I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

EDIT - one week after i posted this, Britain's most successful hedge fund manager Michael Platt has taken a 6.5% stake
tl;dr
At-NAV new SPAC with world-leading expertise in online gambling. Worth a bet on potential to be next DKNG on the hype train
   
+++++++
Hi all - have had a lot of great tips from this sub. Hopefully this pays some of you back. I have been watching and researching this since 23 December when it first filed S1, awaiting the units to be listed - they are available today trading as ADERU
Positions - 500 units @ 10.42 to start. Will be monitoring and building position below $15, especially if attention starts to build ahead of units and warrants splitting and shares coming available to Robinhood.
(My other SPAC positions are OPEN, IPO-E-F, PSTH, FUSE, PIPP, ACTC, CCIV and DMYD, 100 to 1000 shares each mostly around NAV and numerous warrants and options around these.)
As ever, this is not investment advice and do your own research
+++++++
   
26 Capital Acquisition Corp or ADER
is a 240m SPAC with usual terms - 10$ units, 1/2 warrants. Seeking a merger in "gaming and gaming technology, branded consumer, lodging and entertainment, and Internet commerce sectors".
I think this is highly worth a play on the online gambling hype if you can get in at near NAV, based entirely on the management which is unbeatable in its knowledge of the gambling industry
   
CEO Jason Ader
has held director level positions at Las Vegas Sands Corp. ($42bn one of biggest casino groups in world), IGT (£3.72bn multinational gambling firm specialised in software and slot machines) and Playtech (£1.4bn multinational gambling software firm)
Before starting his own fund in 2013 he was regularly ranked Wall Street's top analyst on the gambling and leisure sector
His fund, Spring Owl Capital, is a small activist fund focused on gambling and leisure. They are probably most famous for ousting the CEO of Viacom in 2016 and a crusade against Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer in 2015.
Ader knows the gambling - and online gambling - industry inside out. He drove bWin to a £1.1bn takeover by gambling giant GVC (now Entain) in 2016, and has been driving similar change and demands for improvement at board level at Playtech
The fund mostly manages money for a select group of wealthy families, which could be a positive sign for the SPAC (although I don't know how much skin in the SPAC the fund has, if any)
Here is a video of Ader from November talking about how he's excited about SPACs. He talks about how he has been advising certain States about legalising sports betting and how to maximise value and liquidity by linking up with European companies in the space (Playtech e.g.??).
Ader is extremely bullish on US legalising online casino and more sports betting options, accelerated by need for revenue because of pandemic
   
Rafi Ashkenazi
One of the most highly respected names in the online gambling world, including COO and CEO positions at major online gambling firms such as Playtech and Stars Group (a world leader in online poker and casino). At Stars he led the $4.7bn takeover of Sky Betting to create the world's largest publicly listed online betting firm in 2018. Most recently he led the £10bn merger between Flutter (biggest gambling company in world by revenue, market cap £26bn), and Stars Group (Ader also involved). Also has connections into the booming Israel tech space which is interesting
   
Joseph Kaminkow
Special Advisor to the Chief Product Officer at Aristocrat, a leading gambling software provider and games publisher, previously Vice President of Game Design at Zynga Inc. This guy is a former video game / pinball designer who is credited with revolutionising the slots industry after moving into gambling software from video games in 1999. Regarded as a "legend" and "hall of famer" in this niche. At Zynga he designed so-called 'social casino games' which don't involve real-money gambling but are otherwise basically gambling apps (revenue from microtransactions etc). 130 patents on gambling/gaming design inventions
   
Greg Lyss
This is a very interesting but extremely low profile person. He was Bill Ackman a.k.a SPACman's right hand man at Gotham Capital. Ackman respected him so much that when Ackman set up a personal hedge fund to invest the Ackman family's money, he put Lyss in charge of it. To repeat - Bill Ackman thinks this guy is such a good investor and trustworthy that he put him in charge of investing his family's money. Don't know anything more about him, but I like this association with Ackman, which suggests to me some integrity around management of this SPAC, especially as the gambling world can be very murky.
The other member of the team is the CFO of SpringOwl with 20+ years' hedge fund experience and not notable (although clearly competent)
   
Thesis / potential targets
Based on the above experience and many public comments by Ader over the past year, I would be very surprised if ADER is not looking to merge with an online gambling technology provider / existing online betting website / social casino app / possibly a supporting technology provider
They are activist inventors, and specifically say in the IPO prospectus that they could look for businesses that can benefit from turnaround or are not being run well. I speculate that their deep knowledge of the European / global online gambling industry means they have a target in mind that they think would benefit from their expertise and US liberalisation of gambling legislation.
   
1) Ader believes the listing of UK-listed gambling companies in US is immediately big in terms of market cap because of the premium on online gambling stocks in US. He has pitched DraftKings to takeover Playtech and called on Playtech to spin off non-core business. This makes me wonder if he would spin off some element of Playtech to list in US to cash in on gambling hype.
This might be Finalto.com / TradeTech which is an online financial platform owned by Playtech. Playtech has been trying to sell this for 200 - 240m since August so it fits. This company provides liquidity and trading to brokerages and runs markets.com a trading site. I wouldn't be that excited although apparently the business has been booming during COVID and there could be a decent pop just on fintech hype.
   
2) This could be a 'picks and shovel' type data/B2B betting software play a la DMYD, or something like e.g. Israel based CRM software Optimove which works with some of biggest online gambling cos and has links to Ashkenazi. This would be interesting but probably not a huge pop
   
3) Possibly - given Ader's links to Sands - an online gambling tie-up with one of the big Vegas casinos who are desperate to get into the online betting space (see MGM's attempt to buy Entain for $8bn last week). Interestingly, Sands' owner Sheldon Adelson, previously a major opponent of online betting, has just died. Ader predicted a few months ago that Sands would be moving in this direction.

“There’s no stopping online gaming,” Ader said [before Adelson's death]. “(Las Vegas Sands’) initiatives to stop online gaming, at this stage, are largely historic. There hasn’t been a lot of spending recently to do that, especially post-pandemic.”
“I think the company will see the value created by DraftKings and FanDuel and Penn (National) Gaming and others. They’re not foolish,” Ader added. source

   
4) Ader is very confident that Macau will legalise online gambling in next year or two. Sands is big in Macau, the biggest gambling market in the world. A SaaS-type product positioned to capitalise on Asian gambling would be MASSIVE - at present however, China's attitude to gambling and local regulations mean this is unlikely
   
5) I also wonder if they might try to take legitimate one of the offshore bookmakers with big customer databases and brand recognition but which have been grey-area/illegal under US gaming legislation. For example, Five Dimes recently announced a settlement with the FBI to attempt to transition into newly legalised US markets. This might have the most hype potential
   
Potential upside
This is entirely a play on management experience and the meme factor / hype around online gambling in the US. I think if they pick a good target - which given their experience and connections seems likely - and get the right publicity and attention from retail investors looking for the next DKNG this could easily 3x and maybe 5-6x if on DKNG-type hype levels.
There is currently little spotlight on this and it is a good time to get in at NAV
   
Potential Downside

• Ader has been vocal that he thinks US online betting is overvalued and in a bubble - why is he starting his own SPAC in the space then? Does he just want to cash in while the hype is at all-time high or does he have a legitimate business goal?
  
• If he just wants to dump a part of Playtech which he does not like onto retail investors, this is a bad deal.
  
• Other targets could be e.g. hotel industry or other leisure sector which would be zero sexiness to retail. Given Ashkenazi and Kaminkow's background this seems unlikely though
  
• Usual SPAC caveats apply about potential difficulty finding a target, locking up your money for unspecified period of time, and the fact I may have completely misread the potential and my above thesis might be totally wrong
  

Hey guys, this post is not intended to tell you what to do. I'm not a financial advisor. This isn't my day job. I am not even a day trader. I learned the difference between call and put options like 3 months ago. I don't trade options. I don't even know how yet, to be frank. I recently got an RH account to try to learn how and then this shit blew up. This post is viewable to the general public and is not "insider knowledge". Everything I am about to say, I have gleaned from PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE DATA. That Hedge funds and other people in the media, the government, and in the general public ALL have access to. This is MORE VISIBLE than even Facebook. Let alone a country club or private "dinner party". Just saying. I am a real person. I am not a bot. I am not trying to screw anyone over. I like the stock I am choosing to gamble my disposable income on and think it will be a good investment regardless of the action over the next few weeks. 💎🙌
I CAN earn it back if I have to. I didn't stake my entire savings. I don't advise people to gamble with money they don't have. Not for financial reasons, solely, but more for mental health reasons.
Bias disclosure: I currently have 1882 shares of AMC at an average price of 9.27$ and I occupied Wall Street for a bit after the financial crisis, mostly on reddit as I was in medical school at the time, and supported occupy the SEC. Please see my post history. It's all there in the top posts. I have nothing to hide as I know I am a valued member of our society, I pay my taxes, I treat mental illness, I follow the law, and I don't normally gamble. This is not about the money for me personally, it's about principle. It's my token of rememberance for the failed actions of our government to hold these types of people accountable for the great recession and the subprime mortgage crisis. Also, WSB just happened to stumble upon these criminal vulture firms, in the act of active company rape and decided to give them a licking. If you were interested in GME and were one of the people on the other side [IE at one of these firms] reading the discussion over at WSB should have been your job as a form of market research. If you missed the warning, it's not Reddit's fault. If you suck at your job, it's not Reddit's fault. I don't see how pinning them in that position was illegal. It wasn't planned, it wasn't private. It developed organically like a movement. It continues to grow. Silencing us will only make it louder. You need to level the playing field and regulate the markets. What they did to defend themselves was illegal. The manipulation of the market and the media was illegal. The restriction of buying was illegal. The algorithmic ladder attacks were illegal. Thus I will hold the line, as I HAVE been since Tuesday. It's been a wild ride and I'm tired of this shitshow. I want to get back to normal investing after this fiasco. It's much better for my sleep.
*So here goes my theoretical question. AGAIN, I AM NOT saying you SHOULD do this. What you do is your call. I am asking if this has been done before or if it even can be done. I'm a n00b. Educate me. I'm trying to learn how the arena works. Like how it really works.
If short ladders by algorithms are being used to artificially deflate the stock price. IE: tanking the price of AMC with low trade volumes that they simply pass amongst themselves. I think yesterday it was 5% buy and hold and 95% sell for AMC but each time with low volumes in a very predictable pattern. (Trey from the link below explained it very well several times better than me.)...
What prevents retail traders from spacing out their purchase orders to 1-10 shares at a time and holding. Wouldn't that be better than just impulse buying 100 shares because you want in and you like the stock? Would it do the same thing as short laddering but in converse? Just curious. Would like to hear your opinions.
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I've been watching this channel to learn about AMC action and markets in general and it has been super educational.
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*I am not investing in AMC to make a quick buck. I am not a day trader or a pump and dumper. I am doing this because I think AMC will not die from the pandemic, was artificially deflated by vulture hedge funds, almost to the point of bankruptcy, and will NOW be able to pivot into a better business model with fresher screens, Hollywood exclusive releases, fancier theaters, pent up demand, etc., with the new capital and public interest. People LIKE the MOVIES. I grew up in NJ and movie theaters were a HUGE part of my life and many of my most memorable moments occurred at the movies. They make me warm and fuzzy. They have a certain nostalgia for me personally and I like supporting local business when I can. [I know AMC was bought by China, but the staff are all local]. In my opinion GME has an antiquated business model bc I buy games on STEAM and online. AMC was only struggling because of COVID and I don't think that otherwise people would completely stop going to the movies. We Americans LOVE going to the movies. I love going to the movies. That's just my opinion. Don't hate on me for it. I think that the "real value" of AMC is AT LEAST about 10-20$ which is what they were at before 2020 and it wasn't even their peak value. Even if the real value is closer to 5$, according to the arguments of experts, that's just their fucking opinion. It's a different situation now and I don't agree. Is that my right to disagree with them and pick my own stocks? Or can I only bet on what Fox Business tells me to. Or Jim Cramer. As an individual investor, am I free in this country to spend my money how I want on the stock market, or am I not? Am I free to make my own choices about whether to buy a stock or not? At least I think I should be. If I am not, it will solidify my opinion [and the watching world's opinion] that "free market" capitalism is indeed a farce. It will highly depreciate the value of the American dream and my respect for our current government. Which I was Ecstatic about during Election Day. [Disclosure, Bernie/Liz Bro, who voted for Biden and abstained from voting in 2016 due to bitterness about the primaries. Damn you DWS, you know what you did.] We all know the hedge funds sure are free to buy as much stock as they want to. Apparently even to buy stock that doesn't exist. WTF is that? Glad I found out now. Even if I lost 8k by betting it will be 10$ in 2022 rather than 5$ isn't it my CHOICE when to sell? Am I not free to HOLD the damn stock if in my opinion, I'm willing to consider it a tax on sending a giant reddit shaped middle finger into space to these people that rape companies regardless of the consequences to local staff? These parasites who prefer profit to morality and decency? Who sold their souls in the search of...what?...private islands and yachts? Let THIS MOMENT be your Memento Mori, you soulless motherfuckers. If you have any of it left, now is your time to search for it. Your actions will leave behind a husk of an economy and earth if left unchecked. We the Reddit "Retards" stumbled upon our teeth. For the first time the MARKET BITES BACK AND WE ARE NOT LETTING GO. WE ARE MAKING A STAND. FUCK YOU. We all know that the American Citizens will end up footing the bill anyway in taxes when all those people start relying on the government for survival after you motherfuckers artificially drive their employer into bankrupcy. FUCK YOU. You're already taking my money and you know it. I pay 47% in taxes due to my income and living in NYC. FUCK YOU for evading them with offshore accounts you GREEDY FUCKS. I am willing to lose 8k to do that (send you a message) and to rapidly learn about what is going on to manipulate markets. It's also partially the cost of education in my calculus. I have learned more in one week riding this wave, than in 4 years of getting my Economics degree. Either way, my current buy in as at 9.27 so I will hold at least until I make my initial investment back. I am also disclosing that if the stock goes up to 30$ I will likely SELL enough shares to cover half of my position because I am not a degenerate gambler and have been holding the line since Tuesday and it has taken a toll on my sleep and my sanity. I know I might lose some money and this is a crazy roller coaster. I want to get out most of my investment ASAP and then ride the wave to then END with you all. IF it happens. I know it may not. I don't care. The message seems to have been sent. Seems like they received it. But we don't know who will be regulated and how yet. I am tired of this fight. I don't like it. I don't want to do it anymore. But I stayed in for the principle not the principal, and for the people just finding out about this now to still be able to make a choice about what to do before we release them from the HOLD. This is a constantly evolving situation. Will they censor the media from talking about stocks? Why target Reddit? Reddit is LIKE the media. It's not a private chat room. THESE WORDS CAN BE READ BY ANYONE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND WE ARE AWARE OF THIS. If it falls, and I lose my money, I don't think the government will come in and save me. I don't expect them to. I EXPECT them to let this play out and not SIDE with these assholes. It upsets me that they seem to have decided to save Vulture capitalists. Anyway, despite my fear of posting this question and the associated rant, I really want to know the answer. Has it been done before by Algorithms pushing stocks higher? Is it possible to make a crowdsourced one? Is it legal?
If this gets removed or censored in some way. You have your answer I guess.
facta non verba.
Thanks.
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****IMPORTANT ADDENDUM****: I want to add that I was quite revved up when I wrote this and have had some time to reflect. I want to stress that it is not my intention to lay blame or judge any individual person or organization for the current situation [Of stacked odds in the retail investor vs hedge fund battle]. Emotions run high in the stock market. I know this through experience now. I was angry when I wrote this post. [I am leaving it unedited for posterity and since whoever needed to see it already saw it so removing it would be pointless] This should not become a witch hunt or be personal. These guys and girls are people too. They work for a corporation. They earn a paycheck. They have friends, partners, and families too. I am a person. You, reader, are a person. Don't make this personal. They didn't invent algorithms and weren't the ones that necessarily wanted to take these short positions. The market calculus at the time, dictated that this was a good call for them, it wasn't. We accidentally stumbled upon it on WSB and shit-posted about it until it blew up and they were really in a bind. I understand their calculus to a degree, but I am a "smooth brained" "retard" when it comes to these things. I am learning fast though. I understand that certain companies are likely to fail and it is possible to make a profit off that. My moral views about it are irrelevant as the situation they're in dictates their actions, not my personal views about that. I understand that they're getting screwed at the moment and I'm sorry. I truly hope most of them do not get too damaged by this and have had time to change their positions. But I also believe in the American dream, and think that the people that were able to find a good position in the stock market [the retail investors] should be rewarded. I sincerely hope this doesn't trigger a massive systemic issue and we don't accidentally BREAK the stock market with this action on those stocks. It doesn't seem like that would happen, but again smooth brain here. WE NEED THE MARKET TO STAY ALIVE to have peace and stability in this country. Reddit crew, I beseech you, please understand that the individuals involved are also playing by the rules given to them by the market. The problem I personally have is that the rules are different for the retail investors vs. the big institutions. I don't have a problem with them as people. I don't want to destroy anything or any institutions. That was never my goal as an activist nor as an investor-activist and I can only speak about myself. I just hope they could find it in their hearts to try to understand our outrage and consider playing by the rules or at least letting us play by the same rules. We are attacking them and they don't like it. I get it. In either case, please understand that I am not vested too strongly in either outcome anymore. I am tired and want to return to my regular life and will not be on reddit for a while, nor will I be investing any more money into the stock market for a while... The whole thing has taken it's toll on me and I am going back to my regular life. This is not my war.
On the government's side, I also understand that their goal is to enforce the rules. I hope I'm not breaking any here and will remove my posts if I am. I am not trying to cause a revolution. This country has been through too much and we finally have a shot at beating COVID and have a competent administration that can guide us back on the right track. I truly believe that the people in charge now are decent people and will do good for this country. If Biden says no more diamond hands, I will listen to Biden. What I do further with my shares shall remain my business otherwise. I will no longer tell anyone what I am doing with my shares. I realize now that this is not always a good idea and should be done with tact and experience. I am not a financial advisor. But also, financial advice and being one is not a joke. I realize this now. MEMEing about stocks is like MEMEing about drinking bleach. People might listen to you and sacrifice their lives on a losing battle. Not everyone knows the stakes and not everyone knows what they're doing. Now that this is blowing up, people can get really hurt financially. Reddit, we could be putting people in danger. I see this now. So you all, too, reading this, PLEASE be careful. About investing and about what you say on social media. INVEST but INVEST RESPONSIBLY and not with money you can not bear to lose. I pledge that I will personally no longer post any inflammatory shit on Reddit. Because now I'm afraid that WE are suddenly some form of weird market makers and I don't have as many lawyers as the hedge funds. I am tapping out from posting any more about the current battle. I wish you all luck on both sides, truly. In the next round tomorrow.
Dear Government: If you want this to end, don't you have the power to delist these "Meme" companies and distribute the shares somehow? If not, the the system is truly stronger than our institutions. If you do this, please make sure people don't lose their life savings somehow. That would be nice. Then, please try to make sure this won't happen again and that the SEC actually regulates and prosecutes people so their calculus isn't that the fines are too low to justify following the rules. [Just my humble opinion as a smooth brain with limited experience of markets. Do what you think is best and I will obey the laws as an individual]. Sorry you might disagree hedge fund guys and girls, but I am entitle to my opinion in a free country. This is my platform. You can have CNN and Fox News. Sorry for saying something. I promise this is the end of it. But also, a lot of market makers on TV seem to assert that the market will self correct and I don't see how this should be a large risk for overall wealth. Who knows, none of us can predict the future. But I think if a bunch of Reddit "retards" get a couple hundred thousand bucks, it won't change the overall situation or necessarily be a net negative; and may in fact trigger a renaissance in this country. You'll still be the biggest fish, just in a more biodiverse pond. It may just create a new class of petite bourgeoise in this country. But it is not likely that if they win, it will cause something like the French Revolution. There will be losers and winners, but in the end, it will be a good story for Hollywood. [Hopefully played on an AMC screen in a post covid world] But what do I know, I'm a just another "retard" on reddit.
I hope that after this, you are all decent humans at the end and don't break any law on all sides. [Reddit, Retail investors, Government, Hedge fund investors, etc] I hope we don't break the market over this. If that is a true risk we need to make the market unbreakable or this WILL keep happening. If anyone is resentful about losing future gains on a good position so the government can fix the market, don't be a fucking greedy idiot and look at what we've achieved so far. This is already a big win for the small guy. And if our markets are vulnerable, the next winners will not be idiots on reddit. But will likely be our enemies from abroad. Not to name names. We will ALL benefit more from long term stability than short term gains. We MUST come together as a country so we can spend that money in the future for things. If we break the stock market, we will not be able to buy things with all that worthless money. But if the system isn't at risk, I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about. There have been countless bubbles before. Why weren't those regulated as much. Maybe they were and I'm an ignorant smooth brain. In any case, I hope that we can stop fighting over carcasses for greed. This was always about making the rules of the casino fair for me, personally. It's not life or death. I'm not an extremist or an ideologue. It's not about burning down the casino. I hope that the government will intervene if they think it is going to short circuit the whole thing and that people reading this gamble responsibly.
This will be my last post about this as I have a life to live.
-Tememachine OUT.
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EDIT 2: Now they're making fun of the movement. Fuck Wall Street. I hope they get what's coming to them one day. [In terms of regulation and prison sentences] I'm still out of this war. But seriously. Fuck them.

EDIT: Realized I forgot to add a TLDR so here goes nothing lol:
Buy a mansion and have AI run your MC businesses, CEO businesses, and Bunker. Start a crew of AI and start building yourself up as a kingpin. Then, buy a customizable private island and start a cartel. Open up massive labs and add entertainment for tourists, if you so desire. Compete against AI-run cartels for control of major cities in the GTA universe (Even ones that aren't accessible in GTA online). Become allies with other cartels or enemies. Topple other cartels and take control of their assets. (Islands, territory, production, etc.) Go head to head with the government like Pablo Escobar did or stay more lowkey like the Cali Cartel.
Now I want to preface this by saying I have no insider information whatsoever. This is literally just what I’d like to see going forward in this game.
So moving forward after the Cayo Perico heist (which is the best money maker in the game by far) I’m not really sure where there is to go for Rockstar. I highly doubt they want to make something that pays even better than this because of shark card sales. So from here, I think they could head in a slightly different direction than heists with every other update.
-The Mansion Update: The apartments in-game are borderline useless for everything but the garage. You can do the original heists but that’s about it, unfortunately. I’d love to see mansions added into the game with the highest-end one being something like 20 million and the lowest end being say 5 million. From the mansion, you can get a central area to control all your businesses. Maybe you can get a massive garage with this. (A 40-60 car garage like the CEO office) Beyond this, you can start a crew and have them work under you as dealers for your various businesses (MC, Bunker, Nightclub, Vehicle warehouse, and Crates). You have to pay the dealers say 10-20 grand a day but they manage your business and sell them for you and pay you the money. You can also give them secondary tasks like going to collect money from your businesses, etc.
Now the big update
-The Cartel Update: Owning the mansion will be a precursor to all this content. With this update, you would be able to buy your own private island. My thought is it would be extremely expensive. Starting at around 30 million and going up to say 80-100 million. With this update, you can take the crew that you had with your mansions and expand it to become your own cartel. All of your businesses would run through this. Bunker, MC, CEO, and any others you may have. You’ll have bigger and better labs and warehouses on this island than you do in LS but you’ll still own the ones in LS. You can hire hitmen and enforcers or even hire old characters from prior DLC’s as these roles. (Vincent, for example) You’ll be able to employ drug dealers such as the Madrazo’s and new ones too. They employ dealers and move your product. They get a percentage based on how good they are. Eventually, they’ll be able to move all the products you can produce across all businesses. For example, the Madrazo’s could be good at moving your drugs but then not be very good at moving your weapons and vice versa with a new character. You’ll be able to choose which dealer moves which product. You can get your products and shipments seized and again that will depend on the quality of dealers you employ.
The Island itself will be originally blank except for a small airport. It will cost money to build labs and bunkers for your island but they will be worth it. They will be much bigger and able to store way more product and completely AI-controlled and maintained. You’ll start out with a smaller house on one side of the island that you can designate as your residency space. You can build guard towers and security checkpoints which will help boost the morale of your employees as well as keep your island safer from enemy cartels and the government. You can build entertainment spaces like a casino and nightclub or even a nightclub if you want to have tourists come to your island. This will be a security risk, of course, but will bring in money for you. You’ll be able to build garages below your home on the island and store whatever cars there that you want. You would be able to build yourself a race track if you wanted to. If you run out of room on your island you’ll be able to upgrade your island to a bigger one with a slightly different layout. It certainly would not be cheap but you’d have more space. Once you run out of space on the biggest island that’s as big as your cartel will be able to get until you topple other cartels and take control of their operations.
Now the big part of this DLC would be the AI-controlled cartels and government. We have one cartel in the game now to some extent (El Rubio) and you’ll be able to interact with these cartels. You’ll be able to choose what to say to them and how you handle business. If you choose to be offensive towards them and take over their territory they won’t like that which will start beef between you and them. You can have wars and, if you play your cards right, topple the cartel and take its resources and territory. You can also ally with other cartels and use each other’s routes and just generally help each other out.
If you topple another cartel (AI-controlled) you take control of their resources such as their island, territory, and supply lines. You can annoy other cartels if you wish by selling in their territory, robbing them (Cayo Perico heist), and killing their soldiers. This will make them less trusting of you if you do it obviously but if you’re careful they’ll be less trusting of everyone. Including any allies they have and this can be used to weaken them and hopefully topple them. The goal would be to become the biggest drug lord in the world which would probably mean toppling other big cartels. Play your cards right and these cartel leaders will have their guards lower around you and your cartel and you can make a move against them and kill them and topple the cartel swiftly. Of course, none of your allies would trust you anymore but you would have toppled a cartel and given yourself more control. The territory would be split up with you selling in LS and other cartels arguing over Vice City, Liberty City, Las Venturas, San Fierro, London, Capital City, etc. These areas would not be able to be traveled to but you would be able to see which cartel controls which cities and the cities population and a few other stats. Any cities added in future games that came to GTA online as free-roam areas would be added to that list, of course.
You can be a high profile drug lord like El Chapo and Pablo Escobar or you could be more low profile like the Cali Cartel. These are the two extremes but you can always fall somewhere in the middle. You can raise your public opinion meter by giving out money, building apartment buildings, parks, etc. With this update, there would be elections introduced. Only for President and maybe one or two other government roles but they can be elected and they’ll have different stances on issues that directly affect you. One can be hard on the cartels or another can be more lenient and open to working with them. If you want to go the low profile route you can try and rig the election in favor of the candidates you want to win. Of course, this won’t always work but you can always try. If you go the high profile route you can just assassinate (or attempt to, depending on how good your hitmen are) the candidate you want to lose. You’ll also have a meter of popularity and at each point the citizens of the country will either love you or they’ll hate you. The higher your popularity the easier it is to conduct business, higher prices for your products and if the government ever decides to launch a manhunt against you the citizens won’t help the government catch you. This will be seen as you’ll be able to move around LS and any other new cities freely and all you have to do is just stay away from police stations as much as possible. If you commit a crime or are seen near the police station you’ll instantly get a 5 star wanted level that you can’t cancel using Lester. If you use a CEO ability or any of your cartel abilities to try and bribe the police it’ll only take it from a 5 star to a 4 star. If your relationship with the public is bad it will be much harder to move around the city. There’ll be police checkpoints near any businesses, homes, or offices you have. You will be able to get around them but it won’t be easy. On your island, you’ll be completely safe and won’t have to worry about getting wanted. Of course, there will be a limit to how much stuff you can do before the government steps in, in a much bigger way. If your cartel kills too many politicians, cops, or other government officials the manhunt will become much larger and more intense. By this point, the relationship you have with the people will be essentially down the drain so everything with the low relationship will apply in this situation.
If your relationship is this bad you will essentially be staying on your island and away from the mainland because it won’t be safe for you. But periodically, the government will send the military to your island to try and take you out. You and the crew you employ as island security will have to hold off the military and at least attempt to kill them all. It won’t be easy but it will be possible. If you’re allied with any AI cartels they will send reinforcements to help you. This will happen for two weeks straight every two days unless you raise the meter with the citizens. After these two weeks of hell, the manhunt will reset back to just the low punishments and your island will be safe again. If you get killed by the military you will lose a lot and respawn in Bolingbroke with some of your crew coming to break you out. This will be a tough fight but it will be scripted like a heist mission and if you die then it will restart. After you’re outside the prison you’ll need to lose the cops, no help from Lester or CEO/Cartel abilities either since you won’t have a way to contact them just yet. After you lose them you will need to escape to a warehouse of yours that isn’t known by the police. (Facility or new underground safehouses) until you decide to make a break for it and try to get back to your private Island. Once back, most of your workers will be in jail or dead so you’ll have to hire new ones. Your lead enforcers and hitmen won’t be killed but will be in jail so you can decide during your escape whether you want to attempt to break them out too. If you choose no, you’ll have to hire a crew of players to break them out. You’ll pay something like 1 million per player and the players will have to break them out. To sum up the price of getting caught it will probably cost you somewhere in the region of 30 million dollars of lost product and workers on the low end and around 75 million on the high end.
Your cartel will bring in lots of money for you. Somewhere around 5-10 million per week on the low end and 30 million at the high end. You will NOT compete with other players, only against AI cartels. Elections will be for you and you alone, not other players.
As you can see this will be an endgame thing primarily based on the amount of money the buy-in would be. For the first update, it will be mainly vehicles that the people without a ton of money can buy but if you have a high-end apartment you’ll be able to become a kingpin for an AI-controlled cartel. It’ll be something to get your foot in the door and build some infrastructure for yourself. The pay won’t be amazing as you won’t be able to build that big of a crew but it will be something. Probably 50-100 thousand every GTA day. Eventually, the players will (ideally) save up money to buy the mansions which will mean you can employ more people and go higher up in the food chain with the AI cartel you chose. Eventually, once you get enough money to buy the private island you can split off from the AI cartel and start your own. You’ll be able to bring the infrastructure you built up under the AI cartel to your new cartel. The AI cartel will not like this for obvious reasons and this will set off a lot of beef and wars between your cartel and the AI cartel.

hat’s happening on Wall Street?
Investors have been rushing into the nearly bankrupt strip mall video game retailer GameStop faster than shoppers hoping to score a PlayStation5 at a Black Friday door-crashers sale. Suddenly, the company is valued more than big box tech behemoth Best Buy. Its shares are trading at a volume surpassing even the biggest stock of them all, Apple.
If you think it’s because GameStop suddenly re-invented the video game wheel, the answer is no. In fact, other than the hiring of a new CEO, not much at the company has changed since last year when a share of GameStop stock could be had for as little as $5. But at their peak (as of this writing) on the morning of Thursday, Jan. 28, the company’s shares hit $500 in premarket trading. Cumulatively, GameStop stock has skyrocketed 1,200% in the recent period.
With game enthusiasts embracing streaming subscriptions and turning away from plastic cartridges, many analysts have been predicting GameStop will soon be going the way of Blockbuster—another modern incarnation of video killing the radio star. So if GameStop did little, if anything, to turn around its sagging fortunes, why are its shares in such high demand?
The only thing that changed is that Wall Street powerhouse hedge funds and short-sellers have lost their monopoly on gaming the stock market casino.
The meteoric rise in GameStop shares—and to a lesser extent those of other troubled companies, like Bed Bath & Beyond, Blackberry, movie house AMC, and even candy maker Tootsie Roll—is being driven by the actions of a group of what the Wall Street professionals call dangerous amateurs.
Coordinating with each other on a section of the online platform Reddit called WallStreetBets, a huge number of relatively small-time investors (around 2.2 million of them by the most recent count) have teamed up to take on the big guys in a battle that has all the trappings of a Robin Hood tale.
The “short” in a nutshell
To understand the game plan of the WallStreetBets crowd, it’s necessary to know some of the lingo of Wall Street gambling—especially the concept of the “short.”
A short is when an investor essentially “borrows” a company’s stock from a broker. The investor then takes that borrowed stock and sells it on the market. The hope of the “short seller” is that the value of that company’s stock will drop before they are due to return their borrowed shares, allowing them to re-buy the stock at a cheaper price and return it to the broker—pocketing the difference as a profit.
In essence, they are placing a bet against a company’s future. They believe the company is worth less than the market is valuing it at, and when that reality sets in among others, then they will get to cash in on their foresight.
As an example, a short-seller may borrow a share of Company A and sell it for the current market price of $100. They do so because they believe Company A isn’t really worth $100 per share and eventually the price will drop. If they are right, and the price of Company A shares sink to $60, then the short-seller will re-buy the share at the new price and return it to the broker (called “covering the short”). The $40 difference is their profit.
If they are wrong, however, and Company A’s shares go up, then they will lose out on their bad bet. Let’s say that Company A shares go from $100 to $120. When the short-seller’s stock loan comes due, they have to buy a share at whatever the current price is and return it to the broker. Their loss in this case would be $20. But what if the price of Company A shares go even higher, to $150, $200, or $500?
In a regular stock transaction, when a person actually buys a share (as opposed to borrowing it like a short-seller does), their potential loss is capped at whatever they paid. You can’t lose more than you put in. But for a short-seller, the potential loss is actually endless. When the due date comes for their borrowed shares, they have to pay whatever it takes to cover their short.
Gambling against GameStop
Now, back to the real world and the GameStop situation.
A number of weeks ago, the “amateur” investors on WallStreetBets started focusing their attention on the huge hedge funds with massive short bets against GameStop. They targeted outfits like Melvin Capital and Citron Research that had taken short positions in GameStop and then spent months talking about how bad the company was (an intentional effort to drive down its share price).
The gambling against GameStop had gotten so extreme that there were over 71 million borrowed short shares out there, even though the company has only 69 million shares—short-sellers were “borrowing” stock that didn’t even exist! These Wall Street titans became the villains for the Reddit Robin Hoods. (Appropriately, Robinhood is the name of a popular trading app used by many of the so-called untraditional investors.)
WallStreetBets members fantasized about how great it would be to make these short-sellers scream by driving up the price of GameStop. Some believed that GameStop really had a chance to turn around and was being unfairly punished by the short-sellers; for others, it was simply the joy that would come from sticking it to the hedge funds.
They’d done it before, on a smaller scale, with other shorted companies. If they got together again and acted in unison with their dollars, they could inflict some real pain on Melvin and Citron.
Putting the squeeze on the short sellers
Within days, WallStreetBets (and others who followed in their wake) engineered what’s called a “short squeeze”—an escalation of a company’s share price that forces short-sellers to buy at an inflated value. Panicked traders at Melvin, Citron, and other big short-sellers reacted exactly as predicted: They scrambled to cover their shorts, knowing that the longer they waited, the more they risked losing.
By the middle of this week, the short-sellers were surrendering. Citron’s managing partner Andrew Left admitted the company had to cover its short Tuesday afternoon at “a loss of 100%.” As for Melvin Capital, it was only kept afloat by an injection of $2.75 billion in funds from other asset management firms. Data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners shows that GameStop short-sellers have collectively lost more than $5 billion in the month of January alone.
The masters of finance on Wall Street are, to put it mildly, pissed. This is a crowd that has enjoyed pretty much unrestrained power for decades, dodging the efforts of governments and activists to rein them in. To be outmaneuvered by a bunch of millennials on the internet has them seeing red—both literally and metaphorically.
Traditional stock market analysts and financial commentators are musing about whether the coordinated moves of WallStreetBets are illegal. Many are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to chase down what they’re characterizing as a “pump and dump” scheme. They are crying out for help from the same regulators they themselves spend all their time avoiding and undermining.
These are the guys who brought us the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the Great Recession. They’re the ones who have made billions of dollars off the pandemic in the past year while the rest of the country lost their jobs and homes—or died from coronavirus. Whatever losses they’re experiencing now are certainly well-deserved.
That makes it very tempting to cheer on the WallStreetBets crusaders. Richard Smith, a market behavior analyst at the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, described their role to Markets Insider: “You have these media-driven platforms where the media isn’t controlled by the institutions in the way that it has historically been.” He characterized this as “a sign that the institutions are losing control.”
Heroes or same-old capitalists?
But WallStreetBets is not necessarily a den of folk heroes or investors driven by some social conscience. Some are saying they plan to make charitable donations with some of their winnings, but other forum members are simply bragging about all the money they’ve made from outsmarting the old Wall Street. One of the key ringleaders of the short squeeze effort, someone who goes by the username DeepFuckValue, claims to have turned a $50,000 GameStop investment into $20 million amidst the chaos.
Undoubtedly some of the more talented among the WallStreetBets crowd will be recruited to join the ranks of top firms—rebels eventually co-opted by the system. Others will get too caught up in the euphoria and eventually lose all their money when the bubble bursts. And let’s face it, this is capitalism—the bubble always bursts.
It’s also necessary to remember that the most powerful segments of finance capital usually find a way to shift the price for their gambling onto the rest of society by one means or another (remember the bailouts for the “too big to fail” banks?). It would be delusional to think that Wall Street isn’t making moves to offload its losses and go on the offensive.
The empire of high finance is already striking back. By Wednesday evening, the WallStreetBets forum on Reddit had gone dark, for reasons not yet clear. The WallStreetBets server on Discord was shut down. On Thursday morning, brokers started implementing restrictions on GameStop trades, raising expectations that more action will be taken by the establishment to regain control.
Taking note of the fact that trades in GameStop, AMC, and other shorted stocks were now blocked on the Robinhood platform, one Twitter user observed, appropriately, “The free market is only free until rich people lose money.”
Wall Street’s control over our society won’t be meaningfully challenged by simply replacing one group of gamblers with a different, younger group of gamblers. It wasn’t the robbers like Bonnie and Clyde that beat the banks and fought back against the Great Depression in the 1930s—it was the coalition of labor, African-American, and other people’s movements that won the New Deal and put capitalism on notice.
Now, as then, only organized political struggle by the working class and democratic movements has the potential to upend the power of finance capital for good and allow us to collectively decide our future.
So we can enjoy a laugh at the misfortunes of the hedge funds and short-sellers, but then we have to keep organizing.
Socialist_

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