The Royal Bank Of HubDub

This idea started in another forum topic as a slightly whimsical possible solution to the increasingly intimidating wealth of the top 20 to a newcomer to the game. The idea was essentially that rich players could park some of their money such that it would remain in their total worth but be removed from their betting use and quarterly gain. It would mix things up a little.

But while contemplating a situation that came up in play today, I realized it is a much more useful idea than I had realized. Here's why.

There are more and more people with net worth over H$20,000, and presumably many more to come. What happens when you get around that level is that you discover that the strategies you used to get to 20K won't get you to 40K or beyond. (NB The numbers are relative to the total wealth in play - double the number of players and the 20K would be, say, 30K)

So what do you do? Well, you can bet 10K on long shots, just because you can. But there's not enough cash in most markets to make 10K betting worth much. The bet you thought you were making at 10:1 odds ends up being at something like 5:4 for such a large wager, and where's the fun in that.

So you find that you bet less after a while on each market, and so you try more and more markets at the same time. But you can't keep up with 500 markets at the same time, certainly not with the rudimentary portfolio organization tools available.

So next you keep most of your money out of the market(s), where it has 0% return, and only wager a fraction. But you're used to a, say, 20% daily growth rate that got you into the top 20 in the first place, and you've got hungry competitors ahead and behind you, so if you wager half your wealth, you want 40% return to make up for the half that's just sitting.

Well, finally you accept your growth rate may decline, but you still want growth, so you figure out what to do. You start betting large amounts on "safe" questions with one portion of your cash (and continue your robber baron ways with the rest). You're 90% sure X will happen, and the market's currently 75% sure of the same thing, and so you plug as much cash as it takes to make the market agree with you. Well, the world agrees with you, and soon 90% becomes 99% confidence. Great, you think. I'm not greedy ;) -- I'll cash-in at 99%. But cash-in is calculated at what the market will be at *after* you take out your wager, and you've been betting in 2-5 thousand dollar chunks. And now cash-in holds no value to you, so you let your money sit until settlement.

And so that market then sits at 99% for one choice, but the most likely choice, so that other players are wasting their time betting with you (1% return or less) and throwing their money away betting against you. So the market stops. But there's no duplicate questions, so that topic is effectively dead unless real-world conditions shock the market back into action.

I did this with/to several markets today, and felt like a shit afterwards. Without meaning to, I had effectively stopped play on questions I have no doubt other players wanted in on. All I wanted was a safe investment with a low rate of return on the growing amount of my wealth that I can't use aggressively in the normal HubDub way. What I want is a bank to keep some of my money in at low or no risk, with a low rate of interest.
Or perhaps a HubDub bond which I lock up for a period of time at a rate of return proportional to the time I keep it in there.

How would such a scheme work? Well I like the bond idea, so I'll explain that. I buy a 2 week or 1 month or 3 month, etc bond with some of my cash at a rate of interest due on cash-in date. The bank takes that money, and loans it out at interest to players who've flamed out, or just want to play with more moolah.

My excess cash is no longer doing nothing in my "wallet", is no longer clogging up the game's markets, and is in fact back in play in someone else's hands. My net worth grows, but my in-play cash is reduced, opening up the leaderboard (until the next time I conquer it ;-| ) I'll leave to others the issues of rates of return and defaulting on loans and bankruptcy.

What do you think?