When I moved to Rennes, my salary basically halved. To live in France, it is actually fine. And since my obligations were divided by a factor of about 10, there is no way I would go back. Anyway, around the same time, I started caring a bit more about money—learning what to do with it and such. I explained here my thought process when it comes to saving and investing, fully accepting risk (as in volatility) but betting on the fact that, in the long term, the stock market grows. The efficient market hypothesis is my North Star; “drift” is the key word.

At the same time, I like playing. So, I decided that I would keep some of my money in things that are volatile, buying and selling to maintain that as a fixed percentage of my portfolio. Portfolio. I feel kind of silly writing that word. Anyway, the basic idea is to profit not from the long-term drift of the stock market but from the fact that, at smaller time scales, it behaves like Brownian motion. As I see it, this is the kind of thing that made Simons filthy rich. Now, I am not trading in microseconds, and I don’t have the money to make transaction costs negligible. So, I play with medium-term oscillations, just rebalancing when the gap is larger than some threshold. In this way, I made some money with Bitcoin (I am out of that), gold, silver, and platinum. I am hoping to also make money out of whisky, but that hasn’t happened yet: if you play this game, only the money in the bank counts, and I could still lose.

Speculating—this is what one does—with individual stocks would be a possibility, but that sounds even crazier to me. Although I might try it. What I would never do is use any leverage, because I want to keep the downside controlled. Anyway, from a purely logical point of view, it would make much more sense to ignore all of that and trust it all to the drift. But I enjoy the playing aspect of it. I guess I enjoy the marginal sense of smartness—totally illusory—that I have when it works out. It feels like cheating the universe, like winning at a game, or something like that. Although it isn’t, it feels vaguely illicit and illegal. This is part of the fun. It is weird that the rules of the world allow one to make (very modest) money like that. A bit like when one finds a sneaky trick in math, allowing one to cheaply do something that seemed impossible. I guess I have a pretty ingrained appreciation for ways to cheat the world.

Anyway, a few years ago, I learned of a brilliant scheme to make money. The reason I never implemented it is that, in France, it is illegal. It would be okay in the UK or in Spain, but although I tried, I could not make it work without living in either of those countries. A real pity, because the whole scheme was a piece of art, as I hope will become clear next.

The basic idea is to guarantee (totally legally, I repeat—this is why it didn’t work in France) making money from online sports betting. Yes, I know that betting is a loser’s game. I know that a lot of people lose a lot of money with it. But I wouldn’t be trying to bet on whether PSG wins or loses. Or rather, I would be betting at the same time that it wins and that it does not. Now you will tell me that, by doing that, I am guaranteeing that I will lose money. Yes, you would be right. But I think of that money as an investment.

First, I wouldn’t put the two bets on the same platform. That would be not only probably not allowed but also patently stupid. I would place the two bets on different platforms. There are an enormous number of them, and this is the point: they compete for customers like crazy. How do they do that? To get you to join, they offer that, for your first bet, they will put some extra money on the table. Say, if you bet X money (under some threshold, say 20 or 50 EUR), they also bet X on your account. Effectively, if you lose that bet, you lose what you put in. If you win, you win double, meaning that at least you get back what you put in, plus what the platform added for you. Now, that by itself already gives you a positive expectation of gain on that first bet. But it is not guaranteed. And we want guaranteed. You haven’t reduced the likelihood of losing your money.

Now, the spark of genius is that you go to a second platform and place the opposite bet. If you bet that Liverpool wins against Everton on the first platform, you bet on the second one that Everton gets at least a draw. Now, this guarantees that you lose one of those bets and win the other one, meaning that in one of them, you lose your input, while in the other, you get back at least your input plus the bonuses (plus whatever the odds are, but we don’t care about that now).

We agree that it is a guaranteed win, right? And we agree that the free money you get is taken from the online betting platforms. Robin Hood spirit at its best. El que roba a un ladrón, mil años de perdón. A piece of art. A beauty. But before moving on, a few more comments on that:

  • How scalable is this? Well, there are clear limitations because, although there are many platforms, there are only finitely many. Luckily for us cheaters (in my case, a wannabe cheater), the platforms also want to encourage subscribed users to bet. This means that, from time to time, they make offers like those welcome offers. In fact, there are pages that tell you what the current promotions are, or at least there were a few years ago. Still, it is clear that the process slows down.
  • The only thing you really need is the time and discipline to place all those bets. Anyway, when I tried to get this running in the UK, where there are plenty of platforms, I thought that I would find it all amusing enough to run it for a month, and that in that month, I could count on making about 500–1000 quid. Does not make you rich but you give me an sure way to cheat 500 quid from some unsovoury people, and I join running.

A piece of art, I tell you. A pity that it is illegal in France.

As I mentioned, in Spain that scheme is legal. I am not sure if I ever told Christian about it, but I should. Although he is vastly more busy than me, he would definitely enjoy the whole idea. Christian is my brother-in-law. An enormously creative guy. A flutist who, in the pictures of him that you find online, looks like a flutist. At the same time, he has the heart of an Italian Renaissance merchant: the initiative, the mental agility, the eye for opportunity. I have known him for a quite a while, and not only have I heard him dream about alternative careers—ranging from pizzaiolo to Apple technician—but he sometimes produces panettoni or bread of professional quality and in professional quantities. There have even been cases of him making money by speculating with things like Lego boxes—if I remember right, just the boxes, not the pieces. He is almost made for that betting scheme.

Indeed, Christian would be perfect for it because, while I am sure that to play the flute, that Romagnolo has Prussian constancy and discipline, it seems to me that when it comes to his alternative business ideas, his motivation comes in bursts. I see him giving it a month of focused attention, then getting bored and finding the next new scheme. Now, my sister is of a different caliber… Yes, although she has a somewhat mercurial and unpredictable character, in the medium and long term, she is a diesel motor. Like me, Christian is more like a butterfly, going from flower to flower. My sister is rather a Scania truck. They are a very good couple, but this is not why I am talking about this.

The point is that we all spent a few weeks around Christmas in Italy, with the TV always on, often with a game show like Saber y Ganar, Pasapalabra (The Alphabet), or Wheel of Fortune. The whole trip was great, everybody was incredibly nice, but honestly, we were all glad to be back somewhere without TV. Everybody? No. Not everybody. This is a bit like the beginning of the Asterix books. Christian, that genius, that original mind, came up with the idea that going on one of these shows would be a beautiful way of making some money. And, with that élan that is the proof of true genius, he wrote to one of them, an Italian one, to indicate that he was willing to go.

Now, I hear that and, honestly, I don’t think much of it. Christian being Christian. A brilliant idea. A spark of genius. A dazzling initiative. In all modesty, I can see myself there. And therefore, because I see myself there, I know that with overwhelming probability, it is coming to nothing. Although he is a vastly superior specimen, for some things, Christian and I are kind of similar.

What I would have never predicted is that Christian’s spark would ignite my sister’s diesel motor. This didn’t happen with the pizzaiolo idea. Neither with the Apple technician idea. Nor with the panettone making. But it happened with the idea of making a quick buck on a TV program. So, my sister decided to write to Saber y Ganar, volunteering to go. I didn’t hear about it for a few days, and I am not sure what I would have thought, but I want to believe that part of me would have seen the inevitable coming: after a couple of days she had a phone interview, she was selected, and next week, she is recording the show. I haven’t talked to her in a few days, but I am picturing her learning by heart all the questions of all possible Trivial Pursuit games. I am sure the diesel motor is buzzing. These poor people don’t know it, but a 40-ton Scania truck is rolling their way.

Anyway, I am sure that when the program is shown, the whole of Perlora will be watching. My uncle watches Le Tour de France religiously, but I am sure that he would forgo the étape of Alpe d’Huez if it were to coincide with my sister’s appearance on Saber y Ganar. I will take advantage of having a VPN, I guess. I am sure that she will cheat the world alright. The pride of the family, she is. A diesel motor.