It appears this whole thing hinges on being outbid at the end, which I would rate as a less-than-definite expectation. The EV of this thing is tough. Say the baseball card you're bidding on is around $5 or so (when you include shipping, etc). The "be outbid and win $20" scheme has to work at least 75% of the time in order for this to be profitable. It needs to work significantly more than 75% of the time in order for it to be worth all the hastle.
The question is, what % of the time can you expect to be outbid? If it's 90% or more, sounds like this isn't too bad of a deal if you don't mind burning 15 minutes on it.
|