How did you become a millionaire? Not trying to be a dick. I'm genuinely interested.

Really? I was there Christmas Eve and saw 5 (played 2). If so, which one stayed? Was nice to see multiple premium games there and in good shape.

Usually I'm the only guy playing at my local spots. Those pins are there because the owner is an enthusiast, not because they are making money. Thank you owner/enthusiasts!!

Working normal jobs while speculating in businesses. When I was in high school, I speculated on the firecracker selling business. lol Made money, but got into a little trouble. But I was always interested in trying to make money for myself, not money for somebody else. So from shoveling snow in winter, to cutting lawns in summer, there was always an opportunity for ME to make money.

I was an independent forensic automotive expert for a few years after working both as an ASE certified master automotive technician, and an automotive extended warranty adjuster. As a forensic automotive expert I was paid $65 per job. A job generally consisted of an hour of my time. Occasionally I could do 10 jobs in a day. However, I soon learned that this was not a path to wealth, it was a path to an early grave. So I took some of the money I was making, began researching Numismatics (rare coins), and then "speculating" on "unsearched" bags of coins I would buy off of eBay... and search through them looking for the more valuable dates/mint marks. I started with a goal of making at least $5 per coin auction, with at least 20 auctions per day to cover my living expenses. All profits were re-invested into more research to further educate myself, and better inventory. I started with wheat cents, moved into buffalo nickels, then walking liberty silver halves, all the while taking profits and buying more research material, and buying more coins. I eventually reached a point where I was regularly making thousands per coin sale. This is the business in which I made real money. It came at a price, in that I invested many years teaching myself the business, putting every penny (pun intended) I could muster up to invest, and eventually focusing on my specialty areas.

In one of my posts earlier in this thread, I explained in great detail one of my riskier "speculations" into a coin that was valued at $275, but I paid $7,500 for it, and then sold it for a 33% profit. Knowledge is king.

With the economic shit hitting the fan in 2008 or so, I decided to get into the arcade business as I had already created an opportunity to enter the business. Also because Numismatics required me to travel to coin shows around the country, and I really, really, don't like to travel.

The family entertainment business started as a similiar story to numismatics... self taught, started at the bottom being a hard worker, reinvested profits, grow both the business, and its reputation, and work my way up the "street account" levels of D, C, B, A. Most of my few remaining accounts are A accounts now. I also own my own arcade and I'm in the process of expanding/moving.

Again, I'm not like everybody else, I'll take on as much debt as my math dictates. I have no fear of being $1million in debt at 7% if the use of that debt is providing me with a 20% (random number) return. As I've said many times, I'm not afraid of losing money because the vast majority of decisions that I make result in profit, not loss. So I just keep making decisions (pot stocks & crypto currencies).

This is one of the reasons I abandoned professional poker. Yes, I was gambling for a living at a point in there somewhere. Anyway, one can make the correct mathematical decision based on the current information (cards, player, etc.), but wind up losing the pot anyway. That doesn't sit well in my brain and creates a level of internal conflict that I'm unable to overcome. I just believe that if I make a correct mathematical/financial decision, I full fucking well expect to be paid. Luck should not be a primary factor. So no more poker, but I do like to play around at the Baccarat tables.

In the end, spending one's profits on vacations and luxuries will defer, if not cease, any real success. Reinvesting both time and money is the path to growth. Both in business, and in finance. Sure, eventually one wants to treat one's self for all the hard work and sacrifice. When I decided to do so, the only thing that I desired was a Lamborghini. So I bought one this year.

Remember, I'm not offering financial advice of any kind, I'm merely providing my experience and my opinions. And I will always tell the truth.

I have two games on my truck right now that were supposed to replace 4 pins. Metallica is staying as it has the highest earnings of the five. I had oral surgery this morning so the move won't happen until tomorrow.

The lineup at the NYNY Arcade will remain, and constantly improve, until they kick me out.

Edit: Already planning on moving Kiss LE & GOT LE from Fremont to NYNY, replacing Kiss pro and another, yet to be determined, pin.

However, the vast majority of people in the world have never even heard of Bitcoin, much less crypto currencies. I personally ask every business that I enter if I can pay with Bitcoin.

remember when some people said there aren't people pumping bitcoin here... well what do you call this? When you think bitcoin is all UP UP UP - why on earth would you want to pay in bitcoin today? This is all about trying to create buzz to keep the speculation pump full...

You do understand that your opinion in this matter means less than nothing to me, right?

I ask if I can pay because I am trying to gauge the current depth and exposure to the general public. This is called due diligence. Nothing more.

You are too small minded to understand that this cannot be pumped, by one man asking a question, with no further information being exchanged.

Finally, your constant accusations of pumping are beginning to create a legal liability for yourself. I'll have the moderators take note of this legal liability as well.

I'd pleasantly entertain the idea of spending the next few years suing you for defamation, slander or whatever the VERY high price attorney I hire decides is best.

So either cease and desist, or we can begin to play the "who's willing to spend more money on attorneys, flynnibus, or ExtremePinball".

I trust you understand the true severity of this situation, and do not take my statements lightly.

Hire? You mean a baller like yourself doesn't already have one on retainer?

You're way ahead of me, but I'm trying to catch up. I'm up almost 300% since June though, so that's good.

At least you don't have to lug a bunch of real coins around anymore. Crypto has to be so much easier on your back.

I've been buying pot stocks too, but just a little. I'm throwing the majority of my extra cash at crypto, but try to sneak in a buy here or there on a pot related stock. Which ones do you have right now? I went after SING (Pot and Crypto), MJNA and SRNA. They are all pink sheets, but most of the pot stocks seem to be that way.

Whoa, bad ass! Which one did you buy? I'm a Ferrari guy myself, not that I have the money to buy one, but I like to drool over them.

Extreme, you seriously need to relax man.

Take a day off from watching the coinbase indexes and let your blood pressure get back to normal.

Then what does getting an uninformed response cause you to smile?

Puhahaha

As for suing... buy a dictionary first.

I started my search with an $80k budget. I was hoping to get into a rebuilt title, pre-LP Gallardo that had minimal previous damage.

After doing extensive research, I realized this was not a great idea. So I reversed my search in the other direction and bought the newest, most expensive, non-superleggera (too raw for me) Gallardo I could find. So I eventually settled on a 2014 LP560-4 Spyder with 6,000 miles, at more than $170k. In less than 10 months, I've added 10,000 miles to the odometer.

Interestingly enough, up until the last few months, I had been in the market to either add a Ferrari 430 Spyder to the stable, or upgrade the Lambo to a Huracan LP610-4 Spyder. I scrapped both plans and dumped the money into cryptos.

It causes me to smile because it clearly shows me that the Bitcoin market is not YET saturated. And as I've previously noted, I end the conversation right then and there. I simply dismiss any additional questions with the statement "I don't really know what Bitcoin is, I just saw it on a sign somewhere. Can I pay with my credit card?"

It's been said that when the shoe shine boy is giving stock tips, it's time to get out of said stock. I'm attempting to use this method based on my metrics to gauge market saturation. Simply meaning that I'm not limiting my analysis to shoe shine boys.

Allow me to include some additional facts about my positions in this market.

First, I have investments into no less that 27 different crypto currencies. That number escalates on a weekly basis. It's the shotgun approach to speculating.

Second, while I do hold Bitcoin, it's not even my largest crypto currency investment. That honor belongs to Litecoin. I further added to my position just this morning when it went on sale. My second largest investment is into Ethereum.

Third, while I still believe there is a great deal of money to be made in the Bitcoin market, I also believe that even greater percentage gains can be realized with alternative cryptos, which have more advanced blockchain technology than Bitcoin.

So the majority of my speculative dollars are NOT in Bitcoin, and are NOT going into Bitcoin, but rather into all of the other lesser known coins.

These are some of the reasons that your constant accusations of pumping Bitcoin are completely unfounded, and seem to be a vendetta against me personally, for reasons I cannot fathom.

Perhaps you could take a moment and explain the underlying basis for your hatred towards me.

Look what I got for Christmas.

6xgtx1070_miner (resized).jpg

What do you think coinbase is going to add next? Ripple obviously, anything else in near future?

Whats your opinion on tron?

You can't post a picture like that and not tell us what you're mining and give us the hash rate.

That's a beautiful car. The oil change probably costs half of what my car is worth.

I truly have no idea what coinbase may add in the future, Might be ripple, might be monero. So in an effort to immediately expand my speculative investments, I buy & trade on the Bittrex exchange as well. That's where most of the other cryptos can be purchased including tron & ripple. However, this exchange uses Bitcoin as the defacto reserve currency, so the vast majority of coins are traded against Bitcoin, not the U.S. dollar. This can seriously fuck with one's understanding of crypto currency movements, since the reserve currency can move faster than the coin being purchased or sold against it.

When it comes to low dollar speculative coins, I don't do any research, I just shotgun it. I haven't bought tron yet, but I do own 1,231 ripple coins. I've created a lifestyle that affords me the unique ability to throw money at speculative coins, and never miss the money if it just vanishes. While I fully understand that the majority of people cannot do this, I don't want anybody to think I'm some sort of crypto guru with more knowledge.

In my opinion, my money is more likely to grow exponentially in these speculative coins, than to decline to zero. As I've said before, I believe we are in the zygote stage of crypto currencies. And it's anybody's guess as to which coins come out on top in the coming years. Therefore, based on previously observed gains in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and others, I'll just buy as much as I can, with the expectation that most of those coins will gain a little in value, with one or more of those coins potentially creating millions of dollars in profit.

Real world example: I own 10,000 Dogecoin. I have no idea what that is. What I do know is that I paid about a half a cent per coin for a total investment of $59.36. So for less than the cost of lunch, I'm willing to take the risk in the hope and expectation that this coin rises.... exponentially over the coming years.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

In my opinion there's far more potential upside, than downside, so I don't sweat the small stuff. I just keep speculating.

I'm currently far enough ahead of the game that any loses that I incur, are short term loses of profit, not losses of original investment capital.

It's not that bad! An oil change runs about $600. There are 7 (seven) different drain plugs on the dry sump engine.

However, being a supercar, one is required to regularly service more than just the oil. So my first maintenance service at 13,000 miles set me back $2,600. This included the oil change, cabin as well as engine filters, clutch snap test, new spark plugs, brake fluid flush & refill and overall inspection of the vehicle. They did provide me with an Audi loaner while my car was there. And of course my car was detailed when I picked it up.

Has anyone accepted BTC or any other crypto in exchange for a pin? I just listed a project EM Bronco and figured I'd accept BTC as a payment if anyone was interested. The times are changing...

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/58345

Condition that game's in, I'd offer a handful of Shell Mr. President coins.

download (resized).jpg

Lunch costs more than $60?

I make a decent living but I'm not eating prime rib for lunch most days. PB&J at home is far more likely to happen than a $60 lunch.

I don't think lunch would cost me $60 even if I was a billionaire. Of course if I was a billionaire I'd still be wearing blue jeans (in my Aston Martin )

Some people really like to stuff their faces.

Good answer. Txs

ETH since Dec 25th eve. Played with OC/UC settings and it is stable now at about 190.5 hash. Showing 677 watts with Kill A Watt. Mining nanopool. Avg hashrate there shows 198.0 Mh/s for last 6 hours. PM for more detail.

new_display_cards (resized).jpg

So plugging that into a calculator you maybe make $13 profit per day with that setup at current rates or $400 per month at 0.13KW/h cost? And that's with 6x graphics cards going at it 24/7? Just trying to get an idea of things Must take 6mo or so to pay for itself.

Lol.

My business partner and I eat out for lunch 4 days per week. Yes, occasionally I'll opt for the filet mignon. Yesterday I had the salmon. The total bill usually comes out to $50-70 with a generous tip depending on the restaurant we choose. In the Fremont Street area, there is one decent restaurant open for lunch, Triple George Grill. It's a popular weekday dining location with judges, attorneys, and other downtown business owners M-F. Our arcade being a block away makes this a frequent dining location.

Today wasn't one of those days. I just went to Jimmy John's and spent $11.

Personally, I place no value in clothing. If one is impressed by my ability to purchase expensive fabrics, then one is obviously materialistic and/or easily manipulated by appearance alone. I've met far too many well dressed people in my life who neither had 2 nickels to rub together, nor the intelligence to sum up the total. But they sure looked nice.

I wear carpenter jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers everyday.

11 bucks at JJ's?! Fatass! Please don't sue me

I know, right? I get two loafs of the day old bread along with a #10 and a diet coke. Normally I spring for the cookie, but as you already noted my Fatass needs to drop a couple more pounds. So I skipped the cookie today.

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I like this guy!

$484.23 a month according to crypto-compare. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Except.. not to say this happens to a lot of people, but the thought of these rigs running 24/7.. and while you sleep, with the possibility a gpu or power supply catches fire is kind of unsettling. Google "gpu mining fire" and there's quite a few incidents..both in large mining operations and at-home setups.

Here's one..
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1776853.40

I'm just interested in learning about it all. Not something I'd feel comfortable running without a few smoke alarms in the room -- and yeesh.. leaving the house with it all running. Not for me

http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/how-i-almost-made-millions-in-bitcoin.html

This is comedy gold right here. I'm picturing in my head, profuse sweating, frantic keyboard tapping with one hand, a 12 inch sandwich in the other hand, an open yellow pages turned to the Attorney section, and of course, a couple thick lines of coke on the desk you're sitting at.

meh. don't run your power supplies at 110% and you're fine. it's consumer-grade gamer hardware with a half dozen thermal sensors per component. the PSU, motherboard, processor, and GPUs all shut down if they detect a short or excessive heat. keep everything within spec and there's practically no danger. my rig has two power supplies running at about 65% capacity each. i keep the video card GPUs at 45 degrees celsius, which is extremely cool (about 85 degrees celsius is the manufacturer-recommended max temp).

my setup's making about $65 a day at the moment (8x Vega 56, 2x Radeon 390) not gonna make me rich, but i'm happy for the extra income.

Anyone using the 'sage advice' of John Mcaffee to trade altcoins?

Does that factor in the cost of electricity, including the extra cooling in the summer that your room will need and the upfront capital to purchase the mining equipment? I'm just curious if $65 is the gross or net profit from your mining enterprise. If you're still paying for the capital expenditure, at what point in time is the equipment paid off?

Also, is it worth it to incorporate your mining enterprise as a business and depreciate all that equipment? You could then also deduct the electricity costs.

I'd like to see the breakdown on the crypto you're mining for $65/day.. if you don't mind Just interested in knowing how that breaks down with hash rate, wattage of cards, electricity costs. I tried plugging in some numbers I found for Vega hash rate, wattage ratings, etc with assumed $0.13 kWh electricity costs. Looked like about 380 MH/s hash rate total. 1500 watt total power?

https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/calculator/btc?HashingPower=380&HashingUnit=MH%2Fs&PowerConsumption=1500&CostPerkWh=0.13
Bitcoin you'd lose -$4.68/day or -$140.38 in a month
Eth $29.33 profit per day or $871.39 per month

The mining end of things seems volatile as well. Difficulty of mining increases over time and you're having to cycle cards months later to "keep up" with newer cards or see the hash rate suffer. Markets changing and causing one crypto that was worth mining to no longer be the most profitable.

yeah that $65 is not counting electricity. so roughly $1900 or so per month gross, but it's highly variable. i'll probably come in a little below that this month, and over time i expect revenue to decrease as mining difficulty rises.

i undervolt the cards -- at stock voltages, they would use a lot more power. all told, i'm under 2000 watts for everything mining-related (i'm using kill-a-watt meters to measure). at 9 cents per kwh, it works out to costing me roughly $120 per month in electricity.

because of fluctuations in price and difficulty that happened to work out in my favor, the rig actually paid for itself in a little over a month. so at this point it's pure profit. and then when i do decide to pack it in (probably in the spring, but who knows), i can sell the video cards -- right now used Vega cards are going for $600+ apiece on ebay (that probably wont last, but they'll still be worth something in a few months). i will keep everything else (the frame, motherboard, processor, hard drive, fans, PSUs), and then maybe in the fall invest in another batch of the latest video card hardware, and plug them into the same rig ... depending on where the market is and so on.

yeah good question, i am honestly not sure.

90% of the time i'm simply mining Monero. my cryptonite hashrate is about 18khs (those Vegas are beasts). In the last week, the profitability of Monero has dropped, though, so right now i'm mining through NiceHash, which mines a variety of things but is paying me $65/day in bitcoin. (i hand-tune their built-in miners a bit to squeeze some extra juice out of them). that income more or less matches up with what i was making from Monero prior to this week.

The risk is not for everybody. And finding desirable GPUs to buy is like finding rare pinball machines.

This is taxable income so business for sure here.

0.071KW/h here. And no cooling needed where I live. It was -5 deg F yesterday. The excess heat is a welcome addition.

Do you leave your computer running 24/7 like most people or shut it down when not in use?

Used to leave it on 24/7 when I was in my 20s For YEARS

I let it hibernate or sleep any more though. The wake-up time really doesn't bother me & when I got a KILL-A-WATT and saw my desktop would eat up $15-20 electricity each month leaving it on 24/7 versus letting it hibernate when not in use, I started doing the hibernation/sleep stuff more.

No one mines bitcoin in a home GPU setup, it's all specialized asic farms. I'm running a modest 8 GPU rig for eth, spend 8 cents per kwh and initial capital outlay was recouped in 6 months. Only thing I pay for is electricity and I average a few hundred in net profit now, or would if I cashed out instead of continuing to accumulate. Very modest gains from mining but it's effortless and great ROI. Fire hazard concerns are overblown and come from people that don't know how to set up their systems. No more dangerous than leaving your fridge on all day. One thing I will say is those mining profit calculators are wildly optimistic and assume perfect network connectivity which really is not realistic.

Is there really a market for used GPUs that have been put through the ringer as overclocked miners?

I guess people buy outdated server hardware from data centers, but that's usually heavily discounted.

Are people back to using Nicehash after they lost 60 million in BTC earlier this month?!

So I bought a few fractions of BTC through Quadriga here in Canada which is very limited in its offering (BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, BTG).
Now that I hold some BTC I guess I can just go through some other exchange that doesn't require the full validation thing in any country to access other coins?
How does that work?

Send to Coinbase then gdax then binance

Be better if you had ether though. Faster and less volatile while you moving

I eat at the Triple George every time I stay in downtown Vegas for the Punk Rock Bowling festival, I dig that place.