Atharv Kumar Blog ISP
Profitability of Gambling, Betting, and Trading
For my Independent Study Project, I will explore the strategy and reality behind making money in gambling, sports betting, and stock market trading. I’m going to keep this project light, creative, and fun, focusing on sharing my experiences through engaging content. While I will look into strategies and probabilities for each area, my main focus will be how much you can profit, and how much luck affects it.
Section Breakdown:
Stock Trading
This section covers my experience with stock trading, and I definitely spent the most time with this section. I started with a mix of simulated trades and real ones, just to get a feel for how it all works. For each trade, I wrote down why I chose that stock, what I was hoping would happen, and what actually ended up happening. Some of the decisions were based on research or things my dad mentioned, and others were honestly just things I thought might work based on gut instinct or trends I saw online. Each post in this section breaks down a specific trade, showing the reasoning, the results, and what I took away from it. This part of the project helped me understand how risk and timing come into play and made me think about how much of the market is skill, how much is research, and how much is just the kind of luck you hope goes your way. Although I did use simulation apps and paper trading while learning, I only cover the major trades that I made with my parents in specific blogs.
Sportsbetting
In this section, I go through my experience with sports betting using PrizePicks. I was able to sign up by using an account under my dad's name, and there was a promo that rewarded me with $50 just for depositing $5. I placed a wide variety of bets across different sports and players, sometimes going for small two-pick combinations and other times trying riskier plays with four or more picks. The goal here was to figure out whether there’s any real strategy to this kind of betting or if it all comes down to luck. I kept track of how I did over time, looked at patterns, and adjusted my approach depending on how things were going. Some days I felt confident and thought I was onto something, and other days I got completely crushed. These blog posts walk through that whole process, from how I started, to the highs and lows, and finally to what I learned about how sports betting actually works when you’re trying to treat it seriously.
Gambling
This part of the site is where I explored gambling, the most basic form of "betting" in this project, through blackjack and poker. I didn’t step foot in a real casino, but I did simulate games in a way that let me test how strategy, probability, and randomness played out over time. With blackjack, I started by just playing casually to get a feel for it, then moved into trying out actual strategies people use, like basic strategy guides or simplified versions of card counting. I wanted to see if any of it actually worked, or if the game still felt completely luck-based no matter what I did. For poker, I approached it differently since it’s a mix of math and psychology. I played a bunch of hands and experimented with things like bluffing, betting patterns, and folding early versus staying in. In this section, I walk through both of those experiences, what I tried, what kind of results I got, and whether either game felt beatable or if I just ended up chasing wins that were never coming.Although I did use simulation apps and paper trading while learning, I only cover the major trades that I made with my parents in specific blogs.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Why choose this?
I chose this idea since I was in need of a way to make a little bit of extra cash without taking a significant amount of time. I didn't wish for a job that is full-time, but I was questioning if there were some other ways to earn money by being lucky or smart. That is why I thought of stock trading, betting on sports, and gambling. They're all something that individuals talk about as if they can be easy ways of earning money, and I really wanted to test that in real life. I initially thought I'd keep it even and do a lot on all three. But in no time, that changed.
Once I had started, I actually spent less time working on the gambling section. It just wasn't as appealing or worthwhile. I still 'played' blackjack and poker, but I didn't give it the attention I first thought I was going to. With sports betting, I became heavily involved in it for a period of time. I was doing daily picks, trying new approaches, and testing to determine what was effective. But then I hit a point where I lost a significant amount of money and it kind of got me back on reality. Then I thought I would cut my losses and quit altogether; it just didn't seem intelligent to just keep pushing it.
Stock trading became the portion I was most committed to. With stocks, it felt more productive and professional, and it felt like even if I didn't make a lot of money, I was learning valuable skills. In the end, this project was just as much about knowing what's worth your time and energy, and what things are just better left as a "what if.". I spent the most time with Stock Trading, and definitely made the most money from it.
