I gave $250 to a friend to start playing online poker with. Transferred it into his Stars a/c

I never discussed any repayment but in my mind if he lost it, he lost it and if he won he could repay me when he had a decent roll. He lost it as it turns out, so no return and that was fine.

For almost all of us regulars $250 is a trivial amount.
If you must fund friends starting playing poker then I would always prefer to give the money so you don't get into the position you're in now.

Lending money to newbie poker players is a pretty degenerate thing to do, as we all know 90-95% of them will lose it, and then your friendship is under pressure.

Loaning money sucks, I do it far more than I like. I was called bank of seth for a while because everyone I knew owed me money. Loaning money is largely -ev, either you charge juice and people think you are an ass. Or you dont charge juice and then you risk not getting paid back which is -ev and losing friends/ family. Plus I hate having people owing me money.

Mjeh. When I loan money, I don't actually expect to get it back. I'm more like pleasantly surprised when that happens. On the other hand, nowadays I don't really lend money unless.

1. I would be willing to *give* the person the money
2. I can afford to not be paid back

I'd hazard that I have around $1000 in uncollected debts. I expect to get about half of it back sometime in the distant future.

I mean what is the BEST that could happen when you lend money? You get it back. Whoop de do. Let's say you lend someone $250 and you think there's an 80% chance you'll get it back, that's an EV of -$50.

So I only lend if I am willing to accept a -EV situation, ie: the money doesn't mean anything to me and the person borrowing it does.