The stock, bond, and currency markets are the biggest casinos in the world where everyone steps in to make their bets. Trillions of dollars worth of bets all over the world. Of course it's a game. For every winner there's a loser and vice versa.
But just like any game you gotta learn the rules of the game, then learn the tricks of the game, then master the game. To get good in any game we play we must practice alot. And that includes the stock, bond, and currency market game. We must practice hundreds if not thousands of hours to be the best at it. If you don't think the market is manipulated with Trillions of dollars on the line then you're still living in Disneyland in your head. Don't hate the game, play the game knowing it's one big ass game where the rich folk, the regular folk, and everybody else in between steps up to place their bets. Yesterday's Open Positions
Short VIX Calls: Closed Today (10% Gain)
Long XOP Calls: Closed Today (38% Gain)
Long GDX Calls: Still Open
Current Short Term Outlook:
Bullish Volatility
Bullish Gold Miners
Current Open Positions:
Long VIX Calls Sept-19th-12 (2.80 Cost)
Long GDX Calls Sept-21st-20 (.69 Average Cost Basis)
The stock, bond, and currency markets are the biggest casinos in the world where everyone steps in to make their bets. Trillions of dollars worth of bets all over the world. Of course it's a game. For every winner there's a loser and vice versa.
But just like any game you gotta learn the rules of the game, then learn the tricks of the game, then master the game. To get good in any game we play we must practice alot. And that includes the stock, bond, and currency market game. We must practice hundreds if not thousands of hours to be the best at it. If you don't think the market is manipulated with Trillions of dollars on the line then you're still living in Disneyland in your head. Don't hate the game, play the game knowing it's one big ass game where the rich folk, the regular folk, and everybody else in between steps up to place their bets. Yesterday's Open Positions
Short VIX Calls: Closed Today (10% Gain)
Long XOP Calls: Closed Today (38% Gain)
Long GDX Calls: Still Open
Current Short Term Outlook:
Bullish Volatility
Bullish Gold Miners
Current Open Positions:
Long VIX Calls Sept-19th-12 (2.80 Cost)
Long GDX Calls Sept-21st-20 (.69 Average Cost Basis)
How a short/gamma squeeze on Tilray is causing the ENTIRE cannabis market to moon and how to avoid becoming a bag holder when this all comes crashing down
Obligatory: SIR, THIS IS A CASINO. This isn't financial advice in any way shape or form. TLDR: This run is going to end with the cannabis stocks back down 50-80% or more from the levels they are at. $CRLBF is the real play here for the smart players that want USA exposure to the legislation. We just like the stocks now, not later. Ok, listen up normies. Yeah I'm talking to the newbies specifically because the OGs here already know everything I'm about to share, but your insufferable groupthink and movement mentality shit pissed me off enough to make a post. Don't post DD if you have no clue. Ask someone for help and take your ridicule until someone comes along to help you. I used to post weekly DD on Sunday here a couple of years ago before one of you literally contacted my wife IRL. Not even kidding. So I made a new account. This is my first contribution back and I'm going to try and ensure some of you don't blow your chance at massive gains here by explaining what is actually going on. CNBC and anybody telling you that this is just 'momentum' and 'sentiment' is lying to you. The hedge funds are playing these right along with us. Don't ask me for proof, this isn't Twitter. Reasons why they are playing with us:
When there is money to be made, hedge funds and HFT funds are there before you
The floats are so small on these they can take sizable positions on both sides and stand to have massive gains, all the while handing you guys the bags.
That's all you need to know. So in response to all you posting "real DD" with why these companies are the best and you're going to hold to the moon and never sell: I'm over it -- I can tell instantly how uninformed you are when I read some poorly thought out DD about why CGC or TLRY or APHA is a long term play because they're talking about USA legislation. These are Canadian companies. Get your head back on straight. You're here for the trade and the bet, not for the fundamentals, and if that's it, then fine, ignore the rest of this post and pick an exit, and if not, read on so you don't hold more bags. This place has never been one to care for fundamentals, but let me talk some sense into you so you can post some gain porn and I can tell you to fuck off instead of you guys all yelling "MaNiPuLaTiOn ShOrT LaDdErS" Let's take a look at some of today's gainers: (changed tickers for automod avoidance) $USMJay - Penny stock, worth absolute nothing for a reason $SNDL - Up ridiculous amount, have a billion shares outstanding, just diluted them all the other day $TeeRTeeC - Terra Tech, they grow weed, from all indications, do it poorly $OhGeeEye - lol $HUGE - Probably the only one in the lot worth a YOLO on the chance they get an acquisition like GW Pharma did but they don't have the same product portfolio or prospects GW has. Now, if you're simply playing this to get in and get out, great for you. The people saying (and believing) "$SNDL $10 EOW! HOLD THE LINE" and stuff like this are just absolutely brand new normies and are clueless, do not listen to them. If you yolo'd on cheap calls in Dec/Jan, congrats, take your gains and don't be like the $GME bagholders. If you're investing in any of the names I just posted above, expect any money you put in to at some point in the next 12 months be worth approximately 20% of what it is worth now. Literally. They're far worse than the main bunch (CGC, CRON, ACB, TLRY, APHA) but the main bunch is nothing to write home about either.
THIS IS WHAT IS REALLY HAPPENING:
Tilray had 40% short interest. It's not $GME level, but it's pretty high. When the stock crested $40 it really started taking off, why though? Notice this week's FD option chain: https://preview.redd.it/kyqeiwljeug61.png?width=917&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c1b48e12518515f09582289bd7f8a4f47a09629 Tilray has a 95M share float, those 42 calls represent roughly 1.5M shares held as a hedge just by themselves. Previous to this run up, that represents roughly 5% of the average daily volume of the stock, BY ITSELF. Those are shares that until Monday can be considered removed from the float because they're held as a hedge. They may get loaned out to be shorted, but that will only speed up the squeeze here. The important part: Today (2/10/21) the stock fell hard after open down to around 44 and found massive support all the way back to up 66. The most sold front week call? $40/$42 strikes. Premium when I screen shotted this? $22.20. Stocks going to pin above $60 for awhile likely, unless people are stupid enough to buy the OTM calls, in which case, it may squeeze itself higher. Smart hedge funds are going to pile into this, sell you the calls, shove the price up to keep selling you calls, then watch them all evaporate worthless in one of the future weeks in the chain, dump back the shares to help shove the price down, oh and did I mention? They shorted the top. https://preview.redd.it/ivy78woneug61.png?width=392&format=png&auto=webp&s=0604940c09126dc6d5b96a9cc5f17e4013ae5d9d It's just another plain old stock acting as a derivative of the option chain gamma squeeze. That's it, with a bit of short squeeze thrown in there and a WHOLE BUNCH of WSB fomo. The shorts are covering and pushing up the volume, likely re-shorting on the way up, and then you have WSB fomo'ing in to round out the total: a massive volume of 200 million shares today. You've got people that think this thing will skyrocket to 500+ (and it may) but the stakes get higher and higher each ladder up you take and the moves become more violent and more likely it comes all the way back down in short time the quicker it goes up. Might it get there? Sure. But be prepare to take profits when it does because...
ITS CALLED MEAN REVERSION. THIS CANT GO ON FOREVER.
Not to mention, the moves you are seeing are in completely overvalued companies, with horrible fundamentals, and poor prospects. Oh what's that? CGC got some CBD treats for Martha, seems fitting that something ill is going on in this industry considering she went to prison for insider trading. If the dog treats get you excited about the stock, Martha belongs here more than you do. 200M shares today means people who were long term bag holders cashed out and the shares have turned over the float two times in two days. That also means the shorts have turned over and are now short again. It means the HFT firms are feasting on all of you. It means Citadel is making a pile on the spreads. What to take away: An amount of shares equal to the entire float has changed hands, or in other words, fewer reason for people to bag hold. Fewer people that have to hedge. Fewer people that have to cover. Fewer people to help stabilize any of these upper price tiers, and keep the price stable by holding, and more reason it's going to collapse sooner (or later). But, this IS a casino after all...
Let's see what happened with TLRY last time this happened (oh, you're new here? Yeah, this isn't the first time):
https://preview.redd.it/p652mvgreug61.png?width=587&format=png&auto=webp&s=d95f2b0ccf946717859bffb28601dfd29e999e0b Looks eerily familiar to something else recently. Last time this occurred it traded between $100 and $300 in a single week timeframe. For those of you that are new: THIS IS NOT NORMAL. STOCKS DO NOT ALWAYS DO THIS. You are in the infancy of a new age of trading, but people still know, fundamentals matter a whole lot more than everyone is leading on, and these valuations are getting extremely overextended. Eventually, in the first squeeze Tilray bled off until the pandemic hit and it piled down to $2.43 a share. At $2.43/share, I would have bought it. Even at $10/12/14. At these levels? You're just ultimately out of touch but I look forward to the loss porn. So in short, again: Sir, this is a casino. Timeline of events, and how to not become a bagholder:
$APHA earnings are good, stocks pop a bit, and level off
Legislators pull a pump and dump since they probably have calls and say planning on some laws regarding changing the schedule of cannabis (notice: we will likely NOT get outright legalization, just re-scheduling)
$CGC earnings are actually awful, with the caveat they have profitability on the horizon
$TLRY gets a UK deal
$TLRY starts going insane - since $APHA is a reverse merger with a .81 value share to share, it starts pumping, people start buying the lower priced cannabis stuff and entire sector starts moving on "overall strength"
There's no strength, there's a gamma squeeze backed by investor momentum, and a short squeeze on Tilray.
This is going to come back down violently then plateau out like GME and pull a slow bleed the rest of the way back down, just like the second graph I posted. There is no fundamental or even POSSIBILITY of better fundamentals immediately on US legislation. The cost to enter the US market will most definitely cause capex and goodwill capital outflows, and set back their profitability since there are established MSO's in the USA already. The USA opening the market to these companies will only further degrade the actual balance sheets/income statements and slow down profits and you know what institutions and shareholders like? Yep. Profits.
Finally, how to not become a bag holder: The market can stay irrational way, way, way longer than you expect. So this may go on for a bit, but refer back to 7. It's coming back down eventually, set expectations and pick your exit, or start to shave off your position as it goes up and let a portion of it run. Eventually, you have to sell to actually realize a gain, don't forget that. Once you do, close the chart, remove it from your watchlist, check back in on it in a month if you want to get back in when you have a clear head.
The Canadian operators are literally the last companies I'd play off a US legislation play, and one of the only ones worth owning in $APHA for the arbitrage play on the shares. But if Tilray comes crashing back down, $APHA will as well along with all of them, and you have to hope you lose a lot less on $APHA crashing than you'll make on the arbitrage between the share price. THIS IS ALL JUST "SENTIMENT" BASED YOLOING BY THIS SUB. It has probably driven uneducated retail into the trades also - who will also become bag holders. Let me put this in big letters for those of you that can only read big font and use crayons:
NONE OF THESE COMPANIES HAVE REAL USA MARKET EXPOSURE, THEY ARE CANADIAN COMPANIES. THEY DO NOT HAVE MARKET POSITIONING AND ARE NOT POISED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US LEGALIZATION.
IF ANYTHING: IT WILL HURT THEIR BOTTOM LINE AND SET BACK EARNINGS BECAUSE OF CAPEX AND CASH OUTFLOWS TO GET A POSITION IN THE MARKET AND SOME OF THEM WILL GO OUT OF BUSINESS BECAUSE OF IT, WHILE OTHERS WILL FALL OUT OF PROFITIABILITY TO ENTER THE MARKET AND COMPETE WITH THE REAL PLAYERS. Who are the real players? (Cresco $CRLBF and Curaleaf $CURLF- do your own DD or wait for a post next week\***************)* Conclusion: Nobody should plan on holding these long term. Don't let someone else hand you bags like I did this morning at open on the pop unless you plan to hand your bags off and find the next play. You likely will not time the top. Pick a place you're ready to exit the trade, exit the trade or slowly shave your position, close the graphs and don't fomo back in. Just be done with the trade afterwards. You're likely not a cannabis multi millionaire and will not be one, unless you were loaded to the brim with low cost calls from last summefall or unless you literally yolo'd $10M into one of these a few weeks ago, and in that case, you belong here, congrats on your gains and fuck you. THIS IS A SECTOFOMO SQUEEZE. AND IT WILL END. THIS IS NOT SENTIMENT AND CNBC IS TROLLING US WITH IT LIKE WE HAVE THE POWER. And if you think WE are the ones driving the price up, the hedge funds are definitely watching and playing and they can bring these down at will at almost any time they want. You're holding a lit molotov, the only question is: will you throw it before it blows up? The rest of you? Plz fuck off with you 20 shares @ $2 on Sundial, fuck off with the "HOLD THE LINE SNDL $10 EOW", fuck off with your fomo, and fuck off with the "movement" and "lets push this to the sky" stuff and most importantly don't post DD if you have zero clue what is going on. You know what "lets push this to the sky" sounds like? Market manipulation. We're not in this together, I literally handed one of you a bag to hold this morning and even if they go up for another month, eventually, that bags gonna be heavy and I ain't coming back for it. I ain't tipping you either. These prices are insanely high for these companies. The multiples are out of control, and if you buy in at these levels, well, best of luck, I hope it works out for you. I'm fighting the fomo of extended gains, and will continue to put my money elsewhere.
SIR, THIS IS A CASINO.
Positions: I had the meme stocks like you literally all of them minus ACB and CGC. I took gains and bought 500 shares of Cresco prob increasing to 1,000 tomorrow, and kept the rest off the table to pay my wife's boyfriend's rent. Disclaimer: I have Tilray puts I'm prepared to average down on and diamond hand like a real boss because this is coming back down. Edit: You know what I forgot to add? Some of the biggest holders, the cannabis ETFs and funds, you know what they did today? They trimmed their positions. And they will continue to do so because of fiduciary responsibility and when you de-concentrate shares into the retail's hands, the moves will get more and more finnicky and more and more violent. Edit 2: Some normie tried calling me out like I never saw this trade coming or am a hedge shill, https://imgur.com/a/asAVkiC - I had thousands of shares, these are just the trades from this month, and I'm not advocating a buy, I sold mostly all of them this morning except for adding Cresco back in. You want the gain numbers? You do the math, I'm not your math tutor, I sold like 6 minutes after open for most of them. I have Tilray puts for next week and will be buying a few months out at various strikes as it continues to climb. Yeah, I think these are coming back down in price sooner rather than later, that isn't extraordinary information for a common sense person. Edit 3: I'm getting piles of messages from people who used to follow my DD back in 2018/2019. Yes, it's the real SoRefreshing, proof:https://imgur.com/a/Pn5LqCe Edit 4: Eh don't request me with "What should I do with XX" be a big adult grown up and decide your own risk tolerance and exits. I responded to the first 10 or so. Now I have 100. I can't. I disabled chat messages. Edit 5: jesus with the awards go buy TSLA calls this is WSB not fb/twtr disclaimer: have TSLA calls Edit 6: Oh look, they're pinning it around the $42 strike. Go figure.
Decent.bet is a decentralized casino that aims to be the biggest passive income provider. I want your opinions.
Hey guys! Long time redditor here (my two mains, that is, ha!) and just stopping in to tell you guys about a project I have been working with, with friends, for a long time now. I feel this is a good place to get the people's two-cents. It is called Decent.bet, we aim not only to be a decentralized casino but for those who hold our token to be part of a generous passive-income model. We also have humanitarian efforts. Our first game (Slots) will be available at ICO. Our development team is growing, and we are announcing ICO phase soon, but what I want is your opinon on all of this. Ever since Facepunch died and went to glorious heaven, finding places for genuine criticism on the internet are lacking. So lets hear it! Our whitepaper
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"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
Score Media and why its a massive candidate for a multi bagger
Hello fellow autists, Just a pre-cursor, this is my first post of any kind on WSB. I would occasionally peruse the forum but was obviously drawn here from the GME craze and love every part of it. Score Media and Gaming, listed on the TSX as SCR and in the US as TSCRF. These guys have nothing but positive news coming in the next 12 months and has the ability to at least double in the next half year, if not sooner. These guys are foraying into the sports betting market and are the only players that have a fully intuitive and integrated sports scores/stats application on the market. So what are the positives/catalysts for Score Media: - Expansion with the help/investment of Penn Gaming to expand sportsbook in the US. Keep in mind, Penn is the same company that invested in Barstool. The Score is already approved in New Jersey, Indiana and Colorado, with Iowa right around the corner, and Michigan up next. - Sports betting in Canada is a 14 Billion dollar market. Single wagering is currently illegal, however, there is unity across the aisle between all political parties to amend the criminal code and make single wagering legal. There are currently two bills in play. C-13 and C-218. C-13 second reading is currently delayed, while C-218 is scheduled for the House of Commons on February 24th. Like most countries, they have currently spent a ton of money propping up their respective economies due to COVID-19. It is highly unlikely the Canadian government rejects this massive taxable revenue stream when it needs it the most - Leader in sports applications for time spent on the app on a monthly basis, beating out heavy hitters like TSN, ESPN, Bleacher Report....literally every other sports media application - Only major player with an already existing sports news/fantasy application with seamless sportsbook integration. No hopping back and forth, you can wager through the sports app as if you were on the sportsbook - They are the biggest E-sports media player with over 1 million subscribers on YouTube and that lead is growing - They are pushing to get listed on the NYSE in the very near future to further growth and investment opportunities. The only real hinderance that could potentially stop the run of this company is if the Canadian government fails to amend the current laws for single game wagering, which in the current economical climate, I find extremely unlikely. ESPECIALLY with support from all political parties including the Conservatives, New Democratic Party, Bloc Quebecois and most Liberal MP's. Even in the event that this for some reason failed to pass, it still has access to an enormous US market with the backing of Penn. I love this stock boys and girls! EDIT 1: Currently with 2500 shares. Started at 1.71 and have been steadily buying dips, now at 1.91 cost average Sources and Links: Bill C-218 and Canadian Market: https://financialpost.com/telecom/everything-has-changed-canadian-companies-looking-to-cash-in-as-sports-betting-legalization-spreads https://www.radionl.com/2021/02/04/bclc-advocating-for-ottawa-to-legalize-single-event-sport-betting/ ScoreBet integration: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201112005877/en/Introducing-BET-SECTION-A-New-Dedicated-Home-for-Betting-on-theScore-App Penn investment and US plans: https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/01/16/the-faceoff-score-media-vs-draftkings-the-well-known-canadian-online-gaming-site-is-bracing-for-competition-from-its-larger-us-peer-but-its-high-brand-recognition-across-canada-gives-it-home-ice.html Canadian position compared to rivals and US listing plans: https://www.casino.org/news/thescore-ceo-says-company-in-pole-position-for-canadian-sports-betting/
There's a disconnection between understanding of what "value" is, or how to decide what is "investment" and what is "speculation". It's not binary, it's a spectrum. It's not universal, it's relative. It's relative to YOU, specifically YOU. It's not constant, it's relative to price and other opportunity. Lastly, it's not guaranteed. Ever. The future is unknown. You or I might not even be here for it. Every person reading this knows some things I don't know, and every person doesn't know some things I do. Unless you are a literate dog, we probably share some qualities. In fact, even if you are a dog, literate or otherwise, we share some qualities and no small amount of identical language in our DNA. Dogs love steaks, and fresh air. Both things I like quite a bit too. But I enjoy looking for undervalued stocks, and dogs seem more interested in fetching tennis balls. We're both animals, but we're not the same animal. To go back to GME and the toad's wild ride one more time this week, I can promise you I looked at some of the same numbers that DeepFuckingValue looked at 2 years ago. Lots of people did. I looked at gamestop in 2019, a few times in fact. I passed.DeepFuckingValuedidn't.We were both right. DeepFuckingValue looked at the company a year or two years back, and evaluated the numbers and the situation, and understood that a lot of short sellers were counting on this company to fold in the very near future. He probably also noticed that more and more short sellers seemed to be jumping on this bandwagon. He knew the situation wasn't nearly that dire. In fact it was likely to be "game on" for Gamestop, for quite a while to come. I got puns all night, so buckle up. Then he looked at the share price, understood the proposition and probability that this was a potentially very asymmetric opportunity (low probability, enormous return, mispriced very cheaply in relation to the potential return). I looked at the same things, but he got from the situation contextual understanding I didn't get. Namely the magnitude to which shorts can backfire and how to estimate it. I also recognized, back in 2019, Gamestop was probably not in as dire straights as predicted. I wasn't alone, or special in this. Lots of people, including some famous people, recognized it. Michael Burry. Ryan Cohen. That one guy from the internet. I knew about the gaming console cycle too. I looked over the balance sheet. I got that piece of the puzzle, lots of us did. What I didn't understand very well at all was how short selling squeezes worked in practice, or just as importantly how to value the proposition. I still don't understand that with any genuine confidence, but I do get it more now than I did. Doesn't matter. I didn't get it, it was too confusing for me. So I passed. I said No. People who "get it" get this concept. Two people can do opposite things for different reasons, and both be right. It's relative to you, your understanding, your tolerance for what talking heads often confuse with risk. Your tolerance for volatility. He understood the proposition, evaluated what he was PAYING for what he was GETTING (in this case not just the companies liquidation value backstop, but the potential possibilities of the price appreciation he could be getting - this eventual squeeze), knew himself well enough to decide if he could stomach the roller coaster, and chose to get on the ride. I'm genuinely happy for this guy, and everybody else on these message boards in that rocket or just popcorning along in the theatre. I'm also happy for myself, because even though I didn't have any money stake in GME I understand more about how short selling and squeezes work than I did just a week ago. I got a free option on education. The ups and downs are not risk. Volatility is not risk. Here's where we get vague, because this GME story isn't over. It's only gotten started. This has implications for the broader market. Follow me into the fog of tomorrow, will you? Even the smartest, brightest people taking this bet 1 or 2 years ago had to contend with a lot of fog. It's not gone. Certainly the picture is MORE clear now than it was last year, but things are still REALLY FOGGY. More foggy for some of us than others. What we're witnessing now is why you cannot apply mathematics to complex systems (especially systems involving people) and expect everything to go as modeled. We don't have all the rules. This isn't chess, it's life. People cheat, bend the rules, propagandize, lobby, sue, counter-sue, weaponize fear and do everything in their capacity to get an advantage, up to and including breaking the law. Life isn't chess, it's poker. But it's way more complicated than a game of hold em. It's poker with 10,000 players at your table and a deck of 2.6 million cards, and a roof that might cave in once in a while and kill some of the people at the table, and one of the waiters serving drinks, and maybe the general mood in the room. Also someone who loses might pull out a gun and shoot the dealer. We cannot know all the things that might happen. But if you're in the casino we call earth, some of these events could affect you. I'm long on humans going to Mars, or Europa, or The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. God rest your soul, Douglas Adams. This is why the proposition that the early birds took, people like DeepFuckingValue, is nothing whatsoever the same as the proposition that exists right now. Even if you and I have the same understanding of the proposition he took 2 years ago, and understand why it makes sense, it's not the same proposition that exists now. He bought in at I don't know what, $2 or $5/share. Some long dated options that cost a few pennies. People buying in now are paying $100, $200, $400/share. Refusing to pay too much is your biggest defense against being stupid. Don't be stupid. If you're a fan of that Stranger Things show, you probably recognize that theme. "Don't be stupid." "We're not stupid." In that case, we have something else in common. I love that show. There's a beautiful scene in that show where the adopted dad Hopper is trying to explain to this orphaned, frustrated teenager Eleven why she can't go outside. It's not safe. The risk is too high. Dangerous people are after you, and they aren't playing by the rules. Hopper and Eleven are arguing and bickering about this, and neither can see the other person's side. They are both right, for different reasons. This is a fictional show, and she is an extraordinarily powerful telekinetic. She can move stuff with her mind. Violently. The government scientists who raised her and trained this ability are after her. Hopper doesn't understand this yet. She can rip people in half with a willful thought. She's not in danger. Except she is. There are things she doesn't get. Weaknesses she hasn't accounted for. She's got this great little group of friends, and they aren't superheroes. They've got families. Real people she cares about, who are regular people and definitely can be hurt. This is what Hopper is trying to get across. He's got experience, he's lost people. He knows. She thinks he's just an old grumpy boomer and he thinks she's just an emotional child. But they're talking past each other, and as teenagers are wont to do, rash decisions are made and things get out of hand. People die. This has so many parallels with what's going on in Gamestop (and the markets broadly) recently. People, "the bad guys", are not playing by the rules. Other people, "the good guys", did not account for this ratfuckery. Now there's a tug of war. In the media, the courts, the SEC, congress, even in the public square of reddit and twitter. The proposition that was when DeepFuckingValue and company investigated it 2 years ago is not the proposition that is today. Even if it was the same situation, he and I came to different conclusions for different reasons because he understood it and I did not. If you want to be an investor, you've got to learn to say NO, and not because "the other guy is wrong". You say NO because you don't understand how to value what is being offered confidently, or you do understand it and you see risks in the proposition that make the price unattractive or this particular proposition untenable for your temperament. Just like anything else in life, be it dating, job offers, or nigerian prince's who just need a little help with an inheritance scheme, successful people learn to say No to almost everything. The most successful people learn to say No so gracefully the rejected party leaves feeling good about getting rejected. Investing is saying No to offers you don't understand and requiring a bargain price. Speculation is everything else. At /ValueInvesting, We're not stupid. Corrected: The girls name is Eleven, not Seven. Fixed, Thanks jelledm
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1. https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%) NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar. https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866 NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis !!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should. In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase. Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below: https://www.playboy.com/ https://www.playboytv.com/ https://www.playboyplus.com/ https://www.iplayboy.com/ Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success. “Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.” https://www.scientificgames.com/ https://www.microgaming.co.uk/ “This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.” https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/ As per their SEC filing: “Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1 They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon. https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again: https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea “Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.” “According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently: https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress. Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait. https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/ Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05 Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing: “For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.” “In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.” “In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.” They are profitable across all three of their current business segments. “Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.” https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world. "Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.” Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame: “As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn. The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :( He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :) Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw. I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003 Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this: “Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy. “Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative. https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html Y’all like that China money? “Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.” Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.” https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose. I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing “Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.” “Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.” Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong. Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will. Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way. Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains. TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here: WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf Or here: https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.” STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon. Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
Matched Betting Extra Place Horse Racing - January 21 Profits - £4,707 on top of Full Time Job
Hi all, I thought I would share my profits for Matched Betting Extra Place Horse Racing for Jan 21. January 2021 has turned into my best month of Matched Betting since I started way back in Summer 2018. This months profits are roughly £4,707. A life changing figure for many and a great figure seeing this is achievable on top of a full time job. Matched Betting is the only decent side hustle I have actually found, compared to doing hundreds of boring online surveys...yuck! (Unless you are a good business person / have 5 lodgers / lots of family money etc.) To see some of my other Matched Betting profits you visit my site: https://cashontheside.co.uk/ I will be investing some of my profits this month in ETF/Shares and putting into house improvements like a new drive way. In addition with Cheltenham horse festival coming up in March, I will be increasing my bank to cover liabilities. The bulk of my profits came from Extra Place racing, large underlayed winners and BOG (best offer garuntee). Variance was certainly on my side this month and I must have had at least 10 large winners which won upwards of £1600 pounds per bet. As I underlay my bets I made more profit than If I had fully layed of the bets. About 5% of these profits came from low risk casino. After you have completed all welcome offers...in Matched Betting. Ep's become a gold mine...and I truly recommend them to anyone. Some more of my bets this month illustrating underlayed bets and ep: https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/winnings4.jpg https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/winnings.jpg https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/another-winner.jpg Images of one of my bets illustrative of Best offer guarantee: https://cashonthesidecouk.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/136707133_10159536662702922_8507610622687908137_o-1.jpg?w=544 For those who are starting out on their Match Betting journey in 2021 these sort of figures are achievable to you once you have experience….unfortunately this will not come overnight! I do put a lot of time into it..between 2-5 hours a day, 7 days a week sometimes. For the average person you could earn at least £500 a month. To learn more about Match Betting please visit my article Boost Your Income with Matched Betting. Alternatively you can start an Odds Monkey free trial where they will teach you step by step and give you the calculators you need: odds monkey trialhttps://www.oddsmonkey.com/affiliates/affiliate.php?id=64754(affiliate) or www.oddsmonkey.com. (non affiliate) To those with a little more experience who want to learn about Matched Betting Extra Places you can visit my guide here Extra Place Match Betting tips hereor I have copied and pasted it all below. For those with Matched Betting Experience - my guide and tips to Extra Places: What is Extra Place Matched Betting? Extra Places can be a very lucrative technique to learn. Extra Places are available for us to do pretty much every day, increasing the appeal. Extra Place Offers are available to all customers. This means that even if you get gubbed with a bookmaker, in most cases, you can still make money with them by Matched Betting on their Extra Place Offers. Extra Places are considered an advanced reload offer, as they not risk-free. However once you have gained some experience on more basic horse racing offers, you can start to take advantage of the lucrative profits available. It may sound complicated but as soon as it ‘clicks’, it becomes simple. Essentially we are taking advantage of the bookies and exchanges paying out if the horse you have backed comes a certain ‘place’ in a race e.g. 4th. Extra Places combined with additional offers such as BOG (Best Offer Guarantee) can mean additional profits. For example, you back a horse at odds of 15 and then the starting odds move up to 23. If that horse wins you win an extra x8 on your bet. You can see some real life scenarios I found of Extra Place combined with BOG below. Depending on the size of the underlay, profits below would range up to £3,000+
What is a ‘place’ in horse racing?
Quite simply a ‘place’ is the position the horse finishes a race in. For example if a horse wins a race it comes 1st, if a horse comes 2nd its 2nd. In some races with a large number of horses some bookies will pay out if a horse finishes the race in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th position. Horse Racing festivals such as Cheltenham or Ascot are particularly well known for this.
What is an ‘Extra Place’ in horse racing?
Now we’ve understood what a place is in horse racing you may have probably already guessed what an ‘extra place’ is going to be! An ‘extra place’ is where the bookies add one (or more) additional places to their standard place classification on a particular race. For example they may offer to ‘pay 7 places on a race’ instead of the standard 3 places. The ‘extra place’ in this instance cover 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. What are my Extra Place top tips?
Some of my biggest profits have come from big underlayed winners and BOG. I typically underlay most of my bets by about 20% sometimes more. If you are starting out I would underlay on the place only by about 10% to play it safe until you learn more.
Don’t bet on more places than a bookmaker is offering. E.g. If the bookmaker is offering 4 places don’t bet on more than that.
Whilst your learning, take horses on implied odds of at least 12 or more on a match of 80%+.
Look to keep qualifying losses down. E.g. for £100 profit, £5 ql.
Please note, the best odds are typically found between 10 minutes up and to race time. You have to be quick on your ‘toes’…learn to walk before you run etc. Start out on easy horse racing officers before doing extra places.
You will need a bank of at least £1000+ for your exchanges, ideally more. The more you have the more of the field you can cover. You can do EP with several hundred in your exchange but you won’t be able to make bigger profits.
Be consistent, don’t take risks, don’t chase your losses and learn from matched betting extra place forums.
Keep the Odds Monkey up throughout the day...and check for good matches.
Use Bookies Boosts to increase your odds and matches.
Do not give in to your fear of missing out on offers…Tomorrow is another day.
Have at least a dual monitoscreen setup. It is important to be able to see exchange, books and calcs.
How do I find Extra Places offers? I use the the Odds Monkey Extra Place Matcher to find the best opportunities for profit. The Matcher is explained in the below video. https://youtu.be/oOKAdiSJidg I am also a regular visitor of the active Odds Monkey community forums. You can sign up for an Odds Monkey free trial today here today https://www.oddsmonkey.com/affiliates/affiliate.php?id=64754www.oddsmonkey.com (non affiliate). Odds Monkey provide you with the all guides, calculators etc. I have been a member for over 2.4 years now. Feel free to get in touch or ask below if any questions.
Alright Degenerates- I posted a small little snippet a day or so ago about BFT. I wanted to do a bit of DD on BFT but also wanted to highlight something that was brought to my attention by a degenerate gambler. Lastly, I wanted to compile some good little snippets that have been put together by some other members as well as from the investor presentation. Before reading further please understand the major Risks.
This is SPAC with ~10.00 NAV, if the deal falls through it could drop to 10.00 USD
The warrants could be very lucrative but they can be called and if a deal fails to materialize, these can become worthless.
If you're ok with the above risks, continue reading.
Keep in mind that this merger is not complete, but the terms of the deal have been provided to investors and we will be able to either vote yes for the deal or vote no and redeem our shares in BFT for 10.00 cash. So there is downside to this play should the vote not go through or should the two entities terminate the agreement. Right now the downside is ~3 dollars per share according to the close price from today.
Deep Customer Base with deep ties to gambling/betting industry with Deep penetration in Europe and growing customer bases around the world. Gambling is a tricky business and regulated differently than other industries. Many big players have avoided the industry and Paysafe has a great reputation and has become one of the early movers in the industry. The following are some notable customers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I actually know Paysafe and the usage quite well. PayPal has many restrictions in Europe regarding iGaming , so does Square. This is a big play on iGaming for those that aren’t aware. I was a mid- high stakes online poker player through the 2010-2018. Played a variety of sites. : iPoker; PokerStars, Paddy, MicroGaming, 888, Party. Why so many sites? Because I was always on lookout for where the action was, if a big whale sat down at one online casino; you bet your sweet ass I’m there. So let me give you my take as a consumer that’s probably spent over $100,000 in transaction fees personally on Paysafe. This was one of the cheapest and fastest ways to move money around online. Unlike Stripe this which is against risky business such as CBD and gambling, paysafe is actually one of the leading payment providers in both UK/AUS / Ireland for iGaming. Big example is William Hill, Bet365, Bwin. Now why would you want to move money online around as a gambler ? Well, Visa/MC charge close to 50%->75% more, online casinos = the merchant. They don’t wanna pay that, and in fact put limits on this type of payment processor. (Your visa’s credit cards etc). If a punter deposits / withdraws frequently, the online casino could literally be on the hook for like 20-30% of the turnover throughout the gambler’s period. (This assumes the gambler doesn’t lose all his money per deposit. Imagine you’re a professional sportsbettor, you’re not loyal to one site. Different spreads / odds are offered on every site, you want to be able to move your money from one to another quickly and cheaply. Arbitrage opportunities do exist in sports betting as bookmakers hedge their books to minimize risk, diff frequencies of bets occur on each sports book; you get the idea. For recreational punters, it’s simple: some sporting events that are smaller simply don’t exist on one site that exist on another. Eg. Perhaps you using Pinnacle / 10dimes for low spreads on high volume events, but perhaps you want to gamble on live events on bet365 on another day, and bet ponies on Hill. What if you only have $5000 ? Giant pain in ass to deposit money to each site, paysafe lets you move it around easily. Should you use visa, you may get blocked from depositing on various sites; Bodog, WHill, Bet365 just to name a few. Withdrawals and clearing deposits with bank transfers or checks takes days-> weeks and gamblers ain’t gonna wait for that shit. You can also buy prepaid paysafe cards from stores if you don’t wish to use your real credit card; and load that shit up. One of the biggest markets this is prominent in is South east Asia, they are some of the biggest punters and fucking loving gambling. Looking at you pinoys, Indonesians, Malays. Not everyone wants to fly to Macau to get their rocks off. As much as this is a play on FinTech, please understand this company has more or less the best Payment service on online gambling globally. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill has connections and a strategy to dominate Igaming.
Igaming addressable Market is expected to grow immensely from a few billion to tens of billions.
https://preview.redd.it/qfacblzz0b461.jpg?width=241&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbcdace95286ffccf613daa79b93554ca3e5728b This is an end to end payment processor with big big big name relationships for very disruptive companies that have huge addressable markets. The reason I am excited is because IGAMING is just really starting to take off and Paysafe is a first mover with brand new experienced management and very very fair valuations that could pop after a merger. TL;DR- BUY BFT stock and BFT.W because BFT stands for big freaking tenderloins.
Corrections at bottom I'm a retarded GenXer who YOLO'd junior silver miner OTM call options in 2011 and lost a truckload of cash. But I kept my phyzz until a freak boating accident sunk it all. Oh well, this isn't financial advice, I'm a proven idiot, and nobody should listen to me. I've learned a lot about the silver markets charlatans since then. Mike Maloney is a forever pumper. Peter Schiff is a suit and shill. Doug Casey lives on a ranch in Argentina but has his head far up his ass. Since you retards love to lose it all, go listen to those guys. But there are some very serious voices in the precious metals market that have proven the fraud and manipulation and even come up with ways around it: Ted Butler (commodity analysis), Eric Sprott (creator of $PSLV), James Dines (legendary newsletter writer), and James Turk (creator of goldmoney.com). Silver is the biggest opportunity for profit that the general public could broadly participate in. If the price of silver goes up, the miners will see amplified gains. Juniors would explode into the alpha centuri (13,000% gains or more, easily). The reason we know this is because it's been tried before by people smarter than any of us (Hunt Brothers 1980, Buffet's 1997-2006 silver purchase, and 2010 mini-squeeze-beatdown). Even that lucky commie bastard Max Keiser tried to rally enough retards together to squeeze silver and "crash JPMorgan" before he got rich off bitcoin. {If you can't read, there is a video breakdown: search "youtube Is a WallStreetBets Silver Squeeze Possible" for a pretty good historical overview} The forces at play in the precious metals market are global, historical, and backed by the biggest banks, not some meaningless hedgefund. It's the real deal. American's money used to be backed in bi-metallic standard, all coinage had some precious metals (pre 1964 dimes, silver dollars/half dollars and paper currency all convertible to silver or gold). All real silverbugs ultimate goal is to return to a bi-metalic backed US currency. It's a big part of the precious metals folklore, and the fact that the last straw that sealed President Kennedy's fate was signing Executive Order 11110 which would have returned the US to a silver standard. This would have restored faith in our financial system, eliminate the scourge of inflation, balanced the value of labor versus financial assets, and allow regular workers to save instead of being forced to participate in a ridiculous casino just to have a retirement. Attention CNBC media whores reading this: who is the villain of this story? Blythe Masters. Check her out, she's actually pretty hot. {search: "Blythe Masters wants to upend finance again twitter bloomberg"} And she is a goddamn evil mastermind that created the Credit Default Swap (CDS). Yes, she created the financial weapon of mass destruction that sunk the global economy in 2008, she is first author on the paper. Then she went on to lead the JP Morgan precious metals trading desk to unwind Bear Sterns silver short book by containing any rally (that's how I lost all my money). Now she is working on blockchain technology that can be used by the banking cartels as a weapon to further enslave the entire world. And, yes, you degenerates, she has a sexy British accent and a killer set of legs. {search "egonzehnder blythe masters shares career advice daughters 2019"} Steven Cohen is a fucking worm to Blythe Masters. Any financial instrument like SLV would be manipulated easily by her and the ilk that inherited her positions at JPMorgan and other bullion banks. There is only 1 way to perform a real silver squeeze: physical ownership (not paper ownership like SLV, there is a big difference). The commodity futures markets is called the COMEX. The COMEX has about a 250 contracts trade for every 1 ounce of actual silver available for delivery. That means if a handful of commodity traders stand for delivery and the physical delivery can't be made it will crash the COMEX. Sure, they might be forced to settle for cash like the Hunt brothers, but it will crash the COMEX and the price will soar nonetheless. It's a real thing, people have done it, there is no stopping that it will happen again. And what happens historically is a giant leap for junior miners: Copper Lake in 1980 jumped 13,000%. The average silver junior miner lept over 2,300%). It was soo easy to make money, even an ape could do it. So, how do we avoid the manipulation?
$SLV is a scam! SLV's custodian is JP Morgan, the vampire squid sucking on the face of humanity! Don't fall for it. They can never be trusted. Most silverbugs don't even believe they have any silver or gold in their ETFs of any significant amounts, otherwise there would be outside audits which don't happen. Anybody suggesting to use SLV is a pumper, paid shill, or doesn't know the history. And yes, now that JPMorgan has paid almost a Billion dollar fine for manipulating the silver market, they are long silver or at least are holding it as custodian for other players. So if silver goes up will JPMorgan win...yeah maybe. But that's not the point, you'd win, I'd win, the people of the world win.
2. $PSLV is not an appropriate vehicle. PSLV is a closed end fund. Eric Sprott is not going to buy any more silver and issue any more shares. Premium to NAV went over 20% and he didn't do it. PSLV serves a purpose (tax savings), but they don't acquire on commodity exchanges unless a big player takes delivery. If you actually have enough money to take delivery 10,000 oz - then PSLV works. So what to really do: Buy PSLV or physical For the paranoid, you can create an account on goldmoney.com, put money into silver and it is owned by you, stored in Switzerland and registered in the Island of Jersey (for the most part outside of financial oligarchy control). You have to fill out a form on your taxes each year but buying/selling stonks have the same requirement, just a different form. Again, NOT financial advice - I'm a proven town idiot and hold no credentials no should you listen to me. Goldmoney.com was created by James Turk, exactly for this purpose. So people can own phyzz without having to hide a 1000lb safe in your wife's boyfriend's basement or sink your phyzz into a pond. And also he set it up outside of the US so if the US government seized physical (like 1934!), his customers would have some chance at taking physical delivery in Switzerland. I wholeheartedly believed that the crash of 2008 would lead to this eventual outcome if silver went really high and it almost did at $50, at $100 the champagne corks stop poppin. So then what went happened in 2011? Blythe Masters happened. JP Morgan and the other bullion banks beat down the precious metals market in a coordinated attack of naked short selling. Punishing beat downs, if you're into that kinda thing! The silver spike of 2010/11 happened because some silverbugs bought physical metals and there were shortages at the retail level, just like what has started today. In all honesty, there were probably 10,000 Silverbugs in existence at that time all acting as lone actors on a handful of forums. This time could be much different, if a lot of apes bought silver and the intermediaries held for delivery on the COMEX this could break the back of the silver cartel and Lord Rothschild would roll over in his grave. And silver junior miners would skyrocket! I love silver, what will I buy? 90-100% into some other form of physical ownership (coins/or goldmoney.com). $PSLV is also an acceptable vehicle but doesn't squeeze LBMA/COMEX supplies {search: "sprott physical silver trust December 2020 fact sheet"}. And 0-10% into long-dated calls or shares of junior minors. Some pumper was saying $AG (First Majestic). Sure maybe, or just use $SILJ a basket of silver juniors that would all explode and give you less single company risk to enjoy the rally. Get your popcorn. And those boomers, will they help buy silver? Don't count on it, but that's a different type of rant. TL;DR Buy either physical silver, $PSLV, orgoldmoney.comand also a little bit of silver miners to amplify gainz. Blythe Masters is a demon. Break the COMEX. Restore our heritage of sound money. Corrections: PSLV has registered to issue $1.5billion more shares. That’s a lot of shiny silver. See the link in the comments below. It’s looks like PSLV will be retails best bet to apply pressure on the physical market. And if bullion dealers become stocked out, and PSLV stands for delivery, this strategy would work.
So you want to gamble: Some high-reward long term picks
Hey everyone, after the meme stock fiasco I wanted to create a post to help out newer investors that want to get into some stock "gambling". I will preface this by saying I am an investor in all of these companies, percentage allocation in my portfolio is going to be listed next to each stock. My biggest point I hope you take away is these stocks are a MINIMUM 6 month hold if you want to see any real return. I will be holding these for at least 52 weeks, most likely longer. The market is not a casino. You can gain generational wealth but ONLY through making the right picks and holding them for a long time. Do not place any cash you know you will potentially need access to. These companies are picks I believe to have a solid product/idea/vision and are worth a bet with my hard-earned money. I'm not an expert but I have been in the market for five years and have learned a little bit along the way. Any questions/advice/comments will be interacted with in the comments as I want to learn from this subreddit. Here are the picks... SENSONICS HOLDINGS - $SENS (4.3% of portfolio)
Some DD in this thread from two weeks ago. Diabetics is a huge sector of the market and SENS has the superior product to existing Dexcom and Abbott. Their product is improving and gaining some traction from healthcare providers.
Sports Betting/iGaming ETF - $BETZ (1.2% of portfolio)
Gambling on gambling stocks :) Sports betting's outlook is looking promising as the prohibition cuts back. Major holdings are Draftkings and Penn National (Huge casino chain with sportsbook operations).
XPENG Inc - $XPEV (2% of portfolio)
China is pumping out EV's and Chinese consumers are purchasing at record levels. XPENG differentiates with smart technology and robotic designs, looking to capture the ever growing market of wealthy Chinese buyers. Great vehicle delivery numbers means I think they are just getting started.
Compass Pathways - $CMPS(4% of portfolio)
First psilocybin therapy to reach the market. Only company in the US with FDA approved trials on psilocybin to treat depression. Biggest company in the space and furthest lead in the US (biggest and most restrictive market). If you want to bet on the psychedelic space as a whole, this is the first company that will be relevant in the US (if approved). I'm a fan of some other stocks in the sector but they aren't allowed in this sub.
Hims and Hers ($HIMS) - (4% of portfolio)
Online telehealth for previously unrepresented services (Erectile dysfunction, hair loss, skincare). They sell their own pills and contract their own medical officials. Everything is done in house, leading to great profits. Concerns about other companies doing the same thing are valid, but don't underestimate their value as a brand and platform.
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