the whole wad, as some folks would certainly do in amazingly short order.