Gold Investors Undeterred

Gold investors undeterred by high prices. Gold might be a luxury most can live without when times are hard, but for cautious investors, it has become a matter of necessity. Gold is the most popular precious metal investment. Investors generally buy gold as a hedge or safe haven against any economic, political, social, or fiat currency crises. The gold market is also subject to speculation as other commodities are, especially with futures contracts and derivatives. The history of the gold standard, the role of gold reserves in central banking, gold's low correlation with other commodity prices, and its pricing in relation to fiat currencies during the financial crisis suggest that gold has features of being money. Gold has been throughout history as money and has been a relative standard for currency equivalents specific to economic regions or countries. The most traditional way of investing in gold is by buying bullion gold bars. In some countries, like Argentina, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, these can easily be at the major banks. Alternatively, there are bullion dealers that provide the same service. Bars are available in various sizes. For example in Europe, Good Delivery bars are approximately 400 troy ounces. 1 kilogram is also popular, although many other weights exist. Bars generally carry lower price premiums than gold bullion coins. However, larger bars carry an increased risk of forgery due to their less stringent parameters for appearance. While bullion coins can be easily, weigh and measure against known values. Most bars cannot, and gold buyers often have bars re-assayed. Larger bars also have a greater volume in which to create a partial forgery using a tungsten-filled cavity, which may not be assay. Gold coins are a common way of owning gold. Bullion coins price according to their fine weight, and a small premium based on supply and demand. The Krugerrand is the most widely held gold bullion coin, with 46,000,000 troy ounces in circulation. Other common gold bullion coins include the Australian Gold Nugget (Kangaroo), Austrian Philharmoniker (Philharmonic), Austrian 100 Corona, Canadian Gold Maple Leaf, Chinese Gold Panda, French Coq d’Or (Golden Rooster), Mexican Gold 50 Peso, British Sovereign, and American Gold Eagle.

Gambling Disorders

The beliefs of a society about a health condition can have a huge impact on the people who suffer from the disorder. Public opinion can influence public health policy, public and private harm minimization efforts, research funds and treatment support. At the individual level, negative public views of a disease and the stigma it creates can strongly discourage individuals from admitting that he or she has the problem and seeking treatment for the condition. There is little data available on public opinion of gambling disorders; however, a new study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies fills this void with a systematic examination of public opinion on gambling disorders.

Researchers conducted telephone surveys with 8,467 adults in the Toronto area and questioned people about their opinions of how to best understand gambling disorders. Researchers asked if gambling disorders should be treated as a disease or illness, a wrongdoing, a habit, not disease or an addiction similar to drug addiction. Researchers also inquired if people with gambling disorders can get well on their own or must seek treatment to improve and polled adults on whether people with gambling disorders can reduce their gambling to that of a social gambler or if they need to quit altogether. The survey also gathered information on the gambling behavior and demographics of the respondents.

The researchers found that most people viewed gambling disorders as an addiction similar to drug addiction, with one-third seeing gambling as a habit and 17 percent viewing gambling as a form of wrongdoing. Responses to whether gamblers needed treatment to recover showed a split jury, and three out of four thought that abstinence from gambling activities must happen for recovery. Examining the demographics, the researchers found that being female, married, younger and without gambling problems paralleled believing that treatment and abstinence were necessary. In addition, people who viewed gambling problems as a disease or addiction also believed that treatment and abstinence for recovery are necessary.

The researchers noted that public perceptions reported in their study mimic the results of a 2003 study that examined the views of the public on alcohol use, with 71 percent of respondents saying that abstinence must occur for recovery. This popularly held belief is also the view of much of the scientific community as reflected by the upcoming changes the American Psychiatric Association is making.

Finally, researchers concluded that people with gambling disorders were less likely to think that treatment and abstinence were necessary for recovery. This may be because many people who meet the clinical guidelines for a gambling disorder do not think they have a problem and even those who believe they do have a problem are unlikely to seek treatment.

Chicago Poker Card Game

The poker-related card game called Chicago is one of the most popular card games in Sweden today. Relying on the keeping of score instead of the placing of bets, it is suitable even for environments such as schools, where gambling is often prohibited. The game exists in countless versions, so here a somewhat arbitrarily chosen basic game will be followed by a number of possible variations.

Hand scores

The backbone of the game is that each poker hand has its own point value, as given in this table:

One pair - 1 point.
Two pair - 2 points.
Three of a kind - 3 points.
Straight - 4 points.
Flush - 5 points.
Full House - 6 points.
Four of a kind - 7 points
Straight flush - 8 points

Basic rules

Chicago is played with a standard 52-card deck. Each player is dealt five cards. The objective is to reach 52 points.
Exchanges and hand scoring

The players are allowed to exchange any number of their cards. If a player chooses to exchange one card only, he may choose "one up", meaning that he is dealt one card faced up, which he can either accept, or instead take the next card unseen. After the exchanges, the player with the best hand and only one player gets points for his hand. Then follows another round of exchanges, but no hand scoring.

Now, the first player begins by playing one card. Ordinary whist rules apply, but the players keep their cards collected by themselves. The player who wins the last trick gets 5 points. Also, the player with the best hand whether it is the same player or not gets points for his hand. Please Note: After achieving 42 points a player is no longer permitted to trade cards as they normally would. Instead, they are dealt 6 cards at the beginning of the game and must discard one before the first scoring round. No further exchanges are permitted.
Chicago

After the second exchange, any player can choose to play Chicago. In this case, he pledges himself to win all the tricks of the game. If he does, he is awarded 15 points, but if he fails, the penalty is just as harsh: -15 points.
Blind Chicago

Sometimes, a player given five cards below ten either inclusive or exclusive - must be decides before game starts is allowed to replace them before the exchanges begin.
Some play with 3 exchanges instead of 2. Then of course, scoring for hands will be made after both the first and the second exchange.
Some do not use the "one up" rule.
Often, a game will require that a player declare "Chicago" before they can win the game. The declaration is accepted regardless of whether one wins or loses the 5 tricks.
Often, one wants to give higher rewards than 7 or 8 points for four of a kind and Straight flush respectively. There are several ways to achieve this, most notably by elevating the player immediately to 52 points, or lowering either all players or one player of the holder's choice to 0 points, or a combination of these. Some also separate the Royal Flush from the Straight Flush, awarding 9 points for a Royal Flush. Holding a Royal flush usually means immediate victory.
The confusion is great as to what scores are appointed in the case of Chicago. Some will argue that no player will get any points at all besides the +15 or -15, whilst others will allow other points to be awarded. The +5 for the game, however, can never be stacked with the +15 for Chicago. Yet another variation is to award +13/-13 points for Chicago and the declaring player gets to go first. In that variation it is forbidden to declare Chicago unless the player has reached 13 points, ruling out the possibility of a negative score.
Some prescribe that any player with 45 points or more is not allowed to replace any cards.
Some require that after and not in the same hand as a player reaches 52 points, he must win the game once more before he actually wins. This handles the possibility that more than one player reach 52 points in the same hand.
Some award 10 points instead of 5 if the last trick is taken with a deuce. If this variant is employed, 30 points must also be awarded for a Chicago hand successfully ended with a deuce.

In most jurisdictions worldwide, gambling is limited to persons over the age of license in most countries where casinos are permitted.

Customers gamble by playing games of chance, in some cases with an element of skill, such as craps, roulette, baccarat, blackjack, and video poker. Most games played have mathematically determined odds that ensure the house has at all times an advantage over the players. This can be expressed more precisely by the notion of expected value, which is uniformly negative from the player's perspective. This advantage is called the house edge. In games such as poker where players play against each other, the house takes a commission called the rake. Casinos sometimes give out complimentary items to gamblers.

Payout is the percentage won by players.

Casinos in the USA say that a player staking money won from the casino is playing with house money.

Video Lottery Machines slot machines have become one of the most popular form of gambling in casinos. Recently, investigative reports have been calling into question whether the modern day slot machine is addictive. There are almost 900 casinos now in the United States, with that number steadily growing as more states seek to legalize casinos. 38 states now have some form of casino gambling. Relatively small places such as Las Vegas are best known for gambling; larger cities such as Chicago are not defined by their casinos in spite of the large turnover.

Las Vegas has the largest concentration of casinos in the United States. Based on revenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey ranks second and the Chicago region third.