Gambling Winnings and Income Taxes for 2020. Taxable.

I did some gambling last year (and the year before) in Vegas and won some jackpots at various casinos. I did not hold onto the tax papers they gave me after the wins and now I need them for my taxes. Is there a way to get another copy from the casinos?
To make matters worse, I don't remember all of the casinos I won a jackpot at so I don't know exactly which casinos to contact. Is there a way to see the tax information that has been sent in to the IRS so I can contact each of the casinos? I would like to get a win/loss statement from them so I can file these wins/losses on my taxes.
Thank you in advance!

Hi guys,
I have a quick question about taxes for sports gambling winnings/losses this year.
Assume I live in Illinois (which is true) and my income from last year and this year is the same with all other factors remaining constant as well - # of dependents, no short stock gains, etc.
Assume last year with my same salary and situation that I received $3k back in taxes.
If for the year of 2020 I had $100k in winnings and $105k in losses and I itemize those losses, should I still be receiving $3k back in taxes for the year?
Any input is appreciated! Thank you

I recently deposited about $50 in DraftKings and have grown that amount to around $800 (mostly luck). After some doing research on my own, is it correct that I will be taxed on the gain of each individual win? So if I have $1,200 in wins, but $400 in losses, I will be taxed on the $1,200 unless I itemize on my taxes this year?

Specific ly load with visa gift card/debit.. then cash out to paypal or something. Don't care about bonuses

This is prompted by this thread from u/VinX1997. This is all hypothetical for me as I'm only paper trading right now and haven't placed any real bets, but I'm trying to figure out if getting into sports betting would be profitable for me - and it looks like it would depending on how the taxes work.
Assume that I would report everything, whether it triggered a 1099 or not. Written like I'm explaining it to a 5 year old, because I'm trying to understand it myself:
Situation 1:
Say I make 25 bets, each for $1,000, all of them at -200. This means that if I win a bet, I win $500. Assume I win 17 of the bets and lose 8.

• My total wagers are $25,000.
• My total payouts are $25,500
• My total winnings are $8,500
• My total losses are $8,000
• My net winnings are $500

What are my taxes?

• Is it $1,262 - 4.95% of my total payouts?
• Is it $421 - 4.95% of my total winnings?
• Is it $25 - 4.95% of my net winnings?

​
Situation 2:

• Let's turn it around and say I win only 8, and lose 17.
• My total wagers are still $25,000
• My total payouts are $12,000
• My total winnings are $4,000
• My total losses are $17,000
• My net losses are $13,000

What are my taxes?

• Is it $594 - 4.95% of my total payouts?
• Is it $198 - 4.95% of my total winnings?
• Is it $0 - I have a net loss?

​
Thanks in advance folks

Hello I have a question about those who have reported profit with taxes from sportsbetting/daily fantasy. I currently use fanduel/draftkings/pointsbet sportsbook and are profitable on 1 app and down on the others. Up 5k on pointsbet/down 2k on draftkings/down 300 on fanduel. When you report do you report what your up/down in total or only on the app that you are $600+ profit on. So will I have to pay taxes on 5k(Pointsbet profit) or 2.7k(Pointsbet-draftkings-fanduel profit). I usually use bitcoin sportsbook but these usa apps make it so much easier now.

Just getting started and doing research. I see the 24% tax rate and that you have to itemize to deduct losses etc etc but am missing info on what seems like a basic question:
Are taxes on winnings also applied to the returned wager?
I.e. if I wager $100 on a +100 and win, does the tax apply to the $100 profit, or the entire $200 that was returned?
Thanks!

Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls,
I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps.
​
I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders.
While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months.
Any feedback or additions are appreciated
Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer.
Here's what I tell options beginners:
I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot.
I like this beginner book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7
Helpful websites:

• Tasty Trade (TT) and Ally Invest have helpful articles and videos.
  • https://www.tastytrade.com/tt
  • https://www.youtube.com/c/tastytrade1/featured
• Ally training:
  • What is options trading? https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/investing/trading-options-for-beginners/?CP=EM2012111
  • Top 10 options mistakes: https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/investing/top-10-option-trading-mistakes/?CP=EM2012111
• 3 common option mistakes: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/library/options/common-mistakes-options-traders-make
• Common options strategies: https://www.optionsbro.com/basic-options-strategies/
• Investopedia has tons of great investing info for stocks and options: https://www.investopedia.com/
• Kamikaze Cash Theta Gang Videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOweupE79XXiBaeH_xBpkUcYUsrAaKQen
• 20 rules of professional traders: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/022715/20-rules-followed-professional-traders.asp

Don't trade until you understand:

• You can lose your entire contract value when buying.
• You can lose a lot of money when selling "naked", theoretically unlimited.
• How option expiration works.
• Theta (decay) and how it works. This is imperative since it's attrition when buying and a payout when selling. https://www.optionseducation.org/advancedconcepts/theta
• DTE: Days till expiration/expiry
• Options positions with respect to price:
  • ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
  • ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
  • NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
  • OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
  • Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
• Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
• Understand all the greeks at a high level, as you get better understand them well. The greeks: https://www.optionsplaybook.com/options-introduction/option-greeks/
• IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
• Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
• FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
• What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
• Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.

Basics / Mechanics

• Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
• You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
• Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.

General Tips and Ideas:

• Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
• Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
• Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
  • Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
  • A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
  • I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
• Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
• Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
• Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
• “Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
  • Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
  • Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
  • Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
• If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
• Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
• Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
• NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
• At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
• Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
• When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
• Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
• If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
• I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
• Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
• As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
• Understand Liquidity and volume.
  • Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
  • Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
  • Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
• Time in market vs timing the market:
  • It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
  • IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
  • I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
• Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
  • As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
  • Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
  • My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
• Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
  • For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
  • I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
• If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
  • Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
  • For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
• The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.

Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation

• If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
• Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
• If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
• Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
• Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
• A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
• Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
  • If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
  • Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
• On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
  • Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
  • This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
  • Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
    • On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
    • I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
  • I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out on by not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
  • Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
• If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
• If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.

Trade Planning & Position Management Tips

• As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
• Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
• Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
• Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
  • This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
  • I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
• Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
• If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
• Covered Calls:
  • If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
  • Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
  • If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.

-Advanced Beginner-
Spreads

• Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
• Spreads usually require margin trading.
• Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
  • Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
  • For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
• Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
• Vertical Credit spreads:
  • Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
  • A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
  • A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
  • https://www.schwab.com/resource-centeinsights/content/reducing-risk-with-credit-spread-options-strategy-0
• I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
• Short Straddle:

Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation

• Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
• Short attacks:
  • Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
  • Short Ladder attacks:
    • https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/instablog/11442671-gerald-klein/3096735-anatomy-of-a-short-attack
    • Some people say short ladder attacks don't exist. I've seen some very strange stock nosedives off low volume, so I tend to think they do.
  • If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
• Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
  • Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/article/cramer-interview-idUKN2036292620070320
  • httpss://youtu.be/r07Gg92YjOI
  • https://youtu.be/VMuEis3byY4
  • https://youtu.be/JEzsfPmh894
  • https://youtu.be/QFfjX8dW-QQ
  • Due to this video I don’t fully trust Cramer. His show can give you stock ideas to buy (or inverse), but you never know where his true loyalties lie.
• Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306

-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)-
You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another.
Options Strategy Finder
This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below.
https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx
Short Strangle / Straddle

• Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
• A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
• A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
• Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
• Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-strangle.aspx
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-straddle.aspx

Iron Condor and Iron Butterflies

• These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
• These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
• Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
• An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
• An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
• The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
• Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-condor.aspx
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-butterfly.aspx

Long Condor (Debit Call Condor)

• The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/condor.aspx

Short Condor (Credit Call Condor)

• Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-condor.aspx

Reverse Iron Condor

• Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Debit to open.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/reverse-iron-condor.aspx

LEAPs

• LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)

PMCC / PMCP

• PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
• I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
• Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
• TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.

Advanced Orders

• Guide to several order types: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events/webinars/order-types-from-basic-to-advanced-07162019
• One Triggers Other (OTO):
  • Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
  • Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
  • What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.

​
Disclaimer:
I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you.
I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.

I tried to make it easy to skip around if you just want to see the financials or estimates. Just scroll to them if you don't care what the company is or their sectocompetition/management. TL;DR at bottom with final thoughts.
Introduction
“FuboTV ($FUBO) is an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies.
Launched on January 1, 2015 as a soccer streaming service, FuboTV changed to an all-sports service in 2017 and then to a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) model. As a vMVPD, FuboTV still calls itself sports-first but its expanded channel lineup targets cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated features that can be streamed through smart TVs, mobile and tablets and the web. The service is available in the United States, Canada and Spain as of 2018."
From their home page:
They are the only competitors in their space of digital sports broadcasting, offer 4K streaming and upscaling of live sports, cloud DVR capability ranging from 250 or 1000 hours on standard plans, and is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Android TV, Android Smart TVs, and Android/iOS smartphones and tablets, with plans ranging from $24.99/month to $79.99/month (not including add-ons).
They have also recently acquired one company and have made plans to acquire another to allow for in-house sports betting. They have stated in a press release that they plan to release a sportsbook before the end of the year. This will push them into a broader spectrum outside of only TV and sports streaming, and into the sports betting sector along with DraftKings ($DKNG), FanDuel ($PDYPY), and Penn National Gaming ($PENN).
Plans and Add-ons
FuboTV offers three standardized plans as of February 8, 2021: the Family plan is priced at $64.99/month (normally $75.97/month), Elite at $79.99/month (normally $100.95/month), and Latino Quarterly at $24.99/month, along with offering additional add-ons. Each plan offers a range of channels, cloud DVR capabilities (which allows fast-forwarding through commercials), and casting to multiple devices simultaneously. Only the Elite plan does not offer a 7-day free trial (Channels page).
The Family plan includes 117 channels (mostly news and entertainment with roughly 40 that offer sports, including ESPN), up to 250 hours of DVR space, and casting to 3 devices at once. The quarterly prepaid includes a free upgrade to 1000 hours of DVR space and 5 casting devices at home with 3 on the go (Channels page).
The Elite plan includes 164 channels (includes an additional “47 entertainment channels”), up to 1000 hours of DVR space, and casting to 5 devices at home with 3 on the go. This plan does not offer a quarterly prepaid (Channels page).
The Latino Quarterly plan includes 250 hours of DVR space and can be streamed on up to 3 devices at once, but only has 32 channels. This plan needs to be prepaid every 3 months for a total charge of $74.97 and does not offer a monthly service (Channels page).
Upgrades include additional DVR space--1000 hours for an additional $6.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly--and increased device casting--an additional 2 devices at home with 3 on the go for another $9.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly plans. You can also add a variety of channels and sports packages (the Latino Quarterly has fewer channel add-ons compared to the Family and Elite plans, which both have the same channel varieties). Sports Plus with NFL RedZone is an additional $10.99/month, but includes all professional and college sports broadcasting services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, fighting, etc. (Channels page).
Fubo has recently removed its former Standard plan, which included only 65 channels, up to 2 casting devices, and only 30 hours of DVR support for $60/month.
Financials and Growth
Fubo has yet to file an annual report as they have gone public in October of 2020, but they have filed a 10-Q for Q3 2020. All numbers in thousands.
Assets-
Between December 31, 2019 and September of 2020, assets have increased from $368,225 to $799,313 (a 117% increase) . Total current assets increased from $17,973 to $58,016, but accounts receivable decreased from $8,904 to $6,975--this may be attributed to the increase in prepaid subscriptions which increased from $1,445 to $12,177 which shows strong customer satisfaction and retention.
Liabilities-
Liabilities have increased from $145,049 to $290,376 (a 100% increase). The largest contributors to their liabilities are “Due to related parties” increasing from $665 to $85,847, “Warrant liabilities” increasing from $24 to $28,085, and “Accounts payable” from $36,373 to $61,679. Long-term borrowings have decreased from $43,982 to $25,905.
Revenues-
Subscription revenues increased by $53,433, totaling $92,945 for the year. Total revenues including advertisements and licensing have increased by $61,202, totaling $112,669 for the year and an increase of 47% YOY. Q4 revenue is estimated to be between $94,000 and $98,000 which would be a 77-84% increase YOY.
Expenses-
Subscriber related expenses total $114,315 for the year. Total expenses have totaled $500,249 for the year.
Subscribers-
Ended Q3 with 455,000 paid subscribers, a YOY increase of 58%, and plans to end 2020 with over 545,000, an increase of 72% YOY.
Competition
Its closest competitors are Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney ($DIS)), YouTube TV (owned by Alphabet ($GOOG)), and Sling TV (owned by Dish Network ($DISH)).
Hulu + Live TV

• Includes league networks
• 50 hours of free DVR (200 hours for $9.99/month)
• More than 74 channels
• Unskippable ads on DVR without upgrade to 200 hours
• 2 streams at a time
• $64.99/month
• Can add ESPN+ and Disney+ for an additional $7/month

YouTube TV

• Includes league networks
• Unlimited DVR storage
• More than 85 channels plus YouTube Red Originals
• 3 streams at a time
• Sports Plus package for an additional $10.99/month
• NBA LeaguePass for an additional $40/month or $119.99 annually
• Starting at $64.99/month

Sling TV Blue

• Includes league networks
• DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
• More than 45 channels
• 3 streams at a time
• Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
• Starting $35/month
• Can be combined with Sling TV Orange for a total of $50/month

Sling TV Orange

• Includes league networks
• DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
• More than 30 channels
• 1 stream at a time
• Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
• Starting at $35/month
• Can be combined with Sling TV Blue for a total of $50/month

The vMVPD Sector
Cord-cutting has become increasingly popular over the last few years with consumers dropping traditional cable and satellite networks in favor of streaming services--such as Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, etc.--and vMVPD services.
In 2019 alone, 6.3 million people cut their cable connection, totaling 39.3 million. In a survey of what they might miss most from cable networks, 52% said they don’t miss anything, 23% missed live events on TV, 22% missed news, and 19% missed live sports. Although not all of those that miss aspects of cable will pay for another subscription service, the sentiment exists for a sports-focused platform that offers other large networks as well.
Another report by Parks Associates reveals that 17% of vMVPD subscribers switched from traditional TV within the last twelve months. In the same report, a survey conducted on current broadband households determined that 43% were “likely to switch to a… vMVPD within the next 12 months." The potential growth exists for the live digital broadcasting space, although it is slowing down.
With the spread of COVID and quarantines, people have been spending more time at home. When things open and quarantines end, that will be the true test for these providers as people will spend less time watching TV.
The Sports Betting Sector
Legal sports betting has taken a huge leap in recent years with the introduction of online sports betting; the ability to place wagers from anywhere at any time and have instant gratification has boomed with its slow legalization. This sector has a forecasted value of $150 billion with other competitors already having a completed project and vast market share. In 2019, DraftKings ($DKNG) and FanDuel (PDYPY) controlled 83% of the market share.
FuboTV plans to join into this space with its own sportsbook. Their recent acquisition of Balto Sports in December of 2020, whose business was in simulating fantasy sports games, is Fubo’s first step into sports wagering. They plan to create a free-to-play gaming system alongside online sports wagering.
Their next planned acquisition, which was announced in January of 2021, will be to acquire Vigtory, a sports betting and interactive gaming company. According to BusinessWire, they plan to utilize Vigtory’s “sportsbook platform and digital gaming assets, and its consumer-driven betting technology, to develop a frictionless betting experience for fubo’s customers."
These recent acquisitions set Fubo up to create an all-in-one viewing and betting experience, which could add new customers to their subscriber list and seal them into online wagering.
It has been over two years since the Supreme Court has denied the federal ban on sports betting, which would have made online betting illegal in all of the United States. Currently, more than two dozen states have legalized sports betting, but most have only legalized in-person betting. More states may be willing to legalize to take advantage of the increased revenues and taxes associated with gambling and online wagering. As of 2020, six additional states plan to legalize some form of betting, although some are only allowing in-person. There are an additional 14 states that are considering the notion to allow legal gambling, whether in-person, online, or tribal.
Management and Investors
David Gandler - CEO / Director / Co-Founder
Appointed as CEO and director in April of 2020. Prior to Fubo, Gandler had a 15 year career in marketing and advertising in local broadcast and cable TV within both general and Hispanic markets at companies such as Time Warner, Telemundo, and Scripps Networks Interactive.
Alberto Horihuela - CMO / Co-founder
In charge of marketing, Horihuela was head of Latin America for SVOD service DramaFever.
Simone Nardi - CFO
Nardi has worked as SVP and CFO of Scripps Networks Interactive where he was responsible for the finance and strategic planning for the company’s international business. Was also a key player in refinancing TVN S.A.’s billion dollar debt.
Large Investors

• Islet Management, LP with 5,108124 shares
• Morgan Stanley with 3,317,333 shares
• FMR LLC with 1,262,907 shares
• BlackRock Inc. with 956,678 shares
• Merger with FaceBank for $100 million revolving credit

Analysts and Estimates
Average analyst ratings put Fubo at a Buy to Strong Buy rating with an average price target of $45.50 with a high of $60 and a low of $30. EPS estimates are estimated to be -5.23 for 2020 and -1.64 for 2021.
Currently has a short float of about 75%, but the short volume has been holding at roughly 15-20% over the last month and has drastically declined from its October short volume of over 50%.
Originally valued at $700 million less than a year ago, a current valuation of $3.19 billion is respectable for this company and is on par for its current performance.
Risks

• Marketing fails and Fubo is never known as a household name, so consumers stick with other more known providers
• Their sportsbook fails and becomes dead weight and wasted money
• Subscriber count and streaming drops as quarantine lifts, reducing revenues while maintaining expenses
• Consumers opt for cheaper options
• People paying for the sports package cancel when the season is over, creating a boom and bust cycle if not managed correctly

Final Thoughts / TL;DR
With its drastic growth over the last year (400% in the last 4 months), support from FaceBank and well-known investors, and plans to join the sports betting sector, FuboTV has potential to become a household name and grow well beyond its current valuation by combining both sports broadcasting and online sports betting into one convenient place. Although unlikely to overthrow any of the current forces, it can become the best live sports broadcaster that people can turn to when they cut cable but want to keep live sports. It has many hurdles to overcome (creating their sportsbook, better marketing, increasing subscriber count, etc.) before it is any real competition to its already established competition.
At a $3.19 billion market cap and very high (75%) short interest, it will be very difficult to realize consistent growth, but it is on par for a company with almost $100 million in revenue.
My Position
25 shares at $47.30
​
Edit: edited final thoughts/TL;DR
Please provide feedback! First time actually researching and compiling information for a company and not just reading about them on here. Also, please ask questions to clear up any confusion; it was kinda hard to put everything together neatly, so I might have accidentally left stuff out or oveunder explained some things.

Your 12-minute Tuesday report in 2793 words.

NSS investigates corruption in MoD and Army / prominent arms supplier charged

Arms supplier Davit Galstyan, aka Mr. Davo, who acted as former Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan's adviser, has been reportedly charged as part of 4 felony investigations.
NSS said: several officials of the Ministry of Defense used their position to reach an agreement with the employees of a number of private companies, including "Moston Engineering" company owned by Mr. Davo. A decision has been made to involve Davo as a defendant. He has been charged with embezzlement.
Galstyan goes through 4 felony cases regarding arms supplies made by his company. Evidence was obtained showing that officials from the General Chief of Staff office and Ministry of Defense abused their powers to embezzle at a large scale.
https://www.civilnet.am/news/2021/01/19/Դավիթ-Գալստյանին-մեղադրանք-է-առաջադրվել-խոշոր-չափերով-յուրացման-համար-նա-անցնում-է-չորս-քրեական-գործերով/416572
Who is Mr. Davo?
His name began circulating in 2007 when Prime Minister Serj Sargsyan ordered the privatization of Defense-related companies "Neytron" and "Bagavan". Both were purchased by an offshore firm managed by Davo in Seychelles Island.
He used the companies to form a new company DG Arms which announced plans to produce bullets. In 2009 it accumulated debt and got sued.
The UN Security Council wrote a report, stating that Davo's DJ Arms illegally supplied arms to Libya, by using Armenia and other countries.
In 2011, Davo transported weapons from Albania to Libya with the help of a company managed by the Albanian Defense Ministry, says the UN Security Council.
In 2013, a Ukrainian company decided to sue Davo's company in Armenia for $1.3 million. Several of Davo's properties were frozen.
Fast forward to 2018. Pashinyan met Davo to discuss the production of Kalashnikov weapons in Armenia. Davo signed a contract with the Russian Kalashnikov company and opened the factory.
Full report in the article:
www.civilnet.am/news/2019/02/19/Ո՞վ-է-Հայաստանում-«Կալաշնիկով»-արտադրողը-Լիբիա-մատակարարած-զենքից-մինչև-վճարումներ-Պորոշենկոյի-ընկերությանը/354981

former president Robert Kocharyan & Co trial resumes

Context: Kocharyan (president) and his co-defendants Seyran Ohanyan (chief of general staff), Yuri Khachaturov (deputy MoD), and Armen Gevorgyan (Kocharyan assistant), were charged with toppling the constitution in 2008 by illegally using the military against civilian protesters during a period before the March 1st, 2008 emergency was declared. Kocharyan and his assistant are also charged with large-scale bribery in a case involving a mining businesswoman who testified about the multi-million-dollar bribe allegedly paid by her. The trial has been repeatedly delayed by defendants for almost 2 years under various pretense, at one point prompting prosecutors to ask the court to punish defendants for the delays. Prosecutors want to advance to the evidence stage.
The trial resumed today. The defense asked the judge to dismiss the general prosecutor from the case, citing concerns that "he is following orders". Prosecutors denied the claim.
The defendants began discussing the 44-day war during the trial. Prosecutors complained and described it out-of-topic. The two sides shouted at each other, prompting an intervention by the judge.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040640.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040671.html , https://youtu.be/bQry4ljbgdA , https://factor.am/329591.html , https://factor.am/329597.html , https://factor.am/329607.html

Parliament votes: anti-corruption bill to make transactions transparent

Parliament voted 84-0-2 to approve a government bill to establish the Expenditure Declaration Institute. Single transactions over ֏2 million ($3,900) will need to be disclosed by public officials. If there are multiple smaller transactions instead, these transactions must be published if they exceed ֏3 million.
To fight against corruption in which a public official buys property as a gift for a friend but uses it for personal benefit, the official will be required to disclose the property that is legally owned by a friend but brings any kind of revenue to the official, or a property that was gifted but is being managed by the official.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040597.html

Parliament votes: debtor, creditor, guarantor relations

Parliament voted 115-0-4 to approve a LHK bill. If a debtor fails to pay his debt, the guarantor who had earlier vouched for the debtor will bear subsidiary liability, but only after the claim is made against the debtor. The guarantor's property can be confiscated only after such an attempt is made against the debtor's property.
More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040611.html

Parliament votes։ radioactive convention

Parliament voted 88-0 to ratify a CIS convention about improving communication between CIS member-states while transporting radioactive materials. It should improve safety by providing mutual assistance to detect safety issues, safer transport, info, etc.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040596.html

Parliament votes: convention about children

Parliament voted 85-0 to ratify a child protection convention against child trafficking and pedophilia. "With the ratification of the Protocol, the Republic of Armenia is obligated to pay due attention to the views and recommendations of the Committee on the complaints of persons under its jurisdiction."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040602.html

reforms: driver's license tests and exams

As part of recent reforms, the process of obtaining a driver's license will become harder. The written exams will be available in English, Russian, Farsi, and Arabic.
The exams will last 30 minutes instead of 15, with 20 questions instead of 10.
Moped will require a license.
A, A1, and B1 license requires a behind-the-wheel test in special racetracks.
B license requires a test on the streets.
All other licenses require both: on the streets and in racetracks.
A, B, BE licenses require medical approval if the applicant has certain impairments.
Certain commercial licenses require a medical test for everyone.
Foreign citizens must present a document proving their status as a legal resident.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040661.html , https://youtu.be/MJWe0ad9lqc

post-reform stats: how many drivers received points and suspension?

The traffic enforcement law was changed recently. All drivers have 9 points that they can waste annually before being suspended. The most serious violations result in instant suspension. This was partly done so "rich" drivers wouldn't "get away" with paying only monetary penalties.
In 2020, some 2175 drivers got suspended for 6 months. 414,825 citations were issued to deduct points.
Traffic safety violations by year:
2018: 1.6 million
2019: 1.9 million
2020: 1.7 million
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204606

update: Artsakh residents closed a Qarvachar road for Azeri vehicles

Context: two roads used to connect Artsakh to Armenia. The northern road was traveling through Qarvachar (Kelbajar), which is one of the 7 adjacent regions that is now under Azeri control. It used to connect Armenia's Vardenis to northern Artsakh. After the war, only Lachin road is available, so Artsakh's northern residents must travel long distances via Lachin to visit Armenia.
Yesterday, a group of residents from Artsakh's northern Drmbon village closed a road that travels through the village into the Qarvachar region. Azeris were using this Armenian road to connect to Qarvachar. In exchange for using the Armenian road in Drmbon, the residents want Azeris to unblock the northern Qarvachar road so Artsakh residents can once again have the second road to connect to Armenia's Vardenis.
Russian peacekeepers met the residents to hear their complaints. Residents said the closure of the 90km northern Qarvachar road forces them to travel 500km via Lachin. Russian peacekeepers said their job is only to provide peace and monitor infrastructure, and that such issues would need to be resolved at higher levels. The peacekeeper promised to do his part in resolving the issue.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040627.html , https://youtu.be/UZVJyNsmEt0

POWs and diplomacy

Artsakh MFA Babayan sent letters to international institutes to pressure Azerbaijan to reveal information about POWs. He accused Azerbaijan of illegally holding captive 64 soldiers who were captured during skirmishes in the Hadrut region.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040631.html
Arab human rights foundation Maat has urged Azerbaijan to return Armenian POWs. "The actions of the Azerbaijani authorities are a gross violation of international humanitarian law."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040645.html
The human rights ombudsman met the German ambassador to discuss issues relating to POWs.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040684.html
Parliamentary Defense Committee chairman: recently we met the families of POWs and missing soldiers to present the progress and hear their opinions. When the topic of POWs is publicly raised on certain platforms, it only harms the process of the speedy return of POWs. This issue has no immediate solution. (likely in response to some opposition MPs who left the Parliament floor yesterday after fiery speeches).
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040682.html

protesters block opposition BHK's entry to Syunik province

A group of demonstrators were against the BHK leadership's visit to Syunik. They also criticized the former regime PM candidate Vazgen Manukyan for calling Gyumri protesters "hobos" and accused him of "plundering Gyumri" in the past.
BHK leadership met the protesters and accused Pashinyan of violating the November 9th statement by pulling troops from Syunik borders, "which is a violation of one of the Statement paragraphs which states that troops can remain in their positions."
The residents accused the BHK MP of misrepresenting the Statement, saying that "the Armenian troops are being removed from the Artsakh-side of the border and not Syunik... You would have done the same thing if you were in Nikol's place."
https://youtu.be/GwEttPsYZ4I , https://factor.am/329542.html

explosion on Syunik borders

Two emergency crew workers received wounds after a bomb explosion in a bordering area near the south-eastern part of Syunik. The crews were searching for war casualties when the incident took place.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040669.html

Syrian jihadist hired by Azerbaijan

Middle East reporter obtained information from one of the jihadists recruited by Azerbaijan. The Hamza Division fighter stated that the jihadists were more afraid of Azeri soldiers than Armenians, because of how badly they were treated by Azeris.
https://youtu.be/qDqwOXs8hVQ
https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/1351266461482967040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw , https://factor.am/329560.html

search operations

Search crews found the bodies of 7 soldiers and 1 civilian in the Hadrut, Jabrayil, and Davit Bek regions. The Hadrut civilian was identified by relatives. The identities of others are being checked by medical teams.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040613.html

jobs for Artsakh refugees living in Armenia

Labor Ministry: we'll help Artsakh residents to find jobs. There are two programs that teach skills and help find work. 660 people have already applied. We consulted with businesses to find available positions.
The applicant will be paid ֏100,000/month to receive skills. We will pay the business ֏34,000/mo to teach the skills.
The second program will help refugees to find community work and get paid ֏8,000/day.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040656.html

Artsakh refugees continue to repatriate

175 returned to Artsakh today, bringing the total via the Lachin corridor to 50,002.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040608.html

new settlements will be built in Artsakh with local materials

Most of the masonry produced in the Martakert mine will be used for building a new settlement in Artsakh. The government and "Future Generation Foundation" are still discussing the location and design of the new settlement. The work will begin this Spring. The new mine near Martakert will replace two others that went under Azeri control during the war.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040642.html

Lachin school returns to daily life

Lachin corridor has several Armenian villages that remain under Armenian control. The school in Aghavno village has resumed its operations after renovating the damaged building. The attendance is twice lower than in pre-war time but the numbers grow as more families return.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040647.html

Pashinyan met the new Healthcare Ministry officials

Pashinyan: It should be noted that during now-former Minister Torosyan's tenure, the Healthcare Ministry was one of our most effective departments. Since 2018, large-scale people-oriented reforms have been implemented. The goal was to expand the quality and scope of the health services.
There was a time when we were criticized for the handling of COVID. Critics would show other countries and say "Here is how to fight the coronavirus." But we are confident that we have taken the balanced road. Our approach was justified in reality. (he is saying that some countries initially had lower infections numbers but eventually "caught up", despite causing more harm to their economies with stricter closures in the initial period)
Our next challenge was the war. We currently have a problem with identifying the bodies. Despite the complications, the work has recently gained a very acceptable pace.
Our new Healthcare Minister is Anahit Avanesyan, who was the Deputy Minister and was part of Torosyan's team. Her appointment is a result of our trust in them. I wish her good luck. I hope that the pace of reforms in the healthcare sector will increase.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040635.html

COVID stats

+2224 tested. +236 infected. +436 healed. +9 deaths. 7671 active.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040614.html

COVID vs industrial production in EAEU

Armenia saw the smallest decline in the EAEU trade bloc when it comes to industrial production. It stood at $3.766 billion after a -0.2% decline.
EAEU -2.8%. Russia -3%. Belarus -0.7%. Kazakh -0.8%. Kyrgyz -5.5%.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040581.html

massive illegal gambling network busted

Police said: Poker gambling was organized in a Yerevan building without a license. Dealers were hired. Drugs were circulated. The organizer was making ֏600K/day by receiving 4% of the winning amount. 10 people were detained. ֏5.5 billion in total damages and unpaid fees.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040695.html , https://youtu.be/Z5GZnivFKqQ

hikers trapped on snowy mountains

A group of hikers got stuck on a mountain near Dzoraglukh, Aragatsotn, and couldn't climb down. Emergency crews were sent to hospitalize them.
https://factor.am/329755.html

Ministry addresses concerns about grain harvest / Subsidy for high-yield wheat seed

"Armenia is self-sufficient in a number of crops. The gap is filled with imports. The supply of grain has not stopped even in the most difficult conditions of the epidemic and the war," said Economy Ministry in response to concerns that Armenia could face "hunger".
"The concerns about hunger was raised back in March 2020 when it was claimed that Armenia, just as other countries facing pandemic-related difficulties, could face hunger by November. At the time, we assessed the situation, and the EAEU bloc not only met the demand but produced 46 million tons in excess and decided to export it to non-member states. The EAEU ensures its members have supplies before exporting."
"We're constantly in touch with food importers and storage operators to monitor the supplies. We haven't recorded deficiencies."
"Armenia is self-sufficient in fruits, vegetables, eggs, goat and lamb meat, somewhat beef. We import poultry, wheat, legumes."
"25% of Armenia's demand was met by imports from Artsakh. The 2019 harvest was mostly collected in 2020 and brought to Armenia just before the war. There is a subsidy program that distributes free seeds and fuel to Artsakh farmers."
"In the Autumn of 2020, we launched a program to help farmers in Armenia. The purchase of high-quality wheat seeds is being subsidized by the government. 5,000 tons of seed will be planted in 20,000 hectares. On average, the wheat yield is 1.8 tons. We plan to increase it to 3 tons."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040580.html

meeting between Pashinyan and Dutch ambassador

They spoke about high tech and possible investments from the Netherlands. The ambassador will inform Dutch business circles about opportunities. The two spoke about the proposed unblocking of trade routes in the region.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040696.html

high-tech industry

High Tech Minister Arshakyan held a meeting to present Armenian tech companies that won as part of the "Virtual Bridge" initiative, which was organized by the Draper University, AGBU, and the Ministry.
"Each of these companies has the opportunity to attract large investments and conquer markets in Armenia and abroad. On January 28, they will have the opportunity to present their programs to international investors."
"The ministry will soon announce new business grant programs."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040598.html

drone production in Armenia: ArMath in the air

ArMath is a high-tech program that teaches robotics and engineering to students across Armenia. They launched a new "ArMath in the skies" program to teach students "drone production and love towards high tech."
All 65 cities in Armenia and Artsakh will have a workshop. Anyone between the ages of 15-18 can join. The project will cost ֏422 million.
Each workshop will operate for a year and build 7 drones. 750 students will be trained annually. "The army will receive 2,500 trained personnel within 2 years."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040664.html

Armenian tech company Redforest

... has released a new visual-graphics feature for its 10 million users. Within minutes, the users can produce clips, logos, websites, mock-ups, etc. for social media consumption. It's an "all-in-one platform".
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040620.html
https://www.renderforest.com/

today in history

1910: famous Armenian writer Hrachya Kochar was born.
2007: Armenian-Turkish journalist and activist Hrant Dink was killed in Turkey for being Armenian and supporting the recognition of the Armenian genocide.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040575.html

Kond is looking for architects

Kond is an old district in Yerevan with dozens of cultural-historical monuments. The government wants to "turn it into a tourist spot, revive and develop it", so they launched an auction to find the best sketch-design for development.
Briefly about the planned work:
1) Arranging access and attractiveness of all entrances to the district
2) Development of a system for easier communication within the district
3) Specialized cafes (artists, architects, etc.) open and closed, Visitor Information Center.
4) Open public areas with relevant themes.
5) Disability access.
6) No cars.
(more details in links)
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1040600.html , https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204696

donations to Artsakh & recovering soldiers

www.1000plus.am (recovering soldiers & their families)
www.HimnaDram.org (for Artsakh & Armenia)
www.ArmeniaFund.org (U.S. tax-deductible)

news archive

http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Daily_Anti-Corruption_Reports

disclaimer

All the accused are considered innocent unless proven guilty in the court of law, even if they "sound" or "appear" guilty.

Edited to ask: Is each session counted as a separate taxable event, as a win or a loss? Or do we take the end of year aggregate total to count as a "win" or "loss"?
I tried Googling this, but it is really unclear. I do not intend to file as a professional gambler, I have a job. I also don't plan on playing high stakes, maybe just make around $10-20k a year. As far as I can tell, "winnings" must be reported, and losses aren't reported unless you ITEMIZE deductions, which I don't plan on doing. Does Pokerstars provide an annual tax form?
Additionally, poker "winnings" get added your Modified Adjusted Gross Income, but "losses" to not get deducted from your MAGI. In my case, I qualify for an Obamacare subsidy for having a MAGI under a certain number. It looks like I could lose this, even I have a net loss for the year.
So let's say I start the year winning 10 sessions in a row, and am up $10k, but I play 10 more sessions and lose $15k. Am I now forced to pay taxes on $10k for the year?
Also, are gambling winnings taxed at a different rate? Will they change my tax bracket?

I had started writing a post about what the next steps for the franchise could entail when I realized that a huge amount of it revolves around one guy... the player return we got from the Harden trade who happens to be entering Unrestricted Free Agency in a few months.
When the news came through that we had traded LeVert for Oladipo, many assumed that it was just a move to reduce salary by Tilman, but I reject that as overly pessimistic. Oladipo in his prime (which was not long ago at all) was a 2-time All Star and one of the premier defensive shooting guards in the league. His horrific injury has taken a bit of time to come back from, and worried Indiana enough to scare them off from wanting to deal with re-signing him to the max contract he will be requesting in Free Agency next summer. They saw so much value in having LeVert locked up on a cheaper deal for extra years that they were willing to take him on with his cancer concerns instead of dealing with a potential max deal for Vic. I don't see this as a salary move from Tilman so much as I see it as a gamble on a player returning from injury by Stone. Between taking chances on Wall, Boogie, and Nwaba, hoping players can come back from bad injuries is a common thread in his gambles and seems to be his "M.O.", so I'm thinking he honestly hopes Victor can come back to a significant percentage of his peak level.
Trading Harden for a younger All-Star SG +8 FRP assets is a massive coup of a deal... if Oladipo is capable of playing close to the level he was at before his injury.
Unfortunately, Victor hasn't gotten back to that level yet... But he isn't that far away, either. He has flashed his potential several times, but has had an equal number of horrific shooting nights. This lack of consistency is problematic, but if he could stabilize around the level of his better performances (which he is obviously capable of), there isn't really a question that he would be worth a near-max deal if not a full max.
Obviously, getting that consistency back is his primary goal and there is no reason to believe that it isn't our hope for him as well. If he does, then we can feel safe signing him to a long-term deal or, if he returns to form quickly enough, we can flip him for more assets.
The first option there is relatively straight forward. Re-signing him if he is close to his old production levels is a no-brainer. You've seen the reports that neither side are giving committed answers one way or the other at this point, which is sensible in terms of leverage in negotiations. Both sides know that he has more to prove and if he doesn't prove it, there isn't a good reason to offer him a max deal next summer. Some team will likely do it anyway, and there is even a chance that it may be us; but saying we are looking to do it before seeing that proof of play is a bad move (especially with no guarantee that another team will do it). It would be a mistake to offer him $34M/yr with 8% increases if he doesn't show serious progression from his current level of play. The question is... at what point does it no longer become a mistake?
Here is a list of available UFAs next summer (from Hoops Rumors):

2021 Unrestricted Free Agents

Point Guards

• Alex Caruso (27)
• Mike Conley (34)
• Quinn Cook (28)
• Matthew Dellavedova (31)
• Dante Exum (26)
• Shaquille Harrison (28)
• Reggie Jackson (31)
• Kyle Lowry (35)
• T.J. McConnell (29)
• Patty Mills (33)
• Raul Neto (29)
• Cameron Payne (27)
• Elfrid Payton (27)
• Derrick Rose (33)
• Dennis Schröder (28)
• Ish Smith (33)
• Jeff Teague (33)

Shooting Guards

• Sterling Brown (26)
• Reggie Bullock (30)
• Alec Burks (30)
• Wayne Ellington (34)
• Evan Fournier (29)
• Langston Galloway (30)
• Danny Green (34)
• Tyler Johnson (29)
• Furkan Korkmaz (24)
• Patrick McCaw (26)
• Ben McLemore (28)
• E’Twaun Moore (32)
• Victor Oladipo (29)
• J.J. Redick (37)
• Jerome Robinson (24)
• Iman Shumpert (31)
• Tony Snell (30)
• Garrett Temple (35)
• Denzel Valentine (28)
• Lou Williams (35)

Small Forwards

• Trevor Ariza (36)
• Nicolas Batum (33)
• Kent Bazemore (32)
• Torrey Craig (31)
• DeMar DeRozan (32)
• James Ennis (31)
• Tim Hardaway Jr. (29)
• Maurice Harkless (28)
• Solomon Hill (30)
• Stanley Johnson (25)
• Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (26)
• Wesley Matthews (35)
• Doug McDermott (29)
• Darius Miller (31)
• Abdel Nader (28)
• David Nwaba (28)
• Kelly Oubre (26)
• Otto Porter (28)
• Glenn Robinson III (27)
• JaKarr Sampson (28)

Power Forwards

• Carmelo Anthony (37)
• Nemanja Bjelica (33)
• Marquese Chriss (24)
• Gorgui Dieng (31)
• Jared Dudley (36)
• Rudy Gay (35)
• Taj Gibson (36)
• Jeff Green (35)
• James Johnson (34)
• Trey Lyles (26)
• Paul Millsap (36)
• Markieff Morris (32)
• Mike Muscala (30)
• Georges Niang (28)
• Semi Ojeleye (27)
• Jabari Parker (26)
• Patrick Patterson (32)
• Mike Scott (33)
• P.J. Tucker (36)

Centers

• LaMarcus Aldridge (36)
• Khem Birch (29)
• Bismack Biyombo (29)
• DeMarcus Cousins (31)
• Ed Davis (32)
• Andre Drummond (28)
• Cristiano Felicio (29)
• Harry Giles (23)
• Udonis Haslem (41)
• Willy Hernangomez (27)
• Richaun Holmes (28)
• Dwight Howard (36)
• Mfiondu Kabengele (24)
• Frank Kaminsky (28)
• Enes Kanter (29)
• Luke Kornet (26)
• Alex Len (28)
• Robin Lopez (33)
• Boban Marjanovic (33)
• JaVale McGee (33)
• Nerlens Noel (27)
• Kelly Olynyk (30)
• Daniel Theis (29)
• Moritz Wagner (24)
• Hassan Whiteside (32)
• Cody Zeller (29)

Although there are some interesting names on the list, unless Schroeder ends up with a FMVP or Jrue Holiday or Kawhi Leonard decide to leave their teams, Victor Oladipo is probably going to be the most sought-after Free Agent next summer. A fair number of teams have max space, so it is likely that he will get his max deal from somewhere. Oladipo has expressed interest in Miami, but they aren't likely to have a max slot available after signing Bam to his extension. A number of other teams do have plenty of space available, though, including the Knicks, Bulls, and Spurs.
If you can't see where I'm going with this, the question is... should we also consider being a team that offers him a max contract? Obviously we don't want to get caught up in a bad contract that prevents us from missing out on other Free Agents! Well, who else on that list strikes you as someone we should spend money on? There are some interesting names. Harry Giles... Otto Porter... Hey, maybe we could get Kelly Oubre!
But anyone we would want will also be wanted by another team, and there will be a bidding war that also makes that guy overpaid. In short, I'm suggesting that year 1 of an Oladipo max would not be a problem even if it were an overpay.
Well what about year 2? Here is a list of available FAs the following summer:

Unrestricted Free Agents

Point Guards

• Patrick Beverley (34)
• Michael Carter-Williams (31)
• Stephen Curry (34)
• Tyus Jones (26)
• Rajon Rondo (36)
• Terry Rozier (28)
• Ricky Rubio (32)
• Delon Wright (30)

Shooting Guards

• Gary Harris (28)
• Jeremy Lamb (30)
• Zach LaVine (27)
• Marcus Smart (28)

Small Forwards

• Kyle Anderson (29)
• Danuel House (29)
• Wesley Iwundu (28)
• Josh Jackson (25)
• Jake Layman (28)
• Taurean Prince (28)
• T.J. Warren (29)

Power Forwards

• Robert Covington (32)
• Dorian Finney-Smith (29)
• Aaron Gordon (27)
• Joe Ingles (35)

Centers

• Thomas Bryant (25)
• Marc Gasol (37)
• Jahlil Okafor (27)
• Tristan Thompson (31)
• Jonas Valanciunas (30)

Zach LaVine is obviously the highlight here. Aaron Gordon and Terry Rozier are some other interesting names (and it's worth pointing out that Brooklyn's Big 3 could opt-out and enter FA). Is the hope of convincing Zach LaVine to sign here worth leaving open space for? Maybe you think so, but I'd suggest it's not.
Because here's the thing...
We can trade Oladipo.
Obviously we can trade him in the next 7 weeks, but we can trade him after re-signing him, too. In fact, as long as he doesn't get re-injured or regress horribly (the latter being something we can probably determine this year if you aren't already convinced), it won't be so hard to move his contract. A 30% max contract is not the problem that a 35% supermax represents. Any of the big name Free Agents could be sign and traded by their teams in return for Oladipo. If his contract has turned negative, we may need to include a pick or two... but we have a lot of those! And using them to move a bad contract as a way to sign a top-tier FA really isn't a waste of picks. It's essentially the same thing as using picks to trade for a superstar (WHICH WE CAN ALSO DO! more on that in a minute). Using Oladipo as salary filler in future trades is a good reason on its own to keep him around. There is a chance the deal will look like an overpay, but unless he has a horrific injury or falls off a cliff (which doesn't seem likely, imo), it isn't going to be that negative.
Victor will make over $10M/yr less than Harden is scheduled to make next year. Add that to an increased salary cap, and we can probably re-sign him to a max, re-sign Nwaba with Early Bird Rights, and along with Wall, Gordon, Wood, House, Tate, KJ, Ma$e and KPJ, have room to use the MLE and still fill out a roster while remaining under the tax.
It's basically this year's roster minus PJ, Ben, and Brown, but with an MLE signing to help out. Is that a Championship roster? No. It is competitive and has significant upside if the youth improve and the vets recover further from injury, but Wall and Oladipo are not the top-tier superstar needed to win a title.
But either one of them could easily be the 3rd best guy on a Championship team (with the other being sent away as salary match if/when such a deal arises) and resigning Vic - even to a max contract, if necessary - allows us time to find a trade for a superstar (or sign one in Free Agency by trading one of our guards).
I hear you calling me crazy for suggesting it. But what are the alternatives? Let's game plan them out, too. The popular idea is trading Vic before the deadline for more assets. This is not a bad idea... in fact, it may even be a better plan than re-signing him... but only if he can bring back a good deal.
What does a good trade for Oladipo look like? Well, in his prime he was a decidedly better player than Jrue Holliday, who just got traded for a decent player in Eric Bledsoe as well as 3 FRPs. It's unlikely that Oladipo will return to that form in the next 7 weeks (although not impossible, especially with the extra opportunity that Wood's injury affords him), but if he continues to flash that level of potential, we would be getting robbed to let go of him for anything less than 2 very lightly protected FRPs.
If that's the price for someone to trade for him, do you see it happening? I really don't. Maybe we get lucky and Miami gets desperate. Maybe another contender with assets to spare (there aren't so many left) decides to throw down an offer with hopes of a promise that he will re-sign (likely a max contract) with them. Again, I don't see this as likely. It would be great if it happens, though!
No, it is unlikely we can trade Oladipo for more than a FRP and some expiring filler. Now you may think that sounds like a good deal, but is it? Certainly it isn't good compared to what New Orleans got for Jrue, and while Oladipo doesn't look as good as Holiday right now, he undeniably has the potential to look that good. So the question is, do we certainly lose value on him by trading him on the cheap, or do we take a risk of losing value if he can't regain max-contract form. The former is obviously safer, the latter could obviously blow up if he has a career-ending injury (but it could also pay off with significantly higher rewards than a FRP).
So unless we get a lucky deal, it comes down to what our appetite for risk is. I'd say roll the dice on Vic. He's only 28, so age is not really a factor on his next contract. It's completely a question of how close to his old self he can return to. We've seen some promising signs in the short season so far, and will now get a month of real opportunity to gather information on him.
And here's the biggest problem with trading him for bad value... if we trade him for a pick without getting a very solid player in return, our roster will absolutely get worse. It drops us from our current status of 'bottom bracket playoff team' to 'No-Mans land'... being in the 9-12 range.
That's a horrible spot to land. If we are there, it makes more sense to tank, leading us into the last section of this essay on guarding our assets...
DON'T TANK
It's 2 AM here and I've been writing for too long, so I'm gonna make this short and sweet.
Tanking sucks. Losing sucks. We don't want to be losers if we can be semi-competitive. Showing a commitment to winning attracts Free Agents, keeps Wood happy, and allows us to maintain a franchise that is literally one piece away from being right back as a contender.
We are not Oklahoma City. Free Agents want to play in Houston. Maybe its not LA, NY, or Miami, but there aren't many other cities above us on the list of destinations. If we trade for a guy, he's liable to stay. We don't need to rely on high draft picks to get talent.
(side note: tanking is not even a reliable way of getting talent! Between reduced lottery odds and the uncertainty of high picks panning out, it's a bad way to depend on getting a superstar. Philly and OKC are the closest examples of it 'working out' and those were under the old lottery odds... now it would be significantly harder. Additionally, remaining competitive keeps our Brooklyn pick swaps in play as being assets. If we sell all assets and aim for the bottom, then it will be a long climb out in which at least 2 and quite possibly 3 of our swaps are basically completely surrendered, whereas keeping competitive can allow those swaps to become quite valuable even if the Nets don't bottom out as badly as they did for Boston. Not to mention the increased danger of giving much better picks to OKC)
Signing or trading for stars are MUCH more reliable methods... and we now have the picks to trade with. So that should be our preferred path to contention. Wait for the next top-tier superstar to become unhappy and fire away to get him. Only OKC and NO can compete with our picks package (and we can offer a decent player in return as an additional bonus!)
So when that next disgruntled star shakes free (which has happened more and more frequently), we stand poised to strike stronger than any team in the league.
A new era of contenders is on the horizon. The Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, and Nets are aging out. The Nuggets and Celtics are the types of teams we look to be competing against in a few years. Those are the superstars we need to be worrying about for now... not the old guard, but the young ones. Tanking next year puts us way behind in a rebuild that is only one move away. So get those thoughts out of your heads. We can compete with those teams with Wood, another star, and Oladipo or Wall along with all our promising young talent.
We will be back sooner than anyone expects. And as surprising as it sounds, the first step may well be signing Oladipo to a max contract next summer.

Your 11-minute Tuesday report in 2562 words.

gas prices could rise due to currency fluctuations

Russian gas price (at the border) had increased from $150 to $165 per 1000m³ in 2019. Although the Russian currency Ruble was devaluing against the Dollar, Armenia was/is paying for gas with Dollars.
Since 2019, the Pashinyan administration has been trying to convince Russia to implement a different gas payment mechanism within the EAEU trade bloc. Making payments in Rubles instead of Dollars was one of the priorities:
"We are constantly talking about high dollarization within the EAEU, but we still pay for Russian gas in dollars. Our proposal was that it would be more correct if we paid for gas in rubles, because I think it is more logical, also within the EAEU," said Pashinyan in early 2020.
This idea was also shared by Vladimir Putin's personal adviser back in October 2018. It appears the EAEU has been working towards this goal lately.
But meanwhile, Armenia has to pay for Russian gas in Dollars. With Armenian Dram devaluing against the Dollar, the pricing for consumers will likely be revised. Consumers pay 139 Drams per cubic meter. This was calculated in 2020 when $1 was 480 Drams. Today $1 = 520 Drams.
Large consumers pay in Dollars and have their rates adjusted periodically, while small consumers (general public) pays in Drams.
Armenia imports 2.2 billion m³ gas from Russia annually, at the price of $165 per 1000m^3. 0.7 billion of it is consumed by the general public.
Dram was devalued by 6.6% since November. This could prompt the internal gas company to raise the prices, including for the general public.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039886.html
http://www.armbanks.am/en/2020/04/07/128024/
https://neftegaz.ru/en/news/energy/406887-armenia-should-pay-for-russian-gas-in-rubles/

Public Council meets drone and robotics industry

The Public Council (linked to PM's office) held a meeting with engineers from the drone, robotics, AI, and nano-tech industries. They discussed ways to help the state to develop the military-industrial complex, drone production, aviation, and to bring their quality to international standards.
https://factor.am/327477.html

former PACE MP sentenced to 4 years for taking bribes from Azerbaijan

An Italian court has concluded that Italian PACE representative Luca Volonte, who is the former head of the European People's Party, took €2.4 million in bribes from the Aliyev regime in 2012-2013.
The bribe was handed over by Azerbaijan's PACE delegation leader Suleymanov. The scheme was coordinated by an Azeri lobbying firm based in Brussels. In return, the MP gave Azerbaijan favors during PACE and Italian Parliament sessions.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039927.html
Tags: #caviar

POWs and searches

The search crews in Artsakh discovered bodies of 10 soldiers and 1 civilian in Jabrayil, Hadrut, and Sgnakh regions. The civilian has already been identified by his relatives. The cause of death is being investigated.
Many bodies under the possession of the Armenian side are yet to be identified, while more bodies will likely be found during daily searches for the foreseeable future. Overall, 575 calls have been made by families who are looking for missing relatives, says the Russian humanitarian envoy in Artsakh.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039900.html , https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/289293/
Human Rights Ombudsman Tatoyan once again criticized Azerbaijan for intentionally politicizing and delaying the POW swap mission. "It is against international laws to file felony cases and arrest POWs because that's a form of a prohibited punishment. Azerbaijan is also hiding the true number of POWs."
The Ombudsman has noted that Armenian residents in Tegh, Vorotan, and several other bordering villages have lost access to 2500 hectares of farming lands due to border changes. (some lands that were internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan were given to Azerbaijan after the war).
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039933.html , https://factor.am/327226.html , https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204175

POW discussions: general prosecutor meets Azeri counterpart

Chief prosecutor Arthur Davtyan and his Azeri counterpart were invited to Russia. The three sides held a conversation about the establishment of future contacts in the field of international law and other related topics. Prosecutor Davtyan mentioned the importance of implementing the November 9th statement about the return of POWs, "which will serve as an assurance for implementation of other [trade unblocking] issues."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039953.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039972.html

how much will a new railway network cost?

Azeri economists believe it will cost around $430 million to build a railway network connecting Kars(TR)-Nakhijevan(AZ)-Meghri(AM)-Zangelan(AZ)-Baku(AZ). Overall, if you add Gyumri between Kars and Nakhijevan, it could cost about $434 million.
Economists believe Armenia can use this network to connect with Russia via two directions: Gyumri-Nakhijevan-Meghri-Baku (southern trip), or Ijevan-Ghazakh-Baku (northern trip).
https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/289313/

rumors & rebuttals: traitors are not selling Azeri juice in Armenia

Telegram channel Mediaport circulated rumors that "Azeri Sandora juice is being sold in Armenia". The misinformation was picked up by several outlets and caused confusion among the buyers.
Fact-checkers contacted Sandora's local importer who said the producer is a Ukrainian company that sells its product in multiple post-Soviet republics, so they have one unified tag that contains information both in Armenian and Azeri languages.
https://fip.am/14469

4 Dutch MPs receive medals for friendship

Among them is ethnic Kurdish MP Sadet Karabulutu, who publicly criticized the Turkish-Azeri aggression during the war.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204216

food prices in Artsakh

Pricing for 43 commonly-consumed items was examined by the consumer protection agency in Artsakh. 12 became more expensive, 5 cheaper, 26 remained the same.
Onion +25%, cottege cheese +6%, milk +6%, gloves +5%, ..., pear -12%, rice -1%, eggs -1%, butter -1%.
Several dairy product prices went up, and since Artsakh has dairy companies that own dominant market share, the consumer agency will launch an investigation to see if there was price-fixing.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039946.html

seismic resistance assessment for old buildings

A significant portion of Armenia's large apartment complex buildings were built half a century ago. They may not be seismically safe, considering Armenia's geolocation. After the 1988 earthquake, some buildings remain populated despite being deemed highly unsafe. Many other buildings have safety irregularities.
It is necessary to assess the situation, so the Urban Development Committee has drafted a bill "Methodology for assessing the priority of increasing the seismic resistance of buildings and structures".
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039887.html

IRS will closely monitor gambling industry / RFID chips & servers

IRS press release: gambling facilities and online betting services will be more closely monitored. We worked with international experts to digitize the gambling industry and bring it on par with international standards.
All gambling machines and platforms operating in Armenia will be connected to one server which will be connected to a monitoring Center. All betting and winning transactions will be recorded.
The Center will also install RFID microchips in casinos to monitor the movement of chips, the chips purchased or won by players, in real-time.
The government's Digital Council has approved the bill, which is yet to be discussed and voted in the Parliament. The goal is to be able to monitor the financial flows in this sector and to estimate the actual revenues. It will combat money laundering. (BHK skipping a Parliament session due to "COVID" in 3, 2, 1, ... /joke)
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039915.html

new "public council" will advise Nature Ministry

Nature Minister Romanos met several environmental organizations and environmentalists and discussed the creation of a new Council, which will advise him on nature protection issues, help draft bills and roadmaps, work with other environmental organizations and NGOs. The Council is accepting applications.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039896.html

large quantities of illegally-cut trees were busted

... by Ijevan policemen during a routine patrol on Sunday. Three cargo trucks were filled with wood.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039960.html

rammed through the gates

The police have arrested the father of a missing soldier who used his Vaz 21 vehicle to ram through the Defense Ministry's entrance gate before smashing it into a building on Sunday.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039957.html , https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/289315/

"turn off the camera"

Context: An incident happened last week between parents of drafted soldiers and military officials at a military unit. The parents wanted assurances that their sons would be safe after being deployed on Artsakh borders. The parents wanted to know why Armenian soldiers are still being sent to Artsakh "despite the November 9th statement saying Armenians should withdraw from Artsakh."
During the confrontation, an incident happened between a military official and a journalist. The official struck the camera and instructed it to be turned off. Several media outlets released a message condemning the officer for hindering the journalist's work.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039973.html

infrastructure upgrades

Four settlements in Kotayk province (Yeghvard, Nor Gegh, Aragel, Zovuni) have a newly renovated irrigation pipeline as part of a govt subsidy program.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204202

today in history

1932: First Yerevan tramway began operating in Yerevan
1951: The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was implemented.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039885.html

get your free colonoscopy today

The National Center for Oncology has purchased the latest generation tools and will perform a free and enjoyable colonoscopy for residents over the age of 45, for the next 6 months.
The goal is to detect suspicious growths at an early stage. It's the third most common cancer among adults in the world. It has become more common in Armenia in the past decade. When detected early, it can be fully treated.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039911.html

COVID stats

+1885 tested. +355 infected. +729 healed. +5 deaths. 8393 active.
The death rate has been 1.8%. The infection reproduction rate was 0.84 in the past two weeks, down from 1.43.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039906.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039943.html

COVID numbers have declined, so what do we do?

... we lift some of the restrictions!
"Aye, aye, Captain!"
"I can't hear you!"
"The rule that limits attendance to non-commercial gatherings to no more than 60 people has been removed. All other safety requirements remain in place," said a Healthcare official. "You can enter Armenia via air or land by presenting negative COVID test results that were taken within the past 3 days. If you don't, you will be tested at the airport and will need to self-isolate until the results arrive."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039931.html

Armenia will soon import COVID vaccines

Healthcare Ministry: we are negotiating with multiple entities. The first batch of vaccines will arrive between late-January and mid-February. We are negotiating with producers whose vaccines have passed the necessary tests: Sputnik V, Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. In the first phase, the vaccines will be given to the most vulnerable 10% of the population.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039921.html

Sputnik V vaccine has already been tested in Armenia

Healthcare Ministry: no complications were reported by the 15 patients, including Minister Torosyan. The often-discussed "skin redness" in the injection area has not been observed, either.
The first injection gave a 91.4% efficiency. The second increased it to 94%. Even if the vaccine doesn't fully prevent the infection, it can save the patient's life by making the case mild (is that right??).
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039925.html

the new COVID strain: good news, bad news

Doctor Davit Melik-Nubaryan: the version of COVID that mutated in the UK will eventually reach Armenia. Preliminary data shows that those who have already been infected and gained immunity from the original COVID will be immune to this new strain. It is believed that the immunity will last 6-12 months for the majority.
The good news is that the new strain isn't more deadly and doesn't result in heavier cases. The bad news is that it spreads a lot faster. The Healthcare system could be overloaded again.
The vaccines against the original strain will likely work against the new one. Pharmaceutical companies may have to modify the vaccines, but it will only take weeks.
Closing borders with the UK won't be helpful to prevent it. We may already have the new strain. We need to develop a new strategy from the ground up.
Viruses mutate all the time. It's part of the evolution. Sometimes they cause more severe symptoms, sometimes lesser. From the evolutionary and survival standpoint, viruses want to cause less severe symptoms for the host so they can have a chance to spread wider.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039856.html

Armenian scientists will study the COVID strain

CDC chief Bakunts: Armenia will have the ability to study the genetic mutations of the coronavirus. Active work is underway to invest in research resources. Meanwhile, we can submit a virus sample to a WHO laboratory to conduct a study for us.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039962.html

families with newborn children receive mortgage subsidy

450 families have so far taken advantage of a government subsidy program that helps with purchasing apartments. ֏526 million will be paid as part of this 2020-2023 program. It is part of a recent initiative to boost the birthrate.
Two other aid programs went into effect in mid-2020. Provincial families received a downpayment subsidy equalling 5% of the total price. Another one subsidizes insurance payments.
The same family can apply for all three programs, and there is no age limit for parents.
https://factor.am/327385.html

diaspora-government cooperation expands: iGorts

iGorts is a program that recently recruited 48 highly skilled diasporan Armenians to visit Armenia and work at 19 various government agencies. Three more volunteers have arrived today to begin their work: Shila Palyan from Canada, Zaven Ayvazyan from Russia, and Anahit Mikaelyan from Cyprus.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204211

Yerevan to install 32 more elevators in apartment complexes

Arabkir district is the next recipient. Hundreds of units were installed in 2020. They replace the decades-old elevators that have become dangerous and poopy. The new elevators come equipped with running water and flush so you can drain your crap /s.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039954.html

have you been buying stuff right and left lately?

...because trade turnover increased by +34%, and the number of printed receipts by +7%, during this year's New Year's holidays.
֏91 billion was spent between December 29-31, which is ֏23 billion more.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/204195

would your majesty be pleased to take a salt bath?

Nerqin Getashen will have a halotherapy "salt bath" center to help alleviate certain conditions. It's the first in Gegharquniq province. There will also be rooms for aromatherapy (oils), ogyxenotherapy (oxygen cocktails), and massage.
The owner claims it helps boost immunity and alleviates breathing, allergy, and insomnia issues (take the claim with a bath of salt).
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039974.html

first Yezidi theater to open in Armenia

"шəp' y əBин" or "war and love" will be the first performance in a newly opened Yezidi theater in Ejmiatsin. It's part of a «Եզդիների կողքին» cultural initiative. The crew had planned a major performance about Yezidi national legend but the 44-day war began and some were drafted.
The crew ended up performing the "шəp' y əBин" during the war. It's about the importance of Yezidis in Armenia, and their love for the country. The January 17th performance will be dedicated to Yezidis who died fighting.
The performers aren't professional actors but they received acting training on-the-fly. "It seems to work because their enthusiasm is great. A very good team has been formed," said the producer.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039941.html

Aram Khachaturian House-Museum will resume "Musical Thursdays"

This year's first classical concert is dedicated to Ruben Babayan, "the BFF of Armenian musicians."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039916.html

Netherlands college will donate large quantities of school supplies

Several thousands of desks, chairs, furniture pieces, computers, lockers, etc. are being loaded in containers to be shipped to Armenia.
The Hermann Wesselink college is renovating its building with new items so they decided to donate the old stuff to Armenian kids. This will be enough to equip 15 provincial schools.
https://factor.am/327135.html

donations to Artsakh & recovering soldiers

www.1000plus.am (recovering soldiers & their families)
www.HimnaDram.org (for Artsakh & Armenia)
www.ArmeniaFund.org (U.S. tax-deductible)

archive of older posts

Armeniapedia's archive of my daily news threads:
http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Daily_Anti-Corruption_Reports

disclaimer

All the accused are considered innocent unless proven guilty in the court of law, even if they "sound" or "appear" guilty.

Gambling Winnings A payer is required to issue you a Form W-2G, Certain Gambling Winnings if you receive certain gambling winnings or have any gambling winnings subject to federal income tax withholding. You must report all gambling winnings as "Other Income" on Form 1040 or Form 1040-SR (use Schedule 1 (Form 1040) PDF), including winnings that aren't reported on a Form W-2G PDF. When you have gambling winnings, you may be required to pay an estimated tax on that additional income. For information on withholding on gambling winnings, refer to Publication 505, Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax.
Gambling Losses You may deduct gambling losses only if you itemize your deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040) and kept a record of your winnings and losses. The amount of losses you deduct can't be more than the amount of gambling income you reported on your return. Claim your gambling losses up to the amount of winnings, as "Other Itemized Deductions."
Recordkeeping To deduct your losses, you must keep an accurate diary or similar record of your gambling winnings and losses and be able to provide receipts, tickets, statements, or other records that show the amount of both your winnings and losses. Refer to Publication 529, Miscellaneous Deductions for more information.

My situation:
• Started my own business in 2019. (It's still going! Woo hoo!)
• Formed a single member LLC (SMLLC) for the liability protection.
• Business coach told me to get an EIN in my LLC's name to open a business bank account and also read that it was a good idea to get an EIN for your LLC, so that when vendors request a W-9 you don't have to provide your SSN. Yes, please.
• Following advice above, I got an EIN in my LLC's name and used it to open a business bank account.
• Didn't have income in 2019 that reached the threshold to generate tax forms to me (1099s), but filed 2019 taxes with what I'd made (lost), putting my LLC's EIN on line D of Schedule C per the IRS instructions that "if you are the sole owner of an LLC that is not treated as a separate entity for federal income tax purposes, enter on line D the EIN that was issued to the LLC (in the LLC's legal name) for a qualified retirement plan, to file employment, excise, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms returns, or as a payer of gambling winnings. If you do not have such an EIN, leave line D blank."
• Got my first W-9 and saw that it (see page 4) actually says (!!!) that "If you are a single-member LLC that is disregarded as an entity separate from its owner, enter the owner’s SSN (or EIN\, if the owner has one).* Do not enter the disregarded entity’s EIN."*
• Was surprised by this and wasn't comfortable giving out my SSN to this vendor, so I looked online for how other folks had handled this, and found that people often used their SMLLC's EIN despite the clear instructions not to (which seemed like a bad idea) or would request an EIN in their own name (an "owner's EIN") and then provide that EIN, since the W-9 instructions say an owner's EIN can be used.
• So, I subsequently requested an EIN in my own name (just as a sole proprietor) and have used that on W-9s and for PayPal and Stripe 1099-Ks.
• Now, I just got a 1099-INT from my bank for the business bank account that I opened in my LLC's name with its EIN, and so of course the 1099-INT has the LLC's name (just its name, in fact) on it and its EIN.
My main questions:
Is any of this a problem? If it is, what should I do to fix it?
My secondary / specific questions:
1 - Does my bank need to re-issue the 1099-INT in my name and SSN or EIN (or at least with my SSN or EIN?), per the IRS that "for federal income tax purposes, a single-member LLC classified as a disregarded entity generally must use the owner's social security number (SSN) or employer identification number (EIN) for all information returns and reporting related to income tax"?
2 - Schedule C instructions say that "if you are the sole owner of an LLC that is not treated as a separate entity for federal income tax purposes, enter on line D the EIN that was issued to the LLC (in the LLC's legal name) for a qualified retirement plan, to file employment, excise, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms returns, or as a payer of gambling winnings. If you do not have such an EIN, leave line D blank." I got the LLC's EIN to open a bank account (which is specifically allowed by the IRS), but does that mean that I should keep putting my LLC's EIN on line D of Schedule C or leave line D blank when I file for 2020 and in the future?
3 - Is the IRS going to have a problem that I'm using the EIN in my name ("owner's EIN") for tax purposes (W-9s, 1099-Ks) for my LLC, since the IRS doesn't allow me to use the LLC's EIN? Will they have issues connecting that the 1099s they receive with my EIN number are being reported on my Schedule C with my LLC's EIN number and instead be looking for a separate Schedule C with the EIN number in my name / "owner's EIN" on it?

Ho!
Given the recent stock frenzy, many of you may have made some quick gains on some stock trades. I was in a similar situation, had a hard time finding any exact answers, had to consult a tax attorney in the end. I'll write up what I know, feel free to add to it or correct me if I'm wrong.
The basics
Belgium does not have capitals gains tax (applying to Belgian tax residents only), if the investment is done as a private person, managing his/hethe families assets, within 'normal' limits.
However, some of investments could be considered speculative, potentially triggering a 33% + municipality rate capital gains tax. (Different from the 2016 speculative gains tax on stocks, abolished in 2017).
What counts as speculative and what is 'normal' portfolio management is a gray area and can be strongly debated. I will address it further below.
Speculative taxes, if applied, would be for the realized profits for the calendar year (from January 1 to end of the year). Realized profits/losses are calculated over your closed positions (profit/loss = your sell price - buy price). Open positions (even they are shorts, for which you got premium) do not count towards your realized profits.
There are no deductibles: if you lost money last year, you can't carry it over for this year; you can't deduct any other expenses from these losses either;
'Normal' limits
For what is considered 'normal' portfolio management strategies, you will find plenty of debate/examples of this on this forum, I recommend you read up.
What is known to be safe, is buy&hold type strategies, ETFs, staying away from risky assets (crypto, options, turbos,..), not putting ALL your portfolio on one big gamble, no day-trading, automated trading, frequent daily buys/sells, etc.
But what if you mostly hold ETFs, but buy the occasional long-dated call options? Gray area. Who knows. Debatable. Would you be taxed speculatively for your options winning only, or also for the ETFs part of your profits? Again, no one knows, but probably it could be reasonably argued the former .
How do you pay the taxman?
Luckily, it is not your responsibility to keep track of speculative/not speculative gains, but that of the tax authorities. It is up to them to prove you engaged in speculative investment behavior. When this happens, you will be contacted by the tax authorities asking for further information, account & trading history, etc. You would get a warning of sorts to know something is up and maybe it's time to involve a professional to help you justify your investments.
Be ready that they can/could come knocking on your door several years later. Have your transaction history/backups, just in case. But there are no fines or interest penalties, just a matter of debating with the fiscus how much you owe them.
Enforcement
In a typical Belgian twist, while taxes on speculative gains are harsh, enforcement/followup is lacking. I was told that it is very unlikely that anyone would get audited. People making mid six figures get away unchecked. And if you make that kind of money, be smart, and consider supporting the local tax attorney community, they are people too.
EDIT: By law, it is up to the tax office to prove/seek further proof you are dealing with speculative investments. They might or might not follow up with you. While your brokebank does not share with them for example stocks/options trading history, there are other things that can be red flags for the tax office: suddenly 200.000 shows up in your bank account, you hold foreign bank/brokerage accounts, there's a lot of monthly money transfers back and forth, you suddenly form a low-tax LLC in Cyprus, etc.
The average Joe (or Jan?) is unlikely to be audited (and please no one interpret this as it can't/won't happen either).
Advanced ruling
This is relatively costly (EDIT: free, if you do it yourself) and tedious procedure that helps get a binding decision from the tax authorities regarding a deal you made, a particular transaction, etc. So if you made mad money on a single transaction, it might be worth the effort. If you made a lot of smaller trades, you would need to do this individually - not worth it.
The other downside of an advanced ruling is that it lists a strict set of conditions: if you did A, B and C under circumstances X and Y, then this or that is allowed. Any small change to A, B, C, X or Y can make the advanced ruling unapplicable.
Summary
You made good money? Be happy, keep the potential tax amount around in case they do come for you, and if you don't get audited/asked additional info/transaction statements/etc, you're probably fine. Talk to a tax attorney if you can't sleep at night.
The BEFire community is doing a great job at promoting a fairly safe, low-tax, low-risk investment strategy. But if you do end up taking the more adventurous route, you might as well be informed on what to expect.

This is a long review about Option Alpha. I tried to post this on Investimonials but that website was glitching so here it is on Reddit. I'm not riffing here on Option Alpha but trying to provide an unbiased review to the community. Hopefully this helps someone make a better decision before they part with their hard earned money.
A lot of people are getting into options, whether its theta gang or long directional option trading. My warning to everyone is that don't necessarily fall for option trading services/rooms specially when they don't list an accurate trade log and PnL account performance.
This review below here is more applicable to the Theta gang option traders/option sellers so if you are a option buyedirectional optional trader than this review won't apply to you.
Here is the TLDR - At the very best if you want very low single digit annual returns while taking huge risks and want to take the headache of making 100s of option trades, spend tons on trading commissions and subscription fees ($100 to $300 per month), waste time making option adjustments and then create a tax headache paying short term capital gains tax rates (your highest income tax bracket) on profits and filling out IRS forms at the end of the year then this is the service for you. Also the return on your time spent understanding option alpha and then implementing its strategies is negative.
Normally I would not write reviews unless I thought that subs were getting ripped off. Let me start of by saying that I don't think Kirk (the founder of Option Alpha) is running a scam per se, but he is basically bilking gullible subscribers who are very new to options trading and have been sold the dream about option selling as the ONLY proper way to make money in options.
This service is a total waste of time for the individual investor. The last few years the returns have been flat after all these trades (basically up a few % or down a few %). This is before accounting for option commissions, and taxes (selling options ie. premiums are always taxed as short term capital gains at your highest income tax rate so you get no benefit vs holding stocks or buying options over 1 year) and subscription fees. Accounting for all this basically makes this a negative return. In fact I think it is better to buy a balanced Vanguard index fund or VTI etf and just Dollar cost Average into that every month vs using this system. Atleast with VTI you can expect to make 6% over the long term. The simplest strategy which is to buy VTI etf will beat Option Alpha over the long term with fewer headaches and invested time and energy.
Let start of with the good stuff first. The option education videos are free, extremely well made so that even total beginners can understand option selling. Kirk is a gifted teacher and explains everything in simple language. If you are a complete beginner than these videos will help. Things I learnt that are useful - adjusting losing positions and how to beta hedge. However they don't get deep into the intricacies of options that professionals worry about.
The education is totally biased towards option selling strategies. They try to sell the Option Alpha system (where you are a net seller of options) to the subscriber as basically running a an insurance business or creating your personal casino where you make 100s of trades ever year to eke out a small premium for taking on the risk. They then go on to basically sells you the system as being better than buying and holding ETFs or stocks over the long run and - how option buying doesn't work 80% of the time and how buying and holding stocks is riskier than selling option premiums. This is all good in theory. But in practice it reminds me of this quote - "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.". In reality, what they don't talk about is the fact that the success of option selling relies on harvesting variance premium in the option markets (historically around 3% or so). Unfortunately in recent years the variance premium has at times declined to negative levels. The sign for VRP can flip positive to negative for different underlyings and is not always positive every single month of the year. So making money with this system is basically entirely dependent on luck. Atleast the stock market tends to grow over the long term with earnings growth and GDP growth, but there is no guarantee that this will be the case with variance premiums which could be permanently arbitraged away by option sellers and brain dead option selling strategies such as Option Alpha. Option selling has to be done smartly or not at all.
The basic system is this:
Naively diversify by selling wide Iron butterflys/condors (this is the bread and butter trade about 80 to 90% of all trades) or credit spreads (about 10% to 20%) on these sector ETFs - SPY, TLT, XOP, XRT, EEM, OIH, FXI, XLP, XBI, GLD etc. Sell options about 30 to 45 days to expiration. I say naively because whenever markets crash everything goes down together so infact naive diversification is really di-worsification. Never have more than 5% of risk in any one ETF. They like to start out trades with a 1% to 2% risk per position and then scale in as adjustments are and will be needed. Good luck following this strategy if you have a small account as you will be taking greater risk. Then do this every single month or so without regard to broader macro conditions or IV levels or trend. Doesn't matter what EEM is doing or FXI is doing. Does Option Alpha look at price action, fundamental analysis, news flow, macroeconomics etc or anything else at the individual ETF level? No it doesn't appear they do. If and when positions move against you (which they regularly do) then waste time adjusting your positions and tracking credits to prove to yourself that you did make a tiny profit. They try to center the strikes as the underlying moves with adjustments and additional scaling in positions but honestly it doesn't work over the long term.
At the end of the year after 100s of trades (6 to 10 etfs x 4 (assume butterfly or condor) x 2 (opening and closing) x 10 (every 35 to 45 days) = assume 600 trades per year not including the adjustments and additional scale ins that will be needed), subscription fees (between $100 to $300 per month), broker commissions, pay short term capital gains and then waste additional time filling out dozens of pages of IRS forms with the 100s of option trades all to make a small single digit low annual return if lucky. The thing to understand is this, with option selling you generally risk $3 to $4 for every $1 of gains. So you can have 3 winning trades and then the 4th one will blow up profits. To counter this, they will show you how to make adjusting trades (only one side of the butterfly is underwater, so the whole position can be adjusted) or scale in so that strikes are centered around current underlying price. Even after adjusting which is not a guarantee of profits, the overall the results are just extremely lame. If you refuse to adjust positions it will be impossible to make any profit with this system. This is not to say other option selling strategies don't work (there are some that can work but they require a true edge) but its just that Option Alpha doesn't work. The free Theta gang on reddit or discord probably does a better job than OA.
As such there is nothing even remotely proprietary about Option Alpha. There is no edge. Because there is always a risk that all positions can simultaneously lose money in a crash as all assets trade downward, so Option Alpha advises that only use 40-50% of the account value for option selling and keep the rest as cash as a hedge against blowing the account up. Recently they advised having a 1% long VXX calls positions to hedge black swans/market crashes which I think is an improvement over the system of past few years.
I personally think that selling this system to gullible retail subscribers is extremely irresponsible. You can argue that option selling has a place within pension funds or other entities that have a lot of money who need yield income tax free and who have a proprietary system with an edge that can makes better risk adjusted profits but Option Alpha is basically gambling and praying for profits. If selling options is so good, how come I have not heard of a single Hedge fund that only does this with 100% of their capital? There were some crooks in Florida who blew up one fund that was selling energy options (you can look up Optionseller.com on google - website is defunct now). I'm not saying Option Alpha is pursuing similarly risky strategy since these are all defined risk trades and they do ask to hold 50% in cash. But it is conceivable that you can lose 100% of the amount you have put into selling options - that is the other 50% of the portfolio under a true black swan scenario. Maybe making adjustments etc will save the portfolio but its not really a guarantee. Btw the stock market can never goto zero. We can get another market crash and yes it could take a long time to recover but it can never goto zero (the businesses underlying these stocks have real value unlike options/derivatives). With stocks you have time to sell even with a 10% gap down overnight. Options will get blown up much faster.
This strategy is not at all the best way for the individual investor to invest. The only market where this system works is even Implied volatility is high ( so that you get extra compensation for selling time decay) and the market moves sideways. However in practice the market is either steadily marching higher and IV is low, or IV is so high (that you get a decent premium) but the market is rapidly moving in either direction so you will endlessly keep adjusting positions or keep taking losses. Options are complicated instruments and if you don't understand vol skew, statistics and probability, option greeks properly and can't backtest with good data than it is literally gambling and praying for profits. There is a real risk that naive option selling can blow up accounts. Option selling only makes sense in certain market regimes and only when done smartly. To tell retail traders that they should trade this way all the time for the rest of their life is extremely irresponsible.
Here is the thing. What I'm mad about is that Option Alpha has spent all this time very aggressively marketing this system and spent the last few years trying to develop an autotrading platform. It has been recently launched in Beta mode if you upgrade to lifetime membership for $2000-$2500. My hope is that the autotrading system will work and not blowup accounts due to software glitches like the Knight Capital software glitch fiasco in 2010.
I think they know these strategies don't work. The website claims that there have been 200k people who have signed up. I think at any given time they have 1000s of subscribers who come and go. If we assume 4000 subscribers per month at avg of $100 per month is $400k per month or $4.8 million per year. This is better than a lot of smaller hedgefund managers. For Kirk's own account, it appears that he trades a $300k portfolio, but his main source of income is selling Option Alpha subscriptions and doing real estate investing. How come his account is not millions of dollars now after almost a decade? But still around 300k? The simple reason is this doesn't work and instead he invests his income from Option Alpha subscriptions into other things/real estate investing etc.
The founder of OA has institutional experience trading and as such I would have expected him to focus on improving trading performance, creating new strategies, backtesting etc, interacting with members, rather than selling snake oil promises.
There isn't enough skin in the game. Option Alpha has forums where members can talk to each other and there are probably some legitimate strategies there (none are based on the Option Alpha) developed by members. But the OA founder has been completely AWOL last few years. Zero participation. Zero time trying to refine or improve his strategies on Option Alpha. They could have hired professional optional traders or even subscribed to institutional level stuff to help them out but no they have been focused entirely on making money. There are other free blogs and similar option newsletter services which also trade condors and butterflys which have shown much much superior results, however OA refuses to adapt their strategies or spend any time engaging with members. The focus has been on scaling the business and selling promises about the new autotrading system.
I think the founder has realized that this Option alpha is going nowhere and so has decided to pivot into autotrading. Gullible retail investors have been financing the build out of this service it seems.
Want another proof of what I'm saying? You can sign up for free membership and see the performance section. First the performance section does not tell you the performance from one year to the next. The only thing you can see is the meaningless numbers such as avg profit and loss on different option selling spreads and win rate. It is impossible to reconstruct PnL performance from these metrics. I think this is very misleading. Even Motley Fool shows their performance for their $100 per year newsletter. Almost any good newsletter and or trading/membership service shares performance/trade log for the past few years. If this is just about education then charge only for educational videos and don't have trade alerts and monthly membership/weekly elite calls etc.
Another note on some of the enhancements they up-sell on the website. The tools are almost totally useless. The backtester sucks. The scanner sucks. The forum is basically impossible to use properly.
The research reports (each priced at $400) are not worth the money.
Let me summarize the technical indicator report - use commonly used oscillators that everyone knows already at a medium term time-frame and buy at oversold condition and sell at overbought condition. I mean C'mon everyone already knows this. Does Option Alpha appear to use this research - nope!
The profit matrix report will tell you that there is no limited-loss option selling strategy that produces a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) above a low single digit return. Not a single one. This is not surprising since the variance premium per academic research is around 3 to 4%. Shouldn't this be disclosed to regular subscribers instead of asking them to pay another $400 bucks?
Covered calls research report - sell short dated deep OTM calls. Viola! There is no actionable information in these reports. These reports are a few years old and the information is not updated. The reasonable price for such reports should have been $20-$30 not $400.
You can even find REITs or dividend paying stocks that have a higher yield than than option alpha strategies.
In fact I'm not even confident if Option Alpha has used proper back testing methodology and not made mistakes. You will learn more spending this money on a proper backtesting website that professionals use. Even Seeking Alpha and Reddit have better options strategies articles for free. A lot of academic research is available for free. Tasty Trade has similar trade ideas for free. The bottom-line is that Kirk is not a skilled trader. And has made no effort to improve or adapt to the market environment the last few years. All effort has gone into growing the business and up-selling membership with very aggressive sales tactics. He is a master salesman so be careful. Its really the case of the blind leading the blind.
Just blindly sell options every month without any edge and charge big money for it without any real view about the direction of the underlying or IV.
Just to be clear I do not have unrealistic expectations from a newsletter service/system. If I'm subscribing to an expensive service than I expect that I should have a reasonable chance to make greater than 10% on my account annually. I'm not expecting 100% nor even 20% - just a reasonable 10% to 20%.
The best thing about OA is the free educational videos and the podcast. Use that and skip the paid services. Time will tell if the new autotrading pivot will work well and I would suggest waiting until it is proven to work.