No. You don't frighten me, Mollari. If you try to go up against our forces, you'll lose.
Yes, your ships are very impressive in the air, or in space--but at this moment, they are on the ground.
Right--they're on the ground. But they can sense an approaching ship from miles away. So what are you going to do, Mollari, blow up the island?
Actually--now that you mention it--[pulls detonator from pocket]
No!
[presses detonator]
Babylon 5, explaining the vulnerability of aircraft to ground attack in typical hammy fashion
Hello, and welcome to another episode of "AmericanNewt8 explains the global military situation at present in a convenient, possibly easy-to-read guide". Maybe I should make a YouTube channel or something. All the cool kids [and a lot of idiots who know nothing about military equipment] are doing it. Anyway, today we have the US Air [and, for the moment, Space Force--they haven't fully separated yet], and, surprisingly for once, a somewhat more positive message. I'm sorry this one took so long; I've been busy for the past month or so, but I figured I should get this one out I already had 80% done before talking about Turkey and the war in the Caucuses, which are likely to be shorter, more current, and arrive sometime in the next week if all goes as planned.

Current Effortposts In My Series:

What you [might] need to know about South Korea's ludicrous arms buildup
We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches.... uh, what do we do after that again?: The Perilous Defensive Position of Taiwan
"You've hit another cargo ship? The Problems with the US Navy: Not all of them begin with "Seven" and end with "th Fleet"."
Will China's PLAN survive contact with the enemy?
Biden's New START and modern nuclear war
Boned: Problems (but not too many) in the US Air [and Space!] Force
Erdogan Sallies Forth [inserted largely on account of the recent breakout of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan]
Begun, the Drone Wars Have: Why You Should Pay Attention To This "Tiny" War
First And Last Stand Of The Tin Can Navies [ASEAN + Australia and the smaller adversaries China may contend with]
--Unnamed-- effortpost on Japanese military matters, mostly about how weird the JSDF status is
--Unnamed--effortpost on Indian military matters, and why they can't focus on China or buy anything that works
--Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the PLA, mostly the air force though
--Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the US Armed Forces, mostly talking about how the marines are changing and the Army's new love affair with INF-busting weapons
Conclusion?

1. Our Pride And Joy

America's Navy may be its key instrument of power projection abroad and in some ways the most important service branch, but the one that is by far the greatest beneficiary of American skill, the apex of our capabilities, is without a doubt the US Space Force. From Day 1 the US has had a commanding lead in the field. Mind you, that's not saying that nobody's ever challenged or exceeded the US in limited areas for limited periods of time--the early 1950s were about the last time that happened though [aside for commercial launch vehicles from around 1980-2010]. In the modern era, it is very rare that buying something other than an American-made aircraft or rocket makes any sort of economic or strategic sense [political is of course a different matter entirely]. The US Air Force has generally benefited from high, consistent levels of investment and has had relatively light burdens placed on it operationally [though in recent years post 9/11 this has changed to an extent], and it has developed into one of the best-trained and most doctrinally sophisticated forces in the world. More on that later. Anyway, the Air Force is probably the best-loved branch politically [Marines might be more respected but they get budgetary scraps], at least of the military as a whole, and it ends up with more funding, smarter people, and a much better QOL as a result. In fact Air Force personnel are usually treated to quite a bit of envy and ribbing about how much better their conditions are than their Army, Marine, or Navy counterparts.

2. Aging Equipment [again!]

Guess what? The same problem that seems to afflict most of the US military [and, for that matter, most European, Latin American, and non-East Asian militaries] is aging equipment from the Cold War finally wearing out. In the Air Force, this takes a number of different forms. Often, it's a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but even then airframes do wear out eventually and need replacement and a lot of them are getting to that point.
Logistics, Support, That Kind of Thing
One of the least glamorous parts of the Air Force, logistical and support capabilities are rapidly aging. The primary airframe the Air Force uses for these is the.. wait for it... Dash 80, as the C-135 whose commercial variant is better known as the Boeing 707. It was a very impressive aircraft, but it was designed in the 1950s. Even though we've reengined the C-135 with more modern engines, and done some serious overhauls, they're getting pretty long in the tooth. Most notably we have the 398 KC-135 Stratotankers which make up the bulk of the US midair refueling fleet, which are joined by 31 E-3 Sentry AWACs, a number of specialized RC-135 derivatives doing everything from SIGINT to hunting for nuclear weapons and 17 E-8 Joint STARS. While these were produced up until the early 1990s, the airframes are aging and they need replacements, and the sheer quantity of aircraft is likely to cause trouble. There are also other aircraft that have to be replaced in the mid-term [by the early 2040s] like the C-5 Galaxy and the KC-10 Extender, but these are somewhat less of an immediate concern. There are some C-130 Hercules replacements also needed but those are largely being done with newer versions of the same aircraft.
Bombers
The B-1 Lancer is first on the chopping block, due to high maintenance costs and time [it generally takes 120 hours of maintenance for an hour of flight time]. That represents 60 bombers, on paper anyway, and a good chunk of the USAF's supersonic strike capability. However, cutting it should free up resources for new hardware, and in fact new USAF budget proposals suggest rapidly retiring the B-1. The B-2 Spirit is also on the chopping block due to high price and high maintenance demands, but it can't really be replaced until the B-21 Raider shows up. There is also a need to find a replacement for the B-52, but nobody is really sure what that looks like and it's much less urgent--the B-52 will soldier on for the indefinite future and may well hit a full century in operational service. Even if one runs into the "airplane of Thesus" the fact that you could well have fourth or fifth generation B-52 pilots flying on 90-year-old aircraft is, to be honest, kind of neat.
Fighters
The F-15 and F-16 originally took flight in the 1970s and are still seeing interest today, though the modern F-15 and F-16 are very different beasts from their originals. However, the overall fleet is starting to age--primarily the F-15C fleet operated by the US Air National Guard which does air policing in the US. This is why the Guard is actually first in line for new F-15EX aircraft and has even received brand new F-35s [that, and the fact that the Air National Guard is actually pretty integrated with the Air Force]. F-16s are also starting to wear out; the USAF still operates over a thousand of the type. They are set to primarily be replaced with the F-35, though, with around 1500 aircraft on order. They will also replace the A-10 [along with drones, I suppose], and I'll take a moment to say that the A-10 is heavily overrated, there's a reason the USAF wants to dump it, and it's notorious for friendly fire incidents. Its job would be better done by drones or even aircraft like the Super Tucano.
Trainers
These are, guess what, also wearing out. The USAF currently operates over 500 T-38 Talon trainers, but it already has a replacement lined up for this aircraft which was first flown in 1959. It just adds to the list of things that need replacing.
ICBMs
Also should mention these, I suppose. The US is currently operating the Minuteman-III) as its sole ground-based nuclear deterrent/ICBM, and these 1970s-era missiles have survived their replacement, the LGM-118 Peacekeeper. They have to be replaced as well, and the USAF actually recently awarded a contract to do so to Northrop Grumman [though there are issues with that mentioned below].
Maintenance
One side-effect of all this is that the Air Force has increasingly high demands for maintenance which are simply not met, which combined with a shortage of maintainers [partially due to good outside pay but mostly because anecdotal reports suggest life as an Air Force maintainer is terrible] means that the Air Force has a poor readiness rate, especially because a lot of airframes aren't in good condition to begin with, having been worn out by decades of use.

3. Procurement Woes... fixed?

So, the Air Force has had a pretty troubled history with procurement in recent years. By far the most infamous one is the F-35. Well, yes, the F-35 was a procurement disaster. Another Redditor has done a great service by writing up the account Ash Carter [Secretary of Defense under Obama] gave of the program. It's long [full version here] and probably doesn't give a full account as it is Carter's memoir--but I'll just pick out one of the most significant parts of it:

At one point of the meeting, after we'd made it abundantly clear that the grossly inflated price for the JSF jets was unacceptable, CEO Bob Stevens casually said to me, "Well, if you tell me how much money you have, I'll tell you how many planes you can buy."
I was taken aback. Rather than negotiating a fair price with us, Stevens was behaving as if his company were entitled to all the money the taxpayers could afford. And although he obviously had a per-plane price in mind, he didn't care to divulge it openly, nor would he agree to a fixed-price contract holding him to it. I found this cavalier attitude offensive. With deeper disrepute, the JSF program would go down the political drain, and we wouldn't be able to buy any of these needed aircraft.
With all this in mind, I let his question hang in the air unanswered for a moment. Then I replied, "How about none?" With that, I walked out of the room. "None" was a reasonable prediction in the political climate surrounding this out-of-control program.

However, the F-35 was a pretty uniquely messed up procurement program due to suffering from what I'd broadly call "jointness", where interservice procurement made things less efficient.

The Air Force on its own has had some pretty impressive procurement messups though. Look no further than the KC-46 Pegasus, a tanker designed to replace the KC-135 [as mentioned above loads of these are getting retired in the next couple years]. The first sign of trouble probably should have been when the first program to replace the tankers with the KC-767 [now the KC-46] was cancelled on account of a bribery scandal involving the CFO of Boeing offering the procurement official an executive position. The second sign probably should have been the whole bit where, unlike its competitor, the A330 MRTT, the KC-767 didn't actually exist. And when the A330 won the contract bid, Boeing of course protested and, ultimately, got the contract evaluated again, with [at least per Northrop Grumman's claims, who was running a joint bid with Airbus] requirements rigged for the KC-767, and, finally, almost a decade after the program started, Boeing won the bid.

Except there was the small problem that Boeing hadn't built the plane yet, which turned into a large one. Ultimately the program was marred by years of delays and major technical problems. It only recently finally began delivering aircraft to the Air Force, years late and over-budget [though the USAF did manage to claw quite a bit of it back from Boeing].

However, there are some positive signs that future procurement will be better. Besides the F-35 being saved, there's the example of the T-X program, which is to replace the elderly T-38 Talon trainer. It invited foreign competition to the field, featured vigorous competition, and resulted in an actually effective aircraft--developed by both Boeing [of course] but also Saab--yes, the Swedes have a significant hand in the trainer jet likely to equip much of the world.

In particular, something very interesting the US Air Force is doing is diving heavily into computer design and open systems architecture. What this means, in short, is that they'll design new planes with a heavy emphasis on doing detailed computer design and simulation, only finally building an aircraft to demonstrate it works IRL--which of course cuts costs substantially--and they'll try to build common hardware and software that will work in any number of aircraft. The overall idea is to make aircraft inexpensive, easy to design, and modular. The Air Force even has a buzzword for this already, the "Digital Century Series", referring to the last time the Air Force very rapidly built a whole bunch of aircraft on a relatively common hardware platform. Whether this will bear fruit remains yet to be seen.

4. Fighting the Peer Conflict

The USAF, for the past thirty years, has not faced a peer competitor. Arguably it didn't even face one before that--the Soviet Air Force was no match for what the USAF could field, as was demonstrated quite well in a number of conflicts. The good news is that the USAF has had a long time to build up a lead, and is still far ahead of China or Russia, further ahead than the Army or Navy is by a long shot--Americans like their planes and electronics. For an illustrative example, China'sJ-20 stealth fighter has been produced in a quantity of... 50; while the USAF has almost 200 F-22s and is ordering over a thousand F-35s. The Su-57 barely even flies and is nowhere near peer to what the United States can field despite whatever scary articles you might have read. The bad news is that only recently has the USAF actually begun preparing to fight a peer conflict, which will tax it in different ways.

The main vulnerabilities the Air Force has in a peer conflict are more logistical and operational than regarding the quality of its aircraft or pilots, which are moreless unmatched. The first problem is that readiness isn't fantastic thanks to the War on Terror burning through all the ancient Cold War aircraft that the USAF has operated, and yes, aircraft do wear out. In fact, large numbers of F-15Cs operated by the US Air National Guard have been grounded due to age and fatigue. The shortage of maintainers also plays a role here. There's also the problem that the US Air Force is still quite vulnerable on the ground in any peer conflict; especially to precision strikes with ballistic and cruise missiles--the US Air Force has downsized considerably and now only has a handful of bases for both political and budgetary reasons, but that means that, when facing, for instance, China, the USAF must rely heavily on just six airfields--Osan, Kunsan, Misawa, Yokota, Kadena and Andersen [maybe bring that to 9 by adding USMC and Navy installations, which field fewer and less capable aircraft].

Thus, the primary challenge that the USAF faces is a quiet one--ensuring that it can operate from dispersed locations, at high opstempo, and repair its facilities rapidly. This is really also the biggest question mark in terms of the USAF's performance, but there's some reason to be optimistic here--the USAF is aware of the threat and is actually working to solve it. However, ultimately only changes in the political environment [the addition of bases in the Philippines or Palau, or the development of readied airfields in Japan] will fix the basing problem. Better ballistic missile defense will probably also help here. Russia or China will probably have poor luck against the USAF in the air; seeking primarily to deny the USAF free reign and thus the ability to support ground offensives, but they could cause significant damage by hitting ground facilities, and everyone knows it.

There's also the question of surface-to-air missiles; which have driven quite a bit of concern the past few years as China and Russia field increasingly capable systems like the S-400 and HQ-9. It is feared that the sophistication of these weapons could create "A2/AD bubbles" where the USAF and USN are unable to operate. While the access bubble does still look quite real for the Navy, recent developments have seriously called the efficacy of surface-to-air missiles into question--particularly the fact that the Israelis and Turks seem to be able to almost ignore them, or at least their shorter-range counterparts. The destruction of Armenian S-300 launchers by Azerbaijan with Turkish drones is certainly an ominous signal for anyone thinking advanced air defenses would keep them safe. How good the full-scale systems are against conventional targets is still unknown, but my guess is much less effective than the marketing--and keep in mind that despite years of concerns, SAMs have only been successful from about 1960-1980, and even then relatively minor adjustments in strategy seemed to significantly mitigate damage--so it's unclear how concerned we should actually be about such technology.

There are also questions about whether or not the USAF is operating the right mix of aircraft for the job, and these are valid ones. The USAF is buying new F-15EX, which has literally been described as not survivable after 2028 [though there is a case for the plane as a carrier of standoff weapons or a homeland defense fighter], and still operates the A-10 [an aircraft now mostly known for a number of notorious blue-on-blue (friendly fire) incidents] which, if used in a modern environment where the USAF didn't have total air supremacy, would simply not be able to survive. Yes, there's a reason the USAF wants to scrap the A-10, and no, the GAU-8 is cool but it doesn't even kill columns of modern main battle tanks. Unless you're primarily planning on fighting North Korea, the A-10 is close to useless(ly dangerous). The B-1 has also been highlighted as obsolete, largely due to high maintenance costs. However, the USAF is working hard to scrap these aircraft as fast as politically feasible.

5. New Technologies

The Air Force has always had a certain inclination towards adopting the newest, shiniest technologies, and at the moment there are a number of interesting concepts that it is exploring. I'll talk about two of the most significant ones [especially combined] here.

First, the Air Force is seeking to create future aircraft entirely virtually--using highly detailed computer models to design numerous types of specialist aircraft, and only building prototypes to test the results that simulations produce. Their latest trainer, the "eT-7", uses this methodology--the "e" is supposed to designate that it was designed this way. There's also a move towards using common avionics and software for a variety of different aircraft. Figures high up at the Pentagon have discussed a "Digital Century Series", modeled after a chain of fighters rapidly developed in the 1950s for a number of different roles, from the F-102 interceptor to the F-105 fighter-bomber. This could potentially create numerous new aircraft rapidly; a shift back towards the times before the 1990s where a single fighter project took the entire attention and budget of the Air Force. Nobody is really sure how this will pan out but it looks quite promising. In particular, the fact that the USAF was able to take its new prototype fighter jet into the skies a year after it was originally envisioned is stunning--and suggests that this potential return to the old days of the 1940s and 1950s when new aircraft showed up every year is not just a pipe dream.

Second, the Air Force is investing in UCAVs [Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles], most notably in the Skyborg concept. The goal is to develop a low-cost drone that can both deliver additional weapons to target while being accompanied by a manned fighter--a sort of drone wingman, which is cheap enough to be expendable [thus serving a secondary purpose, soaking up enemy air to air missiles]. Numerous companies have been awarded contracts to develop UCAVs and this program is looking quite promising, so expect to hear more of it in the future.

6. Drones

Drones are a rather interesting topic and one that I'll most likely get into more detail in on my next two posts specifically regarding Turkey. The US was one of the pioneers of UAVs, with the other big player in the field being Israel--in fact the US has bought Israeli drones from time to time, though of course China and Russia have also established a presence, without even mentioning Turkey. The US has a number of drones for different purposes--largely for reconnaissance of different types and precision-strike capability. It has the RQ-4 Global Hawk, for reconnaissance, the MQ-9A Reaper, for strike missions, and the RQ-170, which.... well, probably something involving reconnaissance, it's half-CIA so who knows. However, the US may not have kept up on the ongoing drone revolution, which is actually something I can't really blame them for since the 'revolution' only started in January. Yes. Last January.

This 'revolution' began on January 5, 2020, to be exact, and was led by an unlikely candidate: Turkey. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and this was certainly the case for the Turkish drone program. After the US refused to sell Turkey drones on account of the fact that they might be used against Kurds [use of Turkish drones suggests they definitely are used against Kurds], Turkey decided to make their own drone program with blackjack and hookers--or, well, just drones. Their DIY effort didn't really garner much attention until sent to Libya,but investment in their program skyrocketed, largely for two reasons. First, Turkey has been largely barred from major hardware acquisitions from the US and, to an increasing extent, Europe. Second, Erdogan deeply distrusts the Turkish Air Force and has dramatically cut pilot numbers through his multiple purges of the service. Third, Turkey is competing out of its class, against Russia, the UAE, and other major regional powers.

Once it arrived in Libya, it suddenly became clear that the Turkish drone program was much more important than previously thought. In many ways it bore the primary responsibility for turning the war around from what looked to be almost certain defeat for the UN-recognized GNA into a state where whether or not Haftar could survive was in question. In particular, it came as a great shock to most how easily Turkey defeated the very systems that were designed to shoot down UAVs--the Russian Pantsir in particular, which has been destroyed in great quantities with few Turkish casualties to show for it--and with the sticker price for a Turkish drone less than half of the Pantsir systems they kill, it could well revolutionize warfare. Experiences in Syria, and now in Armenia, where Turkish drones have destroyed hundreds of main battle tanks and casually destroyed SAM systems from some distance above, continue to bring into question just how vast the drone revolution is going to be. I'll cover this in more explicit detail in my next two posts.

However, the USAF is watching and learning--its main difficulty with drones is more political than anything. Drones are often considered less important than manned aircraft by a leadership that largely flew manned aircraft [particularly fighters at that], and it is the bottom tier of officer recruits that fly drones [though, interestingly, some drones are actually flown by enlisted pilots] and even then there's usually a shortage of RPA pilots--that's why a few are flown by enlisted in the first place. Whether or not they'll take these lessons to heart, only time will tell, but the history of the Air Force leaves me relatively optimistic on the matter--more than many other services, it's willing to embrace change.

7. Nukes

The US Air Force runs two legs of the nuclear triad--the air and ground portions. The first is dominated by, believe it or not, gravity bombs--mostly the B61. This weapon has been sitting around in the United States [and Europe under nuclear sharing, in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Turkey] for a while now, the first variants being made in 1968, and has recently been updated to the latest B61-12 variant, which offers high precision [as precise as JDAMs, not that it's likely to matter in most situations where nukes are being dropped] and flexibility--the bomb can be deployed from low altitudes at high speeds, and from within the internal weapons bay of the F-22 and F-35 [not to mention the B-2 and future B-21], so it's not as dumb as it might sound. Air-launched weapons also have useful features like the ability to recall them once launched, which isn't an option for missiles, along with fitting into doctrine for a tactical nuclear war. While I could go on about the lack of air-launched nuclear cruise missiles [which hopefully will be fixed by the end of the Intermediate Forces Treaty] it's not a big deal.

The main concern here [and perhaps a suggestion that procurement is still messed up] is the ground-based deterrent, which currently consists of a few hundred Minuteman III missiles buried in the northern central United States. These missiles, like much of the Air Force, date to the 1970s and have outlasted their supposed replacement--the MX Peacekeeper. These missiles are finally approaching end of life and are to be replaced by a new ICBM system. This process is... problematic. First off, it was a sole-source bid because Northrop Grumman acquired Orbital ATK Systems, the primary American producer of solid-fuelled rockets and missiles, and this resulted in Boeing pulling out of the competition. Second, the cost seems rather high, at least in my view, with lifetime cost estimates of as much as $90 billion, with development alone amounting to $13 billion at sticker price. It positions the cost of rebuilding the ground-based deterrent as comparable to the US Navy's program to replace the Ohio-class submarines with the Columbias. The ground-based deterrent has also lost substantial importance as sea-launched and air-launched weapons have become much more accurate and capable of fulfilling the ground-based counterforce mission [which arguably died with Peacekeeper], and it remains the most vulnerable portion of the triad. What good it does is largely as another independent nuclear deterrent and one that soaks up enemy warheads in the event of nuclear war that could be directed towards other targets. A disastrous procurement here could cause problems for the Air Force you will see in the future. My suggestion would be either to continue modernizing the Minuteman IIIs or aim to replace them with the cheapest option possible--something like, for instance, a land-based Trident missile [as if the Air Force would ever allow such a thing to be built]. All the ground-based deterrent needs to do is be there, be a credible threat, and soak up enemy fire. That's it.

8. Space Force

The Space Force is now its own service branch, but as it really hasn't emerged yet I'll cover it here. In fact, just recently, the Space Force enlisted its first trainees. This is somewhat less in my area of expertise; but at the moment things look fairly promising. While the Space Force sounds silly it's almost certainly the part of the military you interact with the most in your daily life on account of running the GPS network. They also operate a variety of communications satellites and the system for monitoring ballistic missile launches, among other pieces of hardware. Expect to hear more about these guys in the future, as space becomes a potential battlefield--we've seen the deployment of a space-based anti-satellite weapon by the Russians just recently, and numerous powers now field anti-satellite missiles along with jamming equipment that can blind reconnaissance satellites, so space is becoming much more militarily important. I don't have much more to say about these guys at the moment, though, other than noting that they're already talking about being even "less physical" than the Air Force--translation: Less mandatory exercise--and they're teaching classes about space law, which is neat I guess. The main downside of the Space Force is that it's going to be very small, around 20-30,000 people, which is half what even the Coast Guard fields, and that could lead to problems with maintaining personnel and inefficiencies with redundant missions, procurement, and the like.

9. Conclusion

The USAF has problems; particularly with aging equipment and manpower, but it seems to realize that most of them exist and is moving to address them. Political constraints mean that the USAF is stuck supporting a variety of obsolete platforms and investing its large budget poorly in new ICBMs and poorly managed tankers, and procurement continues to be a struggle for the USAF, though nowhere near as bad as with the US Navy. Drones have the potential to revolutionize warfare and the USAF is working to develop capabilities in that area, albeit maybe not as fast as some other players in the field, and digital design promises more aircraft designed and produced faster--much, much faster. The USAF faces logistical challenges in a peer conflict, but nothing insurmountable--though the work there is likely to be painful and sidelined because it's less interesting than buying shiny new toys. The Space Force seems to be going along well though they could face some problems in the medium term from losing access to the USAF's resources--political, financial, and of personnel--until/unless they develop into a larger, more influential service. On the whole, though, the outlook for the USAF, at least, looks quite bright--a hope spot, along with the Army and Marines, that the serious problems of the Navy will not cripple the entire military capability of the United States.

10. Citations

Uh, I mostly embedded them in the post, and I don't want to go back and hunt for what I used after a month, but here are some good longer-form ones:
RAND, Chinese Attacks on Air Bases in Asia on the ballistic missile threat
Ryan Snyder, The Future of the ICBM Force: Should the Least Valuable Leg of the Triad Be Replaced?

RAND, Creating a Separate Space Force mostly focusing on administrative difficulties and personnel issues

RAND, Drone-Era Warfare Shows the Operatoinal Limits of Air Defense Systems on drones and the conflicts in Libya and Syria [yes, it's all RAND, no Brookings Institute or such this time round]. It also explains why air defense systems are perhaps much more vulnerable than commonly thought, which I didn't really get into here.

Washington Post, Air Force seeks a radical shift in how jets, missiles, and satellites are designed with more detail on the shift to more computerized design the US Air Force wants to make

CSIS, The Air Force Digital Century Series: Beyond the Buzzwords taking apart the "Digital Century Series" push

We all love to read stories about big wins and imagine ourselves in the shoes of those winners. But, have you ever thought about what happens at that very moment after successfully beating the slot machine? Usually, the slot machine locks up and, in most cases, you hear the music and see the flashing lights on top of the machine. But one of the first questions every player asks is whether they have to pay taxes on casino winnings? Well, you’re about to find out!

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in USA

In the USA, when a lucky player hits a jackpot, there’s the option of receiving the winnings in cash or check. In case it’s a large sum, it’s usually paid by check. However, the IRS only obliges the casinos to report winnings that are larger than $1,200.
Of course, all winners are obliged to show a proper identification— a valid ID or passport. When the casino checks for your identification they also look at your age to make sure you are officially and legally old enough to play. As the minimum legal age for gambling varies from state to state, be sure to check it out before you decide to play.

Do I Have to Report All Winnings?

All gambling winnings received from slot machines are subject to federal taxes, and both cash and non-cash winnings (like a car or a vacation) are fully taxable. Apart from slot machines, the same applies to winnings from lottery, bingo, keno, poker or other games of chance. So, if the amount won on a slot machine is higher than $1200, the casino is required to report it. In other words, all your gambling winnings have to be reported on your tax return as "other income" on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8.

Slot Machine Winnings in W-2G Form

In case it happens to you and you snag that big win (which we hope one day you will), it’s useful to know that casino or other payer must give you a W-2G Form, listing your name, address and Social Security number. So, if the winnings are reported through a W-2G Form, federal taxes will be withheld at a rate of 25%.
If, however, you didn’t provide your Social Security number (or your Tax Identification Number), in that case the withholding will be 28%. Either way, a copy of your Form W-2G should be issued, showing the amount you won alongside the amount of tax withheld. One copy needs to go to the IRS, as well.
Aside from slot winnings, Form W-2G is issued to winners of the following types of gambling activities like:

bingo (for players who win $1,200 or more),
keno (for at least $1,500 worth wins)
poker tournament players (for the $5,000 win or more).
a horse track (if the winnings are 300x your bet)

However, not all gambling winnings are subject to IRS Form W2-G. For instance, W2-G forms are not required for winnings from table games like blackjack, baccarat, and roulette, whatever the amount. You’d still have to report your winnings to the IRS, it’s just you won’t need to do it through W-2G Form.

Are My Slot Losses Deductible?

The good news is that you can deduct your slot losses (line 28 of Schedule A, Form 1040), while the bad news is gambling losses are deductible only up to the amount of your wins. In other words, you can use your losses to compensate for your winnings. So, let’s say you won $200 on one bet, but you lost $400 on one or a few others, you can only deduct the first $200 of losses. Meaning if you didn’t win anything for a year, you won’t be able to deduct any of your gambling losses.
In order to prove your losses, you need to keep good records and have suitable documents. So, whenever you lose, keep those losing tickets, cancelled checks and credit slips. Your documentation must include the amount you won or lost, a date and time, type of wager, type of your gambling activity, name of each casino/address of each casino you visited and the location of their gambling business. You may as well list the people who were with you.

Do State and Local Taxes Apply Separately?

Yes, you are required to pay your state or local taxes on your gambling winnings. In case you travel to another state, and snag some huge winning combo there, that other state would want to tax your winnings too. But don’t worry, you won't be taxed twice, as the state where you reside needs to give you a tax credit for the taxes you pay to that other state.
Keep in mind though that some states like Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Ohio don't allow gambling losses.

Online Slot Taxes

Whether you usually spin the reels of your favourite casino games in land-based casinos in the US, overseas casinos, or online casinos, all income for the citizens of the US is taxable. As a US citizen, you are required to send Form W2G for all winnings from a slot machine (not reduced by the wager) that equals to or is more than $1,200.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in UK

As a resident of the United Kingdom, your gambling winnings won’t be taxed. Unlike the USA mentioned above, you’ll be allowed to keep whatever it is that you have won and earned in Britain, even in case you are a poker pro. Then again, you won’t be able to deduct any losses you might collect.
It doesn’t really matter if you win £5 or £5 million playing online slots, your winnings will be tax-free as long as you reside anywhere in the UK, be that in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in Canada

If you are a recreational player who lives in Canada, we have good news for you. When it comes to gambling, you don't have to pay taxes as your winnings are totally tax free. According to laws in Canada, gambling activities don’t fall under the category of constant source of income, therefore your winnings will not be taxed.
Canadians don't even pay taxes on their lottery winnings. The only exception here are professional gamblers who make a living from betting and are, therefore, obliged to pay taxes. Keep in mind though, this is the current situation - laws in Canada change frequently, which may also include tax laws.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in Australia

In case you reside in Australia and like to visit casinos from time to time, you’ll be happy to find out that your winnings in Australia will not taxed and here are 3 core reasons for that:

Gambling is not treated a profession (it's treated as a hobby)
The government doesn’t see profits from gambling activities as income, but as a result of good luck
The Australian government taxes casino operators and lottery organisers instead.

Of course, taxation varies from state to state.

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in New Zealand

Unlike in Australia, where even professional players can claim they are recreational, in New Zealand slot machine winnings (and any other winnings from casino games) are considered taxable income, in case the player has little income from other resources.
But, apart from professional gambling, it is very unusual for winnings to be taxed in New Zealand. Most often, gambling is considered recreational and not income, so players can enjoy their gameplay as they do not have to pay taxes on their winnings.

So we saw in part 1 that HIV does not cause AIDS and in part 2 that poliomyelitis is not from a virus. AIDS has had over half a trillion dollars of tax payer money thrown at it since the epidemic in the 80s yet we still don't have a vaccine for the disease. Doesn't really inspire much confidence if spending that much money can achieve so very little. HIV positive individuals die at 1.6x normal, yet deaths by liver failure or cancer (which are caused by the antiretrovirals but not counted as AIDS related) more than account for that 0.6 difference. Polio is championed as the biggest success of medical science with even people partial to questioning the necessity of some vaccines still espouse the importance of the polio vaccine. Since it can clearly be seen that poliomyelitis is not actually a viral illness, the vaccine has done nothing but increase harm to people whether it be from events like the cutter incident, or the hundreds of thousands maimed in India and the developing world through the push groups like the WHO and Gates foundation.
The title of this post is the title of a book for sale on Amazon. Now I haven't read the book but was originally going to make a post about measles, so I typed "measles fraud book amazon" in to google. The first link that came up was for the book Vaccines: The Biggest Medical Fraud in History. I clicked on the link to have a look at the synopsis and the comments. Below is the synopsis of the book from amazon:
>"Polio is NOT even contagious or infectious (never proven to be). There is NO proof Polio is caused by a virus. There is NO evidence that anyone caught polio from another person in the family. There is NO evidence that any nurse or doctor caught polio from a patient." —Sheri Nakken, RN, MA Listed below are public health statistics (U.S. Public Health Reports) from the four states which adopted compulsory vaccination, and the figures from Los Angeles, California (similar results in other states available from books listed at the back of this booklet):
TENNESSEE 1958: 119 cases of polio before compulsory shots 1959: 386 cases of polio after compulsory shots
OHIO 1958: 17 cases of polio before compulsory shots 1959: 52 cases of polio after compulsory shots
CONNECTICUT 1958: 45 cases of polio before compulsory shots 1959: 123 cases of polio after compulsory shots
NORTH CAROLINA 1958: 78 cases of polio before compulsory shots 1959: 313 cases of polio after compulsory shots
LOS ANGELES 1958: 89 cases of polio before shots 1959: 190 cases of polio after shots
The decline of smallpox, as with many other infectious diseases, including diphtheria and scarlet fever, coincided with the sanitation reforms which were instituted in the late 1880s. Where obtainable, government health records from around the world showed that during the periods of the most intense and widespread vaccination, the incidence of and death rates from smallpox were highest. For instance, in Kansas City and Pittsburgh during the 1920s, lawsuits were initiated, and won, against doctors and medical societies for declaring smallpox epidemics when there were none, and for creating epidemics with their vaccination drives.
Before 1903, smallpox was almost unknown in the Philippines, with occurrences in less than 3% of the population, and that in a mild form. The U.S. military went in and began vaccinating, and by 1905 the Philippines had its first major epidemic. Vaccination was made compulsory in 1910. From 1905 to 1923, the mortality rate ranged from 25-75%, depending on the count from the various islands. “The mortality rate was the highest in the cities where vaccination was most intense.” Dr. W.W. Keen reported 130,264 cases and 74,369 deaths from smallpox in 1921.
Japan adopted compulsory vaccinations in 1872 when they had only a few cases of smallpox. By 1892 they had the largest smallpox epidemic in their history with 165,774 cases and 29,979 deaths. Australia banned the smallpox vaccine after some children were killed by it, and in the following 15 years in unvaccinated Australia there were only 3 cases of smallpox. The smallpox vaccine was discontinued in the United States after Dr. Henry Kempe reported to Congress in 1966 that fewer people were dying from the disease than from vaccination.
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Now the reviews for the book are a bit strange. Of the reviews made by those listed as verified purchases all reviewed it five stars and spoke of the truth in the book. Nearly all the other reviews are all one star and none are made by a verified reviewer.
📷 Amazon Customer 1.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous, unscientific, and disgustingly unsafe to public health Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2020 Enough said. This book (and others like it) has absolutely zero grounding in actual science; it's truly mind-boggling that so many people can buy into this nonsensical hype. (How can you possibly argue, for example, that polio is non-contagious?! That's among the most absurd statements ever spoken.) ...Should we talk about the moon landing and lizard people while we're at it? 🤦🏻‍♀️ 64 people found this helpful Helpful2 comments Report abuse
📷 Rebecca Rettig 1.0 out of 5 stars False information Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2020 Completely false information. 55 people found this helpful Helpful2 comments Report abuse
📷 Amazon Customer 1.0 out of 5 stars Someone trying to make money with lies Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2020 Dangerous misinformation to feed the gullible. 39 people found this helpful Helpful2 comments Report abuse
📷 Janessa Villalba 1.0 out of 5 stars Bogus Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2020 Complete lies and fabrications to push an agenda. Please do not take medical advice or formulate an opinion about vaccines around this trash. 33 people found this helpful Helpful2 comments Report abuse
📷 Kimberly S. 1.0 out of 5 stars Why is this dangerous garbage even being sold on Amazon? Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2020 The intentional dissemination of anti-science hogwash that endangers public health is a despicable act. More so since Amazon is enabling it. 30 people found this helpful Helpful1 comment Report abuse
📷 Kindle Customer 1.0 out of 5 stars Useles Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2020Verified Purchase On a scale of 1 to 10, this ebook is somewhere around -50. The author consistently misinterprets the information provided. Even worse, they appear to believe that data from 50+ years ago has any relevance to current medical and pharmacologic practice. Finally, the raw data being used is very questionable. HelpfulComment Report abuse
📷 Amandalf 1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy this Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2020 Insanity. False information. Not based on any sort of scientific facts or data. 23 people found this helpful Helpful1 comment Report abuse
📷 D. E. Osterholm 1.0 out of 5 stars MISINFORMATION Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2020 There is a protection of free speech but unfortunately not a requirement to be scientifically accurate. Those who rely on this and other similar books are being misinformed. Those who don’t vaccinate are relying on the herd immunity of those who do. I hope that those being misinformed do not have to deal with the deadly effects of diseases involved in their children. 6 people found this helpful Helpful1 comment Report abuse
📷 Amazon Customer 1.0 out of 5 stars I would like to give this a 0-star rating... Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2020 Truth "that which is in accordance with fact or reality." The author(s) fail in all aspects of this, as well as causal effects and basic epidemiology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What about Measles?
What if it was shown in the German Supreme Court that there was no evidence the measles virus even exists? Virologist Stefan Lanka made a 100k Euro bet that no one could provide him with a scientific paper that demonstrated an isolated and measurable measles virus. Dr David Bardens took up his challenge and provided 6 papers which he claimed showed the virus. Lanka didn't accept that as proof and the matter was taken to court in the south of Germany where Lanka was ordered to pay. He appealed the decision to a higher court where 5 expert virologist witnesses were called from the Robert Koch institute and all were forced to admit methodological weaknesses in the studies and could not be definitively proved to contain the virus and not simply just cellular debris from the patients who were sampled. Lanka won this case and this time Bardens appealed to the Supreme Court in Germany who stated they saw no reason to hear the appeal and the previous ruling stood.
Now if you type in to google "Stefan Lanka Wiki", the first result is for Dr David Bardens. He is spun up as the victim of a cleverly worded bet which meant Lanka could weasel out of paying. Funnily enough when you go to click on the hyperlink for Stefan Lanka, you are not taken to his page but rather straight to a page of "AIDS Denialism". Why is Lanka not allowed to have a wikipedia page? Could wikipedia be complicit in this medical fraud?
Stefan Lanka gives and interview following his success in court. Interestingly, this has never been spoken about in the media, with google results simply only referring to old articles by the daily mail etc about Lanka's initial loss in the lower regional court. I read a comment where someone attempted to sue to the BBC because they never updated their story after Lanka's later success and was told that they should have reported that within 60 days of the victory for them to amend their story. No further story has ever been written.
Gardisil makes Merck $110m a month.
Could it be that institutions such as the BBC and other media outlets fail to do their duty and disclose information contrary to the incumbent narrative that vaccines are a wonderful scientific achievement? Would there be anyone that may have an interest in maintaining such a narrative? Could it be that there are people paid to also comment on social media to attempt to maintain that incumbency on behalf of these people with an interest in maintaining that narrative?
How does one expect to find out the truth if institutions like wikipedia, BBC, google are simply not even giving you access to the results from Lanka's court case? How do we get justice for the perpetration of such a fraud when we simply aren't even aware there is someone who has achieved such a victory in the courts. I spoke to a GP the other day about vaccination and he told me that he is aware of Lanka's work and finds it very convincing but if he mentions it to any of his peers he will be at best ignored and at worst have someone lodge a complaint against him and get a mark against his name.

The original article: In going green, youthful idealism must be tempered with a strong dose of sober maturity.
There've been several decent pieces on Singapore about taking a more pragmatic approach to climate change. The above-mentioned TODAY article masquerades as such a piece with its meta title. Unfortunately, it is a fallacious, poorly researched piece with the underlying agenda of promoting free-market forces as the solution to climate change.
This post points out issues with the article.

What about fossil fuels?

The author writes:

What about fossil fuels? While reducing our economy’s dependence on fossil fuels is a worthy goal to pursue, one must be careful of the transition costs of doing so, especially for developing nations which cannot afford expensive renewables.
Billions of people around the world, trapped in poor countries, have no access to cheap energy. That means no electricity to keep warm, to cook and to live decently. They die from indoor air pollution due to energy poverty. Enforcing a reduction of fossil fuels would further worsen their plight.
Renewable energy still makes up a small proportion of the world’s energy output, and before it comes widely cost-effective, fossil fuels are still the best bet for the growth prospects of poor nations. We should not prolong poverty simply because first-world environmental activists can afford renewables.

Renewables are cost-effective for upcoming projects, from Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2018 by the International Renewable Energy Agency:

Continuing cost declines, meanwhile, underline renewable power as a low-cost climate and decarbonisation solution. Within IRENA’s global database, over three-quarters of the onshore wind and four-fifths of the utility-scale solar PV project capacity due to be commissioned in 2020 should provide lower-priced electricity than the cheapest new coal-fired, oil or natural gas option, the report notes.

Indeed, a recent study in Nature states that household solar electricity has reached grid parity in China:

in all of the 344 prefectures, household solar systems can now generate electricity at a cost equal to, or lower than, the local grid-supplied electricity.

Miscellaneous articles on the cost-effectiveness of renewables:

What about the science of climate change?

The author makes several claims about of extreme weather. Based on these claims, he asserts that "scientifically", climate change is overblown. Let's consider his claims:
The author writes:

What about the science of climate change?... we should have a sense of proportion.. blaming extreme weather events on climate change, for instance, is far out of proportion. A recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on hurricanes said that there have been “no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century”, suggesting that the incidence of extreme weather is far less than what activists have made it seem.

In short, just because tropical cyclone frequency hasn't increased over the last century, the author thinks extreme weather issues are overblown.
This is non-sequitur.
Tropical cyclone frequency is not a barometer for extreme weather events. By definition, extreme weather events include unseasonable precipitation, heat waves, flooding and more - such events have worsened of late. Consider the following:

Europe's July 2019 heat wave set all-time high temperature records in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Singapore recorded her highest temperature on 13 April 2016 - 36.7 °C (98.1 °F) .
Annual rainfall total for Singapore since 1980 has increased at an average rate of 97 mm per decade. Those flash floods we've had over the past decade weren't caused by deterioration in our drainage infrastructure, rather they were the result of changing precipitation patterns.

Furthermore, the author assumes past tropical cyclone frequency is indicative of what is to come. This is a daft notion because green house gas emissions have accelerated. For what the the future holds weather-wise, consider Goldman Sachs' predictions:

More frequent, more intense, and longer-lasting heatwaves. The consequences will affect human health, productivity, economic activity, and agriculture. "Higher surface temperatures could exacerbate the warming process by causing permafrost to melt, releasing further methane and CO2 into the atmosphere."

Destructive weather events, including storms, winds, flooding and fires. It's not just New York, Tokyo and Lagos. "Other major low-lying coastal or already flood-prone cities include Shanghai, Dhaka, Mumbai and Karachi – each of which has a population of 15 million people or more."

The author goes on to assert that because direct deaths from extreme weather events have fallen, the "human impact" of extreme weather events is overstated:

Additionally, what is important is not just the incidence of extreme weather events, but their human impact. On this note, research by Indur Goklany has shown that human mortality by extreme weather events has fallen by 98 per cent over the past century

This is an unusual argument. Sure, with improved structural integrity of buildings, you're less likely to die in a hurricane. But dying in an extreme weather event is far from the full "human impact" of such events. The indirect "human impact" of extreme weather events are devastating. The above quotes from Goldman Sachs provide some insight on this and PM Lee puts it succinctly:

“The consequences of climate change are catastrophic and affect all countries. New diseases, more extreme weather events, food shortages, forced migration and even wars” - PM Lee

PM Lee isn't fear mongering; we're already feeling these effects today. Consider this excerpt discussing the effect of rising temperatures on dengue:

"In Singapore, dengue continues to be an ongoing threat," Mr Masagos said at the Kampung Admiralty Community Plaza.
"The effects of climate change, where the temperature is expected to rise, is going to exacerbate the challenge," he added.

The author has a poor understanding of climate change and lacks the ability to reason about it. His conclusion that climate change is overblown could hardly be more misinformed.

Free market forces as the solution to climate change

The author thinks the free market is a magic pill that solves all things, including climate change. Unfortunately, there are situations where the free market doesn't work. Consider USA's medical market, or Hong Kong's housing market.
Why do free markets fail sometimes? The issue is, individual interests aren't always aligned with the collectives - a drug maker may decide against curing a chronic illness because it is profiting off it, a land baron may hoard land to drive up prices. The drug maker and land baron benefit, but at immense cost to society.
Similarly, individual interests vis-a-vis climate change often aren't aligned with the collectives. For example, a factory producing green house gases doesn't incur direct costs for doing so. Instead, society pays for emissions by having to crank up their air-conditioners when temperatures rise, having their commutes delayed when floods occur, paying medical bills for dengue etc. The factory owner benefits, but at immense cost to society. In such situations, the free market fails and legislation is necessary - indeed, since the start of the year we've had a carbon tax.
Moreover, many climate change mitigation solutions like polders and nuclear plants are large scale, taking decades to complete. Free market forces alone aren't going to build these pieces of infrastructure. Other climate change mitigation initiatives like solar panels in public spaces need government support to get going. Timely development of sustainable technologies requires grants.
Contrary to the author's beliefs, market forces alone will not protect us from climate change. Government intervention is necessary. Since our founding, Singapore's governments have successfully intervened in our housing market, medical market, education market and more, invisible hand be damned. I do not agree with our government on everything, but I'm glad they're intervening on climate change.
As an aside, the article's author, Bryan Cheang, is an ex-government scholar who worked in the civil service and is currently a PHD candidate (publicly available information, just google his name). He is a big Adam Smith fan.
His Adam Smith fan site hosts an equally absurd anti-carbon-tax article (google "the problem with singapores first climate rally" for the article - yes, another misleading title). The article's main issue with the carbon tax is its regressive nature. Unfortunately the article fails to mention Singapore's solution to this issue, the u-save rebate - Singapore Budget 2018: Carbon tax will affect mainly large polluters:

A household living in a four-room Housing Board flat, for example, can expect their annual electricity and gas bill to go up by about $10.
But households will get help in the form of additional utilities rebates through the GST Voucher U-Save scheme. Eligible HDB households will each receive $20 more per year, from next year to 2021.

The article also attacks carbon taxes by pointing out that such a scheme was short-lived in Australia. Disingenuously, the article fails to mention that this failure was due to politics. Also, it doesn't mention that similar schemes have worked elsewhere (UK, Canada, various European countries to name a few) - these points are expounded on in a pro-carbon-tax article by the Adam Smith institute - Carbon taxes in practice:

There seem to be three key features of successful carbon tax schemes. The first is that, in the initial stage of planning and initiating, there must be bipartisan support. Australia’s tax was pushed through by the Labour government, leaving it all too easy for the consecutive government to win on an ‘axe the tax’ platform that highlighted any price increases or additional difficulties imposed on businesses. However, in the UK, when a tax scheme was spearheaded by a right-leaning leader, bipartisan support ensured more public acceptance of the scheme and a longer life span.

Are you awake yet?
Megan and Harry leave royal family.
Prince Andrew is a convicted pedophile and was close with Jeffrey Epstein.
Research Epstein Island if you have a strong stomach.
Wiki leaks exposed Clinton and she deletes 340,000 emails.. Trump gets elected.
Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood’s biggest germ was arrested 3 weeks ago.. all of a sudden he got the virus?
Prince Charles & now the Queen have the “virus”, the queen fled the palace to isolate weeks ago...
All of your Hollywood favourites have the virus. Adrenochrome is your topic here.
Bill gates is pushing vaccines and he owns 15% of the WHO, which are owned by George Soros and the Rockerfellers. Don’t know them? Research them.
Google is currently uncensored and you can access this information.
Whilst you’re there, google “Adrenochrome” and start to follow the trail.
An Adrenochrome batch was made in Wuhan... how fitting....
US deployed 30,000 troops to Europe. “Oh yeh it’s for training”. Without masks or any hand sanitizer.
600 Mexican drug cartels were arrested, one of the biggest busts by the U.S... why didn’t we hear about that?
298 Saudi’s royals, lawyers and judges were arrested for corruption
3 Chinese including 1 Harvard professor were arrested by the U.S attorney for economic espionage 5 weeks ago.
Today Trump crashed the Fed bank, they bought all of the gold and now hold the keys to creating a gold back currency, removing the fiat. There is no fed banking anymore (privately owned), The fed and treasury were basically merged meaning that Trump is now the Chairman for global banking system with the people’s money. Not the rothschilds, Rockerfellers, Soros, Goldman the list goes on.
For this to be possible, the economy must be crashed. All corrupt coin needs to be drained. A 14-28 day lock down is the best way to do this and even better to distribute the money to people on government grants, pay refunds for businesses and ato offsets.
Believe what you want. But open your eyes beyond the virus.
Some of the worlds most powerful CEO’s have stood down.. why? This was before the crash mind you.
Multiple arrests have been made for child trafficking, human trafficking and sex abuse.. but the media is not telling you that.
What you are seeing is a war. An invisible war that Trump keeps taking about.
It’s a war between Trump and his SS against the elites, bankers and mainstream media.
Pay attention to the bigger picture. Trump has arrested and caught more pedophile and child trafficking rings in the world... but I bet you didn’t know that because the mainstream (George Soros funded media, global elite owned) make out that he’s a moron.
Trump will go down in history in the coming weeks. There is no need to panic or have fear. This whole thing is working out as it needs to for Trump and his team to remove the corruption and power that has taxed your hard earned dollar, loaded your loans and credit cards with interest and pulled wool over your eyes.
You’re going to see some big names get called out, to the point where you won’t want to believe it.
If you still believe that 9/11 was a terrorist attack from Osama Bin Ladin who trained donkeys to fly cessnas, which then magically upskilled into Boeing’s and flew aluminium planes into 580m steel reinforced towers that collapsed like a deck of cards, not to mention tower 7 which was a block away but folded. (Let’s not forget the 6 seals who took Osama down that were killed in a mysterious chopper crash. RIP fellas).... you’re in for a wake up call.
This week, The big banks will go bankrupt, they are already on their knees, Income tax will go away and the elites will no longer rule you or the world.
This morning at 4:30 a.m., Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was served a criminal indictment by the U.S. for corporate and financial crimes. Media owners were instructed to brainwash everyone that Trudeau and his wife have the Corona virus, and that they won't be leaving their house for a while
Tom Hanks was arrested 48 hours ago for pedophilia and he is currently being kept in a hotel room in Australia, refusing to fly back to the USA. The next celebrity arrests will be Celine Dion, Madonna, Charles Barkley, and Kevin Spacey. All will claim Corona virus infections
Italy's airports have been completely shut down, as over 80 Vatican and financial officials have been served the same criminal indictments for financial crime, pedophilia, child trafficking, and sex abuse
United Emirates have completed mass arrests of their own Royal Family and affiliates
Convicted Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein agreed to a deal in exchange for his testimony against hundreds of top Hollywood celebrities and their involvement in the drug business, pedophilia, and child trafficking. Instead of a 55-year sentence, he only received a 23-year sentence. In exchange he provided testimonies against some of the biggest and most powerful names, including Prince Andrew of the U.K., former president Bill Clinton, former vice president Joe Biden, Tom Hanks, Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Sheen, Bob Saget, Kevin Spacey, John Travolta, Steven Spielberg, Podesta, NXIVM and PIZZAGATE sex trafficking clubs, and hundreds more who all were directly involved with Jeffrey Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein was similarly allowed to make a deal and have his suicide in prison faked in exchange for his testimony
CEOs of some major world corporations have been indicted/arrested, and some have been forced to resign — all in the last 30-60 days — such as the CEOs of the NBA, Harley Davidson, the Bill Gates Foundation, Intel, McDonald's, Cesar Awards, and Disney; the Vatican Chief of Police; etc. Approximately 700-800 more resignations are coming in the next 3 months
The lab-created Corona virus was a cover-up for the mass mandatory vaccination agenda. Now it has become the biggest covert U.S. Intelligence operation that the world has ever seen. This mass 158,000-arrests operation will remove and capture the biggest evil and corrupted politicians, celebrities, and CEOs, including global elites and bankers such as George Soros, U.N. officials, and the founders of GRETA, inc.
President Trump will win the 2020 elections, and arrests of former U.S. presidents will occur in early 2021. All major arrests will be portrayed by the media as accidental or as conspiracy theories. All arrested individuals will be given "Rommel Death", meaning that they will have a choice between their death bring portrayed to the public as a suicide or an accidental death in return for assurances that his or her reputation will remain intact, or, alternatively, they can choose to face a criminal trial that would result in public disgrace
Some top religious leaders will be arrested or forced to resign, and some will suddenly get "sick." The Vatican will be the first, and the Pope will be removed in 2020. Production of human extracted Adrenochrome will be revealed, and Hollywood and the Vatican will be exposed as being directly responsible for that
Coming up there will be a 2-month complete shutdown of the world's most common operations, such as schools, the stock exchange, some banks, airports, shipping, travel, events, galas, expos, sport games, sport championships, music award ceremonies, NBA/NHL/Baseball games, and ship cruises. There will be food shortages and staged electricity power loss. Gas prices will go down, food costs will go up, insurance will go up, gold and silver stocks will fall, and many corporations will either go bankrupt or take a significant financial loss, such as in the case of what's about to happen to Air Canada, Disney, and Coca-Cola
Welcome to the Great Awakening. What's about to happen this summer and fall will change the world's history!

I'm not going to show my original message (it's quite long, it also includes my name and student-email, but if people really want to read it I can post it in a comment), but I will post below the response I got from the VCGLR. I'll also note that I'd be quite happy to forward the correspondence to news agencies (on condition that my name/e-mail not be mentioned). Anyway, here's the reply I received:

My name is Jarrod Wolfe and I am the Strategic Analyst for the Compliance Division at VCGLR. I have received your correspondence in regards to gambling functionality (loot boxes) being incorporated into games.
Your research and suppositions on the matter are correct; what occurs with "loot boxes" does constitute gambling by the definition of the Victorian Legislation. Unfortunately where the complexity arises is in jurisdiction and our powers to investigate. Legislation has not moved as quick as the technology; at both State and Federal level we are not necessarily equipped to determine the legality of these practices in lieu of the fact the entities responsible are overseas.
We are currently engaging with interstate and international counter parts to progress wider policy changes and to modernise and inform both Federal and State based legislation. We take on board responses from the community, such as your concerns, to ensure that our actions are reflective of the risks these products pose as well as the community’s expectation. Watching recent Reddit activity certainly indicates the majority of the gaming community is at odds with decisions made by certain companies.
The focus of my concerns currently is on the more predatory aspects related to "pay to win". Skins, skins betting and virtual currencies are certainly a peripheral consideration. However, the idea that (genuine) progression in a game could be reliant on the outcome of a random number generator is at odds with responsible gambling and the objectives of our acts. More importantly the normalisation of gambling vernacular and mechanics targeted at vulnerable persons (minors), is not just morally reprehensible, but is also legally questionable.
In response to our appraisal or understanding of these matters, it is perhaps unfortunate for these companies that gamers have infiltrated most areas of government; be assured that knowledgeable and interested parties are undertaking a large body of work in relation to issues you noted. And if an avenue of investigation or enforcement is found; then we will most definitely pursue it.
Thanks for your detailed enquiry and interest.

I followed up with these questions: What is the legal effect of the responsible entity being based overseas? Does it matter that persons residing in Australia may be making use of those services? What do you think is the biggest barrier to enforcement in relation to this issue currently, and how do you foresee it being overcome? What steps do you think the average citizen/consumer can take towards effecting such change? I also asked if he would mind me sharing the correspondence online. Here is his response:

Thanks for the follow up. Gambling isn’t necessarily “Unauthorised gambling” so there are a lot of variables at play. For perhaps a real world example think of overseas betting agencies. Such as Bet 365 – Australians can and do use this service; yet it is clearly administered and run from the UK. This isn’t illegal. However, if that company set up “shop” in Victoria or started specifically advertising and offering gambling products to Victorians. Then we could investigate and it could be considered a breach of legislation and we would pursue, overseas or not. One of the downfalls is that using overseas based products, Victorian residents do not have us to investigate any complaints or issues they have.
Lootbox and “pay to win” set ups are even more nuanced than just being operated from overseas. Imagine if the legislation was read “strictly” and so you and a couple of friends have a poker game in your garage. You play for real money and sometimes other people join and leave. Now this is obviously gambling, however, is it “unauthorised gambling”? The legislation makes clear determination on some products such as Casino games and the like. But I don’t think parliament ever intended for a Compliance Inspector to kick in your garage door and fine you and your buddies for playing ‘texas hold’em’ in your garage. In order for that to happen we would require far more definitive proof and details and identify profits and purpose and a lot of other factors. This would be the steps we would have to take in order to get close to showing that these video game functions are, strictly speaking, Unauthorised… even then, convincing a magistrate in a prosecution would be a whole other nightmare that would probably cost Victorian tax payers way more money than they would be willing to spend.
But I am a Strategic Analyst, my job is essentially to look at strategies to bring about changes without the necessity of kicking in garage doors and scaring the hell out of a bunch of students. Hence our interest in “loot boxes”. Enforcement is probably not an option, but we can consider working with other agencies to bring about change in other ways. For instance; if these companies want to include significant elements of gambling in their products then perhaps we should work with “The Australian Classification Board” to ensure than any product that does that and monetises it gets an immediate R rating. I could imagine that this would send ripples through the industry and it would support the objectives of the Gambling Legislation to ensure minors are not encouraged to participate in gambling.
As far as affecting change from the consumer perspective. For me, instead of playing certain Star Wars games I was looking forward to, I will be concerting my efforts on collecting EVERY.SINGLE.MOON in Odyssey.
Thanks for your interest. Nothing I am saying is secret; we are working on these complex problems and unfortunately solutions are a lot slower than the technology. The more people that know we are looking the better. The VCGLR want to set the example for dealing with these kind of issues; getting correspondence from you (and others) makes it a lot easier to gauge the feelings of Victorians and lets us know there is genuine interest and concern.

TL;DR - the VCGLR considers lootboxes gambling, but if the entities are based overseas they lack the necessary powers of enforcement.
I was quite surprised to hear this to be honest, as I thought our system would be more like the American inter-State system (where online gambling bodies are bound by the laws of the State that the person using their services is residing in, rather than by the laws of the State where the gambling body is based).
EDIT: I've forwarded the original correspondence e-mail to the BBC, and have forwarded it to Kotaku Australia at their request. I'll update this post with article links if they write stories based on this.
EDIT2: Here is the Kotaku article; Power-up Gaming article

Part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
2009 was a grand year. I am 23 years old, will turn 24 late in the year. I am starting to settle down on the drugs and alcohol (not completely but a bit). I log a lot of hours and am playing at my peak level.
There wasnt much in early 09 I can remember. So I will jump to the late spring/early summer. This would be known as “The Summer of the Israelis!”
As best as we were told this is what happened. A very wealthy Israeli man gets ahold of Carbon and wants to play online. Which is illegal in Israel. So Carbon obliges. This wealthy man wants to basically run his own Israeli group. So Carbon accepts massive deposits from this guy and this guy dishes money out to generic accounts that his friends used. All of the usernames were like Momo324 or Momo474. It was blatantly obvious who was Israeli and who was not. There is now dozens if not hundreds of Israelis playing decently big stakes and some were playing nosebleeds and they were all awful. Just fucking awful.
This would be the only time I break strict BRM (after the JERRY2009 incident, fwiw I play Jerry a lot more after that he holds his own but I am winner on him). The Israelis were dragging us up to 10knl. There would be 9handed 10knl games with up to three Israelis on them. I sat those games occasionally. I should have sat them more looking back on it. My roll at this point is 200k~ and I keep 100k on Carbon and cash out excess whenever there is some (basically I had strings of checks pending at all times) so 10k wasnt exactly a comfortable loss. I only log 1k~ hands at that stake and I win a couple buy ins at most. I look back at is as a shot I should have taken more, never has there been softer 10knl online. Scout326 (google if unaware of this guy) was better than a lot of these Israelis.
My friends made great money that summer. I did too. When it was dying down a bit I had a 300k roll. Made 100k in a matter of 3-4 months. This would draw some legitimate players into Carbon though. There was always more competition after this event but it was still the best site I was playing.
I email Poker Stars at some point in 2009 asking to be unbanned and provide details of what I am doing on other sites. They oblige and give me my account back.
I grind a bit on there but the games are just not as soft. I book small win rates in FTP and PS cash games. Under 3bb100 when I was doing 2-4x that on Carbon. Was much less stressful on Carbon also. Stars and FTP were mentally draining. Was a lot of really good players at 1knl. So I basically just play Sundays on the big sites and mix games or stuff just for change of pace.
At some point in 2009 I am on a big skid on FTP and have literally 1,061$ in account. I am not going to reload it as I honestly hated FTP. FTP had the smallest average win rates of all sites that were tracked (PTR or Sharkscope/OPR the studs of online and win rates were about 70% of Stars win rates). Now logically this is not crazy as FTP was a tougher field than Stars. Stars had more players and the bulk of people who play multiple sites are competent. I have some data that I think proved FTP is goofy. I want to conceal my usernames in this story but here is what I can show you easily. If you look at high volume MTT players, go back to OPR and dig through results. Wins come in bunches. In an earlier part of this story I mentioned I went 1-1-X-2 in the Sunday 200$ Horse MTT on FTP, then dont cash it for a year? I have looked through my MTT history on FTP and when I win one tourney I almost always have two more top 2 finishes on the same day or next day. DuckU wins back to back Sundays majors on FTP which is insane (he was a stud though).
Now for the final thing that made me hate FTP. This is gonna branch off into a lovely story about my mom. She wants to learn how to play poker so I give her a secondary FTP account I made which dons the same username as my Carbon name, so I keep it concealed. I dont have sharkscope so I cant go reverify the info but she plays almost exclusively 3$ 90 man KOs. She is a terrrrrible poker player. She color tags every single player she plays with with a base color and changes the color if necessary if she likes or dislikes you. The color tags are nothing poker related, and everything like or dislike related. Aggressive players were disliked because they raised her (or people who beat her in a pot). Passive fish were liked (they never raise her) and everyone else was just the neutral color she chose. My mother plays several thousand of these (I had to xfer her money soooo many times) and loses at an impressive rate. However, if you do detailed searches on those 90 mans an odd statistic is seen. She had considerably more first place finishes than ANY other position at the final table. Which is odd, shes brutally bad (sorry mom). I will say that I in no ways ever thought or think any poker site is rigged for anyone. All sites were beatable. The best players win the money, I just think FTP had a boom switch and doom switch I suppose but nothing was aimed at anyone specifically (I guess the claim would be fish gotta eat too to want to keep playing, fate was given artificially on FTP sometimes, I say this as someone who won a good chunk of money on there over my life)
Ok back to having 1,061$ in my account after a big downer on there. Havent cashed any MTT of substance in a while. I dont play much cash on there. Its Monday and I register the 1k Monday. Usually a 300-400 player field.
I remember nothing of the early tourney or even mid tourney but I remember a couple hands from the final table. (Yea I register for total account balance and FT)
6 or 7 handed and I had been card dead, blinding away. I open rip KQhh in early for like 10bb and guy behind rips his 20bb and a big stack jams over that. So we are all in 3 ways.
All three hands shown are my KQhh, the guy behind me has 99ds and the guy behind him has JJhd
Flop animations spread out 2s 3s 9x
Gooooood game me.
Turn 10s
Oh hey I have one out now!
River Jc
Oh hey I hit a one outer!
And just like that I am 30~ bb deep and back in the mix. The 99 busted so I jump a level too.
I have a friend who plays for a living who railed that FT who still brings that hand up. Wont ever forget that hand I dont think, just absurdly dead on flop.
We get down to 3 handed and I open button with J8cc bb defends get a J high flop and I end up stacking my 20bb~ to J9 for 3rd place. Was 39k. Not bad result for case money. I remember sending pic of my account balance to a friend after registering and it was like 89 cents or something.
Some time after that my FTP account crossed over 100k but I dont recall how. I think I had a bit of a cash heater and some marginal scores in MTTs along with trading money from other sites. Just remember having 100k on two different sites which I thought was cool as every dime I ever made from poker stemmed from selling playchips on Stars years earlier.
Pretty late in 09 I move into a nice apartment and for the first time in my life buy a nice vehicle. I was driving the same truck I had in highschool (a 98 ford f150 extended cab with 300,000 miles on it with original motor) and needed a new one badly. So i buy a 2007 F150 loaded up with every feature available (was still a used truck) for 25,000$. This was the moment I felt I had made it to be honest. It felt really good making that purchase. I squander money at the bars (a trip to the bar never cost less than 500$ buying shots and shit. My friends were all day laborers basically so I gladly bought round after round of shots, wasnt really showing off I just wanted to have a good time) and on stupid stuff like RC airplanes that I wreck first flight, telescopes, hockey gear etc but I never bought anything that made me flashier, this truck was the first purchase that did that.
Late in 09 I am at a local casino on the weekend of a 1600$ mtt. Get hammered drunk (live poker was still just a vacation for me) and lose like 10k. The next day I play that MTT. Bag. The next day we come back and I go on a tear and make FT as chip leader. Continue that tear literally making zero mistakes, everything I did was right. Obviously ran well as thats how you do everything right, but I made a few good folds a few 3b/4b/5b with air that were successful, just everything lined up. I win 80k which made me feel better about the 10k I fucked off on that Friday. It remains the only MTT score live of over 25k. I dont play a ton of them, just when they are local and I skip plenty. Id prefer to just play cash forever where I get no tax forms. After this tournament I am at my peak roll basically. I am just shy of a 400k roll when I peak. Had I been disciplined with my money and put more hours in earlier who knows where I would have been. I would guess at this point in my life I had made 700k playing poker, I spent stupid amounts of money had a few pit spews just was reckless in general.
2010 starts off with a trip down under. Aussie Millions is where I was headed. I had won a seat on Carbon. I pack a bag, grab 25,000 in cash, head to the airport and am on my way.
Flying to Australia is a bit of a trip. My flight route went Tulsa to Denver to LAX then to Melbourne. I departed LAX at 10PM on Thursday to show up in Melbourne early Saturday around 9AM. 17~ hour flight and from Oklahoma a 17 hour time difference, forward. Lose a day and a half on that flight. I had taken a few xanax with me for the long flight and had a drink or two right as the flight took off and passed out. I was sitting in a row of 3 seats on the right side of the plane next to a good looking young Australian couple who were headed back from an American vacation. I had the aisle seat (there was a ton of leg room though) and I literally fall asleep an hour ish into flight and wake up at a later time. My contacts were stuck to my eyes from the sleep, could barely open my eyes and I look over and ask them how far out we were. They said “the captain just came on and said were about half an hour out”. Sweet... I slept for like 15 fucking hours, yay xanax, the first time ever drinking and xanax ever did me any good.
I get to my hotel which is a block or two from the Crown Casino and I walk down to take a look. A couple 5-10 seats were open and I hand them some cash and they say I have to exchange for Aussie Dollars. This was right after the recession and the exchange rate at that time was strong for Australia. I think they were 93 cents on the dollar.
I play some cash for a few days. I drink excessively every day. One day at a 10-20 game I am at the table with LuckyChewy BalugaWhale and several other studs (they have zero clue who I am nor need they know) but my drunken self tries to set up a prop bet. I wanna bet 5000$ that I can have a cocktail every half hour for 12 hours and book a win in the game we were at. No one wanted it (I was drunk and they likely wanted me to leave them alone, they were all buddies it seemed).
So my bad ass self decides to just do it anyways. About 6-7 hours in I am pretty fucking drunk and up like 12-13k and my 14-15k stack was made involving 9 1,000$ chips. I remember getting bored of the game that had turned nitty and started putting those 9k chips in without looking. Did it back to back hands and no one called. The third hand I look at AJo and rip the 9 1k chips in the pot again (I kinda remember thinking that this was a value rip after the previous two hands. As if someone would just pile in A8 lol) and a guy with 6-7k calls off. He has QQ and holds.
This session that I was up 12,000~ ends up felting my cash for the trip. Literally go from 12k winner to 20k loser (I was down 5k on trip from playing the 5k HU tourney).
Fortunately for me my aunt was flying down with her girlfriend (yea shes a lesbian) in two days so I called my sister had her get 25k out of my safe give it to my aunt and she would bring me some cash. The next two days I play online in my hotel room. My aunt shows up a couple days later and were back in action!
I end up drinking relentlessly and losing most of that 25k. I busted the 10k main level one barreling three streets with air. I played excellent in Australia to say the least. Probably some of the least disciplined behavior I have ever exhibited. I was in one of the most unique countries on earth for 15 days and never made it more than a mile from the casino and the only reason I made it a mile was I met up with some chick who was an exchange student at my highschool and was from Melbourne (dont worry she wasnt cute). (As a matter of fact I was highly disappointed with the quality of the women in Melbourne).
The only other things worth telling from that trip was escorts were legal, I am pretty sure the strip clubs didnt allow you to tip money to girl on stage (only buy dances) and you couldnt tip the poker dealers. A funny story about the escorts. I hire one one night. I had done this in Vegas a time or two but was always shitfaced when I had done it. I do it sober in Australia. She meets me and I am thinking what the fuck am I doing. Was weird for me. Barely mess around (brief bj was peak) and I am like I cant do this. I felt bad about paying for sex. So I give her 800$ for nothing basically. Just weirded me out knowing how bad that life is. Drunk me would never had a second thought, but sober me did.
I head home stuck 45k or something. Was a bad trip to say the least. This is about the point where things start trending down for me. Im not long after having a 400k roll (I am still near that at this point) and having a massive year (2009 I won over 250k) but some future events will set in motion my downfall, and not hard to predict Black Friday will be part of it. Will post next one soon.

With the new year arriving, I decided to have a good look at and re-evaluate all of the beer money sites that I use, with the hope of having a running start to the new year, so without further a due; here goes

TLDR:

Best Survey Site is Prolific Academic | Non
Best GPT Site is: Swagbucks | Non
Best Work at Home site is: ClickworkeUHRS | non (but please read my ClickworkeUHRS Guide
Best Match Betting Site: Profit Accumulator | Non
Best New(ish) site: PrizeRebel | Non

Surveys:

Survey sites are probably the most common type of beermoney site you'll encounter, but not all of them were created equally, here's my pick of the bunch:

Prolific Academic | Non

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: £5
Available In: Worldwide, but studies are targeted to specific demographics
TL:DR: This site specializes in providing research for academic's, and is im my opinion the best survey site on the web, pays very well but the surveys are based on your location. Wait until you reach £20 before you cashout to save on paypal fees

Yougov | Non

Payout Method: BACs(UK), Paypal(US)
Minimum Payout: £50
Available In: USA, UK
TL:DR: A consumer research firm based in the UK, the surveys come regularly (usually one or two per day) and are usually very engaging and usually about current events but because the cashout is so high it can feel like a long haul before you reach your payout

Survey Network | Non

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: £20
Available In: UK
TL:DR: One of the better but lesser known survey sites, regularly has lots of surveys paying 50p - £1 and payment is quick (1-5 days from cashout)

Opinium Research | Non

Payout Method: Cheque, BAC's, Amazon
Minimum Payout: £25
Available In: UK only
TL:DR: Once you reach the £25 cashout threshold you'll recieve an email to fill out, you must fill this out in order to cashout

Ipsos i-SAY

Payout Method: Gift Card
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: North America, Europe, Egypt, Turkey, UAE, Turkey
TL:DR: Run by Ipsos, surveys are sent to your inbox regularly and it's available in quite a few countries which survey sites aren't usually friendly with.

Pinecone Research

Payout Method: Cheque, Paypal, Giftcards
Minimum Payout: $3
Available In: UK, USA, Canada, Germany
TL:DR: Pinecone is invite only, so signup is quite selective! just be patient and you'll be accepted eventually. Try their facebook page too, people who float around there often enough tend to get invited.
Available In: USA, UK, Canada

AnswerPoints

Payout Method: Amazon (or 50p Prize Draw)
Minimum Payout: £5
Available In: UK only
TL:DR: Doesn't have the most surveys, but you never get screened out!

NewVistaLive

Payout Method: Cheque
Minimum Payout: £25gm
Available In: UK only
TL:DR: There's a nice £5 signup, and if you go to "My Profile" and update the checkbox to allow surveys from Toluna you'll recieve significantly more surveys

Valued Opinions

Payout Method: Gift Card
Minimum Payout: £8.50
Available In: UK, US, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand
TL:DR: Cashouts are processed on a Tuesday, this site occasionally offers you the chance to be involved in larger projects which can pay up to £100. There's also the occasional product trial which i find fun

Vivantic | non

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: US, UK
TL:DR: Surveys come quite slow, so cashing out takes a while but the site does pay out.

Survey Bees

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: US, UK
TL:DR: It's basically a 'all in one' survey site where you sign up to surveybee.net, choose which sites you want to sign up to and everything comes through them in a sort of funnel fashion. Available in quite a few countries.

Branded Surveys | Non

Payout Method: Paypal, Dwolla, Giftcards
Minimum Payout: $10
Available In: USA, UK, Canada

Smartphone apps:

Most Smartphone apps are a combination of mystery shopping and tasks to do at home (downloading apps etc.). The mystery shopping gigs can pay really well, but it's obviously very location dependent. Downloading apps also pays very well, but it's a one shot deal (meaning once you've downloaded an app you can't get paid for doing it again)

StreetSpotr Apple | Android | Website

Payment Method: - Paypal
Minimum Payout - No minimum
Available In: - United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland (and probably more, i couldn’t find a list)

Field Agent Apple | Website

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: No Minimum
Available In: U.S. , Canada, UK, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden
Notes: Apple devices only

Roamler - Apple | Android | Website

Payment Method: - Paypal
Minimum Payout - No minimum
Available In - Holland, Great Britain, Sweden, Italy, Poland, Germany, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Turkey

Clic and Walk - Apple | Android | Website

Payment Method: - Paypal
Minimum Payout: - £4.01
Available In: - France, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy
Notes: Also provide quite a few surveys

Spare5 - Apple | Website

Payment Method: - Paypal
Minimum Payout: - $1
Available In: - UK, US (possibly more? Can't see a list)
Notes: - IOS only (Android coming soon), mostly a croudsource type app, no mystery shopping

Task360 - Apple | Website

Payment Method: - Bank Transfer
Minimum Payout: - £10
Available In: - UK only
Notes: - Sometimes called tasker, IOS only (No plans for Android), seems to have lots of mystery shopping jobs in England

Yoobic - Apple | Android | Webiste

Payment Method: - Paypal
Minimum Payout: - No minimum
Available in: - UK, Belgium, France, Switzerland,

Voxpopme - Apple | Android | Website | Non

Payment Method: - Paypal
Minimum Payout: - £10
Available In: - UK, US, Singapore, Australia (apparently it's 18 countries in total but i couldn't find a list)
Notes: - Slightly different, all of their tasks are based on you recording your opinion on a product, can be a quick earner!

Get paid to websites (GPT):

Probably the 2nd most common type of beermoney site on the web, do various tasks and get paid for it; hence the name Get Paid To

Swagbucks | Non

Payout Method: Paypal, Gift Cards
Minimum Payout: £5
Available In: US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland

PrizeRebel | Non

Payout Method: Paypal, Gift Cards, Prepaid visa/mastercard
Minimum Payout: $5
Available In: US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland

Clixsense | Non

Payout Method: Check, Paypal, PayToo, Payza
Minimum Payout: $8
Available In: Worldwide, but studies are targeted to specific demographics

InstaGC | Non

Payout Method: Paypal, Cheque, Bank Transfer, Gift Cards
Minimum Payout: $1
Available In: all countries and regions that are supported by PayPal, excluding China and Vietnam (Heres the List)

Inbox pounds | Non

Payout Method: Cheque
Minimum Payout: £20
Available In: UK

Global Test Market

Payout Method: Paypal, Dwolla, Tango Cards, Giftcards
Minimum Payout: $10
Available In: USA, UK, Canada

Work from home jobs:

Sometimes companies needs lot of repetetive work done, when they do they'll use sites like these, You can occasionally come across a job (or HIT as they're sometimes called) which you enjoy and when that happens you can make huge profits very quickly.

ClickworkeUHRS | non

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: €5
Available In: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam
Notes:It's a bit of work to get into UHRS (where the most money is) so i wrote a ClickworkeUHRS Guide

Amazon MTurk

Payout Method: Amazon US giftcard (frustratingly it's only for the US store)
Minimum Payout:
Available In: Over 190 countries
Notes: Best work at home type job if you're in the US, but payment isn't great outside the US. They also seem to be allow some people from some countries to sign up and not others.

TakeNote

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: None, whatever you have earned is paid to Paypal within the first 14 days of each month
Available In: UK (But it looks like there's nothing to stop you from being paid as long as you have good English)
Notes: Good for picking up transcription work, pay is decent, requires you to do a few tests before starting

LeapForce

Payout Method: Cheque, Bank Deposit
Minimum Payout: None, You get paid whatever you've earned every 30 days
Available In: UK, US, Canada, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Italy, France, Mexico, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Phillipines, Turkey
Notes: Pays really REALLY well, but it's like a proper job, you have a quite difficult entrance exam and they can deny your application. Mostly search engineer evaluation work

Lionbridge

Payout Method: Cheque, Bank Deposit
Minimum Payout: None, You you get paid whatever you've earned as part of their monthly payment schedule
Available In: Worldwide, but they only hire when they need someone from a specific area, you'll need to check regularly
Notes: Pays really REALLY well, but it's like a proper job, you have a quite difficult entrance exam and they can deny your application.

63336/AQA

Payout Method: Cheque, Bank Deposit
- Minimum Payout: None? (I think)
- Available In: UK
- Notes: Answer questions for money, I still haven't personally managed to sign up for this service yet

Free daily cash prize draws:

These are simply free prize draws that I (try) to check every day.

The Selfie Lottery | Non

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: Worldwide
Notes: Simply Upload a picture to win. You need to manually check it daily, If you don't check and you win, you lose your £10 prize

Lucky Phone | Non

Payout Method: Bank Transfer
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: UK only (I think?)
Notes: Sign up for their daily prize draw. give them your phone number to be entered into the larger prize draws (I've not had any junk phone calls so far, so it seems like they don't sell your number) Once again you need to manually check everyday to see if you've won or you lose the prize

Free Postcode Lottery | Non

Payout Method: Bank Transfer
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: UK Only
Notes: Sign up, give them your postcode and if your postcode is the one drawn you share the prize with everyone who played from your postcode. Another which needs to be checked in order to claim the prize

Ashleigh Money Saver's £50 daily draw | Non

Payout Method: Paypal? I've not won yet
Minimum Payout: £50
Available In: UK only
Notes: Sign up via facebook and if your name is drawn you win £50 - once against if you don't claim the prize within 24 hrs then you don't win the prize

The Street Lottery | Non

Payout Method: Paypal
Minimum Payout: £10
Available In: UK only
Notes: Once again you need to manually check every day. For everyday you check and don’t win you are given an additional entry into the next draw. So if you go two weeks without a win you will have 14 entries into the draw.

Free Birthday Lottery | Non

Payout Method: Paypal, BACS or PAYM
Minimum Payout: £5
Available In: UK only
Notes: Another one you need to manually check every day

FreeMojiLottery | Non

Payout Method: Unknown
Minimum Payout: $20
Available In: UK only
Notes: Check every day to see if your emoji "combo" has won the prize. Failure to check means you lose it, so you need to check it every day.

*Emoji Lottery *

Payout Method: Unknown
Minimum Payout: based on their add revenue
Available In: UK only
Notes: Check every day to see if your emoji "combo" has won the prize. Failure to check means you lose it, so you need to check it every day.

Earn using cashback websites

I don't see it mentioned very often in here, but I assume most users will already know about using cashback websites to earn some extra beer money.

For those who don't, cashback websites are a simple idea. Companies pay cashback sites a certain amount of money for each genuine and new customer they bring in, the cashback sites then offer the user a set amount of money for going through them to sign up to the company in question. You can also use cashback sites to claim money from real stores, although I've never really did this myself. There are lots of cashback sites out there, but I use the 2 most trusted and largest for UK users, these are:
TopCashBack | Non

Payout Method: BACS, PayPal, Gift Cards
Minimum Payout: 1p
Available In: UK, US
Notes: There is a free and premium option, use the free option

Quidco | Non

Payout Method: BACS, PayPal, Amazon
Minimum Payout: £1 (you have to set this)
Available In: UK only (I think?)
Notes: There is a free and premium option, use the free option

I've collated the best offers for these 2 sites.
For Best results with Cashback offers you should:

Clear your cookies (or better yet, use another browser)
Turn off any adblockers you may have on
Always read the offer thoroughly

The first group of offers are free offers which require you to sign up to a website, or get a quote, or sign up to a free trial. By using all of these offers at the time of writing you can earn an easy £30!

Free offers

Website	Quidco Profit	Website	Top Cashback Profit	Notes
Confused.com Car Insurance	£2.20	Confused.com Car Insurance	£2.32	For a Genuine New Quote
Confused.com Pet Insurance	£0.50	Confused.com Pet Insurance	£0.60	For a Genuine New Quote
Confused.com Travel Insurance	£0.55	Confused.com Travel Insurance	£0.55	For a Genuine New Quote
Confused.com Home Insurance	£2.20	Confused.com Home Insurance	£2.32	For a Genuine New Quote
Confused.com Motorbike Insurance	£2.00	Confused.com Motorbike Insurance	£2.32	For a Genuine New Quote
Confused.com Van Insurance		Confused.com Van Insurance	£2.02	For a Genuine New Quote
Resident Review	£1.00	Resident Review	£1.01	Leave a review of your landlord or estate agent
Graze.com	£1.50	Graze.com	£1.51	Sign up for a free box & cashback
Western Union	£1.00	Western Union	£1.01	For a new signup
The People's Operator	£1.00	The People's Operator	-	For activating a free PayAsYouGo sim card
QuoteSearcher	£3.50	QuoteSearcher	£3.53	For generating a genuine insurance quote (various cashback amounts for different quotes)
ValueMyCV	£0.60	ValueMyCV
Get me a Ticket	£1.00	Get me a ticket	£1.01	For registering an account
Search Lotto	£0.50	Search Lotto	£0.50	Make 25 searches for cashback and a free ticket
Quotezone	£3.50	QuoteZone	£3.55	For generating a genuine insurance quote (various cashback amounts for different quotes)
MySurvey UK	-	MySurvey UK	£1.81	must complete a double opt in and at least one survey
FreeStuff.eu	-	FreeStuff.eu	£0.70	For a new signup
Property Moose	£2.00	Property Moose	£2.02	For a new signup
Match.com	£1.00	Match.com	£1.01	For a new signup
MyOffers	-	MyOffers	£0.50	For a new signup
Readly	£0.30	Readly	£0.30	Completion of 30 day free trial

Another way to continue your earning is to hit the deposit offers. These are offers you can sign up to through TopCashBack | Non and Quidco | Non which pay you more in cashback than you need to deposit to claim the cashback. So for example if you sign up to Gala Bingo through Quidco and wager £10 on their site you will receive £30 cashback through Quidco, giving you a £20 profit (and you'd be surprised how often you acctually win at these bingo sites too!) At the time of writing there is just over £130 to be earned using these methods! *(Please note, these offers are correct at the time of writing but do change fairly frequently) *

Deposit Offers

Quidco				Top Cashback
Website	Deposit	Cashback	Profit	Website	Deposit	Cashback	Profit
Gala Bingo	£10.00	£30.00	£20.00	Gala Bingo	-	-	-
Ladbrokes Bingo	£10.00	£30.00	£20.00	Ladbrokes Bingo	£10.00	£30.30	£20.30
William Hill Bingo	£10.00	£30.00	£20.00	William Hill Bingo	£20.00	£25.25	£5.25
Betfair Bingo	£10.00	£20.00	£10.00	Betfair Bingo	£10.00	£15.15	£5.15
32 Red Bingo	£20.00	£25.00	£5.00	32 Red Bingo	£20.00	£25.25	£5.25
Betway Bingo	£20.00	£25.00	£5.00	Betway Bingo	£20.00	£25.25	£5.25
Dream Bingo	£20.00	£25.00	£5.00	Dream Bingo	£20.00	£25.25	£5.25
Lucky Pants Bingo	-	-	-	Lucky Pants Bingo	£10.00	£15.15	£5.15
The National Lottery	-	-	-	The National Lottery	£10.00	£15.15	£5.15
Bingo Extra	-	-	-	Bingo Extra	£10.00	£15.15	£5.15
Bgo Bingo	£20.00	£25.00	£5.00	Bgo Bingo	-	-	-
Bingocams	£10.00	£15.00	£5.00	BingoCams	£10.00	£12.12	£2.12
Glossy Bingo	-	-	-	Glossy Bingo	£10.00	£13.13	£3.13
Dotty Bingo	-	-	-	Dotty Bingo	£10.00	£13.13	£3.13
Bingo on the Box	£10.00	£13.00	£3.00	Bingo on the Box	-	-	-
Butlers Bingo	£10.00	£13.00	£3.00	Butlers Bingo	-	-	-
Winner Bingo	£10.00	£13.00	£3.00	Winner Bingo	-	-	-
Deal or no deal Bingo	£10.00	£12.00	£2.00	Deal or no Deal Bingo	-	-	-
Mecca Bingo	£10.00	£11.50	£1.50	Mecca Bingo	£10.00	£11.61	£1.61

So, there you go. Easy money and you can work through most of these offers in a day (although tracking them will normally take a week or so) If you have any questions then fire away, I'll try my best to answer
TL:DR: Sign up to TopCashBack | Non and Quidco | Non and use the offers above to make a cool £160

Other things worth checking out:

What Users Do

Payout Method: PayPal.
Minimum Payout: They pay on the 25th of each month
Available In: Worldwide (if you speak English)
Notes: Test websites with your microphone and/or camera on, payment is great (£8 per test) and most tests last around 10-20 minutes

Match Betting | Non
Alternative Match Betting | Non
What is Match Betting?
Match betting is a LEGAL, RISK FREE & TAX FREE way of earning Money. You earn by taking advantage of the various sign up and "reload" offers that bookies provide new and existing customers. For example, when you sign up to William Hill they have an offer of "Deposit £10, get a £20 free bet" You can use this bet and then lay against it at a betting exchange
For example:
Bookie: Bet Chelsea to WIN
Exchange: Bet Chelsea to NOT WIN (It should be noted than when you make a lay at a betting exchange you're covering all other options, so by saying you think Chelsea will NOT win you're saying they will either lose or draw, anything except win)
So now that you've placed them, these two bets will cancel each other out, resulting in you breaking even (or losing a little bit of cash) after this initial bet you will be credited with your free bet. Now, repeat this process again - except this time it's not your own money being used to place the bet! So you get to keep the profits.
How to get started
The best way (I believe) to get started is to sign up for the free trial on Profit Accumulator | Non and follow their step by step instructions. Using their site you can claim two of the offers and earn £45. During the trial you will have the basics of match betting explained to you and once you have earned from your free trial you can use the profit to upgrade to a Platinum account(£22.99/month or £150/year). If you become a platinum member you will have access to hundreds of offers and dozens of extra guides to help you on your journey. When I started doing this a few years back I only used £50 (That I earned doing surveys) as my starting float, however a bigger pot of £100 is advised to help you work through offers quicker.
If you're going to get started with match betting, I recommend you take a photo of the following: Passport or Driving License, bank card used to deposit money, and a recent utility bill - As the bookies fraud prevention teams occasionally ask for these (I've only had it happen once, but it does happen)
Being gubbed & mug bets
Mug bets - Ok, so match betting is completely legal, however, Most bookies aren't too keen on you only using them for offers. So it's highly recommended to place occasional "mug bets" - What's a mug bet? It's basically a normal (small) bet which is nothing to do with your match betting. A mug bet is simply a small bet to make you look like a regular customer, once again Profit Accumulator | Non has got you covered on the best ways to place mug bets. They advise following a cycle: Qualifying bet, free bet, mug bet, withdraw profits.
Being gubbed - This is when a bookie has figured out that you're only match betting and using their offers, the bookie can limit your account to only making small bets, or not getting any offers. You can get back in good stead with them by placing non-offer bets but this could take time and still never amount to anything.
TL:DR: Use the free trial from Profit Accumulator | Non to make your first £45 from the bookies (Risk Free). Alternatively try Odds Monkey | Non

Do You Pay Tax On Gambling Winnings? | Betting Guides

do you pay tax on bet winnings australia

do you pay tax on bet winnings australia - win

Boned: Problems (but not too many) in the US Air [and Space] Force!

1. Our Pride And Joy

2. Aging Equipment [again!]

3. Procurement Woes... fixed?

4. Fighting the Peer Conflict

5. New Technologies

6. Drones

7. Nukes

8. Space Force

9. Conclusion

10. Citations

Do You Have to Pay Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings?

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in USA

Do I Have to Report All Winnings?

Slot Machine Winnings in W-2G Form

Are My Slot Losses Deductible?

Do State and Local Taxes Apply Separately?

Online Slot Taxes

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in UK

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in Canada

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in Australia

Taxes on Slot Machine Winnings in New Zealand

Vaccinations: The Biggest Medical Fraud in History

Vaccines: The Biggest Fraud In History

Vaccinations: The Biggest Fraud in History

2019 net worth/income & expenses wrap: NW ↑ $534,000 | 88.5% savings rate

Quarter 4 2019 – Net worth update: Up $534,000 for 2019

Our financial goals

October-December: Shares

October-December: Superannuation

October-December: Primary place of residence

October-December: Investment properties

Financial state of the union

2019 income and expenses: We saved $189,718 – 88.5% savings rate

October-December: Income and side hustles

October-December: Dividends

October-December: Expenses

How are we tracking? Q4 savings rate

2019 annual savings rate

Response to: In going green, youthful idealism must be tempered with a strong dose of sober maturity