When I turned 18, there was a casino about 2 hours away on a reservation that I could get into. We'd get paid on Friday night, head to the gas station near us that would cash a paycheck, pile into my crappy little Ford, then make the drive. We'd get there a little before midnight and everyone had their own game.
The second time we went, one of my friends was hypnotized by the craps table. There were 16 players standing around this sea of green, and every minute or so, you could hear them screaming at the top of their lungs like they just won a million dollars. On the way home that night, I taught him everything I learned from books I'd read about the different bets. "Smart" bets where the house edge was only 1.4%, all the way down to the risky ones where the house edge was over 10% (meaning that for every $100 wagered, you should expect to lose $10).
The next time we went, we hung around the table, trying to figure out the right way to bet. It seemed a little complicated, so we tried other games. At the end of the night, I had the last $10 and he asked if he could borrow it to go place a bet. I handed it over, then went to the bathroom in preparation for the ride home. When I finally found him again, he had a stack of chips in front of him. He had been gone for about 5 minutes and already turned $10 into a few hundred. Well, if you can turn 10 into 100, you can turn 100 into 1,000 just as easily. We left empty handed that night, but I'll never forget the rush.
I loved blackjack. I learned how to play at an early age from my uncle, who would always cheat and take my money. He'd say "I just taught you a very valuable lesson." He actually taught me two: 1) if you play against a casino, you may have a good night and win thousands of dollars, but if you keep going back, you'll eventually have nothing left. 2) My uncle was a scumbag who continually cheated and took my money, then told the family I was a poor sport and they couldn't understand why I hated doing anything with him. One of my earliest memories at the casino was running $100 at the blackjack table into $3000, which is more than I made in a month of bussing tables. I went home, paid my rent and blew the rest on useless things I can't even remember.
What does any of this have to do with $GME? Well I'm still chasing the same high as I was when I was 18. I don't go to the casino anymore, but I've got something even better on my computer. I bought $2k worth of weeklies on Jan 25. Before everything crashed, they were worth over $100k, more than enough to fix most of the problems I've caused in my life. BUT, I was still standing around that craps table. The roller had just made his 30th point in a row, $GME was on fire and couldn't possibly roll a 7! I put my 2k back in my pocket and shoved the rest on the pass line. A few minutes later, the croupier inevitably yells "7 out!" and just like that, I'm back to nothing.
Now I do what every moron around the table does. You reach back into your pocket, pull out the 2k and make a deal with your maker. "Just let it happen one more time. I won't be greedy THIS time and I'll stop when I hit 50k." I stop looking at the smart bets and start eyeing the center of the table, where hard ways are paying 10:1. Yeah, that'll be how I get back to 50k. A couple of those in a row and I can put a down payment on a house. 5 minutes later, I'm on my way out to the car and I feel like I've been punched in the gut. Again.
Every one of you in this subreddit is another person sitting at the casino. Everyone has their game. The people holding $GME stonks right now? You're playing baccarat. If you've never heard of it, it's what James Bond plays in the old movies. It's about the most boring thing you can do. Two hands are dealt and you're betting on which one wins before anything happens. There's no actual skill and it's the same thing as betting heads or tails, while losing 1% of your bet every time.
The people who cashed out and picked something else like $AMC or $BB? Those are the slot players. You had a big hit and now you're going to switch machines because the other ones are "due". You're looking for the exact same magic, thinking there was something smart in your play, when it was really just dumb luck in timing.
The people saying "If Daddy Elon or Cowboy Cuban gets in, we can trigger a squeeze!" You're the guy who spent too much money in the first 20 minutes of the trip and now you're begging everyone else for a loan.
Tldr: Nothing is happening with $GME. Stop saying "tomorrow is the day." Billionaires are not coming to bail you out. If institutional investors come in, they're waiting for this constant downhill slide to end at where the stock belongs, probably around $20. You can't trigger shit by holding. The HFs will outlast you.
Edit: Screenshots from the worst 40 minutes of my financial life https://imgur.com/a/MlTRJmx
Edit 2: JFC, some of you are takin WSB way too seriously. You should not be using reddit for DD. Also, this is not financial advice. Don't take financial advice from someone who tells you stories about chasing highs at casinos.
Edit 3: This is WSB, my dudes. I'm glad most of you were entertained by my story. For the few of you who got that worked up by a random stranger on the internet telling you that he's a degenerate, you may actually have a problem. https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/

Good poker cities with low cost of living

Miami Neighborhoods Explained

Inside the mind of a hedge fund executive...

Imagine you’re a hedge fund CEO or senior executive.
You’ve always had an inflated ego, and going to Wharton for an MBA definitely didn’t help in that regard. You interned at GS for the summer of 2003 and told all your friends about it, probably even brought it up oh so casually on dates. When you were hired as a trader by a moderately good to great fund, you probably lost a good deal of friends from your previous life, because they “just don’t get you now.” You’re in a different league than them, even your classmates that now work at lesser funds. You act friendly, liking Facebook posts, returning their calls, but there’s a nagging feeling that they’re holding you back. That you’ve made it, and you don’t need some loser that doesn’t even work on the East Coast.
Jump ahead a few years
It’s September 20th, 2008. Bear Stearns closed months earlier, Lehman went bankrupt a few days ago. "Buddies" of yours from both funds have been texting you, some you know from college. Maybe you’ll take pity on them and put in a good word, maybe you’ll tell them nothing’s available right now and that you’re sorry. You don’t tell them you were part of your fund's effort to short sell theirs into oblivion. Maybe you really are sorry though. What you’re more sorry about, however, is that your bonuses are probably going to be shit for a few years. They could even dip into five figures, god forbid. Your thoughts are of course directed to the millions of people losing their jobs across the country by the news, but inevitably your bonus reduction resurfaces as your biggest concern. “It’s not like I can do anything,” you say, after downing some wine. You go to sleep fairly easily, while across the country, innumerable people are forced to contemplate moving.
Let’s jump ahead a few more years
It’s mid-March, 2020. At this point, its become evident that COVID-19 is going to ravage the world, in some capacity (not gonna put politics into this because that’s not the point). As either a CEO or senior executive at a mid-range hedge fund, your thoughts gravitate towards your craft. It’s clear the market is going to tank, so you do what you do best. You short the shit out of several clearly sinking industries (https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/investing/short-sellers-market-coronavirus/index.html). But you don't stop there. You go on CNBC, Fox Business, maybe even the BBC, and announce doom and gloom. Doing this will get people to dump their stocks, meaning your shorts print even more money. Oh well, if there’s a positive to be gained from this whole thing it’s your fund making good money, right? By late March or early April, your wife convinces you that going with the kids to the Hampton’s would be the best choice, since the upper east side is getting a little claustrophobic. You’ll need to cancel your two week St. Barts vacation, what a bummer. You rent out a nice beach house in Sag Harbor for 125k a month, managing to beat out the other bidder by upping them by 10k. Once again, millions of people are losing their jobs, and you’re shorting the companies they work for. What else should you do?
Only a few months forward this time
It’s October. Weeks turned into months, and while you’ve started getting back to the city more and more, you’re still staying in Sag. Sometimes you have family friends over for an ostensibly socially distanced wine + cigar. You don’t think much of the events of the summer, aside from that one tweet you had PR send out in July. Your kids might have thoughts, you haven’t asked.
Just a few more months, I promise
It’s January. For really no other reason than the prospect of making more money, you along with a few other funds have decided to open naked shorts on GameStop. While technically not allowed, there are loopholes. Why would the loopholes be there, if not to be exploited, right? Not like you don’t do the same thing with your taxes.
Then, the unthinkable happens
A bunch of retail investors, led by a specific part of Reddit, decide to fuck your position by dramatically raising the share price. Since you firmly believe these people incapable of sticking to such an audacious play, you do nothing. Before long though, you start to become slightly unnerved by how steady the growth of the stock is. It's approaching $100, and you're losing hundreds of thousands to millions every day on short interest. So, you decide to take action. You get on CNBC, and cry about fundamentals. About volatility crushing these people. They don't listen, and keep buying. A week passes with you and your rich friends trying various strategies, none of it working. You're aware of another fund leaning on a popular trading app to force them into not accepting buy orders for GME, amongst others. You're not above sacrificing pride for money, so you announce your fund has closed its shorts. You're lying, of course. What kind of looks what you get at future parties if you cowed to these people? No, fuck that. You've read all the right books, been to the right schools, made the right friends, networked at the right parties and functions. You will not close, everything in your life has conditioned you not to. In fact, you'll double down. You go on CNBC some more. Artificially lower the stock price by trading between a few other funds. None of it's working, and you're intensely aware of another potential gamma squeeze on Friday. Restrictions on buying help during the day, but after hours, the stock jumps. That momentum carries it into a solid Friday. You won't budge, but at this point you're losing millions of dollars a day.
So, here we are
These people do not care about you. You're the least of their concerns, actually. They care about money and fund image, in that order. We have a real chance to make guys exactly like this hurt where it counts (for them), and I want people to understand that. I'm not saying throw your rent into GME. I'm saying you have the chance to really be a part of something, to screw the people that have been doing the screwing for your whole life. The house has been running a fixed casino, and you have the chance to hit back.
Do not close. We have them, and they know it. We're winning, and if we keep winning they will give in.

Las Vegas Tops U.S. in Rise of Apartment Tenants Not Paying Rent

Before you spend money on this game, consider this.

I've been seeing a lot of posts where people are upset or complaining that they didn't get anything after spending "x" amount of money.
I just want to put my two cents in there since this is how I look at the game. Before spending any money on primogems, consider these things:

"If I get this character with $x, is it even worth $x?"

You're essentially paying to play with a character. Except in this case, paying for a chance to play with that character. What about the people who have spent thousands on this game? After getting Diluc or Mona for $3,000, was it worth it?
Think of all the things you could buy with that money. A Nintendo Switch costs $300. A game costs up to $60, and you know what you're getting. Rent money is $1,000-$3,000. The list goes on.

You're never guaranteed anything.

The ONLY exception to this is pity rolls. The maximum you'd need to spend is 28,800 primogems (around $400+) to guarantee getting the featured character on the banner. This is assuming that you didn't get any 5-stars before hitting the pity the first time, your first pity wasn't the featured character, and you hit the pity a second time to guarantee them.
Is any single character worth $400?
Other than the featured character, it can be REALLY difficult to pull any other character. You want Diluc? If you roll on the featured banner, its 50% chance you'll get the featured character. That means 50% chance you'll get a different 5-star. Since there are five 5-stars at this moment (not counting the featured), you have a 1/10 chance of pulling Diluc when you get a 5-star from this banner. On top of that, it's a 0.6% chance that you'll even pull a 5-star to begin with. As for the standard banner? The chance is even smaller with all the weapons thrown in.
To those complaining that they spent $100, $500, $1000 and didn't get what they wanted, you were never guaranteed it to begin with. It's all RNG, you aren't owed anything because you spent money on the game.

There will always be a new character that you'll want.

So you spent $400 on getting Venti. You needed him, he's your favorite character right? Of course you had to spend for him, he's the best character you've ever seen and you couldn't enjoy this game without him.
A few months later, a new character is released and you're in awe. Their skills...their looks....their element...you NEED them.
Well, that's another $400 you'd have to shill out to guarantee them. What's that? You only want to use them if you have their first constellation? Well better get that credit card out again, looks like you'll need to pull some dupes.
This is a never-ending cycle. I've run into this feeling countless times in video games. The new shiny thing will always be tempting you.
Not to mention power creep. New characters are often made to be better than older ones. As the game progresses, people who don't have newer characters are often at a disadvantage (mainly with DPS). In a gacha game like Genshin, it would be very expensive to keep up with this if power creep occurs within this game in the future. It's best to make the most of what you have.

Gacha = Gambling

When you go to a casino, do you walk in expecting to win millions? The odds are never in your favor when gambling. Rates are low for a reason. If everyone could spend $50 and get the exact characters they wanted every time, Miyoho wouldn't be making as much money as they are.
Gacha games have always been about gambling for characters. As stated previously, you're neverarely guaranteed anything, and by the time you've gotten what you wanted (unless extremely lucky), the company has already gotten what they wanted.

Don't be blinded by sunk-cost.

Sunk-cost is the idea that you've already put so much into something, and it'll go to waste unless you continue putting resources into it to get it. Do not be blinded by this when doing gachas.
Say you spent $100 and didn't get Qiqi. You've already put so much into the game, and not getting her would mean your money went to waste right? What if it would take another $1,000 to get her. Would that be worth it? It's best to cut your losses and walk away. Thinking about the sunk cost of something is what gives many people difficulty walking away, and causes them to over-spend.

Your party has limited space.

Yes, I know abyss is the exception. But overall the majority of the game only allows 4 characters at a time. You can't play with them all. It feels real bad to put a character you spent a lot of money on aside because they don't fit your current comp anymore.
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This comes from someone who is largely free-to-play in games like this. The only gacha game I've ever spent money on was Love Live a few years ago. I spent $125 and never got a single ultra-rare with my pulls. From that I realized what I was doing. Even if I could afford putting $30 per 10-pull, was the card I was going to get really worth that? No.
I learned from that experience and see gacha games for what they are.

Glorified gambling.

PS: If you are aware of all this and still want to spend $$/disposable income on primogems, by all means go ahead. But for many people it's easy to lose sight of what they're really paying for. I hope this is helpful in some way.
Feel free to disagree with any of this, but this is my perspective on the game and I get really sad seeing so many posts on the subreddit about how depressed people are after spending and not getting anything, and feeling entitled to it.
TL;DR: It's easy to sink lots of money into this game if you don't recognize you're gambling and never guaranteed anything. This is a warning post, not a criticism of anyone.

EDIT: As reddit user u/zapzya summarized: "...not everyone actually has the financial stability to invest in such a product, yet will do so anyway because they are not particularly knowledgeable in gambling mechanics or because shady tactics like the currency change ($$ genesis crystals primogems fates) actually work."

More realistic money situations!

Ok, so there's a lot on my mind here and I'll try to break it down as clearly as possible. (Also I'm sorry if any of this has been mentioned before and I haven't seen it). As psychotic as it sounds, I think it would be really cool to have your Paralives be really influenced by money. Money is a HUGE factor in real life, so I think it should be a major point in a life simulation game. Some of these ideas might be lame or too intricate for some players, but I think they'd be SO COOL if they were included. (Maybe there could be setting options to turn some of these on/off too)
Starting Funds What if each family started out with a DIFFERENT starting fund? In The Sims, it's kind of based on how many people are in the family, but every family is pretty much the same. What if there were some questions you could answer in the create-a-family section that determines how much money you start out with? Like whether the parents already have college degrees/stable careers, if they have debt, if they have other things that would influence their monthly payments, etc. So maybe there could be a way to start out with a certain NET WORTH rather than a set amount of funds. Maybe your family was born rich, or born poor, or just middle of the road.
Emergencies It's a life simulation game. Emergencies happen! Maybe there could be car accidents, little Timmy fell off the jungle gym and broke his arm, Mom got food poisoning from the evil Karen at the parent/teacher conference, Grandpa had a heart attack. There could be a popup that gives you the option to go to the hospital, the doctor, an urgent care, or just deal with it at home. Each option would result in a different bill you receive and have to pay. And depending on the severity of the emergency, it could go really well...or really bad for your Para. (But I think you could also have the option to change your mind if you wanted to go to the hospital rather than sleeping it off.)
Maybe every action could have a behind-the-scenes percentage of whether or not an accident could happen with it or not. (Similar to if your Sim catches food on fire, or if your Sim gets pregnant after trying for a baby, etc.)
You could also choose a home birth or a hospital delivery, depending on if you want the bill or not.
Health Insurance
You could choose whether or not to have health insurance. You could choose whether you want to have a percentage taken out of your paycheck for it or not. If you want all of your family members covered on the plan and what types of things would be covered on your plan (health, vision, dental, etc.) and depending on the plan and how much percentage is taken out of your check, this could have a direct impact on the amount of the bill you receive (maybe you only pay 20%, or maybe it's fully covered, etc.).
I do realize this is a very American thing, so I get it if it doesn't go over very well in other countries and wouldn't be included lol. Maybe there could be a settings feature to turn this off or on?
Weddings/Marriage/Divorce Depending on the size of your wedding, you could end up with a huge bill, or make a profit! You could set a budget for your wedding and each little factor could change the total cost of the wedding. You could do it DIY and make specific changes to everything. In real life, there are also wedding venues (or wedding planners) that take care of everything and just tell you the total price. Both of these options could be good for players who want total control over the details or just have it done for them. Then, depending on the number of guests (or how rich/poor the guests are), they could give you really NICE gifts/cash or not-so-great gifts/no cash. Maybe you could also opt to have a giftless wedding or a cash-only wedding.
You could also marry a rich Para and get rich quickly that way. Or you could marry a poor Sim and acquire their debts, bringing down your net worth.
You could also have a very nice and clean divorce or an ugly one that requires lawyers. Depending on how the divorce goes, (maybe one Para wants the divorce and the other doesn't??) you may have to spend more on a lawyer, or they could both agree and it could be free of cost.
Child Support/Alimony In continuation of the divorce bit... If you have assets together, you may need to hire a lawyer to mitigate alimony and/or child support. Depending on the assets/children/etc., you may have to pay the other Para a certain amount, you may receive payments, or it may be an even split and neither party owes anything. There could also be an option to go lawyer-less and just work it out with the other Para (if they are willing, of course...)
Lotteries/Casinos I know in The Sims, there's Lottery Day (I think it comes with Seasons?) where you can buy a lottery ticket for $100 and you may or may not win. I think this could be fun if it were an option all the time! And there could be different types of lotteries you could win and different types of prizes. Maybe some tickets could be a MILLION dollars and you have a 1% chance of winning. Maybe it's a scratch-off ticket that you could win $10,000 on and you have a 4% chance of winning. Maybe it's a car, movie tickets, etc. It doesn't just have to be cash. This could be demonstrated as a popup, or they could go to a gas station to buy tickets.
There could also be casinos you could go to and have the same types of winning chances. Just a thought there :)

Addictions? This could be triggering, so maybe there could be a settings option to turn this off or on. Not necessarily drug or alcohol addictions (although, maybe there could be references, kind of like how The Sims uses juice to represent alcohol, etc.), but maybe there could be things that the Paras can get addicted to and they could either indulge in their addictions or spend money to get help for it. It could be things like the aforementioned lottery tickets/casinos, maybe addicted to a certain type of food (grilled cheese aspiration anyone??), maybe they have a video game addiction, etc.
To bring this point back to money - some addictions may cost more than others. Like if they ONLY like the highest priced food items, or they're spending a lot on lottery tickets, etc. They could go to rehab to cure them of their addictions.

Utilities You could choose different companies to go through for your different utilities and choose whether you want them or not. Power, Water, Sewer, Trash, Internet, Phone, etc. Maybe some companies bundle plans together and you get a discount. And depending on the company, you may have really good service or really bad service. You could choose to move between phone companies/internet companies, etc. And maybe you don't want cable TV because you just want to stream TVs and movies from the internet, so you could choose what access you have. Maybe some of the companies require a deposit if they're highly rated or something of that nature.

Credit Cards, Loans, Mortgages, and Other Debts Personally, I don't like being tied to what's only in my Sim's bank. I think it could be cool to have credit cards, loans, etc. If there's a pre-built house that you REALLY want your Sims to have, you could take out a mortgage and you could have monthly payments. You could also take out a loan if you're renovating a certain room in your house or need help to cover other debts. You could also do credit cards if you don't want to take out a full loan, etc.
This could be a fun opportunity to bring back the repo-man. Your Paras could also have a credit score, so if you pay your bills on time and aren't super deep in other debts, you have the chance to have a higher loan/mortgage/credit limit. And if you don't pay for it, you could get things taken away.
Bankruptcy In continuation of the last point, if your Paras are too deep in the debt and can't seem to get out of it, they could file bankruptcy. They'd have to pay for a lawyer to clear their records.
There could also be a setting to turn credit on/off, as I could see how credit could be an annoying feature for some players.
Different Bank Accounts for Each Family Member You could have a bank account for each family member or have everything bundled into one. Your kids could have a piggy bank or your teenager could have a part-time job. It would be nice to keep things separated (or all put together) if you want one person in the family to be working towards a certain goal. (Teenager wants a car, the boyfriend is saving up for a ring for the girlfriend, etc.)
You could also get a savings account(s) and dedicate each account towards something. Future house goals, wedding, vacation, emergency funds, etc.
Maybe stocks/investments could be a part of that too?
House Issues/Value In continuation of emergencies, there could be different house problems that come up. Some things could be small and easily fixable by your Para people, like a broken TV/computer (you could either replace it, fix it yourself, or pay someone to fix it like you can do in the Sims) but maybe there are some other house emergencies that could happen. A tree falls on the roof and you have to pay to get that fixed, a burglar busts down your front door or breaks a window, a pipe burst, and your entire basement gets flooded, etc.
You could still choose the same things, like replace it, pay someone to fix it or fix it yourself. If you fix it yourself and you're not handy, it may make it worse, better, or it could just happen again.
Depending on the severity of the issue and/or the fix of the issue, it could affect the overall value of the house. You could choose to ignore the giant hole in the roof, but if you ever want to sell the house, you're not going to get as much money as a house with a brand new roof.
Over time, parts of your house could start to decay (like roofs, floors, walls, etc.) and they may need updated after a certain amount of time. This could be dependent on factors like the quality of the item you used in the first place. Cheap roofs would need to be replaced sooner than a really high-quality roof, etc. Heavy-traffic rooms may need the carpet replaced, there could be stains, marks, etc. that gradually build up over time.
Selling a House In continuation to the last note above, you could choose to sell your house and have it be put on the market. You could have a few options with this, which depending on the type of player you are, could be very beneficial.
One option could be to just sell it as is. You may not get as much money for it, but you could just instantly sell the house to someone who buys up houses (Like an Ug buys Ugly Houses type of person). This could be a good feature for a player that just wants their Sim to move. You could also sell by owner or go through an agency. If you sell by owner, you may get lower offers on the house from different buyers. If you go through an agency, you may get higher bids, but you would also have to pay certain closing costs, etc.
You could also have an appraiser-like person come to your house before you decide to sell and let you know what things you could change that would improve the overall value of your house and what things are already really good. (You should replace the carpet, replace the windows, doors, etc.)
Once you're ready to sell, there could be a list of 3 or 4 families who want to buy your house with different offers (maybe they could also have contingencies, like I'll pay you what you're asking if you change the carpet, etc.) and you could pick which one you want to do. If there are contingencies, it could be based on what the appraiser noted if you didn't make the changes they mentioned.
Become a landlord or a flipper Maybe instead of selling the house, you just want people to pay you directly month by month. You could set your house (or maybe even just a room/part of your house) for rent and have a list of people who want to live there that you could choose from. They could each have things about them that could make them a good or a bad tenant. For example, maybe they're VERY accident-prone and things break very easily. You may or may not want this type of tenant. Or maybe they're really clean people (which could be nice) but they are very picky and may be calling you to fix things all the time. You could be a good landlord and go take care of your tenants, or you could be a bad landlord and ignore them, which they'd eventually stop paying and leave. You could also choose to kick the tenants out if you want new tenants or if you just want to sell it instead of renting it out anymore.
You could also just buy up bad houses, improve/flip the houses, then sell them/rent them out for profit!
Buying or renting a house Opposite of selling a house, you could also go through a process for buying or renting a house. You could have the option to just buy a house as-is (good for players who just want to get to the point). Or you could go through an agent/realtor who can help you find the perfect house for what you're looking for. You could enter details like the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, price point, etc., and they could give you a list of houses. Some of them may be in great shape or some could be in not-so-great shape. You could choose to place an offer on the house or you could choose to set contingencies. If you go through the realtor, they could also give you insights on whether the seller is willing to sell for lower than asking-price or not, willing to work with contingencies, etc.
Ok, those are my ideas 😂😂 This ended up being way longer than I thought, but I think these would be cool ideas.

Review of Martin Scorsese’s 1995 Casino [A mob movie that has many actors that will go on to be in the Sopranos].

mods please lmk if this violates the rules. i’m posting here because I write about the mob/casino and many relevant themes that are important elements of the Sopranos, in my opinion. I think they’re of the same medium and genre so wanted to post here. Hope that’s alright. Cheers! (11 min read) ————————————————————————
EDIT 2: TL;DR -
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
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Every good filmmaker makes the same movie over and over again—Martin Scorsese is no different
Scorsese's Casino is a phenomenal story of the condoned chaos and "legalized robbery" that happens on a daily basis to gamblers who bett away thousands of dollars and return each day for more “FinDom,” but without any of the sexual sadism. The whole scam only persists because the house always wins: the odds are stacked 3 million to one on the slot machines, but the same shmucks return wide-eyed each day hoping for a different outcome, devoid of any rational re-evaluation required to maintain their grasp on reality, and the liquidity of their bank accounts.
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.
Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, recruited by his childhood friend Nick "Nicky" Santorno to help run the Tangiers casino, which is funded by an investment made with the Teamsters’ pension fund. Ace’s job is to keep the bottom line flowing so that the Mafia's skimming operation can continue seamlessly. De Niro's character felt like half-way between Travis from Taxi Driver (of course, nowhere as mentally disturbed) and half of the addictive excess, greed, and eccentric business-mind of Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street.
Ace’s attention to detail gives him a rain-man-esque sensibility; his ability to see every scam, trick, hand signal, and maneuver happening on the casino floor make him the perfect manager of the casino, and take his managerial style to authoritarian heights in his pursuit of order and control over what is an inherently unstable and dynamic scheme; betting, hedging outcomes, and walking the line to keep the money flowing and the gamblers coming back. I’m not claiming Ace is autistic, I'm no clinician, but his managerial sensibilities over the daily operations of the casino, from the dealers to the pit bosses, to the shift managers, are to the point of disturbing precision, he has eyes everywhere, and knows how to remove belligerent customers with class and professionalism, but ultimately is short sighted in “reading” the human beings he is in relationship with. Ace is frustratingly naive and gullible in his partnership with Nicky and the threat he poses to him, and in his marriage with Ginger.
Ace has no personal aspirations to extract millions of dollars for himself out of the casino corruption venture. Ace simply wants the casino to operate as efficiently as possible, and he has no qualms about being a pawn of the bosses. While Sam, “the Golden Jew”—as he is called—is the real CEO of the whole enterprise, directing things at Tangiers for the benefit of the bosses “back home.” Ace’s compliance is juxtaposed with Nicky’s outrage upon feeling used: he gripes about how he is in “the trenches” while the bosses sit back and do nothing. Note that none of the activity Nicky engages in outside of the casino—doing the work of “taking Las Vegas over”—is authorized by the bosses. Ultimately Nicky’s inability to exert control over his crew and the street lead to his demise.
In the end, capitalism, and all that happens in the confines of the casino, is nothing but “organized violence.” Sound familiar? The mob has a capitalist structure in its organization and hierarchy: muscle men collect and send money back to the bosses who do not labor tirelessly “in the trenches.” The labor of the collectors is exploited to create the profits of their bosses. The entire business-model of the Mafia is predicated on usury and debtors defaulting on loans for which the repayment is only guaranteed by the threat of violence. But this dynamic is not without its internal contradictions and tensions, as seen in Casino.
In a comedic turn, the skimmers get skimmed! The bosses begin to notice the thinning of the envelopes and lighter and lighter suitcases being brought from the casino to Kansas City, “back home”. The situation continues to spin out of control, but a mid-tier mafioso articulates the careful balance required for the skimming operation to carry on: to keep the skimming operation functioning, the skimmers need to be kept loyal and happy. It’s a price the bosses have to pay to maintain the operation, “leakage” in their terms. Ace’s efficient management and precision in maintaining order within Tangiers is crucial for the money to keep flowing. But Ace’s control over the casino slips more and more as the movie progresses. We see this as the direct result of Nicky’s ascendance as mob kingpin in Vegas, the chaos he creates cannot be contained and disrupts the profits and delicate dynamics that keep the scam running.
Of course I can’t help myself here! We should view Scorsese’s discography, and the many portrayals of capitalist excess not as celebratory fetishization, but a critique of the greed and violence he so masterfully captures on film. See the Wolf of Wall Street for its tale of money as the most dangerous drug of them all, and the alienation—social and political—showcased in Taxi Driver. Scorsese uses the mob as a foil to the casino to attack the supposed monopoly the casino holds on legitimate, legal economic activity that rests on institutionalized theft. When juxtaposed with the logic of organized crime, we begin to see that the two—Ace and Nick—are not so different after all.
The only dividing line between the casino and organized crime is the law. Vegas is a lawless town yes, “the Wild West” as Nicky puts it, but there are laws in Vegas. The corruption of the political establishment and ruling elites is demonstrated when they pressure Ace to re-hire an incompetent employee who he fired for his complicity in a cheating scam or his stupidity in letting the slot machines get rigged; nepotism breeds mediocrity. In the end, Ace’s fall is the result of the rent-seeking behavior that the Vegas ruling class wields to influence the gaming board to not even permit Ace a fair hearing for his gaming license, which would’ve given him the lawful authority to officially run Tangiers. The elites use the political apparatus of the State to resist the new gang in town, the warring faction of mob-affiliated casino capitalists. While the mob’s only weapon to employ is that of violence. The mafia is still subservient to the powers that be within the political and economic establishment of Vegas, and they’re told “this is not your town.”
I’d like to make the most salient claim of this entire review now. Casino is a western film. The frontier of the Wild West is Vegas in this case, where the disorder of the mob wreaks havoc on, an until then, an “untapped market.” The investment scheme that the Teamsters pension fund is exploited for as seed capital, is an attempt to remain in the confines of the law while extracting as much value as possible through illegal and corrupt means for the capitalist class of the mob (and the ultimately dispensable union president). Tangiers exists in the liminal space of condoned economic activity as a legal and otherwise standard casino. While the violence required to maintain the operation, corrupts the legal legitimacy it never fully enjoyed from the beginning. This mirrors the bounty economy of the West and the out-sourcing of the law and the execution of the law, to bounty hunters. There is no real authority out in the frontier, the killer outlaw on the run is not so different from the bounty hunter who enjoys his livelihood by hunting down the killers. Yet, he himself is not the State. The wide-lens frame of Ace and Nicky meeting in the desert felt like a direct homage to the iconic image of the Western standoff. The conflict between Ace and Nick, the enforcer and the mastermind, is an approximation of the conflicts we might see in John Wayne’s films. The casino venture itself could be seen as an analogy of the frontier-venturism of railroad pioneers going to lay track to develop the West into a more industrial region.
I would have believed that this was a documentary about how the mob took over control of the Vegas casinos in the 1970-80s … if it were not for the viewer being expected to believe that Robert De Niro could play a Jew; it's hard to believe a man with that accent and the roles he’s played his entire career could be a “CRAZY JEW FUCK!!” I kid! But alas, De Niro is a class act and the last of the many greats of a bygone era. At times, it felt like Joe Pesci lacked talent as an actor, but his portrayal of the scummy, backstabbing bastard in Nicky was genuinely remarkable, but I might consider his performance the weak point of the movie. It’s weird to see a man that short, be that much of physical menace. There are a number of Sopranos actors in Casino. I’m sure Vincent Chase watched the movie and said to himself, “bet, i’ll cast half of these guys.”The set design and costumes were gorgeous. The styles and fashion of the time were spectacular. Scorsese’s signature gratuitous violence featured prominently, but tastefully. The camera work, tracking shots through the casino and spatial movement was incredible and I thought the cinematography was outstanding, the Western-esque wide lens in the desert was worthy of being a framed still.
The Nicky//Ace dynamic is excellent and the two play off of each other well. The conflict between the two of them escalates gradually, and then Nicky’s betrayal of Ace by cheating with Ginger marks the final break between the two of them. Nicky’s mob faculties represent a brutal, violent theft that is illegal and requires the enforcement of violence by organized crime. Despite the illegal embezzlement and corruption at play with the “skimming” operation at work at the casino, the general business model of the casino stands in contrast to the obscene violence of the loan sharks. Ace operates an intelligent operation of theft through the casino, and his hands-on management approach is instrumental to the success of the casino. Nicky’s chaos pervades the casino, and the life and activities of “the street” begin to bleed into Ace’s ability to maintain order in the casino. “Connected” types begin frequenting the casino, and Ace unknowingly forces one particularly rude gambler to leave the casino, who happens to have mob ties with Nicky. The “organized violence” of the casino cannot stay intact perfectly, because the very thing holding it together is the presence of the mob. Nicky is in Vegas as the enforcer and tasked with protecting Ace but his independent, entrepreneurial (shall we call them?) aspirations lead him to attempt to overtake what he realizes is a frontier for organized crime to brutalize and exploit the characters of “the street” (pimps, players, addicts, dealers, and prostitutes) and the owners of small private businesses.
Nicky is reckless, “when i plant my flag out here you won’t need your [casino/gaming] license” Nicky thinks he, and Ace, can bypass the regulations and bureaucratic legal measures by sheer force of violence alone. But ultimately Nicky is shortsighted and doesn’t have a real attachment to the success of the casino. After all, he isn’t getting profits from it (or much anyway) and isn’t permitted to play a real, active role in its daily functions because of his belligerent, untamed personality. Nicky has no buy-in that would motivate him to follow the rules or to work within the legal parts of the economy, it’s not the game he knows how to play, and win. All that he is loyal to, or deferent too, is the bosses back home; for whom he maintains absolute, uncompromising loyalty to, but still holds intense spite for.
And now to the more compelling element of the narrative. Sam “Ace” Rothstein is positioned as remarkably intelligent, he makes informed decisions that aid in his skill as a gambler, he can read people to determine whether he’s being conned, he has an attention to detail—aided by the casino’s surveillance apparatus which monitors cheating—that is almost unbelievable. Ace knows when he’s being cheated, he knows how to rig the game so that the house always wins, enacting psychological warfare to break down the confidence of would be proficient gamblers, who could threaten Tangiers’ bottom line. But in the end, the greatest gamble Ace makes is his marriage to Ginger. Ginger is the seductive, charismatic, and flirtatious madame who makes her money with tricks and her sexual power. Ginger works as a prostitute, seducing men, and extracting everything she can, almost as a sort of sexual-financial vampirism.
Ginger is the bad bet Ace can’t stop making even when she destroys his life, her own, and puts their daughter Amy in harm’s way. Ginger is the gamble Ace made wrong, but he keeps going back to her every time, trying to rationalize how she might change and be different the next time. Ace is not a victim to Ginger’s antics. Ginger makes it clear who she is: an addict, alcoholic, manic shopaholic who will use all of her powers to extract everything she can from everyone around her. She uses everyone to her advantage and manipulates men with her sexual power in exchange for their money and protection. Ginger had a price for her hand in marriage: $1 million in cash and $1 million worth of jewelry that are left to her and her alone as a sort of emergency fund.
Ace’s numerous attempts to buy Ginger’s love—and the clear fact that no matter how expensive the fur coat and how grand the mansion, none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her—mirrored Jordan Belfort’s relationship with Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street. Both relationships carried the same manic volatility and conflict over child custody was found in both films, with the roles reversed in the respective films. Ginger may be irredeemable and a pathological liar, but Ace can’t claim that she wasn’t clear with him; when he asked her to marry him, Ginger said she didn’t love Ace. Ace replied that love could be “developed” but required a foundation of trust to develop. That trust was never there to begin with. The love was doomed from the start to destroy the two of them; two addicts, two gamblers, lying on a daily basis to one another and themselves about reality to justify their respective existences, the marriage, and Ace’s livelihood. And as Ginger pointed out, “I should have never married him. He’s a gemini, a triple gemini … a snake” Maybe astrology has some truth to it after all.
Now I’m not licensed (but hey neither was Ace, and he ran a casino empire!), but Ginger has the inklings of a borderline personality: her manic depression, narcissism, drug and alcohol abuse, and constant begging for forgiveness all seem indications of a larger psychological disorder at play. In the end, Ginger runs away with all the money Ace left her and finds her people in Los Angeles, the pimps, whores, and addicts she fits in with, in turn exploit and kill her for 3 grand in mint coins by giving her a ‘hot’ dose.
Overall, Casino is an incredible cinematic experience. I highly recommend watching this and seeing it as part of Scorsese's anthology of commentary on our economic system and its human victims. I’d argue that Casino, Wolf of Wall Street, and The Irishman all fit together nicely into a trilogy of the Scorsesean history of finance and corruption from the 70s to the 90s.
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EDIT 2: TL;DR —
Casino is a story of sexual and financial intrigue, mob violence, union pension fund embezzlement, a “love” story, and the protagonist's masochist addiction to the pain and chaos his lover inflicts on him. It turns out that the sharp-minded genius who meticulously runs the casino, is no more rational than the gamblers who routinely frequent the casino, coming back to lose their money and hoping that the odds will magically shift in their favor.

The year is 2024. You boot up Hearthstone.

Upon entering, you see your new daily quest.
-"Win three games with neutral hero tavern heroes."
You can't afford to rent one of the new neutral heroes from the Neutral tavern because you already blew through your gold loan for the year. (3000 gold at 15% interest rate though; that's a bargain you couldn't pass up.) Even though the quest reward is 4000 blizzard bux which you could use to trade for 400 exp or 20 gold, you decide it's probably smarter to spend your 10 gold to reroll the quest for something you can complete.
-"Invite two NEW friends to Hearthstone and have them complete a purchase"
Jackpot! This is the most rewarding quest you could have rolled with an insane 10,000 Blizzard bux payout(That's 1000 xp or even 50 gold!)
You glance over at your gold loan balance. You still have to pay back 1000 gold before the next expansion or you'll be hit with interest, and this would go a long way in keeping that from happening. Unfortunately, you can't use existing friends for this quest. Fortunately, thanks to the free trial-turning into a subscription fee a week after download, you can just find two gullible random people to download the game and chances are that a week later you'll receive the quest reward.
You exit the Journal tab and go to play some casual.
"You have (3) games remaining in the punishment queue. RNG will be affected until you are removed, please be more considerate in your future endorsements."
That's right, you had linked your social media and reddit accounts to your battle.net account because of the pack giveaway at the time. Unfortunately, this was part of the new, "Punishment queue" system in which players who spread misinformation about the game have various in-game probabilities reduced so as to properly educate them about the damage their lies have caused. You feel a slight tinge of regret for your post about how "I missed rent this month so I could buy the bundle and didn't recieve legenderies." Blizzard had deemed it "Community harmful" and you had been placed in the punishment queue as a result of your callous and harmful words. Still, the alternative is not playing the game and that isn't an option.
You queue with the least RNG based deck you have, Casino mage, to try to mitigate the punishment queue. The card design is really cool, with a lot of the cards in the deck being re-imaginings of the old Scholomance set but with a little more focus on random card generation and RNG. Your opponent is playing KENO Demon Hunter. You hope that they aren't a "Leviathan" class player and could only afford half the guesses allowed.
The game starts and the Keno card appears on your screen. It's as you feared, he has 50 of the 68 spaces on his Keno card paid for. He hits 4/5 of his numbers and starts the game with his 4/4 weapon, as usual.
You just cut your acidic swamp ooze's too because they put your deck's IGV(Ingame value) below the threshold for being able to queue. Unlucky.
Your opponent missed his combo for the OTK, but it still rolled a 5 on his, "Dicey odds" spell card, allowing for 5 additional attacks from his hero this turn. You're thrilled to get a turn so that this game counts against your punishment queue total. If your opponent defeats you before you get a turn, you don't get credit for the game. It's been like this for over a year and people still don't know whether it's intended or a bug, but nobody wants to risk additional Punishment queue games by asking.
You're still really looking forward to the next set, "Forwards from Arthas" and know that all of the problems with the metagame will likely be fixed once and for all when it finally arrives. Time to preorder.

Fuck it. This isn’t about money anymore. It’s about principle. I’m holding until I die.

I got into this thing looking to make some easy tendies and prevent a couple of greedy hedge funds from destroying a beloved company from my childhood that was struggling during a global pandemic. I have fond memories of reselling my used games for 2% of their value. Also, it was fun and I like the stock.
GameStop’s financials were pretty decent, and the latest console cycle would give them more juice to transform their business model. Then enters Ryan Cohen: a guy whose balls are so big he got the insane idea to recreate Pets.com — a company so terrible it became synonymous with the dot-com bubble — and he fucking outperformed Amazon.
I start learning about this guy and find out he’s pretty smart and bold enough to make it work. Maybe he can hit a second hole in one and turn another “terrible” company, “the blockbuster of video games,” into one that outperforms Amazon too.
I also learn he’s had his struggles recently, and the reason why he sold Chewy.com was because his father was passing away. He sounds like a good person with that crazy/genius quality who deserves a chance, just like GameStop.
So I enter this position, realizing that hedge funds have royally fucked themselves by taking an extremely risky bet while trying to destroy one of the few good things I had to distract myself from the shittiness of the world (before I found this subreddit). Because this trade was not just potentially profitable, but also morally important, I decided to sell the other stocks in my account and even deposited my rent money for the month. I’ll just pay the late fee and tank my credit score, nbd. And like the ~~genius~~ dumb ass I am, I bought right at the top: 14 shares for $4,340.
I knew the hedge funds were going to lose this game. They got caught with their paints down while peeing into the wind. They were checkmated. And what did they do? They went and fucking changed the rules of the game.
Oh hell no. That’s when this shit got real. That’s the moment when everything changed. It wasn’t about money anymore. It wasn’t about profit or loss. It was about principle. No — it was about the soul of the market. You don’t get to write the rules of the game and rewrite those rules when you lose at your own game. They should’ve just taken the L, but they decided to play dirty — real dirty.
Now I start thinking things are getting real fucky. I can 💎 🙌 and keep holding, but I’m going to need to sell at some point... won’t I? Everyone else is going to sell at some point... won’t they? At what point...? Game-theory kicks in and I’m tryna figure out when everyone is going to sell so I can make off with some profit. What’s my exit strategy? What’s everyone else’s exit strategy?
And then those hallowed words of Saint Value came back to me: “What’s an exit strategy?”
Bingo! Exactly! That’s it! There is no exit strategy!
The answer is: there is no answer. The only way to win an unwinnable game is to not play the game.
G A M E — S TO P
Incredible. This is where the game ends. I’ve been thinking too much like a hedge fund manager who puts profit above principle and can only think in terms of entry strategies and exit strategies. This is market logic. But we are no longer playing the game of market logic. The rules of the game have changed. The game is now about the rules of the game itself. This is a fucking meta-game. 4D Chess. And guess what? I’m not playing your game anymore. You’re playing mine.
GameStop shares no longer represent ownership in a company. It’s no longer just something to exchange at market value. The shares represent our values themselves. Will I think in terms of profit and when to sell my shares? Or will I think in terms of my principles? Can I put a price tag on my values? What is a hedge fund willing to pay for my beliefs? And what market price would my values sell for? How much money could I make selling my soul?
It’s true that I don’t have as much skin in the game as others. But I put in whatever I could. And I would never judge someone for needing to feed their family or finally being able to turn their life around and escape this rigged game—this prisoner’s dilemma that we call our economy.
But GameStop shares no longer represent something a price could be put on. GameStop shares now represent something priceless. In fact, they may hold infinite value. They represent the infinite nature of value itself.
The funny thing is, I can live without money. I’ve done it my whole life. But ironically, it’s the hedge fund managers who own all the money in the world that can’t live without it. If that isn’t a better representation of evil, I don’t know what is. Their greed is infinite, and they would break every rule in the world to satisfy that infinite greed.
But I will choose to operate by a different kind of logic. I will play a game of my choosing.
I entered this position because I saw a way to beat the GameMasters at their own game. And they proved to me what I’ve known all long: that the game is, in fact, unwinnable. It is a game designed for me to lose. It’s a casino-prison where only the lucky get to escape.
So, you want my shares? Well, you don’t get my shares. EVER. They’re mine now, and mine forever.
I’m holding onto these shares. Because when this game is all over and the years have passed, and we’ve all forgotten about this amazing moment in history.... every time I open my account I can look back and remember that time I fought the good fight. I can remember the wild, insane, hilarious, anonymous, beautiful, ragtag idiots I had beside me in that shining moment of glory — that moment we had the audacity to try and win an unwinnable game, and almost did.
These shares don’t hold money. They hold sacred memories that will never be taken from me....
Everyone has to make their own choices in life. Everyone must choose which game they will play. But for the first time ever, the game is finally in your hands. What game will you choose? Will you continue to play the game? Or will the game stop?
In my world, the game stops.
I choose to sacrifice my 💎 🙌
Instead, my hands will go galactic 🌌 🙌
After all... YOLO

The Art of Slowing Down.

#SaveTheMalls for a Good Long-Term (Yes, the Dreaded Word on WSB) Investment Opportunity

So, I want you all to listen up and listen up good. We've become pimps for equities: prop 'em up to make them look pretty and sell them off to a troglodyte infested with STD's. We need to change the way we see stocks as a piece of a company that offers potentially good returns with a little bit of patience and gambling. Get-rich-quick schemes, as we have seen throughout the last 30 days can easily turn into get-broke-even-faster gambles that ruins your wallet and stock market participation when faith is lost in the system (which is key if we want to grow retail investing to the likes off our boomer counter).
You might've heard "you want to invest in your future." Take it seriously. Throwing 10-50 stacks at GameStop to fend off "short ladder attacks" or injecting steroids into a no-name Canadian weed company that rivals the market cap of Wendy's is pretty reckless, and you deserve to lose that money when it craters. INVEST LONG TERM BUT GAMBLE WITH THE MARKET. Make sounds decisions but make bets on market conditions to fulfill your cocaine addiction.
With that said, there's a great investment opportunity in SPG (Simon Property Group). Simon is an American commercial real estate company, one of the largest REITs, and the largest shopping mall operators in the US. They had a steep selloff in March of last year, but has seen a rise of 3100 basis point YTD (31%). They have more room to climb because of stock momentum, COVID vaccines, consumer demand, and a aggressive strategy to stay ahead of competition. Despite this, they're still bullish. During the Q4 call, they remain "confident" that the worse is behind them, and SPG is trading at a discount of $109 to its target price consensus of $125.
In 2020 with COVID ravaging the bottom line for a lot of companies, they pulled in some impressive numbers.
Company Statistics Over the Last Year back from December 2020

generated over $2.3 billion in operating cash flow;
acquired an 80% interest in The Taubman Realty Group who specialize in super-regional and outlet shopping malls in the United States and China (China is back in business, remember?) ;
raised over $13 billion in the debt and equity markets
opened two new international shopping destinations, expanded two others and completed three domestic redevelopments;
returned more than $2 billion to shareholders in cash dividends paid (for comparison, even though they're not a REIT, Ford suspended dividends along with many other companies)
Occupancy was 91.3% at December 31, 2020. (Doesn't even seem like COVID made a dent).
Base minimum rent per square foot was $55.80 at December 31, 2020, an increase of 2.2% year-over-year.

Chart Analysis
They have historically been almost spot on with moving average analysis. Comparing their 50-day and 200-day moving average, they're currently on a bullish trend, positive upward momentum to a higher stock price. The short term moving average is above the long term line, thus indicating they're in for a good run in the near future.
COVID Vaccines
We know that the Biden administration is pushing for vaccinations. For good reason: once we're at herd immunity, states will be opening up because they're in need for revenue after incurring major expenses to keep their hospitals and small businesses staffed and opened during the height of the pandemic. Today we learned that the Biden administration is moving up their timeline to distribute vaccines after Pfizer and Moderna made a deal to provide 200 million shots. Once people are vaccinated to the threshold of herd immunity, the economy will start moving in the right direction. And, remember, Simon is trading a discount now. Once people feel more comfortable being around others, mall traffic can expect to increase.
Summary
I know some of you see the market as a casino, but I know a lot of you don't even have money to buy into a poker game at a low-class joint and are holding your wife's boyfriend's dicks shell-shocked at the change of market tides. But, if you bet on America, you can never go wrong. Once sentiment changes, if it has already curved in the right direction, businesses will attract the traffic. Maybe not pre-pandemic levels for some, but their stock price will rise as we get closer. SPG is primed for a return built on solid fundamentals (curse word in this sub?), an upward trend based on chart analysis, and growing confidence in our ability to be around others after much fatigue. Right now, betting on America is wagering if we can make a recovery. And when have we been unable to recover as a country?
Full Disclosure: I'm long on SPG.

Governor Sisolak Press Conference 12/13/2020

Here's the update, typed as he was talking, apologies if I missed anything.
NO FURTHER SHUTDOWNS ANNOUNCED! Pause is EXTENDED through 1/15/2021.

Situation: We are at a critical point and here is why.
Encouraging news on vaccine: FDA granted emergency use. Western States panel approved.
First vaccine shipment on Monday, frontline healthcare workers to get immediate vaccination.
Did a test run for vaccine delivery process, will keep Nevadans posted.
Dr. Fauci predicted a surge on top of a surge, that's where Nevada is headed.
We are just now beginning to see the effects of the holidays. Small decline in cases and testing over the holiday, big surges now.
Seeing big increases in hospitalizations, 1700 Nevadans since Friday.
In Southern Nevada we have NOT peaked yet.
Protecting healthcare infrastructure is the main priority. Setting up hospitals in parking garages just in case.
No doubt our hospitals are seeing an increase in strain, as well as actual healthcare workers.
COVID deaths on the rise. 2539 Nevadans dead.
Statewide pause summary, talked about mitigation, capacity limits, etc.
As of November 30th, 74% Nevadans wore masks when leaving home. If we were at 95% compliance we would save more lives by Spring.
Noted that Nevadans are under stress, worried about health, jobs, school. Wants everyone to do what we can to reduce strain on hospitals.
EXTENDING CURRENT NEVADA PAUSE THROUGH JANUARY 15TH, NO ANNOUNCED SHUTDOWNS.
All current restrictions are still in place.
Sisolak says that if his health officials see cases rise more, he will shut more things down.
Sign an eviction moratorium in place tomorrow to protect Nevadans, through March 31st.
Better to leave Nevadans in homes versus in shelters and homelessness.
When people are evicted it becomes impossible to stay home, they will be forced outside and potentially spread COVID-19.
Talked about how tenants are still obligated to pay rent. Talked about rental assistance programs. Supported with federal assistance dollars, funds are low though.
Realizes this will be hard on landlords, asking landlords to continue to sacrifice and do more to help tenants. Promises to look into assistance for landlords.
Vaccine on the horizon, please continue to be strong. Fight the virus, not each other.
Says not a day goes by that he doesn't think about lives and our economic structure.
Acknowledges that we have record cases, but realizes that families are suffering, with little financing assistance.
Claims no winning options, picked whatever option hurts Nevadans the least.
Federal government has yet to grasp the complexity of our situation. Federal government says that states are not doing enough. Sisolak admits mitigation policies, our complete shutdown, would be best. However without funding and paying Nevadans to stay home, is not realistic. Says shutdowns don't work without people getting paid.
State is trying desperately to balance health and economy.
Families are teetering on the brink. We have lost 250,000 jobs, NV had highest unemployment rate in the country.
142,000 Nevadans have exhausted their UI benefits, won't be able to file again until March 2021, says NV needs more federal help.
State of Nevada had a savings account, a rainy day fund, which was their safety net. As of today, there is no more money. No more rainy day fund. CARES Act funding ends at the end of the year.
According to our state economist, another shutdown will put us in a just as bad or worse state than the Great Depression.
Says that if he could write a check to pay everyone, he would, but can't.
Gaming industry. Under the same or tougher restrictions as everyone else. Gaming Control Board is the most regulated business in the state.
When he thinks of the gaming industry, he loses sleep because under a state at home order, NV lost 250,000 jobs. Cooks, dealers, valet, entertainers, etc.
Gaming matters in this state. If we shut down again, state loses $52 million in tax revenue a month. That same revenue supports Nevadans, health, benefits, the safety we need. That's why he has kept the casinos open.
(Side note: so basically, casinos need to be open so that the state can fund UI and benefits for the State)
This week it was reported that NV has seen a 50% increase in opioid and drug death. Does not believe its a coincidence.
People won't be healthy if they lose their job, benefits, housing, etc.
Relied on the science and health officials to make decisions.
COVID-19 is the first and last thing he thinks about every day.
Praises healthcare workers for their sacrifices.
Says his blood boils when the federal government says that States do not do enough.
Says that everyone is stepping up, task force has gotten millions of masks and PPE. Had to do it themselves versus rely on the federal government.
Says federal government promised PPE, but help never came.
Invites McConnell to look at the hospital wards, foreclosed homes, to look at all affected Nevadans when he said citizens did not need the extra help.
Compromise is hard, but possible if both sides toss politics aside.
We must figure things out on our own, if not, more shutdowns will be forced.
Vaccine is on the way. Stay strong. Says he has made the best decision for our state all things considered.
Called upon all Nevadans to come together, again, to do this.
If we cannot control cases, he will impost further restrictions.
We are all frontline people, tired, worn out, ready to give up. We have a choice to think of things as every man for themselves, or to support each other and have each others backs.
Look after each other. Love our neighbors.
We face all challenges together. Nevada will make it through this. The end result will be based on how much we care for each other.
A Nevadan is testing positive every 40 seconds. 1 hour and 15 minutes a Nevadan dies.
Please, protect yourselves and one another by wearing a mask, washing hands, and socially distance.

Fuck this stupid economy that's games for the rich, torture for the poor

MTX - Can We Stop Complaining Please?

Can we please stop complaining about MTX and P2W? Here me out...
Background:
I started playing Dauntless just after Shock Esca dropped and fell in love with it. I worked hard to get all the best gear and cells. I took a lot of crap on here from Vets for running IB builds. I was constantly told to git gud. I started running with a Vet who helped me learn to git gud. I went from all IB builds to running META builds and doing flawless hammer speed runs (some of the videos are floating around here somewhere still). I ended up overly influenced by that Vet and ended up leaving Dauntless the 2nd day of Umbral ESCA. I came back 2 weeks ago and love it!
When we (me, the Vet, and a couple other slayers/content creators) left Dauntless last spring we all hit another cross-play RPG game (I won't name it). Suffice it to say, I blew a ton of real cash on that game. And it was not simply for skins, emotes, flairs, etc.
This game allowed you to have 1 rez pip. You could own multiple, but only 1 could be taken into the battle... and the battle wasn't just 1 monster, it was hundreds before you got to the boss fight. If you tried to solo the level you had one shot! The only way to complete the level was to buy a rez after dying. You could own 20 rez pips in the inventory but you had to buy a new one to use it. The game had literally 50 side merchants, and a damn casino, that you paid real $ to play, in hopes you could unlock the desired cosmetic you wanted (you could not simply buy the cosmetic set you wanted).
You HAD to keep a ton of parts, drops, perks, orbs, shards, gems, meat pieces, spores, fish, etc to give to these side merchants in order to unlock pieces to upgrade your gear. Guess what... you could only hold 50 pieces on you per run... but you could buy 10 more slots for $10 real $. You could transfer it out to locker storage while in the hunt so you could grab more, but even that storage was limited and could be expanded with real $. Simply don't gather so much you say... HA! a single normal hunt awarded 200+ items... then there were event hunts that would give you nearly 500+ items... and if your party was done collecting the boss drops and initiated a new instance, the boss drops were lost because you didn't have the storage space to collect them. So you paid for all the extra in hunt inventory slots and extra locker storage to transfer it to, and you gathered all the parts and pieces to finally level up the sword... oops, you moved them all to the monthly rented locker storage and didn't get them out before your month's rent was up... you guessed it... padlock on your storage... gotta buy another month's rent to get in there and get the parts out.
You also had to buy (with real $) scratch tickets to possibly unlock the cosmetics you wanted. There were 4 different character types, male and female of each, and 4 part sets of armor cosmetics (like Dauntless), but it was no guarantee that you would get all 4 pieces or even your gender. Not only that, you could get no armor from the ticket, just a random fluffy bunny back bling. You might think, just don't buy the tickets. Not so easy. If you wanted to power up your gear and weapons you had to unlock the perks. You could grind for them (much harder than here), or you could buy them in a market from other players. The way to get the money to buy them from other players... you guessed it... gotta sell your scratch it items to another player that wants them to get the in game currency to buy your perks from another player.
The Fashion aspect of Dauntless is amazing... but there is no use for them in the game aside from Fashion. In this other game you could equip skins, load them into your Fashion page, and the other players could award you in game currency for how good you looked. Do you want to change your colors? Had to buy a pass to the salon with real $ to change a single color... one time... Finally leveled up that new weapon or bought a new weapon skin (also not dyable like in Dauntless) and want to make your character match the color scheme... gotta buy a new salon pass... want to change your helmet... salon pass... new boots... salon pass... Just don't participate in the fashion... sure... but lose the in game currency awarded for being a fashionista...
Imagine PHXL selling you your ability to self rez for $2.50 each, charging you $10 to collect 10 essential gear leveling drop parts at a time or lose them (and overloading collectibles with random auto-collect BS pieces)... didn't kill Urska, but broke all his parts? Oh well, you don't get to keep them unless you buy a self rez, clean out your inventory (while he is still trying to kill you again), and gather those parts without getting killed again... Want that +3 cell... you can grind hard for 50 +1 cells that you can't combine into a +3 without bribing the MM with real $ every time you want to level a cell, or buy a scratch it for $10, sell off any random good piece to another slayer, then buy that cell from a different slayer that got lucky on a $10 scratch it... but that cell is 1,000,000,000 protorams... better buy more $10 scratch its to get more fashion parts to sell at 1,000-12,000 protorams each... Imagine not being able to change the colors on your skins without paying real $ to equip skins and dyes you already paid real $ to buy.
That, my friends, is the essence of Pay 2 Play/Pay 2 Win. You COULD NOT level gear and advance without paying real $. Dauntless sells cosmetics. Cosmetics do not influence your gear level, power, perks, cells. Aetherhearts and sparks a grind to get? Could buy them for a little real $? A little P2W??? yeah. But it is far from P2W and forced MTX. PHXL needs $ to pay employees to keep the content coming and fix all the bugs we bitch about all day. Give them their due, quit complaining, equip IB in your builds, dye your skins to your heart's content, grind your gear, git gud, slay Behemoths, ignore META heads, watch videos of Cpt Maelstrom soloing Dauntless Trials in 3 seconds, show off your fashion, and have fun doing it pretty much for free!

What I expected vs what I got. (Rant/My personal thoughts & feelings.)

What I wanted: A fucking solid RPG. In the vein of mass effect in terms of decisions, with heavy rpg elements, a interactive world where I had actual side activities to do instead of a one off side stories. I wanted to immerse feel like V was me in this cyberpunk universe, where I'm a mercenary who started from humble beginnings and built myself up into a legend of night city. I wanted the world to be interactive where I could go to a restaurant order some food, then hit up a bar order a drink. I wanted to visit the various shops, trying on clothes, previewing then buying testing out new weapons, and spending some time just chilling out in the shopping areas maybe a mall or two.
I wanted deep character engagements. I wanted the characters that met on my way up could be a ally or a potential foe, depending on their motives and personal beliefs. I expected these characters I met to not trust me initially as I was a outsider and that I had to earn their trust and loyalty by doing jobs for them, calling them, spending time with them by going to the bar and getting a drink with them or to a nightclub for some dancing and fun. I was hopeful about getting to know the gangs and build up a rapport with them, outside of just the stereotypical "Gangs are bad now shoot them!" Mentality. Where each gang had a ally/romance option (One for males and females) exclusive to that gang. A special shop were you could buy gang attire, a cosmetic station where you could buy gang haircuts, tattoos, ect. A gang ripper doc who would argument your cybernetics with the visual ascetic of that gang. And finally a gang gunsmith where you could buy guns with that gangs specific visual skins on that weapon and special mods exclusive to that gang.
I wanted actually deep romances were I met this character, and sure we might or started out on less than good terms. Though by doing missions, calling them to chat, hanging out with them outside of missions, inviting them on nights out on the town, bringing them along on jobs with me and dealing with their reactions to my actions while on the job that I'd get to know them and they me. After a couple of flings together we'd start to realize that it's something more than a one off fling as we grow closer and in naturally develops into a relationship. They would call me asking how I'm doing, text me cute little messages with the occasional picture attached to it. You know the little things. And when I go into battle they come with me as a loyal and trusted ally. Not only do they give you a key to their place, they let you drive their car, and unlock a bonus or two to help you while you are on jobs. Then they have dynamic missions that pop up, maybe they want to you to participate in a race with them, go dancing at a nightclub, help someone they grew up with, perhaps they get kidnapped and need to be rescued, maybe they want to kidnap someone and hold them for random, or something from video from there past relationship with a ex is about to be leaked online and they ask you to help stop it.
What I got: A action games that feels like a cod campaign in a open world with a meh story were I'm essentially the opposite of a ghost in a shell, I'm the shell for a ghost, granted a decent looking shell, but still a shell. To add to that some extra bit of meat to this stew:
I do not feel immersed in the role of V, because V is nothing like the character I wanted to be or play as. V or Vincent (Which you really could of left it as just the mysterious sounding and unique in its own way...V) doesn't feel like a character I would deem worthy of immersing into the role of, he (I played as a male) flips from being nice to people to a complete asshat on the flip of a dime. The game acts like you are given a choice to chose between your responses, but you can't, sometimes just trying to do some of the optional dialog v flips the emotion switch so fast that I find myself rolling my eyes thinking "V, did you really have to say things like that, why just why?" And it's not like you can do anything about it as you are just along for the ride on this on rails story. There are times where a character is upset and you want to be a caring choom and be there for them. Vincent either won't say anything or will have a option that sounds like something I would say but surprise nope! V says something that sounds like he's being a dick about it. In summary I don't like V/Vincent. Moving on.
The game looks pretty, like really pretty (l'm on the ps5, so even though it's the ps4 pro version it still looks amazing) the textures look good and the character models do too. However, I don't like how the characters walking around night city have clothes that we can't buy and wear ourselves, like there are these cool neon transparent jackets that we can wear, there are full metallic tape outfits, and many more. The vehicles look great. But there are variations and color schemes that we just don't get to use and it's a let down. Also the vehicles handle weirdly like most of them handle like the roads are always slick with rain or sleet on the street.
There's very little in terms of dynamic weather, the occasional rain doesn't cut it. Gone are the dust storms and acid rain in the bad lands. I honestly can't tell what season it is in night city, is it summer or spring? Maybe it's winter in night city and we just don't know it. Perhaps that militec crate we receive in our apartment is secretly a Christmas gift.
The game has some good moments, like in the early missions with jackie. But then instead of playing six months with him, a building ourself up with the money, earning the reputation needed to attract the attention of Dexter deshawn, we just skip ahead and it's stolen from my hands. They basically skipped the story we were promised in those early trailers and that's disappointing. Then jackie gets the big are for another J named character who gets forcefully injected into our head, Johnny silverhand. Why the heck is this relic of a dude who died in 2020 stuck in our heads? Let me just say, I like Keanu, but I don't like silverhand much. The guy is meant to be a "Second Protagonist" (I thought I was the Protagonist of this story and that this was my story?) Instead it's more like Johnny silverhand's raid on V's (Vincent's......uhg still hate that name) story. At the best of times Johnny's funny and witty, adding light hearted tension breaking additions to the bleak story.. At the worst of times (More often than the former) he's annoying, he chimes in with his sabotaging dialog to ruin a good moment with his suggestions, exclamations, rants, and pestering. It's like they just are force feeding this cancer of a charcter into my bloodstream. He's like a child that constantly does whatever they can do to get attention. Or like the Mr.Meeseeks from rick & morty, always popping up going "I'm Johnny! Look at me!", I have to break out the flyswatter and tell him to buzz off. I feel like his inclusion as a main focal point of the story, has robbed me of my own story. Like yes there's a reputation system in the game but it doesn't effect much besides unlocks a very small mentions. Even when you hit the highest reputation, you aren't a "Legend of Night City!" You are still a two-bit terminally ill excuse of a mercenary, with a botched reputation, and semi antagonistic ghost stuck in your head. No one really knows who you are or cares, save for a small band of characters who know you personally. I'm sure jackie would be turning over in his grave to see that his sacrifice to help his choom make it to the top was for nothing.
There's nothing to do in terms of side activities in night city. Not side jobs, not side rent a cop distractions. I mean actual activities that aren't tied to a side mission. Fight clubs that aren't just a side, aren't here. Night clubs that you meet flirt with npcs, pickup one night stands, hell grab a drink and visibly drink it, dance in third person, in some club there's not even a dj, nope not in the game. Gambling? Nope sorry choom it's not here either, there's a casino in the game and you can't play anything in it, the pachinko machines have a arrow like the vending machines to show where you can interact with them but nope. Dynamic, non scripted, and non story related street races? Forget about it. You want gun range competitions? There's one and it's scripted.
The missing features and fact that the game was promoted to have these only to have them cut sucks because these were things that made the game stand out besides the cyberpunk skin thrown over a city. I'm not going over all of them since there's plenty of videos plastered over YouTube about them. I will however mention two. The train system would've been a excellent edition to the game to give us a leisurely tour through night city. Especially if fast travel wasn't a thing and the train was fast but not instant, with dynamic events on it, like conversations with npcs, gang members getting on and hassling people, live concerts, and talents being shown off to help organically past the time. The second is third person cutscenes. These would've given us a chance to see our Vs in their custom outfits. Not only that but it would've given more emotion to the situations because we could see the emotion on v's face, instead of the disconnect we currently have. Also it would've given the devs third person animations of v to use in the optional third person camera angle for walking through night city, instead of the absolute mess we have for animations when the game is modded to third person or just clips to third person. On the topic of animations, the animations in general need work, they all look really weird in the shadows and other times when you notice them, I know the game was rushed but that should've been in the baseline of developing v's movement.
The results: A mediocre gumbo of a game. It looks pretty but tastes bland and leaves you feeling hungry a hour after you eat it.
The skeleton of the game needs work before they add to it, but I knew that. Though there's so much lacking from the core of the game, that even if the game ran perfectly well the story is subpar. The characters all feel like one off stories in they aren't in the main story. And even then sometimes even they do to. The city looks pretty but is hallow side from artwork and visuals. And I do not feel like im a character in this universe at all, rather I'm on the outside of the game, looking into the game, from above and from there, then looking down at the V's poor excuse for a buddy adventure with Johnny silverhand.
However I would consider this game a action open world game with some lite rpg elements. Not a full on next gen rpg.
In closing. I do like the game, but I'm not afraid to critique it. I'm not blinded in my opinion by Keanu inclusion, dry pr speak or apologies, or the even the youtubers. This is my opinion. Someone else's might differ and that is okay. But I critique my own creations and still love them, and I will do the same for something that I bought with my hard earned money through working my job. If I buy your game I have the right to critique and analyze it. There's no nda on the fans lol.

I FINALLY MOVED!!!

Governor Sisolak Press Conference 12/13/2020

Here's the update, typed as he was talking, apologies if I missed anything.
NO FURTHER SHUTDOWNS ANNOUNCED! Pause is EXTENDED through 1/15/2021.

Situation: We are at a critical point and here is why.
Encouraging news on vaccine: FDA granted emergency use. Western States panel approved.
First vaccine shipment on Monday, frontline healthcare workers to get immediate vaccination.
Did a test run for vaccine delivery process, will keep Nevadans posted.
Dr. Fauci predicted a surge on top of a surge, that's where Nevada is headed.
We are just now beginning to see the effects of the holidays. Small decline in cases and testing over the holiday, big surges now.
Seeing big increases in hospitalizations, 1700 Nevadans since Friday.
In Southern Nevada we have NOT peaked yet.
Protecting healthcare infrastructure is the main priority. Setting up hospitals in parking garages just in case.
No doubt our hospitals are seeing an increase in strain, as well as actual healthcare workers.
COVID deaths on the rise. 2539 Nevadans dead.
Statewide pause summary, talked about mitigation, capacity limits, etc.
As of November 30th, 74% Nevadans wore masks when leaving home. If we were at 95% compliance we would save more lives by Spring.
Noted that Nevadans are under stress, worried about health, jobs, school. Wants everyone to do what we can to reduce strain on hospitals.
EXTENDING CURRENT NEVADA PAUSE THROUGH JANUARY 15TH, NO ANNOUNCED SHUTDOWNS.
All current restrictions are still in place.
Sisolak says that if his health officials see cases rise more, he will shut more things down.
Sign an eviction moratorium in place tomorrow to protect Nevadans, through March 31st.
Better to leave Nevadans in homes versus in shelters and homelessness.
When people are evicted it becomes impossible to stay home, they will be forced outside and potentially spread COVID-19.
Talked about how tenants are still obligated to pay rent. Talked about rental assistance programs. Supported with federal assistance dollars, funds are low though.
Realizes this will be hard on landlords, asking landlords to continue to sacrifice and do more to help tenants. Promises to look into assistance for landlords.
Vaccine on the horizon, please continue to be strong. Fight the virus, not each other.
Says not a day goes by that he doesn't think about lives and our economic structure.
Acknowledges that we have record cases, but realizes that families are suffering, with little financing assistance.
Claims no winning options, picked whatever option hurts Nevadans the least.
Federal government has yet to grasp the complexity of our situation. Federal government says that states are not doing enough. Sisolak admits mitigation policies, our complete shutdown, would be best. However without funding and paying Nevadans to stay home, is not realistic. Says shutdowns don't work without people getting paid.
State is trying desperately to balance health and economy.
Families are teetering on the brink. We have lost 250,000 jobs, NV had highest unemployment rate in the country.
142,000 Nevadans have exhausted their UI benefits, won't be able to file again until March 2021, says NV needs more federal help.
State of Nevada had a savings account, a rainy day fund, which was their safety net. As of today, there is no more money. No more rainy day fund. CARES Act funding ends at the end of the year.
According to our state economist, another shutdown will put us in a just as bad or worse state than the Great Depression.
Says that if he could write a check to pay everyone, he would, but can't.
Gaming industry. Under the same or tougher restrictions as everyone else. Gaming Control Board is the most regulated business in the state.
When he thinks of the gaming industry, he loses sleep because under a state at home order, NV lost 250,000 jobs. Cooks, dealers, valet, entertainers, etc.
Gaming matters in this state. If we shut down again, state loses $52 million in tax revenue a month. That same revenue supports Nevadans, health, benefits, the safety we need. That's why he has kept the casinos open.
(Side note: so basically, casinos need to be open so that the state can fund UI and benefits for the State)
This week it was reported that NV has seen a 50% increase in opioid and drug death. Does not believe its a coincidence.
People won't be healthy if they lose their job, benefits, housing, etc.
Relied on the science and health officials to make decisions.
COVID-19 is the first and last thing he thinks about every day.
Praises healthcare workers for their sacrifices.
Says his blood boils when the federal government says that States do not do enough.
Says that everyone is stepping up, task force has gotten millions of masks and PPE. Had to do it themselves versus rely on the federal government.
Says federal government promised PPE, but help never came.
Invites McConnell to look at the hospital wards, foreclosed homes, to look at all affected Nevadans when he said citizens did not need the extra help.
Compromise is hard, but possible if both sides toss politics aside.
We must figure things out on our own, if not, more shutdowns will be forced.
Vaccine is on the way. Stay strong. Says he has made the best decision for our state all things considered.
Called upon all Nevadans to come together, again, to do this.
If we cannot control cases, he will impost further restrictions.
We are all frontline people, tired, worn out, ready to give up. We have a choice to think of things as every man for themselves, or to support each other and have each others backs.
Look after each other. Love our neighbors.
We face all challenges together. Nevada will make it through this. The end result will be based on how much we care for each other.
A Nevadan is testing positive every 40 seconds. 1 hour and 15 minutes a Nevadan dies.
Please, protect yourselves and one another by wearing a mask, washing hands, and socially distance.

Gamehost (TSX: GH)

I wanted to share with the group some due diligence and speculation I have done around Gamehost (TSX: GH). I want to start by saying that this is not a situation where you urgently need to buy this right now and ride up a wave, there will be no rocket ships on this post and I strongly encourage you to perform your own due diligence and see if you want to buy this stock. This is an extremely low volume stock and if you rush to buy it, the price will go up far past the supply of sellers. I do not intend to pump this but only to get critique.
Gamehost is an owner and operator of 3 casinos located in Alberta, 2 hotels in Grande Prairie and a retail store rented to a liquor store near one of the casinos. The 3 casinos are: Boomtown Casino in Fort McMurray, The Great Northern Casino in Grande Prairie and the Deerfoot Inn and Casino in Calgary which they own 91% of currently.
As you probably guessed by these locations, the casinos are cyclical and make a lot of money when oil prices are up and go through downturns when prices are low and projects stop. All 3 casinos are not destination type casinos like you would find in Las Vegas where people come from all around to visit, but are very reliant on their local communities. The Boomtown Casino is the only casino in Fort McMurray and the Great Northern Casino is the only proper casino in Grande Prairie with a much smaller limited one in town. The Deerfoot Inn and Casino is 1 of 7 (yes, 7!) casinos in the Calgary area. It primarily focuses on the Southeastern portion of the city and the surrounding suburbs and still serves a market of about 200,000 people in just that area. All 3 casinos are also very focused on live events and have become gathering points for live events and nights out for their communities.
Although all 3 casinos have been affected by oil downturns all 3 communities they serve have much higher median income than the country as a whole. The casinos have remained profitable throughout the entirety of the oil downturn and despite a dividend cut in 2016 they have still paid a consistently strong dividend until the COVID-19 pandemic (more on this later). Grande Prairie’s economy is more focused on natural gas extraction which has been consistently profitable. Calgary as a major city does have a diversified economy as well which leaves just Fort McMurray to be the lone straggler in dealing with oil prices. No new casinos have been built in Alberta since 2006, which has left people still coming to the doors of the casinos regardless of the economy. All three cities have seen consistent population growth greater than 10% from 2016 according to Statistics Canada’s estimates which is far greater than the national average. People are still coming to these cities and are still making a fairly high wage compared to the average Canadian.
The second thing that has likely come to your mind is why casinos when they have been shut down during the pandemic? As the vaccine is currently being implemented the orders will not last forever. When the casinos have been opened even with reduced services, they have remained profitable and the management has responded by using the pandemic as an opportunity. They have been consistently buying back thousands of shares every day and cancelling them. If you look at their SEDAR profile you can see that they have not missed a single day to cancel at least 2,000 shares per day. Since the company had 24.5 million shares issued, they have bought back about 1-2% of the float so far which has made the stock even harder to buy on the open markets due to the lack of volume. They have also been approved to expand the operations of the Deerfoot Inn and Casino which should be completed by the summer. The insiders have followed by accumulating many shares in their personal accounts over this period of weakness.
In the third quarter of 2020 the company posted EPS of 12 cents per share down from 16 cents a year ago. Revenue was down to $4.9 million from $6.7 million. This is with severe restrictions and limitations on the amount of people that can come in the casino and what they can do. All live events were cancelled, table games were restricted and yet the company was still making enough money to buy back significant shares and improve their existing assets. The management has essentially channelled the dividend into making the number of shares decrease in a time of strong price weakness.
There is interest in this space since the largest casino operator in the country Great Canadian Gaming was acquired recently for almost double what they were trading for in the spring. Private equity firms have been looking into casinos as a post-recovery play. Unlike companies in airlines or movie theatres, these do not have significant issues staying profitable during intense downturns, they only become less profitable with a sudden surge afterwards.
I am speculatively buying this stock on the idea that as COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifted there will be an awkward window where people will be back almost to normal within Canada and will have a strong urge to go out and do activities that they have been restricted from doing for months. At the same time they will be unable to travel internationally due to different countries having different vaccination schedules, planes still operating at reduced capacity with many airlines being in trouble and governments being reluctant to remove limitations abroad. This will significantly bring business to casinos and other live event focused businesses within Canada. I anticipate that in the 12 months past restrictions being lifted that the business will see a significant bump in EPS. They will reinstate the dividend and the share price will grow significantly. My personal price target is $12 per share but I could see it being anywhere from $10-$15 per share. This is without oil prices budging at all.
In the long-term the price will be cyclical based on oil prices unless they start diversifying geographically. It is extremely difficult to get a licence to open a casino, which leaves the company with the only option of acquiring other casinos. This is a possibility down the road but something I will look more into once I see a significant bump in EPS due to increased demand.
I do believe that in the current market with the price having barely recovered from the March lows, that the stock is a very good contrarian play in the 12-24 month range. Holding after that could potentially be risky depending on your own views on how the oil industry will play out and if the management has what it takes to diversify. Online gambling is an even longer term threat but since these casinos are focused on live events and have become a staple of the communities that they are in, this is not likely to be a threat for some significant time.
Please let me know what you think, feel free to criticize. If you guys like my analysis I could do more on other small or mid cap companies. There have been a few I have kicked myself over missing.

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Tominoya is now live at -120,135 in Decentraland with casino games built on Matic Network! Own part of the casino as an NFT and receive rent from the games in your parcel

Any casino games dealers for hire/arcade games for rent?

Why I'll never stop buying GME, and why you probably should

Good poker cities with low cost of living

Miami Neighborhoods Explained

Inside the mind of a hedge fund executive...

Las Vegas Tops U.S. in Rise of Apartment Tenants Not Paying Rent

Before you spend money on this game, consider this.

"If I get this character with $x, is it even worth $x?"

You're never guaranteed anything.

There will always be a new character that you'll want.

Gacha = Gambling

Don't be blinded by sunk-cost.

Your party has limited space.

Glorified gambling.

More realistic money situations!

Review of Martin Scorsese’s 1995 Casino [A mob movie that has many actors that will go on to be in the Sopranos].

The year is 2024. You boot up Hearthstone.

Fuck it. This isn’t about money anymore. It’s about principle. I’m holding until I die.

The Art of Slowing Down.

#SaveTheMalls for a Good Long-Term (Yes, the Dreaded Word on WSB) Investment Opportunity

Governor Sisolak Press Conference 12/13/2020

Fuck this stupid economy that's games for the rich, torture for the poor

MTX - Can We Stop Complaining Please?

What I expected vs what I got. (Rant/My personal thoughts & feelings.)

I FINALLY MOVED!!!

Governor Sisolak Press Conference 12/13/2020

Gamehost (TSX: GH)

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