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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.
TEKKORP DIGITAL (TEKK): Unsung Hero of the Casino/Gaming SPAC World. Stellar Team!
TEKKORP DIGITAL(TEKK) is a NASDAQ-listed blank check company created to acquire and unlock the value of businesses poised for growth in the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and/or gaming ecosystems, by coupling transformative expertise with access to the deepest, most liquid public capital markets in the world. 287.5M Trust; Jefferies / Macquarie Capital (runners) IPOed 10/21/2020 2021-0204 Near NAV: $10.62 https://www.tekkorpdigital.com/ S-1 Filing: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1822027/000121390020028479/fs12020_tekkorpdigitalacq.htm Team and Board of Directors: Matthew Davey — Chief Executive Officer and Director Mr. Davey has over 25 years of experience within the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming ecosystems. CEO of SG Digital, the Digital Division of Scientific Games Corp. Oversaw seven acquisitions OpenBet, Cryptologic/Chartwell; PokerStars and Intercasino Robin Chhabra — President Mr. Chhabra has been at the forefront of corporate acquisition activity within the digital gaming landscape for over a decade. Mr. Chhabra’s M&A experience is extensive and covers multiple global geographies across the digital gaming value chain and includes the following: TSG/Flutter Entertainment; TSG/Sky Betting and Gaming Eric Matejevich — Chief Financial Officer Mr. Matejevich is a seasoned gaming executive with extensive experience in both the online gaming and traditional casino industries. Interim-CEO of Ocean Casino Resort (formerly Revel Casino), CFO of NYX. CFO of Resorts International Holdings; COO - Atlantic Club Casino. Led acquisition of Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment. VP of High Yield Research for Merrill Lynch. Morris Bailey — Chairman Mr. Bailey has been a leader in turning around Atlantic City, Mr. Bailey partnered with two of the largest digital gaming companies in the world, PokerStars, part of the Stars Group, and DraftKings. In 2010, Mr. Bailey bought Resorts Atlantic City. Signed an agreement with Mohegan Sun to manage the day-to-day operations of the casino. Established a platform to engage in online gaming by partnering with PokerStars, now part of the $24 billion Flutter Entertainment. Resorts announced deals with DraftKings and SBTech to open a sportsbook on-property and online. Tony Rodio — Director Nominee Mr. Rodio has nearly four decades of experience in the gaming industry. CEO and director of Caesars Entertainment Corporation. President, CEO and a director of Tropicana Entertainment. Exec positions at Trump Marina Hotel Casino, Harrah’s Entertainment, Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Penn National Gaming. Marlon Goldstein — Director Nominee Mr. Goldstein is a licensed attorney with nearly 20 years of experience in the gaming space. Exec VP, Chief Legal Officer - The Stars Group. Exec VP, Corporate Development and General Counsel of TSG. Participated in numerous M&A transactions and capital markets offerings at TSG: TSG/Flutter Merger, TSG/Fox Bet; TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming; CrownBet, PokerStars. Sean Ryan — Director Nominee Mr. Ryan is a digital media and technology operator with extensive global experience in online payments, e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile ad networks, digital games, enterprise collaboration platforms, blockchain, real money gaming and online music. VP of Business Platform Partnerships at Facebook, Inc. **Yeah, that Facebook! Tom Roche — Director Nominee Mr. Roche has more than 40 years of experience in the gaming industry as a regulator, advisor and independent auditor. Mr. Roche joined Ernst & Young as a partner in 2003 and opened its Las Vegas office. Mr. Roche has been integral to numerous transactions that have shaped the current gaming landscape, including Wynn Resorts initial public offering. Mr. Roche headed the regulatory advisory services on the buyout of Harrah’s Entertainment; Dubai World/MGM Resorts. Mr. Roche headed the regulatory and due diligence advisory services to Dubai World in its approximately $5.1 billion investment in MGM.
TEKK - Tekkorp Digital Acquisition Corp: Who's Who of Gaming Mgmt Teams!
Team has been involved in a substantial number of the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming industries’ most significant merger and acquisition transactions, holding key positions at, and transacting with Scientific Games Corp, Inspired Gaming Group, FOX Bets, Ocean Casino Resort, Resorts International Holdings, PokerStars, DraftKings, Mohegan Sun, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, Harrah’s Entertainment,Tropicana Entertainment, Inc., TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming, Facebook, Inc, Wynn Resorts, Dubai World/MGM Resorts Here's all the Bios. These guys are stellar! TEKK closed at $10.30 today. Still cheap! If you don't like to read... you don't like to make money!!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matthew Davey — Chief Executive Officer and Director Mr. Davey has over 25 years of experience within the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming ecosystems, as well as experience in the public sector. He is an experienced public company executive officer and board member. He has served in executive management positions across the gaming technology arena. Over the course of Mr. Davey’s career, he oversaw more than ten mergers and acquisitions and over $1.2 billion in debt and equity capital raised to support the companies he has led. Most recently, Mr. Davey was Chief Executive Officer of SG Digital, the Digital Division of Scientific Games Corp. (“Scientific Games”) (Nasdaq: SGMS). SG Digital was established following the purchase by Scientific Games of NYX Gaming Group Limited (“NYX”) (formerly TSXV: NYX), where Mr. Davey served as Chief Executive Officer and Director. The NYX acquisition provided Scientific Games with a vehicle to significantly accelerate the scale and breadth of its existing digital gaming business, including the strategic expansion into sports betting. In his capacity as Chief Executive Officer of NYX, Mr. Davey developed and implemented a corporate strategy that generated strong revenue growth. Mr. Davey shaped company strategy to focus on digital gaming supplier platforms and content that provided various gaming operators with the underlying gaming and sports betting systems for their online gaming business. In 2014, Mr. Davey oversaw the initial public offering of NYX, and his experience in the digital media, sports, entertainment, leisure and gaming industries helped NYX recognize momentum as a public company. After the public offering, from 2014 to 2018, Mr. Davey oversaw seven acquisitions which helped establish NYX as one of the fastest growing global B2B real-money digital gaming and sports betting platforms. These acquisitions included: • OpenBet: In 2016, NYX completed the $385 million acquisition of OpenBet. This was one of the more complex and transformative acquisitions that Mr. Davey oversaw at NYX. Through securing co-investments from William Hill (LSE: WMH), Sky Betting & Gaming and The Stars Group (formerly Nasdaq: TSG, TSX: TSGI), Mr. Davey was able to get the acquisition from Vitruvian Partners completed successfully, winning the deal against much larger and well capitalized competitors. By combining two established and proven B2B betting and gaming suppliers, NYX was well positioned to provide customers with exciting player-driven solutions across all major product verticals and distribution channels. This allowed NYX to become the leading B2B omni-channel sportsbook platform in the market and the supplier to over 300 gaming operators globally with an extensive library of desktop and mobile game titles, including more than 700 on NYX platforms and more than 2,000 on the OpenBet platform. • Cryptologic/Chartwell: In 2015, NYX completed the $119 million acquisition of Cryptologic and Chartwell. The acquisition provided NYX with more than 400 titles of additional leading gaming content, a broader customer base, and direct exposure to PokerStars and Intercasino, part of the Gamesys Group (LSE: GYS) — two of the world’s largest online casino offerings. • OnGame: In 2014, NYX completed the distressed acquisition of OnGame, a premier poker content, platform and service provider. This acquisition provided NYX with one of the best poker products in the industry, access to several regulated jurisdictions, and a valuable talent pool that was instrumental in the growth of NYX. The addition of OnGame further established a path for NYX to continue its growth in both European and U.S. markets. These acquisitions, together with meaningful organic growth, increased NYX’s revenue from $24 million in 2014 to $184 million annualized in 2017. During that time, Mr. Davey helped build NYX to have over 200 customers in the global gaming industry and a team of 1,000 employees. Mr. Davey’s success at NYX ultimately led to its sale to Scientific Games for $631 million in 2018. Mr. Davey joined Next Gen Gaming, the predecessor to NYX, in 2000 as the Vice President of Technology, was appointed as Executive Director in 2003 and named Chief Executive Officer in 2005. Prior to that, he was the Senior Consultant for Access Systems, a company that specializes in the provision of back-end software for licensed online casinos. Prior to joining Access, Mr. Davey worked for the Northern Territory Government specializing in matters pertaining to the internet and e-commerce along with roles in the Department of Racing and Gaming. Mr. Davey received a Bachelor of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Northern Territory University, Australia (also known as Charles Darwin University). Robin Chhabra — President Mr. Chhabra has been at the forefront of corporate acquisition activity within the digital gaming landscape for over a decade. His prior experience includes leading corporate strategy, M&A, and business development at two of the global leaders in the digital gaming industry, The Stars Group (“TSG”) and William Hill, and a leading supplier, Inspired Gaming Group (Nasdaq: INSE). Mr. Chhabra served on the Group Executive Committees of each of these companies. From 2017 to May 2020, Mr. Chhabra served as Chief Corporate Development Officer at TSG and, from 2019 to August 2020, he also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Fox Bet, a leading U.S. online gaming business which is the product of a landmark partnership between TSG and FOX Sports, a transaction which he led. During that period, Mr. Chhabra led several transactions which transformed TSG into the largest publicly listed online gambling operator in the world by both revenue and market capitalization and one of the most diversified from a product and geographic perspective with revenues of over $2.5 billion. Mr. Chhabra’s M&A experience is extensive and covers multiple global geographies across the digital gaming value chain and includes the following: • TSG/Flutter Entertainment Merger: In 2019, Mr. Chhabra led the TSG M&A team that was responsible for TSG’s $12.2 billion merger with Flutter Entertainment (LSE: FLTR). The merger between TSG and Flutter Entertainment is the largest transaction in the digital gaming industry to date. The combination created the largest publicly listed online gaming company with approximately 13 million active customers and leading product offerings, which include sports betting, online casino, fantasy sports and poker. The combined entity includes some of the world’s most iconic digital gaming brands such as Fanduel, Fox Bet, Sky Bet, PaddyPower, Betfair, PokerStars and SportsBet. TSG/Flutter Entertainment is one of the most geographically diverse digital gaming and media companies with leading positions in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany and Georgia. • TSG/Sky Betting and Gaming (“SBG”): In 2018, Mr. Chhabra led the acquisition of SBG from CVC Capital Partners and Sky plc, Europe’s largest media company, in a transaction valued at $4.7 billion. At the time of the acquisition SBG was the largest mobile gambling operator in the United Kingdom and one of the fastest growing of the major operators having doubled its online market share in three years. The acquisition of SBG provided TSG with (a) greater revenue diversification, significantly enhanced expertise and exposure to sports betting just ahead of the judicial overturn of The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) by the U.S. Supreme Court, (b) a leading position within the United Kingdom, the world’s largest regulated online gaming market, (c) improved products and technology as a result of the addition of SBG’s innovative casino and sports book offerings and a portfolio of popular mobile apps, and (d) expertise in deeply integrating sports betting with leading sports media companies, positioning TSG to create more engaging content, deliver faster growth and decrease customer acquisition costs. • William Hill (LSE: WMH): At William Hill, from 2010 to 2017, Mr. Chhabra served as Group Director of Strategy and Corporate Development where he led several transactions which contributed to William Hill’s transformation from a land-based gambling operator in the United Kingdom to a leading online-led international business. Mr. Chhabra led William Hill’s entry into the U.S. sports betting and online lottery markets with the acquisition of four businesses, including the simultaneous acquisitions of three U.S. sportsbooks, Cal Neva, American Wagering and Brandywine Bookmaking, in 2011 for an aggregate purchase price of $55 million. These businesses ultimately led William Hill to achieve a leading position in the U.S. sports betting market with a market share of 24% in 2019. Additionally, Mr. Chhabra played a key role in structuring William Hill’s successful joint venture with PlayTech Plc (LSE: PTEC) in 2008. The combined entity created one of the largest online gambling businesses in Europe at the time of its formation and led to William Hill’s buyout of Playtech’s interest for $637 million in 2013. Prior to the transaction, William Hill had struggled in its attempt to establish a strong online gaming platform and a meaningful presence outside the United Kingdom. Mr. Chhabra has also successfully completed four transactions worth over $1.2 billion in Australia, the world’s second largest regulated online gambling market, and various partnerships in Asia. Additionally, he completed several technology and media related transactions, including William Hill’s investment in NYX, where he worked with Mr. Davey on NYX’s transformational acquisition of OpenBet. Prior to working in the gaming sector, Mr. Chhabra was an equities analyst and a management consultant. Mr. Chhabra received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Eric Matejevich — Chief Financial Officer Mr. Matejevich is a seasoned gaming executive with extensive experience in both the online gaming and traditional casino industries. From February to August 2019, he served as Trustee and Interim-Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Casino Resort (“Ocean”) (formerly Revel Casino, which had a construction cost of $2.4 billion) in Atlantic City, where he successfully led the management team through an ownership change and operational turnaround effort. Over the course of seven months, Mr. Matejevich managed to reduce the property’s weekly cash burn of $1.5 million to an annualized cash flow run rate in excess of $20 million. Prior to Ocean, from 2016 to 2018, Mr. Matejevich served as the Chief Financial Officer of NYX. At NYX, he focused his efforts on integrating the company’s many acquisitions and multiple debt refinancings to simplify its capital structure and provided liquidity for growth initiatives. Additionally, Mr. Matejevich was instrumental to the executive team that sold NYX to Scientific Games for $631 million. Prior to NYX, from 2004 to 2014, Mr. Matejevich was the Chief Financial Officer of Resorts International Holdings and later, from 2011, also the Chief Operating Officer of the Atlantic Club Casino, a property under the Resorts International Holdings umbrella — a Colony Capital (NYSE: CLNY) entity. As Chief Financial Officer, he provided managerial oversight for all finance functions for a six-property casino company with annual gaming revenue exceeding $1.3 billion, 10,000 gaming positions, 7,000 hotel rooms and over 11,000 staff members during his tenure. Mr. Matejevich led the transition effort to integrate a four-casino, $1.3 billion acquisition from Harrah’s Entertainment and Caesars Entertainment (Nasdaq: CZR). As Chief Operating Officer of Atlantic Club, he lobbied for and was successful in obtaining the first internet gaming legislation passed in the United States. The Atlantic Club was the sole New Jersey casino proponent of the legislation. Prior to serving in various gaming positions, Mr. Matejevich was a Vice President of High Yield Research for Merrill Lynch, where he managed the corporate bond research effort for the gaming and leisure sectors and marketed high yield and other debt transactions totaling $4.8 billion. Mr. Matejevich received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Our Board of Directors Morris Bailey — Chairman Over the past 10 years, Mr. Bailey has been a leader in turning around Atlantic City, as well as being among the first gaming executives to embrace online gaming and sports betting in the United States. In his efforts, Mr. Bailey partnered with two of the largest digital gaming companies in the world, PokerStars, part of the Stars Group, and DraftKings (Nasdaq: DKNG). In 2010, Mr. Bailey bought Resorts Atlantic City (“Resorts”) and initiated a comprehensive renovation which allowed for the property to be rebranded and repositioned. In 2012, Mr. Bailey signed an agreement with Mohegan Sun to manage the day-to-day operations of the casino. In addition to Mohegan Sun’s operational expertise and ability to reduce costs via economies of scale, Resorts gained access to their robust customer database. Soon thereafter, Mr. Bailey and his team focused on bringing online gaming to the property. In 2015, Resorts established a platform to engage in online gaming by partnering with PokerStars, now part of the $24 billion Flutter Entertainment, PLC (LSE: FLTR), to operate an online poker room in Atlantic City. In 2018, Resorts announced deals with DraftKings and SBTech to open a sportsbook on-property and online. For 2020 year-to-date, Resorts has performed in the top quartile in internet gross gaming revenue in New Jersey. Mr. Bailey’s efforts in New Jersey helped set the framework for expansion of online sports and gaming throughout the United States. In addition to his gaming interests, Mr. Bailey has over 50 years of experience in all facets of real estate development, asset M&A, capital markets and operations and is the founder, Chief Executive Officer and Principal of JEMB Realty, a leading real estate development, investment and management organization. Mr. Bailey has notable investment experience within the energy, finance and telecommunications sectors through investments in the Astoria Energy Plant, Basis Investment Group and Xentris Wireless. Tony Rodio — Director Nominee Mr. Rodio has nearly four decades of experience in the gaming industry. Most recently, Mr. Rodio served as the Chief Executive Officer and director of Caesars Entertainment Corporation (“Caesars”) (Nasdaq: CZR), one of the world’s most diversified casino-entertainment providers and the most geographically diverse U.S. casino-entertainment company, from April 2019 until its acquisition by Eldorado Resorts, Inc. in July 2020. Mr. Rodio led Caesars through its $17.3 billion merger with Eldorado Resorts, one of the largest transactions in the gaming industry to date. Additionally, Mr. Rodio was instrumental to Caesars’ expansion into the digital gaming industry and oversaw the implementation of new digital segments such as its Scientific Games powered retail sportsbook solution that now operates in various states throughout the U.S. From October 2018 to May 2019, Mr. Rodio served as Chief Executive Officer of Affinity Gaming. Prior to Affinity Gaming, he served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Tropicana Entertainment, Inc. (“Tropicana”) for over seven years, where he was responsible for the operation of eight casino properties in seven different jurisdictions. During his time at Tropicana, Mr. Rodio oversaw a period of unprecedented growth at the company, improving overall financial results with net revenue that increased more than 50% driven by both operational improvements and expansion across regional markets. Mr. Rodio led major capital projects, including the complete renovation of Tropicana Atlantic City and Tropicana’s move to land-based operations in Evansville, Indiana. Each of these initiatives, among others, generated substantial value for Tropicana. Ultimately, Mr. Rodio’s efforts at Tropicana led to its sale to Eldorado Resorts in 2018 for $1.85 billion. Prior to Tropicana, Mr. Rodio held a succession of executive positions in Atlantic City for casino brands, including Trump Marina Hotel Casino, Harrah’s Entertainment (predecessor to Caesars), the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort and Penn National Gaming. He has also served as a director of several professional and charitable organizations, including Atlantic City Alliance, United Way of Atlantic County, the Casino Associations of New Jersey and Indiana, AtlantiCare Charitable Foundation and the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming Hospitality & Tourism. Mr. Rodio brings extensive knowledge of and experience in the gaming industry, operational expertise, and a demonstrated ability to effectively design and implement company strategy. Mr. Rodio received a Bachelor of Science from Rider University and a Master of Business Administration from Monmouth University. Marlon Goldstein — Director Nominee Mr. Goldstein is a licensed attorney with nearly 20 years of experience in the gaming space. He joined The Stars Group (Nasdaq: TSG)(TSX: TSGI) in January 2014 as its Executive Vice-President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary until his retirement from the company in July 2020 following the merger of TSG with Flutter Entertainment, PLC (LSE: FLTR). Mr. Goldstein also previously served as the Executive Vice-President, Corporate Development and General Counsel of TSG. Mr. Goldstein was also the senior TSG executive based in the United States and was one of the primary architects of TSG’s strategic vision for its U.S.-facing business. During his tenure, TSG grew from an approximately $500 million market-cap company to an approximately $7 billion market-cap company through a combination of organic growth and strategic mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Goldstein participated in numerous M&A transactions and capital markets offerings at TSG, including several transformational transactions in the digital gaming industry. Notable transactions in which Mr. Goldstein was involved include: • TSG/Flutter Merger: In 2019, TSG merged with Flutter for a $12.2 billion transaction value, the largest transaction in the digital gaming industry to date. • TSG/Fox Bet Partnership: In 2019, TSG entered into a partnership with FOX Sports to create FOX Bet in the U.S., a leading U.S. online gaming business. Wall Street Research estimates an approximate $1.1 billion valuation for Fox Bet post-partnership with The Stars Group. • TSG/Sky Betting & Gaming: In 2018, TSG acquired Sky Betting & Gaming, the largest mobile gambling operator in the United Kingdom at the time, for $4.7 billion. • TSG/CrownBet and William Hill: In 2018, TSG simultaneously acquired CrownBet and William Hill, two Australian operators, for a total of $621 million in a multi-part transaction. • TSG/PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker: In 2014, TSG acquired The Rational Group, which operated PokerStars and Full Tilt and was the world’s largest poker business, for $4.9 billion. Through his ability to legally structure large and complex transactions, Mr. Goldstein was integral to TSG’s vision of becoming a full-service online gaming company. Additionally, he assisted in structuring TSG’s capital markets activity, which generated liquidity for acquisitions and strengthened its balance sheet. Prior to joining TSG, Mr. Goldstein was a principal shareholder in the corporate and securities practice at the international law firm of Greenberg Traurig P.A., where he practiced for almost 13 years. Mr. Goldstein’s practice focused on corporate and securities matters, including mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, and financing transactions. Additionally, Mr. Goldstein was the founder and co-chair of the firm’s Gaming Practice, a multi-disciplinary team of attorneys representing owners, operators and developers of gaming facilities, manufacturers and suppliers of gaming devices, investment banks and lenders in financing transactions, and Indian tribes in the development and financing of gaming facilities. Mr. Goldstein brings experience and insight that we believe will be valuable to a potential initial business combination target business. Mr. Goldstein received a Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in accounting from Emory University and a Juris Doctorate with highest honors from the University of Florida, College of Law. Sean Ryan — Director Nominee Mr. Ryan is a digital media and technology operator with extensive global experience in online payments, e-commerce, marketplaces, mobile ad networks, digital games, enterprise collaboration platforms, blockchain, real money gaming and online music. Since 2014, Mr. Ryan has been serving as Vice President of Business Platform Partnerships at Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”) (Nasdaq: FB), where he leads a more than 500 person global organization that manages the Payments, Commerce, Novi/Blockhain, Workplace and Audience Network businesses. Prior to his current role, Mr. Ryan was hired in 2011 as the Director of Games Partnerships to lead and grow the global Games business at Facebook. While the Director of Games Partnerships, Mr. Ryan focused on re-shaping Facebook’s games and monetization strategies to derive more value for Facebook, its users and its partners, including the addition of a Real Money Gaming offering in regulated markets. Mr. Ryan’s team helped accelerate a major trend in engagement through cross-platform games and therefore the opportunity to increase users through establishing games on multiple platforms. Prior to joining Facebook, Mr. Ryan created the new social and mobile games division at News Corp, an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by Rupert Murdoch. While at News Corp, Mr. Ryan led the acquisition of Making Fun, a San Francisco social-game start-up, that created News Corp’s games publishing division. Before joining News Corp., Mr. Ryan founded multiple digital businesses such as Twofish, Meez, Open Wager and SingShot Media. Mr. Ryan co-founded Twofish in 2009, a virtual goods and services platform that provided developers with data analytics and insights for individual application’s digital economies. Twofish was later sold to online payments provider Live Gamer, where Mr. Ryan served on the board of directors. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Ryan founded and led Meez.com, a social entertainment service combining avatars, web games and virtual worlds. The white label social casino gaming company Open Wager was spun out of Meez and was later sold to VGW Holdings, Mr. Ryan also co-founded SingShot Media, an online karaoke community, which was sold to Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: EA) and merged into its Sims division. We believe Mr. Ryan’s experience will be valuable to a potential initial business combination target and would provide an expanded perspective on the digital gaming landscape. Mr. Ryan received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Los Angeles. Tom Roche — Director Nominee Mr. Roche has more than 40 years of experience in the gaming industry as a regulator, advisor and independent auditor. Mr. Roche joined Ernst & Young (“EY”) as a partner in 2003 and opened its Las Vegas office. He was subsequently appointed as the Office Managing Partner and Global Gaming Industry Market Leader. In 2016, Mr. Roche relocated to the EY Hong Kong office to supervise the expansion of the EY Global Gaming Industry practice in the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Roche has been integral to numerous transactions that have shaped the current gaming landscape, including: • Wynn Resorts (Nasdaq: WYNN) initial public offering: Mr. Roche was the lead partner on Wynn Resort’s initial public offering, which raised $450 million in 2002. • Harrah’s Entertainment/Apollo Management Group & Texas Pacific Group: Mr. Roche headed the regulatory advisory services on the buyout of Harrah’s Entertainment, the world’s largest casino company at the time, for $17.1 billion. • Dubai World/MGM Resorts: Mr. Roche headed the regulatory and due diligence advisory services to Dubai World in its approximately $5.1 billion investment in MGM. Dubai World bought 28.4 million MGM shares, or 9.5 percent of the casino operator, for $2.4 billion. It then invested $2.7 billion to acquire a 50% stake in MGM’s CityCenter Project, a $7.4 billion 76-acre Las Vegas development of hotels, condos and retail outlets. • MGM Growth Properties (NYSE: MGP) initial public offering: Mr. Roche provided tax and structural transaction services to MGM Resorts in the creation of MGM Growth Properties, a publicly traded REIT engaged in the acquisition, ownership and leasing of large-scale destination entertainment and leisure resorts. MGM Growth Properties raised $1.05 billion in its 2016 initial public offering. Mr. Roche also directed EY advisory services to boards and management teams for profit improvement and technology related initiatives. In addition, Mr. Roche provided advisory support to the American Gaming Association on several research projects, including those specifically related to sports betting, the revocation of The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) and anti-money laundering best practices in the gaming industry. Equally, he has assisted government agencies in numerous international locations with enhancing their regulatory approach to governing the industry especially in the online gambling sector. Prior to joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Roche served as Deloitte’s National Gaming Industry Leader and as the co-head of Andersen’s Gaming Industry Practice in Las Vegas. In 1989, Mr. Roche was appointed by then Governor of the State of Nevada, Robert Miller, to serve as one of three members of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board for a four-year term, where he was directly responsible for the Audit and New Games Lab Divisions. As a board member, he spent a substantial amount of time assisting global jurisdiction regulators enact gaming legislation in the design of their regulatory structure. During his career, Roche has been involved in numerous public and private offerings of equity and debt securities. His background includes providing casino regulatory consulting services to casino licensees and to federal and state agencies including the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, and industry associations such as the Nevada Resort Association and the American Gaming Association. We believe Mr. Roche’s highly regarded reputation as a gaming auditor and advisor in the gaming industry will be valuable for us and a potential business combination target. Mr. Roche is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is licensed by the Nevada State Board of Accountancy and Mississippi State Board of Public Accountancy. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Southern California.
Just got back from Atlantic City yesterday so figured I'd update on the craps conditions there on a Sunday and Monday. I also posted a lot of this in the report COVID minimums post but just figured I'd make my own topic here too in case anyone missed it. Ocean: Was really surprised by this place. Sunday they had one $10 craps table open for most of the day, along with two $15 tables. The $10 table stayed until pretty late, probably around 10 or 11, when they finally raised it to $15 right before they closed one of the other two tables. Monday afternoon they had two tables open and they were both $10. This is where I was staying so this was a very welcome surprise, I really wasn't expecting to play for less than $15 here. The $10 table did fill up a lot Sunday but the $15 tables Sunday never really filled up, I got a spot at either one whenever I wanted. On Monday afternoon you could play for $10 pretty much any time. I was shooting alone for a long time at one of them. Ballys: Sunday evening they had two $10 tables open, one in the main casino (the big table with 4 per side; all other tables I encountered were 3 per side) and one in Wild Wild West. The only other table open was a $50 (!) minimum in the main casino, which weirdly was always full every time I walked past it (other than one reserved spot). If you were gonna play a $50 table why wouldn’t you go some place a lot nicer than Ballys?? The big $10 table was full as well but I actually got a spot pretty easily on the WWW table. Caesars: Sunday evening they had two tables, one $15 and one $25. Both were full. Resorts: Sunday evening, one table for $15, full. Hard Rock: Monday afternoon they had two $15 tables, both were pretty empty. That’s all the casinos I hit on this trip. tl;dr believe it or not, the easiest place to get on a $10 craps table (and blackjack and roulette too) was easily Ocean on Sunday & Monday. Overall I had a surprisingly great time. Everyone was following the mask rules inside the casinos, the dealers were honestly in better spirits than I was expecting (I kinda figured they would be in a grumpy mood having to work during this and I honestly wouldn't have blamed them, but for the most part they really weren't, and some were even trying to joke with players and have a good time which was much appreciated). No free drinks in the casino of course sucked but there were plenty of places open to get outdoor booze, so even that wasn't really a dealbreaker or anything. The plexiglass was for sure annoying and definitely makes it almost impossible to dice set, so that is of course something to keep in mind. But I still had a great time. I hit the Small three times so that may be coloring my outlook here....
Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives. • PREVIOUS • 1987 FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE: The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82
The Bunkhouse Stampede Finals and Royal Rumble are in the books, and as a head-to-head it’s best described as a stalemate. Neither show is what Dave would consider among the best cards he’s ever seen, and from the perspective of a tv viewer they were about what you’d expect. No strong overall lineup for either, and what was delivered wasn’t spectacular either. WWF had the edge in glitz, but not as much as usual because of the live factor meaning they couldn’t rely on post-production editing tricks. Here’s a sentence that describes a typical Raw today: “The three-hour show had too many replays and looked like it may have dragged in spots if you were there live.” Dave’s gotten some word from people who were there for the Bunkhouse finals live, and all rated it terribly as a live experience. From the tv viewer perspective, though, it was better than Starrcade despite some major issues (Dave says they owe the audience an explanation for why the Rock & Roll Express and Steve Williams were absent, as well as for the lack of Mike Rotunda vs. Sting which was pushed on WTBS half an hour before the show).
Dave’s tired of writing a lot of the same complaints about NWA, but they do seem to be responding to fans. They’re going to start showing the finishes to matches that go off the air on the following week’s show and have made changes to the announce desk. Jim Ross did a great job on ppv and toned back on calling every match an all-time classic like he did at Starrcade. But there were eight no-shows among the wrestlers and on Thursday night they had a terrible show in Los Angeles. Most of the no-shows were guys they pulled from the card to save money on flights. The Bunkhouse Finals were advertised with a 7 pm start time, but many of the tickets had 8 pm printed on them, and the show itself actually started at 6:35. Pm and ended at 9 pm, so those arriving at 8 missed most of the show. Not all the no-shows can be blamed on the promotion (Mighty Wilbur got injured, Rock & Roll Express appear to have up and quit), but some kind of explanation needs to be made for the fans. Between all that, getting chants of “Refund” after the Stampede and Dusty getting booed (which fans watching on tv heard) when he won the finals, NWA has significantly hurt its position in two of the biggest markets in the country in LA and New York. They’re making changes, slowly, but some changes need to be made or they’re going to sink. NWA fans come for action, but you can’t get the kind of action the fans want with the schedule they’re running (contrast to WWF which can get by with less action because their guys are seen as stars and the fans want to see the stars). Doing cross-country double shots on weekends is killing NWA, and they need to make new stars. Turning Flair face, since he’s more popular than almost anyone else, isn’t even something to do right now because Luger’s turn is in full throttle and they don’t have a heel to take up the slack. They could turn Dusty heel and have him feud with the Road Warriors, but they won’t.
In the past few weeks, NWA has managed to lose several guys they really shouldn’t have. Terry Taylor is gone apparently because the office had it in for him because of when he left the promotion in 1985. Big Bubba Rogers had become a good worker and had a great gimmick going, but WWF poached him. Rock and Roll Express apparently quit because they were unhappy about their push (though Dave thinks despite their ability and work, they’ve been on borrowed time for nine months now). Dave gives Steve Williams 50/50 odds of coming back and just kind of gestures to UWF as explanation. Sean Royal quit, and Chris Champion, Eddie Gilbert, and Brad Armstrong are all but disappeared. And more are looking to get out. Dave hates writing all this stuff about what Crockett’s doing wrong on the front page, especially when he’s been talking about it for months, and especially because he’s a fan of the NWA. He wouldn’t classify himself as a fan of WWF, but they’ve earned his respect with what they’ve done to take the business to another level and in the next two months he expects them to blow the whole wrestling business wide open. But WWF’s success isn’t the reason for NWA’s problems. WWF doing counterprogramming has made Crockett earn less money than he would have unopposed, and Dusty probably books himself the way he does because he knows WWF won’t steal him (spoilers: WWF gets Dusty in just over a year) and it’s hard to leave the limelight, but WWF isn’t the reason for most of Crockett’s issues.
According to the newspapers this morning, Wrestlemania IV will take place in Atlantic City’s Convention Center. Capacity is 16,000. There were rumblings of Vince being close to a deal in Vegas for either UNLV Gym or Caesar’s Palace, so Atlantic City’s a surprise. Wrestlemania is going to be more focused on ppv than closed-circuit this year, apparently. But most of the audience can’t get ppv, so they’ll still need closed-circuit in major cities.
Two weeks after Wrestlemania will be the Crockett Cup. Place is to be announced, and Dave thinks it’s high time Crockett re-establishes working relationships with at least one or two other North American promotions in order to help make the Cup a big event. They just don’t have the talent roster this year to get away with doing otherwise.
A correction on Starrcade: Dave reported a 6.6 percent buy-rate, but the reality was a 3.3 percent buy-rate. Dave heard they got 20,000 buys and just assumed it was of the 300,000 homes available on cable, but forgot to factor in the 300,000 homes it was also available in via satellite. Dave’s received reports that there were 6 million potential homes for the Bunkhouse finals, but that seems high to him. Even matching the buyrate of Starrcade at that number would mean over $3 million in gross revenue, and Dave doesn’t think they were remotely close to that.
- Anyway, Dave goes through the Bunkhouse finals. An estimated 7,000 were in the arena, and the dark match was Sting and Jimmy Garvin beating the Sheepherders by DQ. Nikita Koloff retained the NWA TV title against Bobby Eaton in a 20 minute draw. -2 stars. Larry Zbyszko beat Barry Windham for the Western States Title, with the match starting slow and getting very good in the last ten minutes. 3.5 stars. Road Warrior Hawk beat Ric Flair by DQ in the NWA World Title match. 3.75 stars. Dusty Rhodes won the Bunkhouse Stampede finals. Lots of blood, a lot of guys going the distance you wouldn’t expect to have the stamina to do so (the match was 26 minutes long), and it was exactly what was promised and was good stuff. 3 stars.
- As for the Royal Rumble, the crowd appeared to be nearly sold out with almost 18,000 in attendance. Ricky Steamboat beat Rick Rude by DQ. Heavy with rest holds and stalling before the final two minutes had them trading near falls constantly and getting good heat from it. 2 stars. The Jumping Bomb Angels won the WWF Women’s Tag Titles from the Glamour Girls in a 2/3 falls match. They started behind with Judy Martin getting the first fall, then the Angels won two straight falls with each Angel pinning Judy Martin (sunset flip and double missile dropkicks, respectively). It was a good match, but not great - the Angels missed a lot of moves and seemed to be out of shape. 3 stars. Jum Duggan won the Royal Rumble, last eliminating One Man Gang. The match was much better than Dave anticipated, and the match went on roughly at the same time as the Bunkhouse finals match. Better camera work in it, and Dave notes that WWF seems to have fudged the two minute intervals after a bit. 3.5 stars. The Islanders beat the Young Stallions (Paul Roma and Jim Powers; Dave’s nickname for them is The Barbie Dolls) in two straight falls. He makes a weird joke about a submission actually working on a pushed guy (Haku submitted Roma with a Boston crab) making him go out for “Oriental food” afterwards because it was so surprising. I’m too confused to even know what to make of the line. 2.5 stars.
Outside the matches, Royal Rumble had some other stuff. Andre and Hogan had a contract signing for the Main Event, where Andre slammed Hogan’s head into the table and pushed the table onto him. Dave’s amazed people buy Hogan as a face, because there’s just something naturally dislikable about people who act the way Hogan does and he thinks Vince could probably get Lee Harvey Oswald over as a face. Dino Bravo attempted to set a world bench press record. Of course, the weights were as legit as the half a million dollars Dusty supposedly won, but Bravo’s supposedly able to bench over 600 lbs legit. Jesse Ventura helped him with “715 lbs” and then claimed he didn’t help at all (the Road Warriors are scheduled to bench on the 30th and were originally planned to use legit weights, but they’ll have to use bogus weights to keep from looking weak next to WWF’s monsters now). Anyway, now they’ll bill Bravo as unofficial bench record holder, and that should get him heat because of the obvious cheating.
Next up then for WWF is The Main Event on February 5. Dave’s told not to worry about Andre, because his back is in much better shape than last year. He and Hogan are practicing daily and have worked out the gist of the match. Dave says you can be sure to expect Ted DiBiase to interfere somehow on the 5th.
Stampede is continuing to do good business and nearly selling out all their big shows. Chris Benoit and Great Gama get 4 stars (from Trent Walters, who I guess submitted the reports for the matches in Edmonton) for their Commonwealth Title match from January 9 in Edmonton.
[Stampede] Jason the Terrible has been made an “honorary member” of Bad Company, Bruce Hart and Brian Pillman’s tag team. So now in addition to the hockey mask he’s also got sunglasses over the hockey mask and a bandana and a black leather jacket. The whole getup is hilarious.
Do you remember Central States? Mike George won the WWA World Title tournament on January 23. They had 800 fans. Match ended on blood stoppage.
Speaking of blood, Keiji Mutoh is headed to Puerto Rico.
Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura won the IWGP World Tag Titles from Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Kazuo Yamazaki on January 18. Riki Choshu and Super Strong Machine were originally slated to face the tag champs, but Choshu injured his knee and had to miss the match. Dave expects Choshu and Machine to face Fujinami and Kimura on February 7. He then goes on about how bad Choshu’s luck has been lately. Dave thinks he was supposed to win the tournament, except the Maeda shoot happened, and he was definitely supposed to win the tag titles (the match was scheduled for his hometown and New Japan actually does nice things for wrestlers in front of their home audiences). And with all the work they’ve put into getting Choshu on tv, it’s surprising they’ve phased him down the card so much from where he was.
Lots of stuff about Vader’s look in New Japan. On December 27 he wore long tights and had Road Warrior Hawk’s hair, and it didn’t get him over at all. On January 4 he had a mask and full bodysuit to hide his size. January 11 saw him ditch the bodysuit and keep the mask. The evolution of a mastodon, I guess.
Antonio Inoki began negotiations with Fuji TV after TV Asahi scheduled NJPW tv to move to midnight Mondays, and TV Asahi caved. They’ll now be on a 5 pm Saturday time slot. It’s not as good as their old Monday evening slot, but it’s not a death slot like midnight Monday.
Akira Maeda turned down NJPW’s plan to have him go to the U.S. Also, he and NJPW are fighting over his contract. They offered him a new contract for 1988 with a 15% pay cut and he’s not willing to sign it.
There are rumors that Inoki will wrestle Koji Kitao (the sumo wrestler mentioned a few weeks back) at the Tokyo Dome in April. Kitao is 24 years old and 6’5.5”, weighing 345 lbs. The story of his exit from Sumo is he apparently lost his temper and started kicking one of his sponsors (who is 92 years old) and the knocked his stable master’s wife through a sliding door. Dave’s been told if this match does happen, it could draw very big. Kitao is denying he’s going into wrestling (nope). Kitao was made a yokozuna in 1986, just before he turned 23, because the sumo hierarchy felt they needed a new young star to create interest in the younger generation of fans. But Kitao liked the party lifestyle and didn’t care for tradition, and sumo does not tolerate that. But you can’t demote a yokozuna, and that made him controversial (it would turn out that most of this was made up because Kitao’s stablemaster didn’t like him and felt he was underperforming and wanted him out - more on Kitao’s sumo years here if you want to read it). Turns out sumo is kind of worked too, though not as much as pro wrestling.
All Japan is promoting a “Martial Arts Olympic” show on April 2 at Sumo Hall, to feature all kinds of stuff. Tiger Mask II and Giant Baba will team against some foreigners, Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (the group running against AJW) will have two matches on the show (Miss A vs. Harley Saito and Rumi Kazama vs. Xochitl Hamada). There will be boxing, kick boxing, the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama’s “shooting” sport he invented, shoot boxing (boxing + wrestling with gloves), and more. The whole show is being billed as a memorial service to Ikki Kajiwara, who created the Tiger Mask cartoon and comic.
When baseball season starts, All Japan’s tv will be moved to 10:30-11:30 pm Sunday nights. Usually they get moved to Saturday afternoon during baseball season, and this shift will lose Baba lots of money and viewers.
While Crockett and McMahon ran big shows on January 24, Giant Baba met with their rivals in Las Vegas. Baba’s plan in the U.S. is to send his guys, as well as Bruiser Brody, Abdullah the Butcher, Jimmy Snuka, Stan Hansen, and Terry Gordy to smaller promotions to help them fight against the big two.
Dave finally saw Hennig vs. Tiger Mask II. Not terrible, but no heat and little action, he thinks. Meanwhile, John Tenta’s improving well, and Baba seems high on Akira Taue, though he’s so new it’s hard to guess what kind of future he has.
[AJW] Yukai Omori’s retirement show will be on February 15. This was announced after her January 15 world title match with Chigusa Nagayo, where she said if she couldn’t win the title she was ending her career. They went 32 minutes to a double count out in the ring after both collapsed.
[Memphis] Lawler vs. Hennig for the AWA Title on January 18 had Lawler’s ring on the line as well. Hennig promised to give his dad the ring if he won, and Larry Hennig was there. The Axe helped Curt win, and Curt gave him the ring, but Lalwer stole it back.
Memphis local prelim wrestler Jerry Bryant has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Global Wrestling in Florida somehow turned what was an awful live show on January 22 into a good tv show. They taped on Friday night and by Sunday had it polished up into a good looking product. The miracles of post-production. Issues with the live show included starting 30 minutes late, long delays between matches, the ring mic not working, and bad wrestlers. What they lack in wrestling talent, though, they make up for in knowing how to make a tv show that’s on the level of World Class and better than Crockett or AWA.
Continental (Alabama) did a bench press contest between Lord Humongous (not Sid, but Gary Nation) and Doug Furnas. They fudged the weights here, as Humongous did 645 lbs and then Furnas did it twice (his best in competition has been 600) before Humongous pushed the bar down on Furnas and “injured his ribs.”
Apparently the Observer was mentioned positively in the Detroit News by Justice B. Hill in the January 17 issue.
Since Dave started writing this issue, he’s been flooded with fans writing about the Bunkhouse finals. The reaction he’s gotten has largely been negative, with those there live being extra negative about it. Crockett really needs to reserve three hours for the next time they do ppv - going too short pisses the fans off, and ppv viewers expected the show to last past 9 pm. Another difference between WWF and NWA is that WWF always gets their hottest acts on the mic at some point during ppvs and big live specials (twice in the case of Hogan and DiBiase at Royal Rumble), while at Starrcade they didn’t have Flair, Dusty, or Cornette talk once. Instead Jim Garvin gave the worst promo of his career, Michael Hayes was quiet for the first time ever, and they shoved Steve Williams and Nikita Koloff on the mic for some reason. At the Bunkhouse Finals they had no interviews, and getting mic time for Flair or Dusty or Luger while they set up the cage would have been a big help. More of Dave wondering when Crockett will realize they’ve killed the credibility of their world champion and thus killed the drawing power of the belt.
Michael Hayes has apparently quit Crockett and everyone expects him to go back to World Class. And if Steve Williams doesn’t come back, they’ll probably just forget about the UWF Title entirely rather than doing a unification match.
A couple letters this week requesting that Dave keep up the coverage of wrestling in Japan. Another couple letters praising how good Stampede has been lately. Canada and Japan, bringing us the best in wrestling.
Another letter writer asks Dave to realize how offensive it is to refer to a wrestling match as “a total abortion” and to consider that he’s probably offended many female readers of the newsletter. Dave apologizes and says he’ll stop using the term, before doing a “well, actually” bit. It’s a kind of weird response. Judge it for yourselves.
I apologize for that one and will quit using the term. Actually the term abortion for a bad match is a business term just like jobber, mark, babyface and the rest. But there are a few business terms (mainly for ethnic wrestlers and ethnic fans) which are in bad taste that I don’t use, so I’ll add that one to the list.
Tickets for Wrestlemania IV go on sale January 30. The best 2000 seats in the Convention Center are being reserved as freebies for casino high rollers. And as a heads up, this is the location it does take place at. They called it Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino during the show, but it’s the same building. More on that as we get to Wrestlemania.
If Dave can find the space next week, he’s going to talk about whether or not “30 minute matches which ‘tell a story’” work for today’s fans. He really enjoyed the Windham/Blanchard match on tv but there was no crowd reaction, so he’s beginning to wonder if this is even a style that resonates anymore.
Everyone’s asking Dave for predictions about Hogan vs. Andre. So here’s his prediction (and he is way off on many parts of this):
DiBiase will interfere and Andre will pin Hogan on 2/5, however Jack Tunney will prove he can’t be bought and hold the title up so Ted doesn’t get the title, and order a rematch in a cage at WM4 so Ted can’t interfere (and also so Andre can lose without doing a job). Hulk will win on a fluke, and they’ll run Hulk vs. Andre over the summer in your local cities after Hulk gets back from playing Hulk Hogan in the movies.
”There was a clip in Detroit about Hogan, saying that ‘he’s nice[r] than Kirk Gibson, but not by much.’” Gibson’s reputation is of being a total asshole to fans, especially kids.
Crockett is billing FlaiAnderson vs. LugeWindham on Feb. 6 as the first time Flair goes against Lex anywhere. It’s forgivable to forget Lex’s Florida days, but they’ve got FlaiBlanchard vs. LugeRhodes booked for February 2.
Apparently Road Warrior Hawk’s neo-nazi line is just a quote from The Breakfast Club. Okay. So I guess the first letter writer was mishearing him and he’s saying “Neo-maxi-zoom dweebie”? TVtropes gives us this, from the October 3, 1987 episode of NWA World Championship Wrestling: HAWK: "WELL, Tony Schiavone, There Are Two Kinds Of People, as far as me and Animal are concerned. Clamheads and Neo-Maxi Zoom Dweebies." (the Road Warriors consider themselves the latter). And corroborating with the WWE Network, yeah, the line comes through pretty clear. Network 4 minutes in, and yeah, he’s not calling himself a neo-nazi. Definitely an error by that letter writer, and what a weird line for Hawk of all people to utter.
THURSDAY:WWF’s Big Four are born; The Main Event; Rock & Roll Express, Michael Hayes, and Steve Williams update; Tenryu wins all the awards in Japan; and more
Since we're talking about Mafia IV ideas, here is my concept for a 3-part Mafia IV set between 1977 and 1979.
I've had an idea for a Mafia IV that would be a 3-chapter game, with each one sold and released separately. They would take place in: Chapter I - The Italian island of Sicily, with the large city of Vucciria (Palermo), as well as towns of Casbach (Mazara del Vallo) and Templi (Agrigento), plus the countryside. March 1977-October 1977. Chapter II - The city of Las Platas, Aztec (Las Vegas, NV) and its metro area, as well as the Cañon Rojo (Red Rock Canyon) and Lake Draught (Lake Mead) areas, and the McHawkins Army Base. October 1977-May 1978. Chapter III - Empire Bay, plus the coast of West Guernsey (New Jersey) with the towns of Trunk (Long Branch) and Westport (Atlantic City). February 1979-September 1979. Story
Chapter I - Paolo Baldini, the 22-year-old son of Vizzini crime family member Gustavo Baldini, who used to live in Las Platas and help his friend Patrizio Sinacore run a casino there, joins the Vizzinis with the encouragement of Ennio Muraca, a family friend in the mob. Together with other young Vizzini guys, he works his way up in the gang, becoming a made man. However, his father's murder by the rival Serrata family makes his suspicions of being targeted arise; he moves to Sinacore in Platas, while having his family move to relatives on the "boot".
Chapter II - Paolo arrives in Platas, only to find that Sinacore's casino isn't doing as well as he expected, and is on track to losing its license, thanks to the rivals of the Vizzinis' LP chapter, the Lavianos. Other enemies are the White Knights, a white supremacist gang, the Highway Angels, a biker gang and the Hispanic Highgate Boys. He still helps the Vizzinis make a stand, while making Sinacore trust him (he originally deeply believed that Paolo's father betrayed him by leaving) by stopping the license cancellation, and finally helps them in a bombing of the Lavianos' Desierta Resort and a heist on the Laviano-funded Domus Aurea (stand-in for Caesar's Palace) casino. However, the heist leaves him with people in Las Platas who know what he did, many not friendly, so Baldini moves to Empire Bay with his cut.
Chapter III - Paolo learns that one of his father's killers, Ariberto Falbo, is living in Empire Bay. The man who tells him that is Elpidio Domino, a man who was nearly killed by Falbo. Together, they kill Falbo, but this only puts them in a deeper hole of murders, finally drawing the ire of the Vinci crime family on them, and to add insult to injury, they also mess with the Triads' and Bombers' business. The game ends on a cliffhanger, suggesting that Baldini gets killed by the Bombers, as well as the murder of Domino.
New features:
Multiplayer would be added, with the players working as members of the Vizzini (Platami, Las Platas) or Sabella (Empire Bay) crime families, doing jobs (both single-person and cooperative, as well as heists) for them.
It would be the first Mafia game with a first-person view, as well as 4K capabilities.
Motorcycles and planes are introduced, with the motorcycles available since the start of Chapter I, while planes are introduced by a flight school mission in Chapter II.
Players are able to own, buy and customize cars, boats, motorcycles and planes they want to have. Select (though it's a wide range) vehicles can also be equipped with bulletproof windows, run-flat tires, armor and telephones. Customization can be found on traffic vehicles (you never know if that luxury sedan doesn't also have a phone or run-flats, or you can see a gangster's chopper motorbike, or a plane with floaters).
Players can use payphones, phones in open houses or businesses or car phones to call support from their gang (manpower, gun store, vehicle delivery), call a cab before vehicle delivery or call the police on their assailants.
Players can wear different types of clothes, with weapon carry limitations depending on the clothes worn (e.g. you can only conceal small handguns and something like a garota in shorts and a tank top, but a longcoat can hide a lot more). Excess guns can be put in car trunks or gloveboxes.
Players can buy and own apartments and houses, and have a choice of interior decor and furnishings. They can also get plane hangars.
-Players can watch fictional TV shows and news (think GTA IV/V, but more serious) on 2 different channels.
550 - Fiat 500 2-door sedan, 650 - Fiat 126 2-door sedan, 800 - Fiat 850 2-door sedan, 1100 - Fiat 127 3-door hatchback, 1400V - Fiat 238 panel van, 1600 - Fiat 124 4-door sedan, 1800 - Fiat 131 Mirafiori 4-door sedan (incl. police), 1900 - Fiat 125 5-door wagon, 1800SV - Fiat 124 Sport Spider roadstetarga/coupe, 2000D - Fiat 132 4-door sedan (incl. taxi), Tuscani - Fiat Campagnola 2-door offroader,
Cesare:
Arco - Alfa Romeo Alfasud 4-door fastback, Cabrio - 1974 Alfa Romeo Spider 2-door roadstetarga/coupe, Falerno - Alfa Romeo Alfetta 4-door sedan (incl. police and Carabinieri), Medici - Alfa Romeo Giulia (Type 105) 4-door sedan (incl. Carabinieri),
Chaffeque:
XT - Citroen DS21 4-dooor sedan/convertible,
Classwagon:
80 - 1974 Oldsmobile 88 4-door hardtop/hearse,
Delizia:
3000 Riviera - Ferrari 308 2-door coupe/targa, 4200 Tampa - Ferrari Daytona 2-door coupe/targa/convertible,
Provincial Series VI - 1975 Lincoln Continental Mark IV 2-door coupe/convertible, Provincial Series VII - 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V 2-door coupe/convertible,
Ball - VW Rabbit Mk1 3-door hatchback/convertible, Model A "Bug" - VW Beetle 2-door sedan/convertible, Model B "Freerider" - 1966 VW Type 2 panel van/minibus,
Potomac:
Longchamp - 1976 Pontiac Grand Ville 2-door coupe/convertible, Sarthe (1st gen) - 1970 Pontiac LeMans 2-door coupe/convertible, Sarthe (2nd gen) - 1976 Pontiac LeMans 4-door sedan (incl. police),
Beverly - 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe/convertible, Compostela - 1968 Chevrolet El Camino 2-door pickup, Dispatcher 2500 - 1973 Chevrolet Suburban K20 4-door SUV (incl. sheriff), Executive - 1977 Chevrolet Impala 4-door sedan (incl. police, taxi and detective), Frigate - 1971 Chevrolet Corvette 2-door coupe/targa/roadster, Ponderosa - 1973 Chevrolet K-5 Blazer (incl. sheriff and military), Shuboir - 1975 Chevrolet Chevelle 5-door wagon, Truck 3500 - 1973 Chevrolet C30 double-cab pickup/tow truck (incl. military), Valestra - 1975 Chevrolet Nova 3-door hatchback,
Smith:
Cargoline - 1972 Ford Econoline 2-door panel van/minibus, Carino - 1971 Ford Pinto 3-door hatchback, Coupe - 1932 Ford 2-door coupe/convertible, Cross-Country - 1972 Ford Country Squire 4-door wagon, Lakefield - 1963 Ford Fairlane 4-door sedan, S200 - 1965 Ford F-200 single cab pickup truck, SLT - 1971 Ford LTD 4-door sedan, Thunderbolt - 1970 Ford Thunderbird 4-door sedan/convertible,
Stewart-Charles:
Golden Dawn - Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow 4-door sedan,
Tokai:
Union - 1975 Honda Accord 3-door hatchback. Chapter III:
Aurea:
Aero - Lancia Stratos 2-door coupe/targa,
Assar:
400 - Volvo 244 4-door sedan,
Bastelli:
1900 SV - Fiat 124 Sport Spider 2-door coupe/targa/roadster,
Loire - 1977 Lincoln Versailles 4-door sedan, Provincial Series VI - 1975 Lincoln Continental Mark IV 2-door coupe/convertible, Provincial Series VII - 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V 2-door coupe/convertible,
Ball - VW Rabbit Mk1 3-door hatchback/convertible, Model A "Bug" - VW Beetle 2-door sedan/convertible, Model B "Freerider" - 1966 VW Type 2 panel van/minibus,
Glider - 1974 Honda Goldwing GL 1000, T90 - 1969 Honda C90, TX125 - 1973 Honda CR125M, Boats: Returning from Mafia III (Vindicator and Airboat only in Chapter II and III), plus:
Cassa:
M400 - 1970s medium-sized motorboat (incl. Italian police and coast guard), U800 - 1960s tugboat, U900 - 1960s fishing smack,
Cha-ching! Fanfare. Chatter. “David! I can’t believe we’re finally here!” The honeymoon had been delayed two weeks. But now, here we were, prancing through the halls of Caesar’s in Atlantic City. Casinos always made me happy. Full of lights. Shining silver. Cherries and bells and 7s whirling by at the speed of light. Of course, the people who actually inhabited them were desperate shells of themselves, selling their retirement funds – and their lives – to gambling… but I tried to ignore that part. We stood at the edge of the carpet, discussing where to go first, cha-chings ringing in our ears. But then, I heard a voice behind me. “Do you want to play the best slot machine in the world?” David and I turned to see a middle-aged man. He was tidily dressed, a crisp bowtie at his neck. A gold nametag was pinned to his chest. Leroy. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he said, giving us a smile that flashed brighter than all the flashing lights. “I just thought you’d want to see the best slot machine in the world. Right here, at Caesar’s.” “Yeah!” I replied. David nodded. We followed him, winding through the rows of flashing slot machines until we reached the back wall. “Here it is,” he said, twirling his arms as if showing off a grand prize. This slot machine was different than the others. For one, it was absolutely immense – about 7 feet tall and 4 feet across. Second, the entire body of the machine was forged into a cartoonish demon head. The metal was painted a deep crimson. Two oval, upslanting eyes flashed yellow. The mouth was a rigid, tight rectangle. At the top, an illuminated sign read Satan’s Slots. Underneath, it read: SELL YOUR SOUL TO THE DEVIL FOR CASH! Are you willing to bet LIFE for $10,000? Below that, sitting between the demon’s horns, was just one reel – not a row. From what I could see, it only had two settings: a green rectangle that said WIN, and a red rectangle that said LOSE. “This looks awesome,” David said, pacing around the slot machine. “Hey, sir? What does it –” He stopped. The man, Leroy, was gone. Faded back into the flashing lights, the endless cha-chings. “Nevermind,” David grumbled. “What were you going to ask him?” “What it takes. I don’t see a coin slot.” I walked around the machine, studying the top of the demon’s head. It was smooth. No slot for coins, bills, or credit cards. I shook my head. David reached over and grabbed the lever – a solid, metal rod, painted red and topped with a point to resemble a devil’s tail. “I guess I’ll just try it, see if it works.” With a grunt, he tugged. It gave way. A musical blip sounded from deep within the machine. Ch-ch-ch-ch – the reel started to roll, turning to a smudged blur of red and green. “If it doesn’t actually cost anything, I doubt it’s going to give you anything,” I said, watching the red and green start to slow. “Stop crushing my dreams!” he replied, laughing. The reel slowed. WIN crawled by, followed by LOSE. It slowed to a stop… On WIN. No fanfare. No flashing lights. No bells, no cha-chings. Just a click, from deep within the machine. And then the unmistakable whir of cash. “What the…” David stared, incredulously, as green bills slapped down in the demon’s mouth. When the stack reached a half-inch, it propelled out at frightening speed. Slap. It hit David right in the groin. He began laughing, madly, clawing at the bills that fluttered to the floor. “This has got to be fake,” he yelled – but he scrambled to pick up every last dollar. The wonderful whirr-slap, whirr-slap of cash didn’t stop until the floor was carpeted in it. When it stopped, David fanned out the cash in his hand and stared at it. “I don’t see any evidence that it’s fake…” But I wasn’t listening. I was stepping towards the machine. Suddenly, I understood the force that kept the other gamblers glued to their seats. A tugging in my heart, pulling in my mind, asking me what if…? What if we had $20,000, not just $10,000? All the things I could do with that money… a new house instead of our shitty apartment, another dog… maybe even a baby… I grabbed the pointed tail. Pulled the lever down. Click. Ch-ch-ch-ch. The red and green rolled by, a melted mess of color. I watched, utterly transfixed. I heard David say something, but he sounded muffled – far away. WIN, LOSE, WIN… Click. LOSE. The red seared my eyes. My heart thrummed in my chest. I felt a terrible, numb, sinking feeling. Am I going to die? I shook my head, as if I could shake off the thought. Of course not. What, do you think you’re in some Stephen King novel? But the fear gnawed at me, as I stood in front of the machine. The $10,000 was true... maybe this is true, too. That's the risk – you get $10,000, or you die. But I didn't feel any bullet to the heart. I didn't start foaming at the mouth, collapsing to the ground. I was okay. I turned to David. He shot me a smile. “Come on, let’s go find out if this is actually real money.” I took a step towards him. I stumbled. A sharp pain pierced my lower abdomen. Like the worst cramp I’d ever felt – but all the pain concentrating in a tiny circle below my navel. David caught me as I flew forward. “Are you okay?” “David, I –” I couldn’t get the words out. Another pain shot through me, wrapping around to my back like hot lightning. The room began to spin around me. The flashing lights of the casino swam and twinkled before me. Then everything went black. *** I woke up in a white room. The pain throbbed through me, but it was much weaker, now. David was hunched over in the chair, tapping his foot, his face scrunched in concern. Tap-tap-tap. “David?” “Oh, you’re awake.” He didn’t smile. “What happened?” He took my hand. “We… uh, you…” He swallowed a few times and squeezed my hand. The corners of his mouth twitched down, and he forced a quivering smile. “David? What happened?” “You were pregnant, Becky. But, an hour ago… you miscarried.” The shock hit me like a wave. I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. He wordlessly squeezed my hand. *** Even though my heart was mourning the loss of our child, I forced myself down to Caesar’s the very next day. No one would face the same fate that I did. I know. The doctor said it was inevitable. That it was probably some sort of genetic defect, and the baby was destined to miscarry. Half of me believed him. The other half didn’t. But even though we combed the casino for hours, walking the perimeter several times, we never found Satan’s Slots. Nor did we find Leroy. In fact, according to Caesar’s, no Leroy had ever worked there. I did find one thing, though, online. Missing persons reports. Dozens of them. Old. Young. Male. Female. Every race, every ethnicity, every size and shape. All last seen walking into casinos across the country. BD
New Jersey mandates panic buttons for hotel room cleaners
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 64%. (I'm a bot)
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill Tuesday that he and others said is the nation's first requiring most hotels to provide their workers with wearable panic buttons they can press to summon help quickly in an emergency. "I am proud to sign panic button legislation to give hotel workers security and the ability to immediately call for help should they need it," Murphy said as he signed the bill, surrounded by one housekeeper from each of the nine Atlantic City casinos. The law takes effect in January and applies to hotels with 100 or more rooms. In 2018, a 51-year-old room cleaner at Bally's casino was pushed into a room by a man who then sexually assaulted her. "It's a layer of protection for us. Sometimes it's a long floor of rooms and you may be the only one working there." Iris Sanchez, a housekeeper at Caesars, said she opened the door to a room one day only to have two dogs come charging out at her.
Summary Source | FAQ | Feedback | Topkeywords: housekeeper#1room#2workers#3being#4hotel#5 Post found in /UpliftingNews and /news. NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.
I've had an idea for a Mafia IV that would be a 3-chapter game, with each one sold and released separately. They would take place in:
Chapter I - The Italian island of Platami (based on western Sicilia), with the large city of Vucciria (Palermo), as well as towns of Casbach (Mazara del Vallo) and Templi (Agrigento), plus the countryside. March 1977-October 1977.
Chapter II - The city of Las Platas, Aztec (Las Vegas, NV) and its metro area, as well as the Cañon Rojo (Red Rock Canyon) and Lake Draught (Lake Mead) areas, and the McHawkins Army Base. October 1977-May 1978.
Chapter III - Empire Bay, plus the coast of West Guernsey (New Jersey) with the towns of Trunk (Long Branch) and Westport (Atlantic City). February 1979-September 1979.
Story
Chapter I - Paolo Baldini, the 22-year-old son of Vizzini crime family member Gustavo Baldini, who used to live in Las Platas and help his friend Patrizio Sinacore run a casino there, joins the Vizzinis with the encouragement of Ennio Muraca, a family friend in the mob. Together with other young Vizzini guys, he works his way up in the gang, becoming a made man. However, his father's murder by the rival Serrata family makes his suspicions of being targeted arise; he moves to Sinacore in Platas, while having his family move to relatives on the "boot".
Chapter II - Paolo arrives in Platas, only to find that Sinacore's casino isn't doing as well as he expected, and is on track to losing its license, thanks to the rivals of the Vizzinis' LP chapter, the Lavianos. Other enemies are the White Knights, a white supremacist gang, the Highway Angels, a biker gang and the Hispanic Highgate Boys. He still helps the Vizzinis make a stand, while making Sinacore trust him (he originally deeply believed that Paolo's father betrayed him by leaving) by stopping the license cancellation, and finally helps them in a bombing of the Lavianos' Desierta Resort and a heist on the Laviano-funded Domus Aurea (stand-in for Caesar's Palace) casino. However, the heist leaves him with people in Las Platas who know what he did, many not friendly, so Baldini moves to Empire Bay with his cut.
Chapter III - Paolo learns that one of his father's killers, Ariberto Falbo, is living in Empire Bay. The man who tells him that is Elpidio Domino, a man who was nearly killed by Falbo. Together, they kill Falbo, but this only puts them in a deeper hole of murders, finally drawing the ire of the Vinci crime family on them, and to add insult to injury, they also mess with the Triads' and Bombers' business. The game ends on a cliffhanger, suggesting that Baldini gets killed, as well as the murder of Domino.
New features:
Multiplayer would be added, with the players working as members of the Vizzini (Platami, Las Platas) or Sabella (Empire Bay) crime families, doing jobs (both single-person and cooperative, as well as heists) for them.
It would be the first Mafia game with a first-person view, as well as 4K capabilities.
Motorcycles and planes are introduced, with the motorcycles available since the start of Chapter I, while planes are introduced by a flight school mission in Chapter II.
Players are able to own, buy and customize cars, boats, motorcycles and planes they want to have. Select (though it's a wide range) vehicles can also be equipped with bulletproof windows, run-flat tires, armor and telephones. Customization can be found on traffic vehicles (you never know if that luxury sedan doesn't also have a phone or run-flats, or you can see a gangster's chopper motorbike, or a plane with floaters).
Players can use payphones, phones in open houses or businesses or car phones to call support from their gang (manpower, gun store, vehicle delivery), call a cab before vehicle delivery or call the police on their assailants.
Players can wear different types of clothes, with weapon carry limitations depending on the clothes worn (e.g. you can only conceal small handguns and something like a garota in shorts and a tank top, but a longcoat can hide a lot more). Excess guns can be put in car trunks or gloveboxes.
Players can buy and own apartments and houses, and have a choice of interior decor and furnishings. They can also get plane hangars.
Players can watch fictional TV shows and news (think GTA IV/V, but more serious) on 2 different channels.
Cha-ching! Fanfare. Chatter. “David! I can’t believe we’re finally here!” The honeymoon had been delayed two weeks. But now, here we were, prancing through the halls of Caesar’s in Atlantic City. Casinos always made me happy. Full of lights. Shining silver. Cherries and bells and 7s whirling by at the speed of light. Of course, the people who actually inhabited them were desperate shells of themselves, selling their retirement funds – and their lives – to gambling… but I tried to ignore that part. We stood at the edge of the carpet, discussing where to go first, cha-chings ringing in our ears. But then, I heard a voice behind me. “Do you want to play the best slot machine in the world?” David and I turned to see a middle-aged man. He was tidily dressed, a crisp bowtie at his neck. A gold nametag was pinned to his chest. Leroy. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he said, giving us a smile that flashed brighter than all the flashing lights. “I just thought you’d want to see the best slot machine in the world. Right here, at Caesar’s.” “Yeah!” I replied. David nodded. We followed him, winding through the rows of flashing slot machines until we reached the back wall. “Here it is,” he said, twirling his arms as if showing off a grand prize. This slot machine was different than the others. For one, it was absolutely immense – about 7 feet tall and 4 feet across. Second, the entire body of the machine was forged into a cartoonish demon head. The metal was painted a deep crimson. Two oval, upslanting eyes flashed yellow. The mouth was a rigid, tight rectangle. At the top, an illuminated sign read Satan’s Slots. Underneath, it read: SELL YOUR SOUL TO THE DEVIL FOR CASH! Are you willing to bet LIFE for $10,000? Below that, sitting between the demon’s horns, was just one reel – not a row. From what I could see, it only had two settings: a green rectangle that said WIN, and a red rectangle that said LOSE. “This looks awesome,” David said, pacing around the slot machine. “Hey, sir? What does it –” He stopped. The man, Leroy, was gone. Faded back into the flashing lights, the endless cha-chings. “Nevermind,” David grumbled. “What were you going to ask him?” “What it takes. I don’t see a coin slot.” I walked around the machine, studying the top of the demon’s head. It was smooth. No slot for coins, bills, or credit cards. I shook my head. David reached over and grabbed the lever – a solid, metal rod, painted red and topped with a point to resemble a devil’s tail. “I guess I’ll just try it, see if it works.” With a grunt, he tugged. It gave way. A musical blip sounded from deep within the machine. Ch-ch-ch-ch – the reel started to roll, turning to a smudged blur of red and green. “If it doesn’t actually cost anything, I doubt it’s going to give you anything,” I said, watching the red and green start to slow. “Stop crushing my dreams!” he replied, laughing. The reel slowed. WIN crawled by, followed by LOSE. It slowed to a stop… On WIN. No fanfare. No flashing lights. No bells, no cha-chings. Just a click, from deep within the machine. And then the unmistakable whir of cash. “What the…” David stared, incredulously, as green bills slapped down in the demon’s mouth. When the stack reached a half-inch, it propelled out at frightening speed. Slap. It hit David right in the groin. He began laughing, madly, clawing at the bills that fluttered to the floor. “This has got to be fake,” he yelled – but he scrambled to pick up every last dollar. The wonderful whirr-slap, whirr-slap of cash didn’t stop until the floor was carpeted in it. When it stopped, David fanned out the cash in his hand and stared at it. “I don’t see any evidence that it’s fake…” But I wasn’t listening. I was stepping towards the machine. Suddenly, I understood the force that kept the other gamblers glued to their seats. A tugging in my heart, pulling in my mind, asking me what if…? What if we had $20,000, not just $10,000? All the things I could do with that money… a new house instead of our shitty apartment, another dog… maybe even a baby… I grabbed the pointed tail. Pulled the lever down. Click. Ch-ch-ch-ch. The red and green rolled by, a melted mess of color. I watched, utterly transfixed. I heard David say something, but he sounded muffled – far away. WIN, LOSE, WIN… Click. LOSE. The red seared my eyes. My heart thrummed in my chest. I felt a terrible, numb, sinking feeling. Am I going to die? I shook my head, as if I could shake off the thought. Of course not. What, do you think you’re in some Stephen King novel? But the fear gnawed at me, as I stood in front of the machine. The $10,000 was true... maybe this is true, too. That's the risk – you get $10,000, or you die. But I didn't feel any bullet to the heart. I didn't start foaming at the mouth, collapsing to the ground. I was okay. I turned to David. He shot me a smile. “Come on, let’s go find out if this is actually real money.” I took a step towards him. I stumbled. A sharp pain pierced my lower abdomen. Like the worst cramp I’d ever felt – but all the pain concentrating in a tiny circle below my navel. David caught me as I flew forward. “Are you okay?” “David, I –” I couldn’t get the words out. Another pain shot through me, wrapping around to my back like hot lightning. The room began to spin around me. The flashing lights of the casino swam and twinkled before me. Then everything went black. *** I woke up in a white room. The pain throbbed through me, but it was much weaker, now. David was hunched over in the chair, tapping his foot, his face scrunched in concern. Tap-tap-tap. “David?” “Oh, you’re awake.” He didn’t smile. “What happened?” He took my hand. “We… uh, you…” He swallowed a few times and squeezed my hand. The corners of his mouth twitched down, and he forced a quivering smile. “David? What happened?” “You were pregnant, Becky. But, an hour ago… you miscarried.” The shock hit me like a wave. I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. He wordlessly squeezed my hand. *** Even though my heart was mourning the loss of our child, I forced myself down to Caesar’s the very next day. No one would face the same fate that I did. I know. The doctor said it was inevitable. That it was probably some sort of genetic defect, and the baby was destined to miscarry. Half of me believed him. The other half didn’t. But even though we combed the casino for hours, walking the perimeter several times, we never found Satan’s Slots. Nor did we find Leroy. In fact, according to Caesar’s, no Leroy had ever worked there. I did find one thing, though, online. Missing persons reports. Dozens of them. Old. Young. Male. Female. Every race, every ethnicity, every size and shape. All last seen walking into casinos across the country.
One century ago, there was no better place in the United States or elsewhere for those who enjoy gambling that Atlantic City and its plethora of casinos. 2014 has been a terrible year for the gambling industry here, with many venues closing their doors and even more announcing bankruptcy. Recent news are far from inspiring, with Revel Casino Hotel announcing its intention to shut down one week before the deadline, set for early September. Apparently, they are bleeding money at a fast pace and each week they need to stay open, translates to more than $1 million lost. The Division of Gaming Enforcement didn't allow the initial deadline and a new decision is yet to be reached. To add insult to injury, a guard working for the aforementioned casino placed a bag of money on the top of the armored car which obviously fell off. Nobody knows what happened to the money and who the lucky winner of a $21,000 jackpot might have been. Caesars Entertainment is not doing much better, at least not in Atlantic City where their casinos are quickly shutting down. Showboat is the latest venue and by the end of the month, this iconic casino will no longer welcome players with roulette, baccarat tables and slot machines. Obviously, the owners are hoping that someone will be interested in this property, but so far there is nobody willing to pay a dime, which comes as no surprise. Other Atlantic City casinos are doing just as badly, with Trump Plaza scheduled to close three weeks from now, in an attempt of cutting down on losses. Trump Taj Mahal is far from going strong, but at least they are operating and there is no imminent threat hovering over this gambling establishment. On the other hand, the numbers are far from optimistic and it would come as no surprise if as soon as 2016, it will join the other shuttered properties. While the Atlantic City casinos disappear at an alarming state, it is possible for regulators to allow casinos to open outside the city. Slot machines are probably going to be introduced first, despite the fact that a slight majority of those interviewed are against such an expansion outside of Atlantic City. There are a couple of interested investors and if favorable legislation will pass, the project will exceed $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, the Garden State is making giant leaps forward with its Internet gambling laws and it is only a matter of time until more online casinos will try to tap into the immense potential of this market. Betfair Casino has expressed its intention of operating here and they bring a wealth of experience, but most important a lots of money that will eventually go to state coffers. from via Casinoreviews
It is enough to take a look at the revenue posted by Macau casinos, to realize that the Asian gaming hub is winning the battle with its American counterpart. Las Vegas is no longer the premier destination for enthusiastic casino players, while highrollers flock to Macau. Overall, things are not looking too good for those casinos in Sin City, but the good news is that the same companies that own these ventures have opened new establishments in Macau. Online casinos are largely unaffected and most of them are on an uptrend, with 32Red Casino being one of the most successful in this industry. They have the advantage of offering tempting first deposit bonuses and running equally fascinating loyalty rewards. At the end of the day, people cherish convenience and freebies more than the glamour and fanciness of brick-and-mortar casinos and more of them are making the transition to online gambling. This only amplifies the problems that land-based casinos in the United States are confronted with and there are a couple of ventures threatened to go out of business. Atlantic City casinos were particularly hard hit in 2014 and their gaming revenue fell by more than 3%, which translates into hundreds of millions of dollars lost. The steepest decline was recorded in table game revenues which dropped by 22%. There are a couple of land-based casinos in Atlantic City that are mildly profitable but this is only a pale consolation and those who lose, usually lose big. Take Caesars casino for example, who lost a lot of money when its revenue dropped by 43% while the Trump Plaza did just as bad. In Pennsylvania and Detroit things are not looking too good either, but the decline is less accelerated, with the numbers still hovering with being the single digit range. There are four big casinos in the state of Ohio and none of them did particularly well in 2014, with revenue dropping virtually everywhere. Maryland is the bright spot on the Eastern coast, because for some odd reason the revenue increase by more than 10%. In the great scheme of things, the gains posted by Maryland casinos are nothing more than a drop of water in the ocean, because nationwide casinos struggle big-time. from via Casinoreviews
Compared to Atlantic City and Las Vegas, Baltimore is not exactly a major American gambling hub, but this is what makes the opening of a new casino a special event. Orioles fans who also have a secret passion for gambling in land-based casinos, will rejoice knowing that Horseshoe Casino has finally opened its doors. The event was highly anticipated and Caesars Entertainment made no secret of the fact that they will be opening a new casino in Maryland. Four more companies opened casino resorts this year, which says a great deal about the rising popularity of gambling at this stage. So far, the legislators are yet to take decisive actions in terms of legalizing online gambling, but such laws are probably closer than they seem. Delaware and New Jersey are two of the neighboring states who already jumped on the bandwagon and there are plenty of governors who contemplate the possibility of following their lead. There is no shortage of interested investors either, with prominent poker rooms, bookmakers and online casinos being interested to spend money here. 32Red Casino announced its intention to establish a more permanent position in the United States and Baltimore looks like a great place to start. For the time being, state residents in general and Baltimore folks in particular have good reasons to check out the Horseshoe Casino, because there is plenty of action waiting for them behind these doors. A total of 2500 slot machines, in excess of 100 life table games and even a World Series of Poker room are bound to provide all the adrenaline rush that poker players could hope for. As stated above, there are other casinos operating here, but in terms of size and magnitude this is by far the most successful one and this should translate into a huge number of customers. The partnership with William Hill casino is supposed to be mutually beneficial, making the Horseshoe Casino the only one to offer outdoor gaming. A lot of money is expected to go towards state coffers, but even more important is the fact that the new venture will lead to the creation of thousands of jobs. The vast majority of those working here are Baltimore residents, which is great news for the cash-strapped city. The initially agreement stated that casino operators were supposed to hire at least 51% of their staff from the city, but it is only fair to assume that they will go a step further. from via Casinoreviews
3-day trip report: Aria, Dig This, Carbone, and Britney
Returned to Philadelphia from Las Vegas yesterday morning on the red-eye, and after about 18 hours of sleep, I'm ready to write up my trip report. This was my first time back to Las Vegas since 2007 and I had a lot of fun. I receive email promotions from the MLife casinos, and the one that caught my eye was an offer for a $50 dining credit per night at Aria. Since Aria opened an outpost of Carbone in November, I read the fine print of the offer to make sure Carbone wasn't excluded from the offer.
Saturday
My flight was delayed and I didn't make it to the hotel until about 1 am. Earlier in the day, Aria emailed me about online check-in, and I decided to do it just to make sure I'd at least have a place to sleep that night. When I was assigned a room on the eighth floor, I decided to go to the check-in desk to see if I could do better. I did the $20 sandwich and asked for "anything with an awesome bathroom." The woman who checked me in put me on the 54th floor with a strip view, one room away from the elevator. SCORE. Because I checked in so late, the front desk attendant credited the third night of my dining credit to the final day of my stay.
Sunday
Slept in and headed directly to my spa appointment at noon for a facial. When I checked in for the facial, I asked if I could be fit in for a mani and pedi too. They scheduled me for a 3 pm appointment. The Spa at Aria is huge, quiet, tranquil, and relaxing. After the facial, I killed two hours in the spa reading magazines, eating snacks and drinking green tea, napping on vibrating chairs in the salt room (a dark room lined with gently warmed Himalayan salt bricks), and fielding work emails on my iPad by the private outdoor infinity edge pool. When I returned to my room, I found that housekeeping had come and gone and left me extra towels as I requested along with my nice tip. (I was glad I asked for extra towels, since housekeeping never came back to my room during the rest of my stay. Hmph.) I ate dinner at the bar at Julian Serrano Tapas in the Aria lobby (tasty patatas bravas, an uninspired beet salad with commodity Sysco croutons, 6/10). I didn't have plans for Sunday night, so at the last minute, I decided to roll the dice at the concierge and see if they could get me tickets for Jerry Seinfeld at Caesars. Let me recognize Tatiana the concierge at Aria by name here because she was so helpful, friendly, and resourceful. She got me fantastic seats for Jerry Seinfeld for way less than I expected to spend, and found a gift card that had been left for me at the concierge desk under the wrong name. I gave her a tip and called her manager to compliment her. (Sidebar: Did you know the Society of the Crossed Keys is a real thing? Tatiana was wearing the gold keys pins on her uniform...I thought it was just something Wes Anderson made up for the Grand Budapest Hotel. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) After Jerry's set, I walked back to Aria from Caesars. I stopped at the Caesars sports book and put $20 on the Panthers to beat Navy...I should have just torn up that $20 bill. I also stopped at Olives on the Via Bellagio and sat at the bar and had dessert and a nightcap, and as I was walking back to Aria I watched the fountain show for "Luck be a Lady," my favorite of the fountain shows. To get back to Aria, I walked through Crystals and closed down the bar at Todd English Pub (extensive but confusing beer list, OK fries, talked Coachella and exchanged instagram handles with Channa the sweet bartender and her boyfriend, 8/10.) The art at Aria and Crystals is kind of banal (Dale Chihuly...yawn) but it was a lot of fun to take a bunch of drunk Hotline Bling selfies in the James Turrell installation by the tram station on the third floor. Go late and you can dance like Drake to your heart's content! I wasn't ready for bed yet, so I stopped at Alibi at Aria for a cocktail and had an excellent chocolate martini garnished with Cocoa Puffs.
Monday
Up early for Dig This! I had a 10 am appointment to operate the excavator and after some confusion by the cab driver ("Turn off the meter and let me out, I'll walk the rest of the way because you obviously don't know where you're going!") I made it just in time for the safety briefing. I cannot talk up Dig This enough--it was ridiculously fun. Junior, the instructor, was patient and upbeat even if he had to tell me "no, your RIGHT hand...no, your OTHER right" fifty times. There were two other people in my group and we all had fun encouraging and zinging each other while operating the excavators. We were welcome to take all the pictures we wanted with our cameras and phones and I actually bought the $30 plaque with a professional photo of me in the excavator afterward. (And tipped Junior, of course.) I Ubered back to the strip to eat lunch at Hash House a Go Go at the Linq, but the line was so long and the space so grim and uninspiring I ended up eating lunch at Guy Fieri on the strip. My Mayor of Flavortown burger was fine; I'd eaten at Guy Fieri Chophouse in Atlantic City before so I knew what to expect. After lunch, I walked back to Aria and put $20 in a Hangover penny machine before taking a nap and getting ready for my 6:30 dinner reservation at Carbone. Since I read Pete Wells' review of the original New York location in the Times I'd wanted to eat there. A word about the space at Carbone: opulent. It hearkens back to old-timey New York/Las Vegas Italian restaurants--red velvet booths, an enormous crystal chandelier in the dining room, massive fresh flower arrangements in gigantic brass urns on the bar. The portions at Carbone are famously huge, so I had to order wisely--the clams three ways and the spicy rigatoni were delicious, but the minestrone was thin and weirdly green. For dessert, I ordered the carrot cake with ginger ice cream and it was the best piece of carrot cake I've ever eaten. All the reviews of Carbone talk up the service (you get a table captain instead of a server), but I found it to be inattentive and impersonal: The host tried to seat me at the bar instead of a table in the dining room because I was dining alone, I was disappointed that I wasn't offered the complimentary nip of limoncello and rainbow cookies the other tables around me received after the meal...and nobody said thank you or goodbye when I signed for the bill or walked out of the restaurant! What the hell?! (Not that I was able to take advantage of this, but the women's restrooms at Carbone would make a great place for a quickie.) Carbone overall: Food 8/10. Service 6/10. Hopped in a cab after dinner and headed to PH for Britney. Even on a Monday night, PH was SLAMMED with people. The plexiglas cases with her famous costumes in the lobby (the red leather jumpsuit from Oops I Did it Again, the blue flight attendant costume from the Toxic video, even her dress from when she was on Star Search) were a treat to see. I received Britney tickets as a Christmas gift, and my seat was awesome, though expensive at almost $300. The seats are raked so even if you stand up to dance you're not blocking someone in front of you. Some of the arrangements of her songs were kind of weird--the crowd didn't know when to get hyped for her big hits. But Britney herself seemed lively and engaged and looked great. I grabbed a few of the custom Britney poker chip confetti that blasted over the crowd at the end of the show. As I was leaving I noticed I was seated two rows closer to the stage than Dave Grohl, who was wearing a white crushed velvet dinner jacket and bow tie. (Me: "How's the foot?" Dave: "Healing!")
Tuesday
Tuesday morning, I paid $30 for 3 pm checkout and headed downtown to The Mob Museum. I've never been to downtown Las Vegas before and I was surprised the cabs cost me around $30 each way after tip--locals, did I get longhauled? The Mob Museum is very well done, with lots of memorabilia and well-produced exhibits about the history of Las Vegas, law enforcement, gambling, and of course, organized crime. I thought there were WAY too many people in the museum for it to be enjoyable, though. Go early. Ended my stay with lunch at Crystals at Cucina Wolfgang Puck (a much better beet salad than at Julian Serrano and a side of meatballs, 7/10) and bought myself a scarf at Hermés. When I checked out, the manager credited the $50/night dining credit as a flat $150 to the total bill instead of just to food. I was OK with that. But I learned that at check-in, the woman who checked me in charged my Amex up front for the full balance of my hotel room plus another $350 for a "security deposit." I have no idea why she did that, and neither did the woman who checked me out. Headed to the airport early to unwind in The Centurion Lounge (shoutout to the homies in /churning), which happened to be right across from my gate. There was a nice buffet and a free full bar to take advantage of, but unfortunately for me I'm a nervous flyer and I didn't want to eat or drink anything other than water before my flight. But I made friends with a showgirl waiting for her flight too! Finally, I want to thank all of the /vegas redditors for their advice while I was planning this trip. Your answers to my questions (and ErnDizzy's well-done trip report) helped me cram as much fun into three days as I did. TL; DR version: Aria nice but needs to work on the details; The Spa at Aria is a terrific place to chill; good food at Carbone but service was lacking on my visit; Dig This--unforgettable! A must-do; when Britney's on, she's firing on all cylinders; The Mob Museum is well done but go early.
Welcome to Caesars Casino & Sports, the place where you can be your own pit boss and play our world-class online casino games and sports wagering anytime, anywhere in New Jersey! Let us bring the thrills of Atlantic City to your doorstep with a large array of Blackjack , Roulette , Slots , Video Poker , Table Games ,Big Jackpot slots, and Five of Atlantic City's nine casinos opened Thursday, with another three expected to start business Friday. The city's best performer, Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, put its plans on hold entirely in Caesars Entertainment's Atlantic City properties will re-open in accordance with the directives from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Bally's, Caesars, and Harrah's Resort's health and safety plans were developed in accordance with guidance from both local and state health officials, as well as the Center for Disease Control ( CDC ). Caesars Atlantic City is open. Venue hours have changed in accordance with New Jersey Governor's executive orders, view our guide for the latest info | Be prepared and view our Health and Safety Protocols, including our mask policy ATLANTIC CITY — It was Saturday night at the Hard Rock Casino Hotel and all Joe Lupo could do was grimace. Last call had come and gone at the almost comic pandemic hour of 9:50 p.m., and the exodus had begun, as gamblers carrying their takeout noodles in brown bags headed for the escalator. In this June 24 photo, Joe Lupo, president of the Hard Rock casino in Atlantic City N.J. examines the installation of protective barriers being installed at a card table on the casino floor Caesars Entertainment has revealed its plan to open a casino resort at a site located in the Schoolfield neighbourhood of Danville, Virginia. The proposed resort will house a casino, a hotel, a conference center, a live-entertainment venue, restaurants and bars, a pool and a spa, and parking lots. Here is an updated list of Atlantic City restaurants, bars & pools open at Caesars Entertainment properties. See the outlet's page for updated hours. Caesars Atlantic City: Nothing open, empty casino floor - See 18,395 traveler reviews, 1,760 candid photos, and great deals for Caesars Atlantic City at Tripadvisor. As a result, Caesars Entertainment’s Atlantic City casinos – Caesars, Harrah’s Resort and Bally’s – will be temporarily closed effective at 8 PM tonight, Monday, March 16, 2020. To be clear, there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 at any of our Atlantic City resorts to date.
What re-opened casinos in Atlantic City could look like ...
Caesars Atlantic City & Casino, this was taken in may 2018 while staying at the Caesars Atlantic City Hotel & Casino along the boardwalk. Love travel videos?... Caesars Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ. King room- Ocean Tower. Room 7705. January 2019. Caesars Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey--FOLLOW US:Website: http://www.KimandCarrie.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/KimandCarrie...Twitter: https:/... I took a trip to Caesars Atlantic City this past weekend with my mom for a "mother-daughter getaway". This was our room in the Centurion Tower. (I had a medi... Five other casinos reopened Thursday in Atlantic City. Gambling, casino, Atlantic city, slot machines, games... NOTE: This room tour video was not sponsored by the casino or its partners/affiliates. This is a personal hotel room tour from Caesars Casino and Hotel Atla... Ocean view room in 2017. The president of New Jersey’s Casino Association says the next time you go to Atlantic City, casino dealers will be wearing masks and you won’t be able to ha... ballys casino. trump plaza. slot machines. ripleys believe it or not. atlantic one. rainforest cafe. johnny rockets. seagulls. boardwalk. beach. feral cats. wild wild ...
