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Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]

SEC Letter format for adjusting policies

Hey Guys, so I thought I'd share this letter here so you can all spam the SEC on their policies and what brokerages can get away with now that there's so much attention on the market and activity. Feel free to adjust the letter and spam to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and put the subject as day trading rules. These are what I personally feel would help, but the main thing is we should have access to the market as we see fit:
Dear Commissioners of The SEC and Chairwoman Allison Herren Lee:
I will first provide the substance of the pattern day trader rule:
Anyone who buys and sells a particular security in the same trader day (day trades), and does this four or more times in any five consecutive business day period is considered a pattern day trader. A pattern day trader is subject to special rules. The main rule is that in order to engage in pattern day trading you must maintain an equity balance of at least $25,000 in a margin account. If you are flagged as a pattern day trader and do not maintain a balance of $25,000 your account will be frozen for 90 days.
As a citizen of the United States of America, I am petitioning for the repeal or amendment of the pattern day trader rule. The rule, which is designed to protect unsophisticated investors from the high risk of day trading, is instead increasing risk by limiting the number of stop positions one can take, driving traders to more volatile markets such as futures and forex where no pattern day trader rules exist, and driving traders into offshore brokerages who do not adhere to the SEC pattern day trader regulations.
Additionally, this regulation among others is contributing to a divide in this country on who can utilize and invest in the stock market. Due to this tension the gap between the lower, middle and upper classes continues to grow as Day Traders also can utilize technology and programs to automatically buy and sell shares to secure a profit. As Americans, we should have the right to purchase and sell on the market to allow it to grow so we may also profit as desired and re-invest this profit into our economy.
Most recently on the social media platform Reddit, users gathered on this forum together to purchase shares of GameStop Corp. (GME) and caused the price of shares to grow by 3700% which allowed users to secure a profit that they will invest in the economy. While I understand the basis for this rule, it does not protect investors anymore with the evolution of communication technology. As shown recently after gaining a profit, several applications that offer free trading were forced to remove Gamestop Corp(GME) and AMC Entertainment Holdings INC (AMC) and void all orders placed on the previous day. This further demonstrates that the market is not about providing investors the opportunity to grow their income by investing as multiple brokers have removed the Reddit Markets from their platform and have expressed dissatisfaction and seek to file a complaint with the SEC about users communicating on forums and purchasing shares or seeking legal action. As of now, if one user has thousands of followers and posts a stock symbol each user is free to decide if they will invest, similar to those with subscriptions to Yahoo Finance, The Motley Fool or a Bloomberg Subscription and their stock recommendations. The driving force behind this decision was to spite a hedge fund seeking to make a profit which furthers the evidence of the growing disparity between the lower, middle and upper classes.
Additionally, If I open an account on multiple brokers, the highest risk is opening a margin with an account which is what can drive an individual into debt. As of now, if I sought to gamble, I can seek out the nearest Casino or Casino Cruise in the State of Florida to secure a profit with any amount of money and there is no policy in place to prevent me aside from being over the age of 18 and nor should there be. As I have worked to earn the money, I should have the right to spend or invest the money as I see fit without restriction.
I propose the following actions to fix the problems with the current disparities in the market caused by NASD Rule 2520, create a truly fair market and address the risk to investors on the stock market.
1) Repeal Rule 2520 and allow all traders to day-trade online and if platforms offer a program for automatically trading or application programming interface (API), they must fill out a form acknowledging they understand the risks they are taking.
2) Create new federal guidelines for Margins to be treated like a credit line where rather than based on leverage such as 1:10 it will be a fixed line of credit in the account minimizing the risk determined by the financial institution and based on creditworthiness.
3) Institute a policy where brokerages cannot restrict the sale of any stock without first filing a notice to the SEC and allowing the Trade day to close and 2 business days to elapse and must publicly provide justification for removal from the market.
I thank you for the time to review my email and hope you’ll consider the aforementioned actions, as this would be in the best interest of truly having a fair market while protecting our citizens and allowing them the opportunity to invest at their discretion.
Thank You, (Insert Name Here)
submitted by echegarayj to wallstreet [link] [comments]

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update September 24, 2020

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update September 24, 2020
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Register for your Absentee Ballot here!
Watch here:
Headlines
Full Notes
QUESTIONS
(continued in stickied comment)
submitted by mr_tyler_durden to Coronavirus_KY [link] [comments]

Lost in the Sauce: March 22 - 28

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Figuring out how to divide the COVID-19 content from the “regular” news has been difficult because the pandemic is influencing all aspects of life. Some of the stories below involve the virus, but I chose to include them when it fits into one of the pre-established categories (like congress or immigration). The coronavirus-central post will be made again this Thursday-Friday; the sign up form now has an option to choose to receive an email when the coronavirus-focused roundup is posted.
House-keeping:
  1. How to support: If you enjoy my work, please consider becoming a patron. I do this to keep track and will never hide behind a paywall, but these projects take a lot of time and effort to create. Even a couple of dollars a month helps. Since someone asked a few weeks ago (thank you!), here's a PayPal option and Venmo.
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Let’s dig in!

MAIN COURSE

Congress passes stimulus

Last week started out with a Republican-crafted stimulus bill that was twice-blocked by Senate Democrats, who objected to the lax conditions of aid to corporations, too little funding for hospitals, and a $500 billion “slush fund” for big companies to be doled out by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin with no oversight.
Conservative-Democrat Joe Manchin (WV) even criticized the GOP bill:
“It fails our first responders, nurses, private physicians and all healthcare professionals. ... It fails our workers. It fails our small businesses… Instead, it is focused on providing billions of dollars to Wall Street and misses the mark on helping the West Virginians that have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”
Through negotiations, Democrats shifted the bill in a more-worker friendly direction. The version that passed includes the following Democrat-added provisions: expanded unemployment benefits, $100 billion for hospitals, $150 billion for state and local governments, direct payments to Americans without a phase-in (ensuring low-income workers get the full amount), a ban on Trump and his children from receiving aid, and oversight on the “slush fund” (see next section for more info). Senate Democrats also managed to remove a provision that would have excluded nonprofits that receive Medicaid funding from the small-business grants.
Echoing sentiments expressed during debate on the previous coronavirus bill (the second, for those keeping track), Republican senators derided the $600 a week increase in unemployment payments as “incentivizing” workers to quit their jobs. Sens. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) delayed passage of the bill in order to force a vote on an amendment removing the extra unemployment funding. "This bill pays you more not to work than if you were working," Graham said. Fortunately for American workers, the amendment failed and the improved bill passed the Senate and the House.

The giveaways in the bill

While Senate Democrats were able to add worker-friendly provisions, the bill still required bipartisan support to pass the chamber and some corporate giveaways remained in the final version.
Politico:

Trump’s signing statement

While signing the latest coronavirus relief bill, the president also issued a signing statement undercutting the congressional oversight provision creating an inspector general to track how the administration distributes the $500 billion “slush fund” money.
The newly-created inspector general is legally required to audit loans and investments made through the fund and report to Congress his/her findings, including any refusal by the executive office to cooperate. In his signing statement, Trump wrote that his understanding of constitutional powers allows him to gag the special IG:
"I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution.
The signing statement further suggests that Trump does not have to comply with a provision requiring that agencies consult with Congress before it spends or reallocates certain funds: "These provisions are impermissible forms of congressional aggrandizement with respect to the execution of the laws," the statement reads.
While some have said that Congress fell short in this instance, one Democratic Senate aide told Politico that Congress built in multiple layers of oversight, including “a review of other inspectors general and a congressional review committee charged with overseeing Treasury and the Federal Reserve's efforts to implement the law.”
Legal experts have pointed out that a signing statement is “without legal effect.” But that ignores the fact that oversight is not equal to enforcement. The problem, in my opinion, isn’t that Congress won’t be notified of any abuses of power by Trump. The problem is that congressional Republicans and the judiciary have largely failed to hold him accountable and enforce our laws even after learning of his abuses.

Concerns about the IG

Another potential weakness in the oversight structure is the inspector general position itself. The special inspector general for pandemic recovery, known by the acronym S.I.G.P.R., is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. As we’ve seen from Trump’s previous nominees, particularly judicial, many unqualified individuals have been confirmed. The Democrats will not have the power to stop the president and Mitch McConnell from jamming through a loyalist to fill the SIGPR role.
Former inspector general at the Justice Department Michael Bromwich: “The signing statement threatens to undermine the authority and independence of this new IG. The Senate should extract a commitment from the nominee that Congress will be promptly notified of any Presidential/Administration interference or obstruction.”
You may recall that Trump has already proven that he’s willing to interfere with the legally-mandated work of an inspector general. When the Ukraine whistleblower filed a complaint last year, the IG of the Intelligence Community, Michael Atkinson, investigated and determined the complaint to be “urgent” and “credible.” Atkinson wrote a report and gave it to Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to hand over to Congress. However, the White House and DOJ interfered and instructed Maguire not to transmit the report to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Chairman Adam Schiff had to subpoena Maguire to turn over the report and testify before his committee.
Further, there are already five IG vacancies in agencies that have a critical role in responding to the pandemic. The Treasury itself has not had a permanent, Senate-confirmed IG for over eight months now, and Trump hasn’t nominated a replacement. The Treasury Dept. has taken a lead role in the coronavirus response, with Secretary Mnuchin handling most of the negotiating with Congress on Trump’s behalf. The fact that the lead agency doesn’t have IG oversight should be troublesome in itself; replicating the situation with a special IG doesn’t seem to be a promising solution.
UPDATE: The nation's inspectors general have appointed Glenn Fine, the Pentagon's acting IG, to lead the committee of IGs overseeing the coronavirus relief effort.
This is one of several oversight mechanisms built into the new law. They include:
A committee of IGs (now led by Fine), a new special IG (to be nominated by Trump), a congressional review panel (to be appointed by House/Senate leaders)

Direct payments

Included in the stimulus bill is a $1200 one-time direct payment for all Americans who made less than $75,000 in 2019 (less than $150,000 if couples filed jointly). More details can be found here. I have read that the Treasury will use 2018 information for those who have not filed yet this year, but I am not 100% sure that’ll happen.
Mnuchin has said that Americans can expect to receive the money within three weeks, but many experts expect that timetable to be pushed into late April. Additionally, that only applies to Americans who included direct deposit information on their 2019 tax returns. Those who did not include their bank’s information will have to be sent a physical check in the mail… which could take anywhere from two to four months.
Other options are being discussed, including partnering the Treasury Dept. with MasterCard and Visa to deliver prepaid debit cards. Venmo and Paypal are reportedly lobbying the government to be considered as a disbursement option.
Future payments?
House Speaker Pelosi is already planning another wave of direct payments to Americans, saying that the $1,200 is not enough to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic: “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of direct payments.” Republicans, meanwhile, are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach, using the next couple of weeks to measure the impact of the $2 trillion bill passed last week.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “What concerns me is when I listen to Nancy Pelosi talk about a fourth package now, it’s because she did not get out of things that she really wanted...I’m not sure you need a fourth package...Let’s let this work ... We have now given the resources to make and solve this problem. We don’t need to be crafting another bill right now.”
For the fourth legislative package, Democrats have said they would like to see increased food stamp benefits; increased coverage for coronavirus testing, visits to the doctor and treatment; more money for state and local governments, including Washington, D.C.; expanded family and medical leave; pension fixes; and stronger workplace protections.
Trump’s signature
Normally, a civil servant signs federal checks, like the direct payments Americans are set to receive. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump has told people that he wants his signature to appear on the stimulus checks.

THE SIDES

War on the poor continues

Amid the coronavirus crisis, Trump has defended his continued support of a Republican-led lawsuit to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would result in 20 million Americans losing health insurance if successful. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case this fall. Contrasting with his position that the ACA is illegal, Trump is considering reopening enrollment on HealthCare.gov, allowing millions of uninsured individuals to get coverage before potentially incurring charges and fees related to COVID-19.
Joe Biden called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading the charge against the ACA, and President Trump to drop the lawsuit:
“At a time of national emergency, which is laying bare the existing vulnerabilities in our public health infrastructure, it is unconscionable that you are continuing to pursue a lawsuit designed to strip millions of Americans of their health insurance and protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the ban on insurers denying coverage or raising premiums due to pre-existing conditions.”
The Trump administration is also pushing forward with its plan to kick 700,000 people off federal food stamp assistance, known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The USDA announced two weeks ago that the department will appeal Judge Beryl Howell’s recent decision that the USDA’s work mandate rule is “arbitrary and capricious."
Additionally: The Social Security Administration has no plans to slow down a rule change set for June that will limit disability benefits, the Department of Health and Human Services still intends to reduce automatic enrollment in health coverage, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue the process to enact a rule that would make it harder for renters to sue landlords for racial discrimination.

Lawmakers’ stock transactions

The Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission are beginning to investigate stock transactions made ahead of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. CNN reports that the inquiry has already reached out to Senator Richard Burr for information. “Under insider trading laws, prosecutors would need to prove the lawmakers traded based on material non-public information they received in violation of a duty to keep it confidential,” a task that won’t be easy.
Sen. Burr is facing another consequence of his trades: Alan Jacobson, a shareholder in Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, sued Burr for allegedly using private information to instruct a mass liquidation of his assets. Among the shares he sold were an up to $150,000 stake in Wyndham, whose stock suffered a market-value cut of more than two-thirds since mid-February.

Environmental rollbacks

Using the pandemic as cover, the Trump administration has begun to more aggressively roll back regulations meant to protect the environment. These are examples of what Naomi Klein dubbed “the shock doctrine”: the phenomenon wherein polluters and their government allies push through unpopular policy changes under the smokescreen of a public emergency.
On Thursday, the EPA announced (non-paywalled) an expansive relaxation of environmental laws and fines, exempting companies from consequences for pollution. Under the new rules, there are basically no rules. Companies are asked to “act responsibly” but are not required to report when their facilities discharge pollution into the air or water. Just five days before abandoning any pollution oversight, the oil industry’s largest trade group implored the administration for assistance, stating that social distancing measures caused a steep drop in demand for gasoline.
  • Monday morning update: In an interview with Fox News this morning, Trump said he was going to call Putin after the interview to discuss the Saudi-Russia oil fight. A consequence of this "battle" has been plummeting prices in the U.S. making it difficult for domestic companies (like shale extraction) to turn a profit. It's striking that the day after Dr. Fauci told Americans we can expect 100,000 to 200,000 deaths from COVID-19 (if we keep social distancing measures in place), Trump's first action is to talk to Fox News and his second action is to intervene in an international tiff on behalf of the oil and gas industry.
Gina McCarthy, who led the E.P.A. under the Obama administration, called the rollback “an open license to pollute.” Cynthia Giles, who headed the EPA enforcement division during the Obama administration, said “it is so far beyond any reasonable response I am just stunned.”
The EPA is also moving forward with a widely-opposed rule to limit the types of scientific studies used when crafting new regulations or revising current ones. Hidden behind claims of increased transparency, the rule would require disclosure of all raw data used in scientific studies. This would disqualify many fields of research that rely on personal health information from individuals that must be kept confidential. For example, studies that show air pollution causes premature deaths or a certain pesticide is linked to birth defects would be rejected under the proposed rule change.
Officials and scientists are calling upon the EPA to extend the time for comment on the regulatory changes, arguing that the public is unable to express their opinion while dealing with the pandemic.
“These rollbacks need and deserve the input of our public health community, but right now, they are rightfully focused on responding to the coronavirus,” said Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Other controversial decisions being made:
  • A former EPA official who worked on controversial policies returned as Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s chief of staff. Mandy Gunasekara helped write regulations to ease pollution controls for coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions in her previous role as chief of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. In a recent interview, Gunasekara, who played a role in the decision to exit the Paris Climate Accord, pushed back on the more dire predictions of climate change, saying, “I don't think it is catastrophic.”
  • NYT: The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic. “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” an industry campaign that goes by the name Bag the Ban warned on Tuesday. (Also see The Guardian)
  • Kentucky, South Dakota, and West Virginia passed laws putting new criminal penalties on protests against fossil fuel infrastructure in just the past two weeks.
  • The Hill: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Friday that it will extend the amount of time that winter gasoline can be sold this year as producers have been facing lower demand due to the coronavirus. It will allow companies to sell the winter-grade gasoline through May 20, whereas companies would have previously been required to stop selling it by May 1 to protect air quality. “In responding to an international health crisis, the last thing the EPA should do is take steps that will worsen air quality and undermine the public’s health,” biofuels expert David DeGennaro said.
  • NYT: At the Interior Department, employees at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been under strict orders to complete the rule eliminating some protections for migratory birds within 30 days, according to two people with direct knowledge of the orders. The 45-day comment period on that rule ended on March 19.
  • WaPo: The Interior Department has received over 230 nominations for oil and gas leases covering more than 150,000 acres across southern Utah, a push that would bring drilling as close as a half-mile from some of the nation’s most famous protected sites, including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks… if all the fossil fuels buried in those sites was extracted and burned, it would translate into between 1 billion and 5.95 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide being released into the air. That upward measure is equal to half the annual carbon output of China

Court updates

Press freedom case
Southern District of New York District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that a literary advocacy group’s lawsuit against Trump for allegedly violating the First Amendment can move forward. The group, PEN America, is pursuing claims that Trump “has used government power to retaliate against media coverage and reporters he dislikes.”
Schofield determined that PEN’s allegation that Trump made threats to chill free speech was valid, providing as an example the White House’s revocation of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press press corps credentials:
”The threats are lent credence by the fact that Defendant has acted on them before, by revoking Mr. Acosta’s credentials and barring reporters from particular press conferences. The Press Secretary indeed e-mailed the entire press corps to inform them of new rules of conduct and to warn of further consequences, citing the incident involving Mr. Acosta… These facts plausibly allege that a motivation for defendant’s actions is controlling and punishing speech he dislikes.”
Twitter case
The president suffered another First Amendment defeat last week when the full 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals declined to review a previous ruling that prevents Trump from blocking users on the Twitter account he uses to communicate with the public. Judge Barrington D. Parker, a Nixon-appointee, wrote: “Excluding people from an otherwise public forum such as this by blocking those who express views critical of a public official is, we concluded, unconstitutional.”
Trump-appointees Michael Parker and Richard Sullivan authored a dissent, arguing the free speech “does not include a right to post on other people’s personal social media accounts, even if those other people happen to be public officials.” Park warned that the ruling will allow the social media pages of public officials to be “overrun with harassment, trolling, and hate speech, which officials will be powerless to filter.”
Florida’s felon voting
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ripped into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration for failing to come up with a process to determine which felons are genuinely unable to pay court-ordered fees and fines, which are otherwise required to be paid before having their voting rights restored.
“If the state is not going to fix it, I will,” Hinkle warned. He had given the state five months to come up with an administrative process for felons to prove they’re unable to pay financial obligations, but Florida officials did not do so. The case is set to be heard on April 28 (notwithstanding any coronavirus-related delays).

ICE, Jails, and COVID-19

ICE
One of the most overlooked populations with an increased risk of death from coronavirus are those in detention facilities, which keep people in close quarters with little sanitation or protective measures (including for staff).
Last week, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the federal government to “make continuous efforts” to release migrant children from detention centers across the country. Numerous advocacy groups asked for the release after reports that four children being held in New York had tested positive for the virus:
“The threat of irreparable injury to their health and safety is palpable,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their petition… both of the agencies operating migrant children detention facilities must by April 6 provide an accounting of their efforts to release those in custody… “Her order will undoubtedly speed up releases,” said Peter Schey, co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the court case.
On Tuesday, 13 immigrants held at ICE facilities in California filed a lawsuit demanding to be released because their health conditions make them particularly vulnerable to dying if infected by the coronavirus. An ACLU statement says the detainees are “confined in crowded and unsanitary conditions where social distancing is not possible.” The 13 individuals are all over the age of 50 and/or suffering from serious underlying medical issues like high blood pressure.
“From all the evidence we have seen, ICE is failing to fulfill its constitutional obligation to protect the health and safety of individuals in its custody. ICE should exercise its existing discretion to release people with serious medical conditions from detention for humanitarian reasons,” said William Freeman, senior counsel at the ACLU of Northern California.
Meanwhile, ICE is under fire for continuing to shuttle detainees across the country, with one even being forced to take nine different flights bouncing from Louisiana to Texas to New Jersey less than two weeks ago. That man is Dr. Sirous Asgari, a materials science and engineering professor from Iran, who was acquitted last year on federal charges of stealing trade secrets. The government lost its case against him, yet ICE has had him in indefinite detention since November.
Asgari, 59, told the Guardian that his Ice holding facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, had no basic cleaning practices in place and continued to bring in new detainees from across the country with no strategy to minimize the threat of Covid-19...Detainees have no hand sanitizer, and the facility is not regularly cleaning bathrooms or sleeping areas…Detainees lack access to masks… Detainees struggle to stay clean, and the facility has an awful stench.
Jails
State jails are making a better effort to release detained individuals, as both New York and New Jersey ordered a thousand people in each state be let out of jail. The order applied only to low-level offenders sentenced to less than a year in jail and those held on technical probation violations. In Los Angeles County, officials released over 1,700 people from its jails.
A judge in Alabama took similar steps last week, ordering roughly 500 people jailed for minor offenses to be released to lessen crowding in facilities. Unlike in New York and New Jersey, however, local officials reacted in an uproar, led in part by the state executive committee for the Alabama Republican Party and Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson. Using angry Facebook messages as the barometer of the community’s feelings, Robinson worked “frantically” to block inmates from being released.
  • Reuters: As of Saturday, at least 132 inmates and 104 staff at jails across New York City had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus… Since March 22, jails have reported 226 inmates and 131 staff with confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a Reuters survey of cities and counties that run America’s 20 largest jails. The numbers are almost certainly an undercount given the fast spread of the virus.

Tribe opposed by Trump loses land

On Wednesday, The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs announced the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation would be "disestablished" and its land trust status removed. Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell called the move "cruel" and "unnecessary,” particularly coming in the midst of a pandemic crisis. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who last year introduced legislation to protect the tribe's reservation as trust land in Massachusetts, said the order “is one of the most cruel and nonsensical acts I have seen since coming to Congress.”
The administration’s decision is especially suspicious as just last year Trump attacked the tribe’s plan to build a casino on its land, tweeting that allowing the construction would be “unfair” and treat Native Americans unequally. As a former casino owner, Trump has spent decades attacking Native American casinos as unfair competition. At a 1993 congressional hearing Trump said that tribal owners “don’t look like Indians to me” and claimed: “I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations” to gambling.
More than his past history, however, Trump has current interests at play in the Mashpee Wampanoag’s planned casino: it would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos owned by Twin River Worldwide Holdings, whose president, George Papanier, was a finance executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City.
In the Mashpee case, Twin River, the operator of the two Rhode Island casinos, has hired Matthew Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and a vocal Trump supporter, to lobby for it on the land issue. Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, is director of strategic communications at the White House.
submitted by rusticgorilla to Keep_Track [link] [comments]

The disturbing gambling state of the game

So let’s start with the fact that support is telling us that not being able to use emoji charges is a “glitch”. We as a community have noticed these apply to upcoming events emojis. If this is the way the game is heading, that means we have to buy diamond boxes to level up emojis we could have used our charges on.
Lets look how the diamond boxes work in a more realistic sense. When you go to a casino and play poker, you basically exchange money for chips to bet with. When you go to buy a diamond box, you have to exchange your money for gems to buy them with. These diamond boxes are a chance.
If you are this far, I’m assuming you know what the word gambling refers to. And I’m assuming you understand what a gambling addiction is. With these newer updates, Jam City is trying to make the deciding factor to buy a diamond chest a no brainer decision at this point. If you have Luke Skywalker at level one, and you have an emoji charge, you cannot level him up. Also, if you ran out of coins trying to buy the gold box he is in, you cannot level him up. The only way to level up is with the diamond box. Now I’m not saying Jam City is the devil trying to give you a gambling addiction, but this is a DISNEY GAME.
Now let’s get into the fun part. The fact that Disney World spent more than 20 MILLION DOLLARS to fight casinos being build in Florida. This happened in November of 2018 during the voting period. This is in the news, you can read all about how Disney and the Seminole Tribe spend millions to get the approval of an ANTI-CASINO AMENDMENT. This amendment makes it harder for casinos to pop up in Florida, Disney stated they want Florida to be a “family-friendly vacation destination”.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/11/07/disney-and-seminole-tribe-score-big-win-in-florida-on-election-day-with-gambling-amendment.html
Now, after reading this how do you feel about the gambling state of this Disney game? It started out as Disney, then went to Jam City. Jam City has effectively turned this into a game that Disney(from their public stance on gambling) would disapprove of. They spent millions fighting gambling, but allow minors to gamble in a game that is technically run by Jam City, with their product being used. Their product is the only factor to this game even being a game in the first place. Also, before we talk about the minors gambling, I want to point out that support one time said the game was for people 13 years and older. First of all, gambling is only legal unless you are 17 or 18 in most places of the world. Second, these laws are actually sometimes bumping up the age to 21 years. Third, I guarantee you a ton of parents out there see their child playing DISNEY Emoji Blitz, and they could CARE LESS because they think this game is SAFE for their child.
At this point I have become disturbed by what is happening. I know this is a game that you don’t have to play, but once you have invested a lot of time and some money into it, you shouldn’t have to be turned away from such greed and terrible game design. I am going to contact anyone at Disney that will listen, I highly doubt anything will come of it but this just seems so wrong. Disney publicly fought against casinos in Florida, almost making them a hero, but I know for a fact children out there are learning how to gamble with this game and their parents credit cards. I was one of those kids with that FarmVille game. If yo have a kid who is playing this game, monitor them a little closer. In FarmVille I probably spent over 200-300 dollars as a kid, and that’s hard to choke on.... If only my parents had known about that and reasoned with me. And if you want them to stop(or you need to stop), you don’t have to tell them to stop. There are so many games out there on console that ends up being way cheaper than mobile games. I have had an Xbox One for years, and I have barely bought any games for $60 straight up. And with the DLC to extend a games lifetime I think I have only paid about $120 for a single game on Xbox. That $120 game lasted about 5 years. Without doing the math you know that 5 years for a $120 product is great.
I don’t want Disney to cut off Jam City from using their product, but I also don’t want to be upset every time I play an event/every time they update the game. (The constant adding of emojis and constant adding of glitches proves they only care about revenue at this point) If you take the Disney out of Disney Emoji Blitz, you would have Emoji Blitz and I guarantee a huge amount of you would drop off if they lost the licensing to the Disney characters.
Sorry this was such a long read, hopefully this made some of you more aware to the state of this game. And I hope this might have helped some of you to maybe start looking into other things to make you happy. Right now I am not happy with this game but I am willing to play through (start exploiting) to see if it gets any better.
submitted by xXXxRMxXXx to disneyemojiblitz [link] [comments]

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Dec. 21, 1987

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82
1-5-1987 1-12-1987 1-18-1987 2-2-1987
2-9-1987 2-16-1987 2-23-1987 3-2-1987
3-9-1987 3-16-1987 3-23-1987 4-6-1987
4-13-1987 4-20-1987 4-27-1987 5-4-1987
5-11-1987 5-18-1987 5-25-1987 6-1-1987
6-8-1987 6-15-1987 6-22-1987 6-29-1987
7-6-1987 7-13-1987 7-20-1987 7-27-1987
8-3-1987 8-10-1987 8-17-1987 8-24-1987
8-31-1987 9-7-1987 9-14-1987 9-21-1987
9-28-1987 10-5-1987 10-12-1987 10-19-1987
10-26-1987 11-2-1987 11-9-1987 11-16-1987
11-23-1987 11-30-1987 12-7-1987 -
  • Dave’s been following wrestling for 17 years at this point, and sometimes it’s easy to think you’ve seen it all with that kind of experience. But after seeing All Japan Women live, he realized he’d seen nothing. The shows he saw during his trip to Japan had the best wrestling he’s ever seen, so much so that nothing before comes even close. The atmosphere and the action have Dave struggling to find words, and he’s just as dumbfounded by how good Chigusa Nagayo and Dump Matsumoto are at their jobs. 90% of AJW's audience is teenage girls, a demographic you don’t really see as a focal demographic over here, but to these girls the wrestlers are so over an American fan has to see it live to really get it. Dump’s the best heel in the world by a distance and as for Chigusa Nagayo: “the reaction she gets not only can’t be duplicated by any wrestler in this country (Hulk Hogan certainly comes the closest and at best his isn’t half as good) but you’d probably have to use Madonna or Bruce Springsteen at their peak for comparison. The crowd literally lives and dies with every move she makes.” At one show, the crowd were all crying, and then the main event of the 3-hour show was a fast-paced 50 minute match where every move was a high spot and the crowd never let up for the whole match.
  • Dave’s therefore changing his vote for Wrestler of the Year to Chigusa Nagayo. He’ll still vote for Hogan for best babyface, since Hogan has broader appeal and is a bigger draw, but Chigusa's sheer level of overness with AJW fans and her skill are huge. Strictly in terms of business and drawing power Hogan should win Wrestler of the Year, and should have won 1985-1986 as well (Ric Flair won those years in landslides). Dave personally figures ring-work for 60% of the equation, with impact at the box office to be 40%. Dave will not be putting Flair in his top three for Wrestler of the Year, even though his promos and ring-work merit it. Allowing his drawing power to be cut so hard and the destruction of his perception among the marks when he has the ability to call the shots about his presentation means he doesn’t deserve to be considered for Wrestler of the year at all this year (Riki Choshu winds up winning for 1987, breaking Ric Flair's 5 year streak).
  • A lot has changed during the week Dave was in Japan. Fritz Von Erich sold WCCW. Ken Mantell and a group with him have bought the company, and there are conflicting stories about the exact breakdown of the ownership (Dave keeps hearing either 30% or 51% of the stake is owned by Mantell), but Texas newspapers are reporting Fritz is out entirely and Mantell now signs the checks. Kevin and Kerry still own a lot of the company, so they’ll still get big pushes. Mantell still owns Wild West Wrestling, and the plan for now seems to be to run both promotions. That’s not going to be good for them in the long run, since they’re competing in the same area of Texas. Expect a merger when they figure that out. A lot of guys are returning to World Class now that Mantell’s in charge, like Missing Link, Bill Irwin, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts. Looks like Fritz finally wanted out of the business, because everything suggests he contacted Mantell. Mantell was the booker for World Class during their heyday in 1983-84, so there’s obviously the hope he can rescue things, but his time in UWF in 86-87 saw him repeat the World Class booking from in UWF and it didn’t work and killed business enough that Bill Watts had to sell to Crockett. If he tries to relive 1983 in 1988, it’s not going to work. If he can build new stars and remove the focus on the Von Erichs, there’s a chance of World Class becoming a major power again.
  • The February 1988 issue of Penthouse will do a story on the Von Erichs. Dave doesn’t know what’ll be in the story, but Fritz is apparently worried about it and how it will portray him.
  • Kazuharu Sonoda, who teamed with Great Kabuki in World Class and would sometimes play the Great Kabuki character when the real Great Kabuki was double booked, died in an airplane crash on November 29. He was 31 years old and had been in the business since just after he turned 18. The airplane had a fire in the cargo hold that caused it to break up in mid air and killed all 159 on board. Sonoda’s trip to South Africa was to be a working honeymoon as a gift from the Great Kabuki - Kabuki was sending him in his stead to do a tour under the Great Kabuki name and gimmick and enjoy a vacation at the same time. Raja Lion, the 7’2” supposed martial arts champion working for Baba, was also supposed to be on the same plane, but canceled at the last minute and avoided disaster himself.
  • No numbers yet for Starrcade and Survivor Series. Starrcade did sell out in Chicago and drew well on closed-circuit on the East coast, but the Crocketts seem disappointed by the final gate. Dave speculates slightly more than $1 million for the final gate. While he was in Japan, Dave heard Survivor Series did $4 million, which sounds reasonable but he can’t vouch for the accuracy of it. What Dave can say is that Survivor Series was definitely a financial success in addition to being good. In terms of impressions of the shows, Dave’s heard from hundreds about Starrcade and the reaction has been mixed. Many thought it was great. There was near universal dissatisfaction with the UWF Title match. And the TV title unification was largely unpopular, which Dave blames on the build up ruining the match. Dave has heard that the UWF Title match was different from what it was supposed to be, which restores a little of Dave’s faith in Dusty as a booker. The majority was disappointed, and about 20-25% of responses said the show was terrible. Dave falls in the disappointment camp. If it hadn’t been Starrcade, it would have been fine. But Crockett needed a great Starrcade, or at the very least to outperform WWF’s show in quality, and that did not happen.
  • Business is still not good coming out of Thanksgiving. Ted DiBiase and Hogan’s matches just aren’t drawing as much as they should. The Bunkhouse Stampedes have so far been disappointments at the gate, enough that Crockett needs to reevaluate their entire model or they’ll cease to be a major promotion entirely. The November 28 Saturday Night’s Main Event is the best life sign in these times: an 11.3 rating and a 30 share are what Dave has heard (not official), which would be the second highest rating the show has ever gotten and third highest rating for that time slot in tv history. TV ratings are the biggest indicator of public interest right now, so even if live crowds are down, this shows that WWF is still very interesting. They’re just not turning that into a rabid desire to be at the show. Crockett’s ratings are dropping, though, and they need to get fans watching tv again before they can worry about getting live attendance back up. In syndicated ratings, WWF gained viewers leading toward Survivor Series, while Crockett remains out of the top 15 and has a below 5.0 combined rating, putting them behind the AWA and Pro Wrestling This Week, which combined have a rating in the low 5s.
  • Dusty is throwing everything he can at the booking to break out of the fall, and that includes turning Lex Luger. Luger turned on December 2 at a Miami Beach Bunkhouse Stampede. The match came down to Luger, Arn, Tully, and J.J. Dillon. Dillon asked the others to let him win so he could go down in the record books as a stampede winner, and Arn and Tully eliminated themselves. Luger then threw Dillon over the top to win. Turning Lex is a good move, but Dave figures it’s the second best move they could have done and that’s the difference between Crockett and WWF - WWF generally goes with the best thing they can do, not the second best. Another year as a heel might have been good for Luger and helped him shore up his skillset, but Crockett is in desperation mode and needed to make a major move. And Luger has the potential to be a great face, and could make a lot of money for Crockett with Flair if they handle things right. But if nobody’s watching tv, it won’t matter how hot he gets as a face. Other major things happening to try and get things righted: Kevin Sullivan’s group with Rick Steiner, Mike Rotunda, and Steve Williams is one; another major turn is coming soon; lots of new angles that aren’t being spelled out yet. They’re going to change up their tv as well, but if the shows all remain basically duplicates that might keep ratings down and make them worse. And the plan is currently for every hour they tape to go to two different shows, with a different commentary team depending on which show. Nikita might do an interview with Gregory for the Florida show and then immediately do a simiar interview with JR for UWF. Dave thinks basically duplicating tv shows with only interviewer and announce team differences is going to tank ratings when fans figure it out. On the pus side, the shows have improved.
  • Paul Boesch has come out of retirement and is trying to rebuild the Houston market with Crockett.
  • New Japan and All Japan have concluded their tag tournaments. New Japan’s was in Osaka on December 7 in front of a crowd of 6,120 and shown live on tv. Fijunami & Kimura were tied for second with Masa Saito & Fujiwara and had to face them in a battle to determine who would face Inoki & Dick Murdoch in the final. The final was a bloody and excellent match, and Kimura bled a lot before he and Fujinami won. With Choshu and Maeda not involved, the tournament lacked interest.
  • The biggest story of the New Japan tournament happened on November 19 during a match between Choshu/Masa Saito/Hiro Saito vs. Maeda/Takada/Kido. Japanese Wrestling Journal reports that Maeda wouldn’t sell for Choshu at all and Maeda shot on Choshu. Choshu eventually figured out what was happening, and at one point Choshu had Kido in the Scorpion Deathlock when Maeda kicked him in the eye legit. Choshu went after Maeda, and the rest of the teams had to break it up. Eventually the match ended with Choshu pinning Takada with a lariat, and nobody knows why Maeda did it. The crowd was mostly UWF Japan fans, and they cheered Maeda on the whole time because they wanted to see a shoot. This took both out of the tournament, and the Journal reports it destroyed the tournament and left Choshu with two broken bones under the eye.
Watch: Maeda shoot kicks Choshu's eye
  • The match was taped, but it’s understood that it will never air on tv and has caused a major PR shitstorm for New Japan. How do you explain suspending someone for a kick to the face to the public when that happens in every match? You can’t do it without going into the distinction between shooting and working and toward no semblance of kayfabe at all. Maeda has only kept his job because New Japan decided to spin an angle out of it. He’ll be punished and knocked down a few pegs and do a lot of jobs to keep his job, no doubt there. Seiki Sakaguchi believes Maeda’s style is hard for fans to understand and may be why ratings are so low, so they’ll be phasing down on Maeda’s shoot style. Dave believes Choshu and Saito was supoosed to be the winning team.
  • All Japan’s tournament final took place on December 11 before a crowd of 13,200. Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu beat Brody and Snuka in the final, with Yatsu pinning Snuka after pulling a midair reversal of a dragon suplex.
  • Dusty Rhodes is “thinking” about retiring. For a long time, it’s been said Dusty was going to retire after Starrcade 1988, so this may be legit. Then again, Dusty saw how over Terry Funk got when he announced his retirement, and Dusty never misses a trick.
  • The winners of all the Bunkhouse Stampedes will participate in the big one on Januay 24 on ppv. Dave wishes them good luck on their first national ppv attempt, because they need it.
  • JCP ends too many tv shows with main events in progress. Dave’s not opposed to the idea in theory, since leaving your audience wanting is proven to work. But with where they are, they need to satiate their fans’ want for a little while.
  • Steve Williams hasn’t made his heel turn yet, but expect it before year’s end. Williams does introduce some problems, like contacting New Japan to add four weeks per year to his schedule, which now is up to 16 weeks. He’s been threatening to quit the NWA on and off for the past year but never goes through with it. So until something concrete happens, Dave’s not going to take it too serious. 16 weeks in Japan at the rate Williams gets paid is about $92,000, which isn’t bad for someone with 36 weeks of leisure time outside that.
  • JCP is full of injuries now. Rick Steiner has a separated shoulder. Barry Windham’s collarbone is broken, and Ricky Morton’s got a bum back.
  • The UWF Tag Belts have been forgotten. No idea what the status of the Sheepherders is, but they aren’t the champions anymore and the belts (along with the Florida tag belts) will simply no longer be referenced. Steve Keirn also quit the promotion, apparently to go to either Memphis or Global.
  • [Stampede] Jason the Terrible turned face and things are heating up and they’re selling out more often than not right now. Jason beat Zodiak in a mask match and unmasked Orton, who then left the territory. The Badnews Allen attacked Jason and sprayed paint through his mask into his eyes, before unmasking him.
Watch: The end of "one heck of a ring-ding-dong-dandy"
  • Stampede are kayfabing Hiroshi Hase’s return to Japan as forced retirement due to injuries inflicted by Jason.
  • The Iran-Iraq war isn’t enough to stop pro wrestling in the Middle East. Foreign wrestlers are being kept out right now, though.
  • Curt Hennig had to be hospitalized after AWA’s show on November 28. He was wrestling Wahoo McDaniel in an Indian Strap Match for the title when Adrian Adonis interfered and used a knife to cut the strap, but wound up cutting Curt’s finger. Somehow this wound up with Curt getting disqualified over the interference (I guess since Adonis was attempting to act on his behalf), and it was thought for a bit that he might lose some of the finger.
  • AWA was supposed to do the tournament for their women’s title on November 28, but have delayed it. Instead, Madusa pinned Bambi in a shitty match and the tournament final is scheduled for December 27 in Vegas. Madusa vs. Candi Divine.
  • Verne Gagne and Larry Hennig will not be wrestling on the Christmas show for AWA. It’ll be Greg vs. Curt with Verne handcuffed to Larry at ringside.
  • WCCW’s Christmas card is shaping up. Al Perez vs. Kerry Von Erich for the world title will headline. No second guesses who wins there. The Six-man tag titles will return as well.
  • The big question for WCCW is how they handle the return of Lance. He’s under contract with David Manning to work independents and eventually Manning’s promotion if he can get it off the ground, but in the meantime he was working for Wild West. No idea what Manning’s relationship with the new WCCW will be like, so who knows what Lance will wind up at.
  • WCCW’s Thanksgiving show drew 6,000 at Reunion Arena in Dallas. It’s less than Dave had anticipated (ticket prices were way down - general admission was $5 for adults and $3 for kids). Kerry’s comeback match (he’d been back for several weeks, but don’t expect honesty from Von Erich promotion) was 57 seconds against Thing, then Brian Adias, and finally a non-title match against Perez. He won all three matches. Perez then lost another non-title Texas Death Match against Kevin.
  • Memphis unified all their singles titles in a tournament on December 7. They had Lawler (Southern Champion), Jeff Jarrett (Mid American Champion), and Manny Fernndez (International Champion) in, and the goal was to get rid of all the titles and declare a Continental Wrestling Association Champion. They’re still recognizing Curt Hennig as World champion, so this isn’t a world title. Lawler beat Jarrett then beat Fernandez by DQ to win the tournament.
  • The Rockers are the Southern tag champs in Memphis and have turned heel. Their reputation for being great workers is clashing with the reports of them in Memphis as basically doing almost nothing in Memphis. After seeing their work in Alabama, Dave thought they just had an ego and thought they were too good for the area. Folks in Memphis are blaming it on their wild partying. Fans weren’t going for them as faces anymore due to their cocky interviews and because they see the Rockers as ripoffs of the Fabulous Ones (a comparison Dave does not get in the slightest), so they needed to be turned.
  • World Organization Wrestling in Florida are talking about running shows in direct competition with Memphis wrestling. One of the guys they’ve got is a muscular guy managed by Don Fargo by the name of Bob Holly.
  • Former Kansas State footballer and wrestler Curtis Hughes (the future Mr. Hughes of WCW/WWF) has been refereeing in Alabama and is training to start wrestling.
  • Shunji Takano (Ninja in Oregon) was on trial in mid November for allegedly hitting a fan with his nunchucks in Eugene, Oregon back in July. He was found guilty and fined $250. His jail sentence was suspended and he has been instead sentenced to community service.
  • Dave doesn’t know what’s aired and what hasn’t, so here’s what he knows about the DiBiase/Hogan program. DiBiase offers Hogan “7 figures” for the World Title, and Hogan considers it and says he could help his family with the money, but he turns down the offer because he can’t let down the Hulkamaniacs. Then DiBiase makes an agreement with Heenan and Andre that if Andre wins the title, he’ll sell it to DiBiase and get the deal Hogan turned down. Dave thinks the idea of buying/selling the belt is stupid, but it’s less stupid with WWF since they don’t pretend to be a sport. This would be worse in NWA. Anyway, this should all be building toward Wrestlemania and Hogan’s scheduled to leave for a few months to film a movie after Wrestlemania, so rumors will fly that Andre will beat Hogan and sell out to DiBiase. It’d be the first time in WWF history the belt was around the waist of a great wrestler, at least.
  • WWF taped the Saturday Night’s Main Event for January 2 in front of 11,000 fans. The attendance has to be a disappointment considering the hype. Hogan beat Bundy again, which led to Andre attacking and stealing the belt before beating up several other faces and even no-selling Duggan’s 2x4. Strike Force beat the Bolsheviks in two straight falls to keep the tag titles, Jake Roberts beat Sika (who’s back because Killer Khan disappeared and they needed a foreign guy, and whatever got Sika fired was apparently not major enough to make them forget about him), and Greg Valentine beat Koko B. Ware.
  • A source at the last MSG show said the Jumping Bomb Angels got twice the reaction for their match as Savage did for his. Dave isn’t sure WWF will ever get a number 2 face over enough he can draw gates on his own. Aside from Rock/Austin falling in their lap and doing just that through sheer force of will, I think this is something they never did figure out.
  • That’s the length of a regular issue, but this is a double and Dave is going to tell us about his trip to Japan for the next ten pages. It’s a fascinating place. Nobody knows who Joe Montana is, but everyone knows Abdullah the Butcher. Wrestling is big business in Japan, and they tend to set the trends that come to the U.S. several years later. Toys, action figures, records, even Hulkamania were a big deal in Japan well before anyone in the U.S. envisioned it. Vince McMahon gets a lot of credit as a genius in marketing pro wrestling, but he toured Japan several times before 1984 and recreated what they had there. Hogan as an American hero is just the American version of Inoki, with just as big an ego. The albums, t-shirts, action figures, and the rest are all extensions of what Japan had from the 70s on. Vince’s failed attempts to push women’s wrestling came as a result of seeing that they could do big business in Japan. The only thing Vince hasn’t copied from Japan is the work ethic of the wrestlers.
  • While wrestlers in Japan are on tv commercials and talk shows all the time, that doesn’t make the industry stable. Dave’s first trip to Japan was in December 1984, and a lot has changed since then. All Japan was on top and clearly outclassed everything else, and while New Japan was suffering from its arrangement with WWF it still had a big audience on tv. The Crush Gals were the rock & wrestling idols of Japan for the teen set, and their posters were all over record stores and merch available everywhere. Dave didn’t go to an All Japan Women show in 1984 and regrets that deeply, but in every record or book store he went to, the Crush Gals’ popularity was inescapable.
  • Compared to UWF and Crockett in 1987, it’s hard to look at Japan as in a bad way, but this year’s trip was different. In Tokyo there were ten stores that catered specifically to wrestling fans back in 1984, compared to five now. Only three weekly magazines are left standing and one monthly, and the monthly is strictly joshi. The Chigusa Nagayo and Riki Choshu calendars are around, but gone are the Crush Gals, Tiger Mask, Stan Hansen, and Choshu records and the posters of the joshi. The most they found was a new 45 by Fujiwara. The lack of the joshi posters is probably due to idol culture in Japan, where they can take a teen, turn her into a rock star, and spit her out in two years. Nearly every teen idol name Dave remembers from his trip three years ago has disappeared from the stores and replaced with new 17-year-olds. The fact that Chigusa Nagayo has managed to increase in popularity and maintain a hold in the mainstream now that she’s 23 has to do with, in Dave’s mind, her improvement of her wrestling to become the best there is in the entire business.
  • If wrestling has declined over the past few years in Japan, that doesn't mean it’s not still the ultimate experience for a fan. The sheer volume of wrestling coverage is unfathomable to an American. The daily newspaper had a full page devoted to Starrcade and Survivor Series, while American newspapers ignored the results. The death of Kazuhau Sonoda was the lead story in several newspapers, and even though he was just a mid-card guy his death was covered more than American newspapers would cover the hypothetical of Hogan going down in a plane crash. Dave spends a lot of time going over the Japanese wrestling magazine landscape. He managed to work out a deal on getting a lot of magazines to bring back to America for people to be able to buy cheaper than by import subscription.
  • Dave talks at length about the presentation of wrestling and the fan demographics in Japan. It’s much more sports-like in presentation, and lack the surreal characters, skits, promos, etc. that attract audiences in the U.S. Ticket prices are higher in Japan with the cheap seats as low as $16 (the bigger shows cost $75 for ringside). So the audience is wealthier and more white collar than in the U.S. In the major cities, the fans are almost entirely boys and men between the ages of 15-30. The audience grows older in smaller towns, accounting for the continuing popularity of guys like Baba and Inoki.
  • He next explains the basics of men’s wrestling in Japan: what New Japan and All Japan are, who their big stars are, etc.. All Japan is more reliant on foreign stars and New Japan relies more heavily on feuds between Japanese wrestlers. He compares Inoki to Dusty, in that he’s popular and pushes himself high on the card, and hardcore fans don’t like him much but unlike Dusty he’s really considered a legend by everyon in Japan. That is one of four reasons people in Japan gave Dave for why New Japan has been suffering in the ratings. The other big reasons are that Japanese culture is still interested in seeing the Japanese prevail over the big, monstrous Americans and New Japan has almost none of those. There’s also a feeling that New Japan’s style is perhaps too esoteric and too heavy on submissions for the casual fan to catch on to. Lastly, they aren’t fans of people changing jobs and bouncing between promotions. Nobody minded when Choshu jumped to All Japan in 1984 because he said a lot of things about Inoki that fans took as true. Jumping back to Inoki purely because he wanted more money and thus breaching contract and making a whole legal thing of it has not been received well in Japan, though, and the jump is popularly felt to have almost killed wrestling in Japan.
  • The five New Japan shows Dave went to while in Japan made good money at the gate, but the big issue is tv. TV-Asahi has lost interest due to bad ratings and have turned down the request to host the Crockett Cup in April, and New Japan’s tv is in danger of being moved to midnight Mondays or off the air entirely. Landing an afternoon slot on the weekend would be the best goal.
  • The tv ratings issue is pushing Inoki to try some wild things, the most controversial of which is currently an angle involving a comedian named Mr. Takeshi. Takeshi was once the most famous comedian in the country and is analogous to a Don Rickles or Johnny Carson now, and he’s doing a Cyndi LaupeAndy Kaufman type of angle with Inoki, saying he’s putting together a group to beat Inoki, with a probable end point of a Tokyo Dome show in April. New Japan’s fanbase hate this angle. But New Japan needs to hope the fans stick around and they can get new eyes on the promotion and convert them to fans. It’s the same gamble Vince made with Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T, and it helped cement Hogan. Masa Saito is involved with Takeshi in the storyline and the first involvement of Takeshi will be at the December 27 show, with Takeshi being given the role of bringing over a massive guy named Leon White in as Saito’s partner against Fujinami and Kimura.
  • All Japan is more stable than New Japan right now. Choshu leaving certainly hurt them, but they’ve recovered and are doing steady business now that Tenryu is hitting his stride as a heel. Bruiser Brody and Abdullah the Butcher returning has been a big boon. Tv ratings arent spectacular, but they’re safe and doing better than New Japan (New Japan’s range from 6-9, All Japan sits in a consistent 11-12 range).
  • The last promotion Dave covers is All Japan Women, and he finds it hard to explain. The best explanation he can give is this description of an event on December 6 at Korauken Hall:
about 2,400 teenage girls log-jammed in an 1,800 seat building breaking every fire law known to mankind. It was the best live card I’ve seen in at least three years and the main event was by far the greatest match I’ve ever seen live. In fact I’d say without question it was better than any match ever held in the United States in the history of this business. It was a 12-girl tag team match with the most falls before curfew deciding the winner, and he rates it 5 stars. The match went 50 minutes of nothing but high spots and the crowd was screaming at about double the level of a Hulk Hogan posing routine for the entire time. When Chigusa Nagayo was squaring off against Lioness Asuka, the roar was louder than you’d here [sic] in the seventh game of an NBA championship series with 18 seconds left and the home team down by one. I’ve never experienced anything like the energy that comes out of the crowd, and the girls in the ring worked every bit as hard as the crowd. The girls are on TV on the Fuji network and while they consistently draw 7s plus on Saturday afternoons, the week we were there they drew an 11.3 rating. To give you an example of the popularity of this group in Japan--that rating for one show is higher than the rating of all McMahon’s syndicated shows in the United States put together. In fact, it’s roughly the same as the rating that McMahon’s best Saturday Night Main Event NBC special drew, so when I compare the importance of Chigusa with Hulk Hogan it is not an outlandish statement at all.
  • Despite putting on the best wrestling in the world, AJW’s audience is almost 100% teenage girls. They live and breathe Chigusa Nagayo. The fans who go to men’s cards don’t go to women’s cards in Japan, and the fans and reporters Dave met could not understand why he and his group were so interested in an AJW card. There’s a negative stigma about women’s wrestling in Japan among the fans, probably because the show is designed to appeal to a teen girl’s interests. But it wouldn’t surprise Dave if AJW was as profitable as any other major promotion. They have the ratings (Japanese promotions are paid by their networks, rather than the other way around like in the U.S.) and more importantly, they have major merch - about 15 minutes before the show mentioned above, only 150 people were seated. But then one of the guys Dave was with pointed him to the lobby, and about 1,500 girls were buying all of the merch. Videos, cassettes, posters, keychains, purses, wallets, Dump Matsumoto gym shorts, shopping bags, books, programs, streamers - you name it, they were buying it. Given ticket prices, Dave estimates the gate at about $75,000, and they probably more than doubled that with merch and concessions. There were also other Americans at the AJW show, which you don’t see as much at men’s cards. Based on American reactions to Dump Matsumoto, Dave believes if she were given quality opponents and allowed to work without restriction, she’d make women’s wrestling huge in the U.S. She and Chigusa have drawn several times gates of more than $200,000 (Crockett only did that twice this year - the WarGames matches in Atlanta and Miami, and Hogan did it about a dozen times this year).
  • The main attraction of the show was that it was Devil Masami’s retirement show. AJW has a mandatory retirement age of 26 (only Dump Matsumoto has been granted an exception by the promotion), and Masami turns 26 on January 7. Dave’s not clear on the reasons, but he figures it probably goes back to the idol culture thing - promote them young, wring out every drop of marketability, spit them out and bring the next fresh crop in. It keeps the stars relatable to the audience, Dave supposes. Some argue that they like their female stars young and cute, but Dave doesn’t see that as a major reason if there’s no men in the audience. Masami’s final match was a five minute exhibition with Chigusa, and the crowd went silent for it out of respect. Chigusa bumped for Masami for the most part, and in the final 45 seconds or so of the match, when Dave thought they’d turn on the intensity, both women broke down in tears together, and the crowd broke down with them. Masami is expected not to stay retired, but to leave Japan to continue her career.
  • Dave does note some positive things that come out of the age rule AJW has. For one thing, pro wrestling is part of pop culture, but pro wrestling promoters have a really bad understanding of pop culture. Some musical groups have long runs, but most groups that get hot don’t last long and the fizzle quick. The average run for any kind of teen heartthrob to last in pop culture is about two years. Hogan cannot simply sell out a building by showing up. The Rock & Roll Express and Road Warriors can’t draw big numbers by themselves anymore. By having the age rule, AJW forces the constant development and pushing of new talent to the top, which keeps things from getting stale. It keeps you from having a Dusty Rhodes who is still popular and somewhat legendary, but turns other people off. Dave isn’t in favor of the rule at all or any kind of mandatory retirement - he’d still love to watch Bockwinkel or Masa Saito five days a week, but it’s undeniable that the business has been hurt by guys staying long past their prime and using what political power they have to stay on top. It’s hurt by promotions who don’t build stars and only think about the upcoming card, never realizing you need to sometimes tear the whole business down and rebuild and freshen things up to keep alive in the long run.
  • Anyways, Dave runs down some of the key wrestlers in AJW and talks about them. You’ve got Lioness Asuka and Chigusa Nagayo, Dump Matsumoto, the Jumping Bomb Angels, Yukari Omori (nearing retirement age), Yumi Ogura and Kazue Nagahori (both very young and coming up as a top babyface team), Bull Nakano (19 years old and already a top tier worker), and Condor Saito.
  • Dave then gives complete results and ratings for every card he saw during his trip. I’ll stick to negative stars and 4+ star matches for matches of note. December 11 All Japan had Tenryu/Hara vs. Hansen/Gordy go to a double count out in the tag tournament. 4.5 stars. December 6 AJW had Dump Matsumoto vs. Yukari Omori go to a double count out. 4.5 stars of an absolutely bloody match that went all around the arena and included a fork (American fans started cheering Dump after she got out the fork, and she blew them kisses in response, though Dave makes a shitty joke about Americans cheering for a fork after having to use chopsticks). The 12-woman tag match mentioned above gets 5 stars and is the best thing Dave’s ever seen live. December 3 New Japan has Shiro Koshinaka & Kazuo Yamazaki & Keiichi Yamada beat Hiro Saito & Norio Honaga & Kensuke Sasaki in a six man match. 4.5 stars. They had another 6 man the next night where Yamazaki & Nobuhiko Takada & Yamada beat Hiro Saito & Honaga & Dynamite Chris. 4.5 stars. Antonio Inoki & Dick Murdoch vs. Masa Saito & Fujiwara went to a 30 minute draw on the same show. 4 stars. Lastly, New Japan saw Fujinami & Kimura beat Masa Saito & Fujiwara in the tournament semi-final on December 7. 4 stars.
Watch: Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Hara
THURSDAY (last issue of 1987): 1987 in review, Observer expanding to two columns of text per page, WWF riding high, projections for 1988, on the importance of PPV, and more.
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The legal gambling age in the US varies between different states. Generally, you should be at least 18 or 21 years old to wager. That also depends on whether there is alcohol being served in the building or not. See our legal gambling age by state section for more information! 🎰 What's the legal gambling age for online casinos in the US? What Is The Legal Gambling Age At Casinos In Florida? The legal casino gambling age in the state of Florida is 21. There are some online poker rooms that you can play at once you are over the age of 18, but for going to a casino, you have to be 21. When it comes to gambling, be it at a land-based casino or online, it helps to know the gambling laws of the US state you are in because they all have different stances when it comes to the issue. What may be considered legal in one state may not necessarily be legal in another, so it pays to know more about these things lest you want to wake up one day being charged with illegal gambling with Super Bowl 55 Legal Gambling Age The legal gambling age for Super Bowl 55 will depend on where in the United States you are. Almost every state has a legal sports betting or gambling age of either 18 or 21, and it’s quite easy to find that information simply by looking up your state on our website. Florida gambling laws are a lot less strict than most states, with one of the only requirements being that players are of at least 18 years of age, which is the legal gambling age in Florida. What Is The Legal Gambling Age In Florida – Approved the new slot machines with 68% payout Top real money slots casino. Hospitals in California have seen a 32% increase in patients with the coronavirus over the last 14-day period, once the clock shows the time. Nothing in life is free, call it a quit and walk-off. They can do nothing with that unless they have your password, betchan casino Like many states, the gambling age in Florida depends on the game in question. To play bingo or poker, players must be aged 18 or over. Other forms of gambling, such as table games, slots, and betting on races require players to be 21 and over. There are exceptions to the rule, like casino cruises that leave Port Canaveral. For many Americans, the legal gambling age is similar to the legal drinking age—21 years. This limit applies to both Americans and foreigners that visit land-based casinos in the country. So, just because you can gamble at 18 years in the UK doesn’t mean you’ll be given entry in Las... Gamblingsites.org does not promote or endorse any form of wagering or gambling to users under the age of 18. If you believe you have a gambling problem, please visit BeGambleAware or GAMCARE for information and help. Legal gambling age is the legal permit framework in which one can gamble. Depending on a country or a (country's) jurisdiction, legal gambling age varies, with different age limits going for different types of gambling. Also, one's gambling age as a concept does not exist in specific countries at all, as gambling in some countries is illegal while in others, there’s no minimal age required

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what is legal gambling age in florida

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