Hi 2+2ers, long time member here, seldom poster as of the last year or two.. If this thread is not in the write forum, I ask any moderator in helping me to move this to the proper forum for it..

My intent: I'm looking for some advice from anyone who might have legal advice or possibly any background in writing/creating contracts..

My background: I'm a live poker player these days after playing online seriously from 2008-2011 anywhere from $.5/.10 up to $2/4 NL in my prime back in the day as a regular on Pokerstars. Nowadays I play in a few local casinos within an hour of where I live and have built up my own live/life poker roll without ever touching any of my online winnings in the past 5 years, starting with just $600 I had laying around the house and being able to beat $1/2 consistently before moving up to $2/5, where I now currently reside and hoping to make the jump to become a $10/10 regular if I can start to get a on going situation worked out that I have with a friend of mine who has made the same online>>live transition that I have as well in the same time frame.

The Situation:
I don't usually openly discuss what's going on in my personal life or financial situations to people I don't know off hand, but I am involved in a staking situation with a friend of mine who is pretty deep in the stake and we're looking for a way to turn this into a contractual obligation on his behalf.

You see, I originally began staking this friend of mine because he was originally short on his roll and he had just gone through his own little personal situation where he was helping out another friend of his play at the casino, where his friend did and still does owe him close to $5k (which doesn't help my situation at all). I began staking a friend at our local casino about a year and half to 2 years ago where I had intended on him playing primarily just $1/2 until he could eventually get a roll built up for himself. Well, I ran into a situation at my local casino and I don't play there anymore, so, with that said, I began playing at 2 other casinos both an hour away from me.. where things have actually been looking better for me and have been doing better financially since making the transition. During this time, my friend also began meeting me at these new casinos to continue our on going $1/2 stake, where it seemed like a monotonous cycle of winning 2-3 weeks at a time followed by some pretty awful weeks where he'd end up losing a good bit of the profit he made from the prior weeks. We ultimately started believing that it was just become too difficult with the amount of driving and other expenses we incur as live poker players to almost make $1/2 beatable given that the rake and bad beat jackpots mean that these casinos are taking $5-6 from our pots every hand, along with the fact that my friend was driving close to 90 minutes each way per poker trip throughout the week.. so naturally a lot of our expenses comes in the form of gas..

I realize that he's always been a good friend to me but I have a hard time saying "no" to end the stake and am continually reinforced by him that he'll "pay me back" eventually.. whenever that may be. At this point, I've allowed him to play $2/5 still at the casino I used to spend most of my time at but don't have much oversight of him and have to take his word for his winnings and losses on a daily/weekly basis through our constant texts and facebook convos.

Our stake is at the point of being in the negative roughly -$12,750 and I'm at the point where it's time I go through with the process of looking for advice from people to help me create some sort of contract or binding agreement with my friend that I could eventually use in the future to hold weight against him legally that will hopefully keep him on track and allow us to resolve this "stake gone bad" in a professional and friendly manner without letting this situation get in the way of our friendship..

My questions at this point, range from:

1.) How do I write up a contract?

2.) What are the most important things I have to include in a contract?

3.) How does a contract like this actually become legally binding?

4.) Should I have a witness to sign it as well or a family member of mine or his?

5.) Is anyone in here familiar with writing up contracts or has experience with this that I could talk to privately? If so, please don't hesitate to contact me as I may be willing to share some more personal information in this matter.

Thanks for any help you guys can offer, I appreciate it. I look forward to reading your responses in helping me taking care of this situation once and for all.

-HBomb

Interesting inquiry hbomb. I'm sure the advice/tips given will benefit many on here. Going to be following this thread

I don't get what you're asking? He's lost $13K of your money and NOW you want to write up a contract? what is he supposed to sign? maybe i'm not understand correctly. do you want to continue with the stake somehow and hope to recover? I dunno why he would agree to repay you anything really unless it's with playing with more of your money.

i would just try to cut ties before it gets worse tbh. I can't imagine someone losing $13K at 1/2 live (even with 2/5 mixed in I can't understand it...why would a losing playing move up to 2/5?)

not that it helps but it seems like you're all staking each other haha! cut it out! it doesn't matter if he's your friend - unless your financially independent I won't help stake someone else...not when you yourself are trying to build your own roll to move up...makes no sense.

So this guy doesnt sound like a winning player and you still want to stake him when ur 12k in the hole? cut your losses man, with staking this guy the the risk is on YOU and you have to accept that, no contract isnt going to change that. (its to late now)

This sounds like a terrible stake deal get out before you loose more and if hes a good guy ask him to pay you back in very affordable installments every month and maybe just incure 6k loss as your loss, since in the staking deal your 50/50 buisness partners so he will pay back easier.

and to my knowledge of being staked 3 times i never entered in to a contract its all to do with trust in staking and if you dont have that you dont have a staking deal.