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24 [M4F] Australia/Online - I deal casino games for a living AMA
I'm a croupier from Australia. You don't actually have to ask me questions, I just thought it would be a good title. Don't judge me, love me :D. I'm studying psychology full-time, and hoping next year to move into post-grad statistics, but we will see what happens. I like to think I'm an interesting guy to talk to, I read a lot of self-help and modern psychology, so if you would like to learn how to MANIFEST ANYTHING YOU WANT IN THREE SIMPLE STEPS please hit me up. I also like to hear about other countries and their cultures, so don't be afraid of timezone differences. As a dealer, I work random times quite often so I might be up anyway. Also teach me how to use reddit emoji's please, I'm too used to FB. I don't really care about age differences either, as long as you're at least 18. I've tried to get more involved with things like meditation and proper nutrition and exercise. Basically just trying to make some improvements to my life. But I also love guitar and music, as well as mindlessly browsing youtube or netflix. I love watching movies with people too, so if that's your deal hit me up. Like I said, no obligations, you can ghost anytime if you like, but I'd love to get to know some of you :) PS. I'm not Jewish. Old nickname from Highschool. I'll tell you why if you want but you won't be any less confused, :P
WA Government - Lockdown Information WA Government Infographic - Summary WA Health - Locations visited by confirmed cases HealthyWA - COVID Clinic Locations / Operating Hours Lockdown Rules Summary (ABC News) ABC COVID Live Blog - Sunday 31/01 Premier's Annoucement: --- IMPORTANT UPDATE REGARDING COMMUNITY CASE OF COVID-19 IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA, AND PERTH, PEEL AND SOUTH-WEST FIVE-DAY LOCKDOWN --- This morning, I convened an urgent meeting of the Emergency Management Team. We have a serious update to provide the WA community. This morning we received news of a positive COVID-19 test result. That positive result has come from a male hotel quarantine security guard, in his 20s. The information we have is fast-evolving. As you can understand, immediately our teams moved into place to begin contact tracing and put in place emergency response systems. This is all underway, and I ask everyone to be cooperative and understanding of what is going to take place. Here is what we know about the male who tested positive: He was working at one of the State’s hotel quarantine facilities – the Sheraton Four Points in the city. He had tested negative for COVID-19 on January Friday 15, January Sunday 17 and Saturday January 23 – as part of the weekly testing system in place. When the man was working at this hotel, there were four active cases of COVID-19. Of those four cases, we have at least three confirmed variant strains, two UK and one South African. We are told the guard was working on the same floor, as a positive UK variant case. The guard completed two 12-hours shifts on both the 26th and 27th of January. Exactly how the infection was acquired remains under investigation. The Health Department contact tracing team has pulled together a list of potential exposure sites of where this positive case has been in recent days. These locations currently include:
Coles Maylands supermarket on 25 January from 8pm to 10pm
KFC Maylands on 27 January from 6pm to midnight
Mitsubishi Motors car dealership in Midland on 27 January from 7pm to close
Spudshed, Coventry Village in Morley on 27 January from 8pm to midnight
ECU Joondalup on 28 January from 11am to 2pm
Consulate General of India on St Georges Terrace in Perth on 28 January from 12pm to 5pm
Halal Grocery Store in Cloverdale on 28 January from 7pm to 9pm
Venus Ladies and Gentleman Hair Design Maylands hairdressers on 29 January from 1pm to 3pm
Perth Convention Centre on 29 January from 4pm to 6pm
Nedlands Family Practice GP surgery on 29 January from 5pm to 6pm
Chemist Warehouse North Perth Pharmacy on 29 January from 5.30pm to 7.30pm
7-Eleven Ascot petrol station on 29 January from 8pm to 9pm
Coles Maylands supermarket on 29 January from 8pm 9pm
Puma Service Station in Burswood on 30 January from 11am to 12 midday.
Coles Express/Shell Service Station in Cloverdale on 30 January from 12 midday to 3pm
Pharmacy 777 at Maylands Park Shopping Centre 30 January from 2.30pm to 4pm.
People who have been to these venues on these dates and times must get tested. In addition, people who live or work in the Falkirk Avenue, Maylands area including Coles, Liquorland and the Maylands shopping precinct should present for a test. They must then go home and isolate until their negative test results are returned. The investigation is on-going by our public health team, and it is likely more locations will be added following further discussions with the man. Close contacts will be contacted by public health officials and asked to quarantine for 14 days. More information on testing clinics will be available on our website – the WA Health and WA Gov websites. The man’s immediate household contacts have been contacted, tested and placed in isolation at State managed quarantine facilities to complete a 14-day quarantine period in a quarantine facility. All three have tested negative this morning. However, we can expect that they will become positive in coming days. Genome sequencing is underway on the positive case and results will be known by Tuesday morning. However, based on the information we have, it appears possible that this new positive case has the highly transmissible UK variant. The past year has been unlike any other – Western Australia has done an incredible job. It’s something I am so proud of. But as we have always known with COVID – it can change very quickly. Today – we need to go back to what we know best, to ensure we limit community transmission of COVID-19 in our State. Even though it was nearly 10 months ago – WA has experienced community transmission of this virus before. We all did the right thing and we crushed it. And it worked. So beginning at 6pm tonight, the whole Perth metropolitan area, the Peel region and the South West region will be going into a full lockdown. This lockdown will run until 6pm on Friday. A five-day lockdown. It’s crucial we act quickly, to keep the community safe. We cannot forget how quickly this virus can spread, nor the devastation it can cause. Following our discussions with the Chief Health Officer and Police Commissioner, the following measures will be put in place from 6pm for people in Perth, Peel and the South West: People in these regions are required to stay home, except for the following four reasons:
Shopping for essentials like groceries, medicine and necessary supplies.
Medical or health care needs including compassionate requirements and looking after the vulnerable.
Exercise, within their neighbourhood, but only with one other person and only for one hour per day.
Work, where you cannot work from home or remotely.
In addition to this Stay Home rule. If you do leave home, for one of the four reasons you will be required to wear a mask at all times outside and if you need to work indoors, then wearing a mask in the workplace is also mandatory. To be clear, mask wearing on public transport is also mandatory. People in the Perth, Peel or South West region need to stay inside their region for the next five days, unless for an essential reason. We are strongly encouraging that everyone in this area, who is from another WA region, stay here and do not travel further outside of this area until the lockdown is over. If you do need to travel outside the region you are in now, that can only occur if you need to return to your place of residence or exceptional circumstances. The transport of essential goods into this region, is permitted, under our existing transport guidelines. This lockdown means the following businesses, venues and locations in the relevant regions need to close for the next five days:
Pubs, bars and clubs
Gyms and indoor sporting venues
Playgrounds, skate parks and outdoor recreational facilities
Cinemas, entertainment venues, and casinos
Large religious gatherings and places of worship
Libraries and cultural institutions
Restaurants and cafes will close, and provide takeaway service only. 10 people can attend funerals, weddings are cancelled for the next five days. No visitors are permitted to your home, unless caring for someone vulnerable or an emergency. No visitors will be allowed in aged care homes, unless exceptional circumstances. No visitors to hospitals and/or disability facilities, unless exceptional circumstances. Elective surgery and procedures for categories 2 and 3 will be suspended from Tuesday, 2 February. Category 1 and urgent category 2 surgery will continue. For a majority of schools in these regions, school was due to start tomorrow. That has now been put on hold and schools will be closed until next week – following the lockdown measures. It is, in effect, an extension of the school holidays. I have been in contact with the Prime Minister and my fellow State and Territory colleagues to advise them of this situation. I have recommended that they put a stop to any travel into WA – as an extra precautionary measure. Border controls are important here – and I 100% support them to ensure we can get through this. All these measures will be reviewed regularly and the Chief Health Officer will continue to monitor the serious situation and provide more ongoing advice. This is an extremely fast-moving situation. I know for many Western Australians this is going to come as a shock. Western Australians have done so well for so long but this week it is absolutely crucial that we stay home, maintain physical distancing and personal hygiene and get tested if you have symptoms. This is a very serious situation and each and every one of us has to do everything we personally can to help stop the spread in the community. We have acted decisively and swiftly given these circumstances. I want to thank everyone in advance for their patience. In effect, for a short period of time, we are going back to what we experienced in March and April. This is a highly unpredictable virus. But it is important to act calmly and take sensible precautions. Leaving your home to purchase food and essentials will be permitted during the lockdown. I say this, so people understand that you do not need to rush to the supermarket today. Take care of your loved ones and be respectful of others including those who are working, to keep essential services and supplies ticking over. Our State is well equipped to handle this situation. We have systems in place throughout the health system that are swinging into action as we speak. We have the capacity to manage this situation. Throughout the pandemic, the response of Western Australians has been second-to-none. The community has done everything we have asked of them. They have made great sacrifices, and it has kept our State safe. I could not be more proud and thankful of the way Western Australians have carried themselves. Now we’re asking for your help once again. We will provide further updates as they come to hand. All relevant information will be posted on websites as it comes to hand. Thank you WA.
[WA] A hotel security worker has contracted the virus, Premier Mark McGowan has announced
New cases reported in the last 24 hours
Local cases:
+0 new local cases.
As per the media release, the case announced today will be reported in tomorrow’s case numbers, as the result came through following the end of the 24-hour reporting period.
WA Health today confirmed that a security guard who works at a State Supervised Quarantine Facility (hotel) has been diagnosed with COVID-19.
The guard, a man in his 20’s, worked at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel on Tuesday 26 January, Wednesday 27 January, when he could have acquired the infection, and was diagnosed with COVID-19 overnight.
This indicates that the guard likely acquired the infection while at the hotel. Exactly how the infection was acquired remains under investigation.
He developed symptoms on Thursday 28 January and phoned in sick and did not go to work at the quarantine facility.
COVID-19 was detected following the man’s mandatory day seven swab.
He had tested negative for COVID-19 on January Friday 15, January Sunday 17 and Saturday January 23.
There is a known case of UK B.1.1.7 variant strain in quarantine at the hotel.
The man’s immediate household contacts have been contacted, tested and placed in isolation at State managed quarantine facilities to complete a 14-day quarantine period in a quarantine facility. All three have tested negative this morning.
🧬 Gene sequencing is under way and results will be known by Tuesday morning. However, based on the information WA Health have, it appears possible that this new positive case has the highly transmissible new UK variant.
McGowan: "I have been in contact with the Prime Minister and my fellow state and territory colleagues to advise them of the situation. I have recommended that they put a stop to any travel into Western Australia as an extra precautionary measure."
Effective from 6pm tonight until 6pm Friday, 5 February 2021, the Perth metropolitan area, Peel and South West regions will enter a lockdown. The following restrictions apply for the lockdown period:
People should not leave Perth, Peel or the South West during this period
People can enter Perth, Peel or the South West only to access or deliver essential health and emergency services and other essential requirements
Non-residents currently in Perth, Peel and the South West are required to remain until the end of the restriction period however if you must leave for serious reasons you are to then return home immediately, stay home and get tested if symptoms develop
Restaurants and cafes to provide takeaway service only
Elective surgery and procedures for categories 2 and 3 will be suspended from Tuesday, 2 February. Category 1 and urgent category 2 surgery will continue
No visitors will be allowed in homes unless caring for a vulnerable person or in an emergency
No visitors to hospitals or residential aged care and/or disability facilities
No weddings permitted
Funerals are limited to 10 people
Travel remains prohibited within remote Aboriginal communities.
The following facilities in the Perth, Peel and South West regions will need to close:
Schools, universities, TAFES and education facilities
Pubs, bars and clubs
Gyms and indoor sporting venues
Playgrounds, skate parks and outdoor recreational facilities
Cinemas, entertainment venues, and casinos
Large religious gatherings and places of worship
Libraries and cultural institutions
People will be required to stay at home unless they need to:
work because they can’t work from home or remotely;
shop for essentials like groceries, medicine and necessary supplies;
medical or health care needs including compassionate requirements and looking after the vulnerable; and
exercise within their neighbourhood, but only with one other person and only for one hour per day.
The lockdown has been introduced due to the detection of a positive COVID-19 case in a hotel quarantine worker. The case has been to the following locations and people who were at these venues on these dates must go get tested. In addition to the below sites, people who live or work in the Falkirk Avenue Maylands shopping centre precinct should present for a test. https://preview.redd.it/x0wko3jtdqe61.jpg?width=892&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3100eac9e3272f2cb42dd37bff9951ed4d36fc26
"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
$SNE, MASSIVE DOUBLE DICK INSIDE. Poised to moon long-term (Computer vision boom, EV boom, autonomous driving tech, gaming boom, music streaming boom, cross-media IP, vertically integrated anime streaming monopoly, online medical services boom, shift to mirrorless cameras)
Listen up retards. Do you happen to feel regret because you always think “ohhh if I yoloed my savings on TSLA/AMD/NVDA 🚀 leaps years ago I could be rich by now!!!” Well if you didn't know already, it doesn’t really matter what happened in the past. Hindsight will always be 20/20. You shouldn’t be harsh on yourself on your past self that your past self wasn’t retarded enough to yolo their savings into AMD/TSLA/.... Your past self doesn’t have the same knowledge that your current self has. It’s fine. If you judged those stocks with the best DD you could do at the time and didn’t think they were worth it, then you did a good job. If you always think about what you could/should have done in the past, then you don't have the right attitude to play the stock market casino imho. The single most important thing is to be able to look ahead. There are always plenty of opportunities around. There are thousands of rockets that are still on earth right now. Some may depart this year, others will stay a little longer on earth. The true strength lies in being able to identify those rockets with the knowledge you have right now. And if you still miss most rockets that will take-off this year that's fine, maybe you'll learn, get better and you'll do better next year. Now, what if I told you there’s a big rocket that’s parked right right here on earth and it has decent chance for take-off this year? Maybe it won't quite reach the moon this year yet, but hey leaving the exosphere should already be a cool milestone. It has rock-solid fundamentals and will see lots of growth in the following years/decade. It’s a company that has the fundamental technology to power all the computer vision tech, which is bound to boom this decade. The company we’re talking about is of course Sony, and it is extremely undervalued right now. Its P/E is only 14. They have a P/S of 1.65, a PEG of 0.92 (< 2 is already somewhat exceptional for a company/conglomerate of Sony’s size, under 1 is a steal) Much lower than all of its same-sector peers. This indicates significant undervaluation. Next up Sony has a P/CF 13.2, ROE of 20% (S&P 500 average is 14% which would already be considered pretty good. 20% ROE is excellent), PEGY of 0.89, P/B of 2.65 and finally Sony has $41.6B in cash on hand. This makes Sony one of the cheapest tech/entertainment/EV/semiconductor growth stocks you will find on the market. (ROE of 20% + PEGY of 0.89 + PEG of 0.92 means this company is a growth stock based on the numbers alone, but we’ll dig into the actual company and overall outlook in a moment) I challenge all retards to find a company with similar benchmarks in one of the mentioned sectors, seriously. Quite frankly doing this DD honestly blew my mind. I kept looking everywhere for reasons why the company could be so undervalued and why they may struggle in the future. Very important to look at all the challenges the company faces to make sure I’m not just doing confirmation bias DD. But all I could find was the opposite. After several weeks and months of working on this DD, I can only conclude that it is overall a very solid company for a bargain price. The new CEO is taking the company in a great direction imho and I'm begin to think he could be Sony's Satya Nadella. So if you want some easy tendies, maybe consider $SNE while it is still cheap, I’d say. For the autists out there who care about analyst ratings, SONY ($SNE) currently has 18 BUY ratings, 2 OVERWEIGHT, 4 HOLD and 0 SELL. (= analyst consensus is a STRONG BUY). Very little analysts cover this stock compared to other entertainment/tech companies, so this adds to my assertion that the stock is very much under the radar. Which means you have time to get in before it gets noticed by the larger investing world and before it starts to get a more fair valuation (P/E of around 30 would be more fair for this company I think, but still cheaper than many same sector peers). But, anyway the few analysts who do happen to cover this company are basically all saying it’s an instant-buy at its current price. Most boomer investors still think big Japanese tech companies are dinosaurs that have long been surpassed by China, South Korea and Apple etc ages ago. Young boomers may think Sony = PlayStation and that it's it. But the truth is that PlayStation, while very important (about 24% of Sony's total revenue last year), is a part of a larger story. Lots of investors in general associate Sony with the passé Japanese electronics companies from the 80’s and the 90’s. Just like a lot people may think BlackBerry is a struggling phone company. While Sony may not be the powerhouse in consumer electronics it was in the 80’s and the 90’s, in a lot of ways they are more relevant than ever before. Despite being a well-known brand and being known as the company behind PlayStation, for some reason its stock still seems to be under the radar among both retail and institutional investors. And boy, are they mind-blowingly undervalued. Even if a big part of its business would collapse tomorrow, they would still be slightly undervalued. And I am about to tell you why. (& btw compared to Japanese tech/entertainment stocks $SNE is still super cheap (Canon, Nikon, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, Square Enix, Capcom, Nintendo, Fujitsu all have P/E ratios ranging from 18 to 77 and none of them have the combination of global clout, fundamentals & growth prospects that Sony has)) 2021 Sony as a corparation is not the fucking Sony from 2005-2015’s, just like BlackBerry in 2021 is not the fucking Blackberry from 2012. Just like Garmin in 2021 is not Garmin from 2011. Just like AMD in 2021 is not AMD from 2012. No, in 2021, Sony is the global leader in imaging technology and people do not fucking realize it. Sony has 50% marketshare in the CMOS image sensor market. There’s a very good chance the smartphone in your pocket has Sony image sensors (unless it’s a Samsung phone). Sony image sensors are powering a big part of today's vision/camera technology. And they will power even more of tomorrow's computer vision tech. In 2021, Sony is a behemoth in video games, music, anime, movies and TV show production. Sony is present in every segment of entertainment. Sony’s entertainment branches have been doing great business over the past 5 years, especially music and PlayStation. Additionally, Sony Pictures has completely turned around. In 2021, Sony is the world’s biggest music publisher (and second biggest music company overall). Music streaming has been a boon for Sony Music and will continue to be. In 2021, Sony is among the biggest mobile gaming companies in the world (yes, you read that right). And it’s mainly thanks to one game (Fate/Grand Order) that nets them over $1B revenue each year. One of the biggest mobile gaming companies + arguably biggest gaming brand in the world (PlayStation). In 2021, Sony is an EV company. They surprised the world when they revealed their “Vision-S” at CES 2020. At the reception was fantastic. It is seriously one of the best looking EV’s. They already sell sensors to Toyota. Sony will most like sell the Vision-S's tech to other car manufacturers (sensors for driving assistence / autonomous driving, LiDAR tech, infotainment system). 40 sensors in the Sony Vision-S Considering the overwhelmingly good reception of the Vision-S so far, I suspect the Vision-S could be another catalyst that will put Sony as a company on the radar of investors and consumers. We've seen insane investment hype for anything even remotely related to EV over the past year. We've seen a company that barely had a few EV design concepts (oh wait, they had a gravity-powered truck though) even get a $30B market cap at some point lmao. But somehow a profitable company ($SNE) that has an EV that you can actually drive, doesn't even have a fair valuation? In 2020’s Sony’s brand value is at their highest point since 12 years. In 2021, it is projected to be a its highest point since 2001 assuming same growth as average yearly growth from 2015 to 2020. Keep in mind brand valuation is a bit bullshitty as there’s no standardization to compare brands from different sectors, let alone non-consumer-facing brands with consumer-facing brands. But one thing we can note is that Sony both as B2C brand and as a B2B company is on a big upwards trend. https://interbrand.com/best-global-brands/sony/ https://careers.uw.edu/blog/2020/03/17/these-are-the-10-biggest-video-game-companies-in-north-america-shared-article-from-zippia/ In 2021, Sony is an entertainment behemoth. They have grown their entertainment branches by a huge amount over the past 5 to 10 years (they made some big acquisitions in the music space especially and they’re now also all-in in anime). I don’t think people realize how big Sony is as an entertainment company. I dug up the numbers and as of Q3 2020, PlayStation is the second biggest video game company in the world (Tencent is #1) in revenue (I suspect Sony might dethrone Tencent after Sony’s FY Q3 2020 is released). But Sony already comes very close to Tencent especially if you add Fate/Grand Order (which is under Sony Music and not under PlayStation) under PlayStation. There’s no single other company that has this unique combination of a dominant/important position in all entertainment segments. (video games + music + movies + TV series + anime + TV networks). I guess Tencent maybe? In 2021, Sony has amazing momentum in the camera space. If you’re familiar with the enthusiast photography space, you should know this. Basically, the market is slowly shifting from SLR to mirrorless cameras. This is because mirrorless cameras tend to smallelighter, have faster AF, better low light performance, better battery life and better video performance. Sony is the company that has been specializing in the development for mirrorless cameras for over a decade while Canon’s bread and butter has always been SLR cameras. Sony is in the lead when it comes to mirrorless cameras and that’s where the market is shifting towards. Because the advantages of mirrorless have become more and more apparent and Sony’s cameras have become technically superior, Sony has gained quite a bit of market share over Canon and Nikon in the last few years. In 2019, Sony overtook Nikon as the #2 camera manufacturer. Sony is in an upwards trend here. (they have the ambition to become the world’s #1 camera brand) Sony also has very good marketing for their cameras. (Sony has a lot of YouTubers / influencers / brand ambassadors for their cameras despite being a smaller brand than Canon) (just search on YouTube and/or Google “switching to Sony from Canon” just to give you an idea that they do have amazing brand momentum in the camera space. You won’t get as many hits for the opposite) A huge portion of Sony’s profit comes from image sensors in addition to music and video games. This is in addition to their highly profitable financial holdings division & their more moderately profitable electronics division. Sony’s electronics division, unlike other Japanese brands, has shown great resilience against the very strong competition from China & South Korea. They have been able to maintain their position in the audio space and as of 2020 are still the global market leader in high-end TV’s (a position they have been holding for decades) and it seems they will continue to be able to maintain that. But seriously this company is dirt-cheap compared to any of its peers in any segment and there’s various huge growth prospects for Sony:
CMOS image sensors & Sony’s overall imaging prowess will boom due to increased demand from automotive sector, security & surveillance industry, manufacturing industry, medical sector and finally from the aerospace & defence industry. On the longer term, image sensors will continue to boom due to increased demand for computer vision & AI + robotics. And for consumer electronics demand will remain very high obviously.
Sony is aiming for 60% market share in the CMOS image sensor market by 2026. Biggest threat here is Samsung here who have recently started to aggressively invest in image sensors and are challenging Sony. Sony has technological lead + higher production capacity (and Sony will soon open a new plant in Nagasaki), so Sony should be able to hold off Samsung.
The iPhone 12 Pro has 3 cameras + a lidar sensor. Apple now buys 3 image sensors (from Sony) + LiDAR sensor (from Sony) per iPhone 12 Pro they manufacture. Remember the iPhone X and iPhone XS? That one had “only” 2 rear cameras (with image sensos from Sony of course). Basically, Sony will be selling exponentially more image sensors as more smartphones get equipped with more and more cameras.
Now think about how many image sensors Sony can sell to Apple if the iPhone 13 will have 5 cameras + LiDAR sensor (I mean the number of cameras on smartphones certainly won’t decrease)
Gaming (PS5 hype, PSN game sales are booming, add-on content is booming, PS+ subscribers count is booming and finally PSNow & first-party games sales are trending upwards as well). Very consistent year-on-year profit & revenue growth here. They have a history of beating earnings expectations here. The number of PS+ subscribers went from 4M to 48M in just 6-7 years. Investors love to hype up recurring revenue and subscription services such as Disney+ and Netflix. Let’s apply the same logic to PS+? PS+ already has more subscribers than HBO Max in the USA.
PlayStation (video games in general) has not even scratched the fucking surface. Most people who play video games now are millennials and kids. Do you think those millennials will stop playing video games when they grow older? No, of course not. Boomers today also still watch movies and TV. Those millennials have kids and those kids are now also playing video games. The kids of those kids will also play video games etc. Basically the total addressable audience for video games will by HUGE by the end of the decade (and the decades after that) because video games will have penetrated all age ranges of the population. Gaming is the fastest growing segment of the whole entertainment business. By a large margin. PlayStation is obviously in a great position here as you can guess from the PS5 hype, but more importantly imho, the growth of PS+ subscribers (currently a bit under 50 million) and PSN users (>100 million MAU) over the past 5 years shows that PlayStation is primed to profit from the audience growth.
On top of that you have huge video game growth in the China where Sony & PlayStation is already much better established than Xbox (but still super small compared to mobile games and PC gaming in China). Within the console market, Xbox only competes with PlayStation in North America. In the rest of the world, PlayStation has an enormous lead over Xbox. Xbox is simply a lesser known and lesser desirable brand in the rest of the world
Anime streaming (basically they have a monopoly already + vertical integration, it might still be somewhat niche right now, but it will be big within 5 years. Acquiring Crunchyroll was a very good move)
Music streaming (no, they don’t have a music streaming service, but as music streaming grows, Sony Music also gets a piece of the growing pie through licensing/royalties, and they also still have a little 2.8% stake in Spotify)
Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T and Disney are currently battling it out in the streaming wars. When there’s a war you have little chances of winning, you shouldn’t be the one waging the war. You should be the one selling the ammo. Basically Sony Pictures (tv shows + movies) is in that position. Sony Pictures can negotiate good prices for their content because Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T are thirsty for content and they all want their own exclusive content. Sony Pictures does not need to prop up their own streaming service just like Sony Music doesn’t need their own music streaming service when they can just license out their content and turn a profit. There will always be demand for TV & movies content, so Sony Pictures is well positioned is as an independent content provider. And while Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T and Disney are battling it out on the forefront, Sony is quietly building their anime empire in the background. Genius business move from Sony here, seriously. They now have anime production & distribution.
Netflix has 200M subscribers and they currently have a 250M market cap. Think about what Sony will have in 5 years? >30M Crunchyroll subscribers (assuming all anime will be consolidated into Crunhyroll) & >100M PS+ & PSNow subscribers? Anime and gaming is growing faster than movies and TV shows. (9% CAGR for anime, 12% CAGR for gaming vs. 5% CAGR for the whole movies & TV show entertainment segment which includes PVOD, SVOD, box office, TV etc etc). And gaming as a whole is MUCH bigger than SVOD streaming. Netflix gets 99% of their revenue & profit through subscriptions. For the whole Sony Group Corporation, their subscription services (games + anime) it’s currently only 4.5% of their total revenue. And somehow Sony currently has a meagre $128B market cap?
PlayStation alone is bigger than Netflix in terms of operating profit. PlayStation has a MUCH higher profit margin than Netflix. For Q3 2020 Netflix posted $790M operating profit and PlayStation posted $988M operating profit. Revenue was was $6.44B for Netflix vs. $4.77B for PlayStation. (and btw Sony’s mobile gaming revenue (~$1B / year) is under Sony Music, it is not even in those PlayStation numbers!!!)
Think about it. PlayStation alone posts bigger operating profit than Netflix (yes revenue is bit smaller, but it’s the operating profit that matters most). And gaming is growing faster than movies. And PlayStation is about 24% of Sony’s total revenue. And yet Netflix has a market cap that is equal to the double of Sony's market cap? Basically If you apply Netflix’ valuation to PlayStation then PlayStation alone should have a bigger market cap than Netflix' market cap.
Sony Vision-S & autonomous driving tech (selling sensors + infotainment system to other car manufacturers). Sony surprised everyone when they revealed their Sony Vision-S electric vehicle last year at CES 2020 (in-house design and made in cooperation with Magna Steyr). And it’s currently being tested on public roads. Over the past year we have seen absurdly big investment hype into anything even remotely related to EV’s (including a few questionable companies). We’ve even seen an EV company with a gravity-powered truck get a $30B market cap in June last year. Meanwhile Sony, out of nowhere, revealed what is arguably (subjectively) one of the best looking EV’s. It got very positive reception at CES 2020. An EV that you can actually drive. But somehow their stock is still dirt-cheap based on their current fundamentals alone? Yet some companies that had pretty much nothing but some EV design concepts got insane valuations purely due to hype?
LTE chips for IoT & Industry 4.0 (Altair Semiconductors)
Cross-media IP (The Last of Us show on HBO, Uncharted movie etc). Huge unrealized potential synergy here (it’s about to change). We have seen that it can turn out super well when you look at The Witcher, Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu. When The Witcher released on Netflix, sales of The Witcher 3 significantly increased again. Imagine the same thing, but with Sony IP’s. Sony Pictures is currently working on 7 video game IP based TV shows and 3 movies. We know The Last of Us tv series is currently in production for HBO. And then the Uncharted is currently in post-production and scheduled to be released in July this year currently. If Uncharted turns out to be successful, it will mark a big, new milestone for Sony as an entertainment company imho.
Aniplex (Sony Music Entertainment Japan subsidiary for anime production, distribution & mobile games) had a fantastic year in 2020. (more on this later) There is a lot of room for mobile games growth with Aniplex. Thanks to Aniplex, Sony might beat their earnings forecast.
Drones. DJI just got put on Entity List in USA and Sony started developing drones for prosumer / professional a few years ago. Big opportunity for Sony here to take a bit from DJI’s dominance. It only makes sense for Sony to enter the drone market targeting the professional & prosumer video market, considering Sony’s established position in the professional audio/video/photography space
Currently Sony also has several ventures & investments in AI & robotics
Over the past decade, Sony has also carefully expanded into medical equipment tech & biotechnology. Worth noting that Sony also has an important 33% stake in M3 inc (a medical services through-the-internet company with a market cap of $65.5B) (= just their stake in M3 Inc is worth $22B alone, remember Sony, with their large, diversified revenue streams & assets only has a market cap of $128B?)
Sony Pictures has a great upcoming movie slate (MCU Spider-Man, Uncharted, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Venom 2, Morbius, Spider-Verse sequel, Hotel Transylvania 4, Peter Rabbit 2, Vivo, The Nightingale). They will profit from the theatre reopening and covid recovery. They may even become more favourable among movie theatre chains because they won’t release their movies on the same day on streaming services like Warner (and yeah movie theatres are here to stay, at least for a while imho)
All the above comes on top of established, mature markets (Financial Holdings & Electronic Products)
Oh yeah, btw though TV’s are a cyclical and mature market and are not that important for Sony Group Corporation’s bottomline*, Sony TV’s will continue to do well for the following successive years: o 2020: continued pandemic boost
2020-2021: PS5 / Xbox Series X/S
2021 Summer Olympics (tv sales ALWAYS spike during the olympics) (& the effect is more pronounced for high-end TV’s, = good for Sony because Sony’s market share is concentrated in the high-end range (they are market leader in the high-end range)
2022 FIFA world cup (exact same thing as for the olympics)
You could say it’s already priced in, but the stock is already ridiculously undervalued so idk…
You would think this company somehow has a bad outlook, but that could not be further from the true, let me explain and go over some of the different divisions and explain why they will moon: Sony Entertainment While Netflix, Disney, AT&T, Amazon, and Apple are waging the great streaming war, Sony has been quietly building its anime streaming empire over the past years.
Sony recently acquired Crunchyroll for $1.175B (it is a great deal for Sony imho and will immediately be more valuable under Sony. Considering the growing appetite for anime I honestly do not even understand why AT&T sold it, they could have integrated it with their other streaming service (HBO Max) but ok)
With Crunchyroll Sony now has the following anime empire:
Aniplex (anime production & distribution, subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan) F
Funimation
Manga Entertainment UK (production, licensing, and distribution, UK)
Wakanam (licensing and distribution in Europe)
AnimeLab (licensing and distribution in Australia & New Zealand)
Crunchyroll (3 million paying subcribers, 90 million registered users and 50 million social media followers)
* Why anime matters: Anime growth “The global size is expected to reach USD 36.26 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 8.8% over the forecast period, according to a study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. Growing popularity and sales of Japanese anime content across the globe apart from Japan is driving the growth” (tl;dr anime 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀, Sony is all in on anime and they have pretty much no competition) Anime is the fastest growing subsegment of movies/video entertainment worldwide.
Sony also has a partnership with Bilibili for anime distribution in China:
Bilibili already partnered with Sony Music Entertainment Japan to bring Aniplex’s hugely successful Aniplex’s Fate/Grand Order mobile game in China.
Sony acquired a 5% stake in Bilibili for $400M in March 2020 (that 5% stake is now already worth $2.33B at Bilibili’s current share price ($BILI) and imho $BILI still has lots of upside potential considering it is the de facto video creation/sharing/viewing à la YouTube/Twitch for GenZ in China)
Sony Music (mobile games) generated $400M revenue from its mobile games in Q2 FY2020, published through Aniplex (Sony Music Entertainment Japan, “SMEJ”) subsidiary
They are the publisher of Fate/Grand Order, one of the most profitable mobile video games of the past 5 years (has generated $4B in revenue (!!) by the end of 2019 and is still as popular as ever). Fate/Grand order is the 7th most profitable mobile game in revenue worldwide as of 2020 (!)
Aniplex launched Disney: Twisted Wonderland in March this year. In Q3, it was the #10 most downloaded mobile game in Japan. (Aniplex now has two top ten games in Japan)
Fate/Grand Order was the #2 most tweeted game in 2020 and #3 was Disney: Twisted Wonderland. You can see that Aniplex has two hugely successful mobile games. (we are talking close to $1B of revenue a year here). It is the #2 game in Japan by total revenue from Q1 2016 to Q3 2020 and the #9 game in worldwide revenue from Q1 2020 to Q3 2020.
SMEJ earns about > $1B from mobile games in revenue from mobile games and there is still a lot of future growth potential here considering Japan’s mobile game market grew a whopping 32% yoy from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020.
Aniplex recently co-distrubuted the movie Demon Slayer: Mugen Train in Japan in October 2020. It became the highest grossing film of all time in Japan with a total gross box office revenue of $380M. In the middle of a pandemic. It still needs to release in South Korea, China and USA where it will most likely do great as well.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) (Game & Netwerk Services business unit):
We all know 2020 was a huge year for video games with the stay-at-home pandemic boost. The whole video game sector brought in $180B of revenue in 2020, a whopping 20% increase yoy.
But 2020 will not be just a one-off temporary exceptional year for video games. The video game market has a CAGR of 13% which means it will be worth $291B in 2027. Video games is by far the segment with the highest growth rate in the whole entertainment industry.
PlayStation obviously has a huge piece of this pie and over the past years has seen consistent yoy revenue and profit growth. Think about it, for every FIFA/Call of Duty/Assassin’s Creed sold on PS4/PS5, Sony gets a 30% cut. There have been sold a billion PS4 games so far.
5 years ago 20 to 30% of PS4 games were purchased digitally. Flashforward to 2020 and it’s 60-75% and the digital ratio looks set to still increase a bit. This means higher profit margin for game publishers and for Sony at the expense of retailers
SIE has seen huge success in its first-party games over the past 5 years. Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 2, Uncharted 4, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Ratchet & Clank have all been huge successes. This is really big and represents a big change compared to the previous generations where Sony never really hit it big as a games publisher even though most of their games were considered quality games.
SIE is now not only a powerful platform holdeprovider, but also a very successful games publisher with popular IP’s (Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank). This is an enormous asset, because firstly it increases the chances of success for cross-media opportunities (Sony Pictures can make TV shows and movies out of it to expand the popularity of those IP’s even more). And secondly, it is an obvious selling point for PS5. The more popular and bigger their exclusive content, the more they can draw people to their platform/service. This should increases PS5 total marketshare over its competitor.
The hype for God of War: Ragnarok will be absolutely through the roof. Hype for Horizon: Forbidden West is also very good already (10 million yt views, 273K likes which is very good). Gran Turismo 7 and Ratchet & Clank will also do very well in 2021. (I suspect that GoW oand Horizon might be delayed to 2022)
PS5 reception has been extremely good. Demand is through the roof as well all know. The only problem is that they cannot quite capitalize on the demand due to lack of supply, but overall, it is a very good thing that demand is very high, and that reception has been very positive. The challenge will primarily supply and production-related for the following 6 months and to be able to maintain brand momentum. Hopefully, they won’t push disappointed/inpatient customers to competitors.
Considering there’s backwards compatibility from PS4 to PS5, users will want all their PSN content to transition with them as well, so I expect them to lose very little marketshare to Xbox. Also, I do not know if Americans realize it, but Xbox is not nearly as big as PlayStation in the rest of the world as it is in the USA. PlayStation just has global brand power that Xbox just doesn’t have, so Xbox isn’t much of threat at all I’d say. Where I live, in Belgium, In Europe everyone is talking about the PS5, nobody really seems to care about Xbox Series S/X that much. Comparing PlayStation to Xbox in terms of mindshare is like comparing Apple to Motorola (not meant to be a diss to Motorola, I have a Motorola phone myself, just saying that Xbox has significantly less mindshare / brand power in Europe).
SIE is likely working on PSVR 2, this could be big.
Sony has a small stake in Epic Games (1.4%) and they have a good business relationship with them, so this might also make them open to release first-party games on Epic Games Store after exclusivity period on PS5.
Remember the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite? I believe that was one of the reasons why Sony invested in Epic Games. It serves as an example how music can sometimes converge with video games, and this can play to Sony’s strengths.
PlayStation also has way superior presence in Asia compared to Xbox. Have been expanding into China as well. Another great opportunity for revenue growth.
PS+ subscribers grew from 5.7 million by the end of 2013 to 46 million by October 30th, 2020. This is an average growth rate of 28% over the past 5 years. Considering most of the growth was early on, it will slow down, but I predict that they will have about 70 million PS+ subscribers by the end of 2023. This is huge and represents a stable, recurring source of income. Investors who keep hyping Netflix/Disney+ will love this, but it seems they have yet to discover $SNE.
There is a reason why Amazon, Google, Nvidia have been aggressively investing in video games & games streaming. They know the business is huge and is about to get even bigger. But considering the established, loyal PlayStation userbase, the established global brand of PlayStation and the exclusive games, PlayStation should be able to easily standoff competition from Amazon, Google and Nvidia (GeForce Now) in the next few years. So far, Amazon’s venture into game development, publishing & streaming has completely failed. Stadia and GeForceNow seem to have a bit more success, but still relatively niche. Therefore, I think PlayStation is well-positioned to remain one of the leaders in the industry for the following decade.
I'll get to the other divisions later, I figured this is a good first step. But so far the tl;dr Image sensors: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 IoT/Industry 4.0 chipsets: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 PS5/PSN/PS+: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Online medical services (M3 inc.): 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Anime: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Fate/Grand Order: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Demon Slayer: Mugen Train 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Sony Music / music streaming (the performance of Sony Music’s in Sony’s business is seriously understated. The numbers speak for themselves): 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Sony Electronics 🚀 Sony Financial Holdings (very stable & profitable business, even managed to grow slightly during pandemic when most insurance companies performed more poorly): 🚀🚀🚀 Still have to cover Sony Pictures, but their upcoming movie slate looks pretty good honestly (Spider-Man sequel, Venom: Let There Be Darkness, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Uncharted, Morbius, Hotel Transylvania 4 so that's worth one rocket as well imho 🚀 tl;dr of tl;dr: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I am an idiot that's trying to understand why $SNE stock is so cheap. Positions: SNE 105C 21st January 22
Stokes's Bristol Nightclub incident in detail (From: The Comeback Summer by Geoff Lemon)
IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a place where misadventure could begin, you can’t go past Mbargo. The nightclub’s streetfront is painted a purple so bright you’ll see it in your dreams. Strings of giant sequins shimmer in the breeze. Its phonically inventive name is spelt in silver letters that climb its three-storey terrace facade. Inside are strips of burning neon, a few booths, floorboards so marinated in drink that they have an ingredients list. Bristol is a student city on England’s south coast crowded with music and nightlife and street art. This is Banksy’s home town, and the tourism board suggests in rather strong terms that ‘you would be a fool not to see his amazing work firsthand’. The same organisation describes Mbargo as ‘intimate’, which is fair for a place where you can catch an STI standing up. Students cram into its modest dimensions while people with names like DJ Klaud battle for billing with £1.50 drink deals over seven sloppy nights a week. To get a sense of the story about to come, consider that it’s the kind of place open until two o’clock on a Monday morning, and that at two o’clock on a Monday morning, Ben Stokes still thought it had closed too early. The Ashes of 2017–18 had disciplinary bookends. It was after that series that Australia’s two leaders went off the rails in South Africa. It was a few weeks before that Ashes tour that England’s biggest star windmilled his way into his own disaster. In the early hours of 25 September 2017, Stokes and teammate Alex Hales were barred from re-entering Mbargo after a night out on the piss. A Sunday thrashing of an abject West Indies in an ignored series at the fag-end of the season apparently required ample celebration. After arguing with the bouncer and hanging about at the door for a while, they wandered off to find a casino in the hope of more drinking. They’d barely made it around the corner before getting in the middle of a conflict between four locals. As is said on the internet, it escalated quickly. The 26 September reporting was bloodless. Withholding names, police stated that a man ‘was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm’ while another went to hospital with facial injuries. England’s director of cricket Andrew Strauss separately confirmed that Stokes was the arrestee, adding that he had been released without charge and that Hales had gamely offered to ‘help police with their enquiries’. Administrators had a good chance of hiding behind that investigation, and the next day Stokes was named in the upcoming Ashes squad as expected. But that night the video emerged. Bristol student Max Wilson had shot it on his phone, then offered it to The Sun. What he thought was playing hardball was actually lowball: his opening price of £3000 was snapped up by a tabloid that would have paid ten times that. The Sun went on to make a mint by syndicating the rights worldwide. From a window above the fray, the vision showed six men on the street below performing the muddled choreography of a melee. One was right at the centre of it. One was waving a bottle, one dipped in and out, one tried to calm it. Two others floated around the edges. The central figure was unmistakable: red hair burning even in the streetlight as he launched into a series of blows against two of the men, falling to grapple with them on the ground, then following both across the street, swinging punches the whole way. Hales trailed behind, repeatedly and impotently shouting ‘Stokes! Stop! Stokes! Enough!’ The ECB could fudge issues that existed only in thickets of legalese, but not those captured in moving colour. Stokes was stood down from the next West Indies match, then suspended indefinitely. It emerged that he had broken his hand during the fight, something he’d done twice before while punching objects in dressing rooms. The response in Australia was fierce: Stokes was a thug, a lowlife, a selection that would disgrace England. It was not entirely coincidental that a ban for England’s best player would be handy for the Aussie team, but there was also a cultural split. In England, plenty of people still minimise pub fights as lads letting off steam. In Australia, heavy media coverage as a succession of young men were killed had inverted that tolerance. The discourse now saw any punch as potentially deadly and accordingly reckless. This was more poignant in a cricket context given that David Hookes, the dashing Test batsman and state coach, was killed in 2004 by a pub bouncer’s fist. The PR situation was bad for Stokes as details emerged of the injuries to the men he’d hit, and that one was a young war veteran and father. Stokes wasn’t officially removed from the Ashes squad through October but stayed behind when his teammates left, hoping for police to dismiss the matter in time for a late dash to Australia. His annual contract was renewed on the due date in case that came to pass. Then 29 October brought a twist in the tale. ‘Ben Stokes praised by gay couple after defending them from homophobic thugs,’ ran the headline. Kai Barry and Billy O’Connell had emerged. Not entirely out of nowhere: while Stokes had made no public comment, this story in his defence had initially been leaked to TV host Piers Morgan after the fight, as soon as the video appeared. Police body-camera footage played in court would later show that Stokes had given the same story to the arresting officer on the night. But no-one knew the identities of the fifth and sixth men in the video, and police appeals had turned up nothing. It was The Sun again with the breakthrough. Kai and Billy were perfect for a readership not keen on nuance. ‘We couldn’t believe it when we found out they were famous cricketers. I just thought Ben and Alex were quite hot, fit guys,’ said Kai, who was memorably described as a ‘former House of Fraser sales assistant’. The paper had the pair do a full photo shoot: layering the fake tan, showing off chest waxes, mixing Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton into a range of outfits. Their best shot had them standing back to back, heads turned to the camera, in a mirror-image Zoolander moment. Suddenly The Sun was the England team’s best friend. ‘Their claims could lead to the all-rounder being cleared over the punch-up and freed to play in the First Test in Australia next month,’ it gushed, then gave a tasting platter of quotes: ‘We were so grateful to Ben for stepping in to help. He was a real hero.’ ‘If Ben hadn’t intervened it could have been a lot worse for us.’ ‘We could’ve been in real trouble. Ben was a real gentleman.’ Would it be known forever as Kai and Billy’s Ashes? No. While the Bristol boys provided spin for Stokes’ reputation they didn’t influence the police. With charges still pending there was little choice – not given Strauss had previously sacked Kevin Pietersen for being annoying. Stokes remained suspended through the Ashes and a one-day series in Australia, and lost the vice-captaincy. It was January 2018 before the Crown Prosecution Service laid a charge. That charge surprisingly came in as affray, a crime that can carry prison time but is classified as ‘a breach of the peace as a result of disorderly conduct’. The men he had punched, Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale, faced the same count, charged as equal participants in a fight rather than Stokes being charged with assaulting them. Alex Hales was not charged, despite being seen in the video to aim several kicks when Ryan Ali was lying on the ground. Given the underwhelming standing of the offence, Stokes was cleared by the ECB to tour New Zealand, and kept playing until his trial in August 2018, which he missed a Test to attend. None of the three defendants would be convicted. The reasoning behind the charges was never released and was attributed vaguely to ‘CPS lawyers’. The service gave the case to Alison Morgan, a prosecutor of a class known as Treasury Counsel who usually handle serious criminal matters. Morgan had a scheduling clash and never ended up court for the case, but in 2018 and 2019 she would go on to win damages and admissions of libel from The Daily Mail, The Times and The Daily Telegraph variously for incorrectly reporting that she had been responsible for the inadequate and inconsistent charging decisions. Morgan’s successor on the case was Nicholas Corsellis QC, who on the first day of trial was permitted by the CPS to request two assault charges be added against Stokes. ‘Upon further review,’ claimed a CPS statement, ‘we considered that additional assault charges would also be appropriate.’ This was patent nonsense from the service that eight months earlier had chosen the lesser charge. Any lawyer knows that no judge will allow new charges once a trial has begun, because the defence hasn’t had time to prepare. But such a request could deflect criticism of the prosecution service by technically making the judge the one who disallows the charge. Working through the story from the trial and the tape is complicated. You had a Ryan and a Ryan, a Hale and a Hales, a Billy and a Barry and a Ben. You had several versions of events as to who knew whom, who was drinking with whom, who had insulted whom and who had merely engaged in ‘banter’, a word that in modern Britain has to do an unconscionable amount of lifting. The reporting had constantly mixed up the Ryans as to who had which injury, who was in hospital, who had played which part in the fight, and whose mum had which stern words to say about it. Let’s agree that from now Ryan Ali is Ryan One, the firefighter who ended up with a fractured eye socket and a cracked tooth. Ryan Two can be Ryan Hale, the soldier who scored concussion and facial lacerations. Mr Barry and Mr O’Connell are best known per The Sun as Kai and Billy. In scorecard parlance we’ll leave the cricketers as Stokes and Hales. Amid the confusion, Stokes and his lawyers built his case in a straightforward way. The UK legal definition of affray is ‘if a person threatens or uses unlawful violence or force towards another person, which causes another person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their safety’. That means it doesn’t account for violence that harms a target, but violence that might frighten a theoretical bystander. The wiggle room for Stokes was with ‘unlawful’, because the charge excuses violence in defending oneself or others. This interpretation hinged on the beginning of the video, where Ryan One waves a beer bottle about and takes a swing at Kai. The version from Stokes was that he was minding his own business walking down the street when he heard homophobic abuse. He intervened verbally and was threatened verbally by Ryan One – something that Ryan One denied but that couldn’t be proved or disproved. In fear for his safety Stokes had to nullify that threat by bashing Ryan One before it went the other way. He registered Ryan Two in his peripheral vision as another possible threat, and again had only one recourse. Stokes also had to convince the jury to disregard testimony from Mbargo’s bouncer that he had been looking for a fight. A solid lump of a man, Andrew Cunningham had not enjoyed his patron’s attempts to get back into the club after the bouncer declined an offer of a bribe. ‘He got a bit verbally abusive towards myself. He mentioned my gold teeth and he said I looked like a cunt and I replied, “Thank you very much.” He just looked at me and told me my tattoos were shit and to look at my job.’ Cunningham described these words as coming in ‘a spiteful tone, quite an angry tone’, and said that Stokes still seemed angry as he walked away. These were details the doorman had nothing to gain by inventing, but each of them Stokes denied. By his own accounting he had drunk a beer at the game and three pints at his hotel, then ‘potentially had some Jägerbombs’ along with half a dozen vodkas at the club. He insisted that after all of this he was not drunk. If I may take a moment here to call upon the wisdom of experience – a person who cannot definitively say whether they have had any Jägerbombs has definitely had some Jägerbombs. A Jägerbomb is an experience that does not pass one by. Further to that, a person who says they have ‘potentially’ done something has definitely done that thing and doesn’t want to admit it. A person who has had between 15 and 24 standard drinks in one evening is shitfaced. A person who tries to bribe a bouncer £300 – three hundred quid! – to get into Mbargo – Mbargo! – is beyond shitfaced. If Stokes admitted that he was drunk then the prosecution could say he was out of control. He claimed clear recall of assessing a threat, feeling fear and deciding to protect himself with force. He confidently denied details from the bouncer’s testimony, like using the word ‘cunt’ or mentioning gold teeth. Yet on other details he claimed a ‘significant memory blackout’. He didn’t remember the punch that saw Ryan One taken away by ambulance. He didn’t remember what the Ryans had said to Kai and Billy, only that those words were homophobic. With no head injury, as one of the few people who hadn’t been hit, he had supposedly suffered this memory loss despite being sober. The version from Kai and Billy was compatible but vague: they had been walking along, they ‘heard … shouts’ of abuse from an unspecified source, then Stokes ‘stepped in’ and thus they avoided possible harm. They claimed to have been bought a drink by Stokes at Mbargo, although CCTV showed them meeting outside. The overall implication from both accounts was that the cricketers had been pals with Kai and Billy, while the Ryans as per The Sun’s headline were a roving band of thugs. The reality though is that the Ryans were the ones hanging out with Kai and Billy at Mbargo. Police discussed CCTV from inside the club in questioning and at trial. On that footage the four Bristolians bought drinks for one another, danced together, and Kai was noted to have variously touched Ryan Two’s crotch and Ryan One’s buttock. Ryan One told police that all of this was taken lightheartedly and wasn’t a problem. Indeed, when the Ryans called it a night the other two left with them. This much is clear from footage out the front of Mbargo, which shows Kai and Billy exit the club and start talking with a subdued Hales and a demonstrative Stokes, who are stuck outside. The vision was played in court to determine whether Stokes was antagonistic towards Kai and Billy, as he appears to impersonate them and to throw a lit cigarette their way. More interesting is that after a few minutes the Ryans emerge, and all six actors in the fight video briefly form a prequel in the one frame. Ryan Two pats Billy on the chest in friendly fashion with his right hand before clapping him on the back with his left. He moves past and does the same to Kai before leaving the shot. Ryan One stops to speak to Kai. They lean in for a moment, talking, then Kai turns and they walk out of frame together. Billy hangs around for a few seconds at the door and then looks after them and races to catch up. Stokes and Hales remain outside the club to remonstrate further with the bouncers. Whatever discord develops around the corner is between four men who left amicably together minutes earlier. There’s no way to know what caused that friction. If Ryan One did use homophobic slurs, he might have been drunkenly obnoxious for no reason. He might have had an insecure macho response to some extra flirtation. He might have thought unkindness was funny – ‘banter’ once again. Or he might have said something that was misunderstood, as both Ryans insisted in court that they had not used nor had the impulse to use any abusive language. What clearly didn’t happen was an attack by bigots on random passers-by. This kind of crime is regular enough that an audience understands the horror of it, and this is what was evoked by the public accounts of Stokes, Billy and Kai. All we know is that there was some verbal dispute among the Bristol locals, and that Stokes came along behind them and put himself in the middle of it. Ryan One responded to the interference aggressively and away they went. There are plenty of reasons to look sideways at the idea that Stokes was a saviour. Foremost, neither Kai nor Billy was called upon as witnesses in court. You’d think it would be ideal to have Stokes’ story backed up by those who benefited from his selflessness. But his defence team had developed the impression that the pair had shown a changeable recall of events amid a hard-partying lifestyle, and would be dismantled by the prosecution on the stand. That raises the question of whether The Sun coached their quotes for the 2017 interview. Despite missing court, Kai and Billy clearly enjoyed the attention. In 2018 after the trial they did a follow-up spread in the same paper about how poor Ben had been mistreated. They got a television spot on Good Morning Britain and glowed about his heroism. In 2019 The Sun wheeled them out once more to say that Stokes should get a knighthood. In 2017 they had ‘never watched cricket’ but by 2019 were supposedly volunteering sentences like, ‘He saved us, now he’s saved the Ashes.’ Whether they were paid for these appearances is not known, but the chance to be famous for a day can be lure enough. If you find this cynical, consider that on the night in question, the Bristol boys were so deeply moved and thankful for Ben’s intervention that they left him to be arrested and never attempted to find out who he was. Seconds after the video ended, an off-duty policeman reached the scene. You might think that someone grateful to a saviour would speak on his behalf. Instead, said Kai, ‘it all got a bit scary so we walked off. It was too much for me and we went to Quigley’s takeaway for chicken burgers and cheesy chips.’ They didn’t give their hero a thought for over a month while police issued multiple appeals for witnesses. As for Stokes, he told his arresting officer that ‘his friends’ had been attacked. After three minutes of chat outside a nightclub, these friends were so dear to him that he has never contacted them again: not after the newspaper piece, not after the verdict. He didn’t want to see how they were or thank them for their support. He didn’t mention them by name in his solicitor’s statement after the trial. The Stokes defence rested on Ryan One’s bottle, which he had carried out of Mbargo to finish a beer, not to use in a Sharks versus Jets amateur production. But once he turned it over to hold it by the neck it became a weapon. Intent and interpretation can change the material nature of things. Part of Stokes’ justification in court was that the bottle implied that the two Ryans might have ‘other weapons’ hidden away. You can understand how a jury could decide that created doubt. Not being convicted, though, doesn’t give the contents of the video a big green tick. It does not, as his lawyer claimed, vindicate Stokes. Looking in detail, Ryan One is belligerent but his movements telegraph a bluff. Hales is the person he’s gesturing at, but they’re several metres apart when Ryan One cocks his arm ostentatiously, showing off the bottle rather than bracing to swing. He skips forward but Hales skips back and Ryan One doesn’t follow. Kai stretches out an arm to impede Ryan One, who has a drunken stumble, nearly eats pavement, then staggers towards Kai and hits him in the back. That hand is still holding the bottle, but his strike is a side-arm cuff on a soft part of the body. It’s all pretty tame. This is where Stokes gets involved. Having moved across to protect Hales, he now takes three large steps to run around Kai and booms his first punch at Ryan One. They fall to the ground and the bottle clinks away. Stokes gets to his feet to punch down at the fallen man, while Hales arrives to kick him ineffectively then runs off across the street for some unknown reason. Ice-cream van? Stokes is soon back in the grapple having his shirt pulled up to show off his Durham tan. Ryan Two steps in for the first time to pull Stokes away, prompting a couple more random punches at this new target, then Stokes trips backwards over Ryan One and sprawls in the street. Hales chooses this moment to return and aim some solid kicks at the head of the man on the ground. Nothing so far is a triumph of moral philosophy or the pugilistic arts. But if it all stopped here, perhaps you could say it was somewhere approaching fair. Ryan One has behaved like a turnip and it’s not an entirely unjust world that would give him a whack across the chops. The antagonists have disentangled, Stokes has some distance, it’s time to dust off and go home. Ryan Two steps forward for this purpose with his palm raised in conciliatory style and says, ‘Settle down, stop.’ So Stokes punches him. It’s roughly his fifth punch overall, and he really winds up into this one. He misses so hard that he stumbles away into the shadows of the shop awnings along the road. Hales starts shouting for him to stop. Ryan Two backs into the street, still holding his palm up. Stokes closes on him from about five metres away, six large steps, to where Ryan Two is standing on his own. Stokes pushes him a couple of times, as Ryan Two keeps trying to placate him and saying ‘Stop.’ Stokes throws his sixth punch, largely missing as his target ducks. Ryan Two keeps pulling away and reversing, into the middle of the street now. Stokes follows him, grabbing his sleeve to drag him back. By this point Ryan One has found his feet and walked around behind his friend. Both of them are in the same line of sight for Stokes, and both are backing away. Stokes aims his seventh and his eighth punches, which Ryan Two tries to deflect, as Hales walks up behind Stokes to grab him. Stokes yanks away from his friend and switches to Ryan One instead, taking seven paces to grab him before throwing his ninth punch of the night. He grabs again; Ryan One blocks that arm and pushes himself back away from Stokes. Ryan Two again intercedes, putting himself between the two with his palms up and his arm extended. Stokes throws his tenth punch, a right-hander at the face of Ryan Two, then shoves him backwards. Ryan Two backs away once more, four paces. Stokes follows, steadies, lines up, then launches his strongest punch yet, his eleventh, a proper right hook from a solid base, one that cracks across the man’s head and gives him concussion. Ryan Two ends up flat on his back in the middle of the street, his hands still outstretched for a moment in useless protest until they twitch and drop to the blacktop. Stokes isn’t done. He once more shoves away the restraining Hales and follows Ryan One, who keeps backing away saying, ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ Five more paces from Stokes before another blow at the man’s head. Kai and Billy are now standing over the poleaxed Ryan Two. The video ends, but seconds later Stokes will punch Ryan One hard enough to knock him out too, before off-duty cop Andrew Spure arrives on the scene to bring down the curtain. When the body-camera footage kicks in some minutes later, Stokes is in handcuffs but Ryan One is still laid out in the street. Ryan Two has regained consciousness, folded his shirt under his friend’s head and is asking police for an ambulance. ‘At this point, I felt vulnerable and frightened. I was concerned for myself and others.’ This was how Stokes described that sequence to the court. An elite athlete with years of gym work and training to snap a bat through the line of a ball with astounding power and precision, swinging fists as hard as he can at men with none of those advantages. Punching so hard that he breaks his hand, and repeatedly shoving away a friend so he can punch some more. Frightened and threatened by two targets shouting ‘Get back!’ and ‘Stop!’ The off-duty officer testified that Stokes ‘seemed to be the main aggressor or was progressing forward trying to get to’ Ryan One, who was ‘trying to back away or get away from the situation’. The student who filmed the video can be heard on the tape at one stage exclaiming ‘Fuck!’ and testified that it was because ‘I felt a little bit sorry about the lad that had been punched and it looked like he had his hands up’. That tallied with the prosecutor’s depiction of ‘a sustained episode of significant violence that left onlookers shocked at what was taking place’. The defendant stuck to his strategy. ‘No, my sole focus was to protect myself.’ All up, in the 33 seconds of footage after he falls over, Stokes takes 35 steps forward to keep hitting two men who keep trying to get away. Not once is he hit back. After the verdict, Stokes’ solicitor positioned him as the victim. It had been ‘an eleven-month ordeal for Ben … The jury’s decision fairly reflects the truth of what happened that night … He was minding his own business … It was only when others came under threat that Ben became physically engaged. The steps that he took were solely aimed at ensuring the safety of himself and the others present …’ The statement was impossibly self-righteous and self-absorbed. If there was anyone to feel sorry for it was Ryan Hale, the second of our two Ryans. He’s the one who emerged from the club with a friendly arm around the shoulder for Kai and Billy. He’s the one who interposed himself to end the fight, then kept putting himself back in the firing line, trying to calm an intimidating stranger while dodging blows. For his show of restraint he got laid out regardless, concussed in the street, then was issued a criminal charge equal to that of the man who hit him, and described in national media as a violent bigot in an untested story to support that man’s defence. Lawyers for Ryan Two made a more convincing post-trial statement, noting that Kai and Billy, ‘neither of whom were relied upon by the prosecution or the defence team for Mr Stokes, have taken the opportunity to speak with various media outlets about the alleged homophobic abuse that they received in the early hours of September 25. Mr Hale has passionately denied this allegation throughout the course of this case,’ it continued. ‘It is upsetting to Mr Hale that although he was acquitted, the accusation that he was the author of such abuse remains. Both Mr Hale and Mr Ali were knocked unconscious by Mr Stokes, and although Mr Stokes has been acquitted of an affray, Mr Hale struggles with the reasons why the Crown Prosecution Service did not treat him as a victim of an unlawful assault.’Good question. Avon and Somerset police were the investigating force, and they were frustrated by the decision. Ryan Two was filmed clearly not hurting anyone, but police were instructed by the CPS to proceed with a charge. Hales (the cricketer) was filmed fighting but ‘a decision was made at a senior level of the CPS’ not to proceed. Police expected Stokes to be charged with assault but the CPS declined. It doesn’t take a wild cynic to think that placing the same lukewarm charge on three men for vastly divergent behaviour might ensure that none would be convicted, even as the trial would maintain the pretence that a defendant of influential standing had not been given a free pass. A couple of years down the line, the original interview with Kai and Billy has disappeared. All traces have been scrubbed from The Sun website, its social media history, and even from the Wayback Machine internet archive. Given its headline of ‘homophobic thugs’ and text that names Ryan Two but not Ryan One, the libel liability isn’t hard to spot. Later interviews with Kai and Billy take the passive voice – they ‘suffered homophobic slurs outside a Bristol nightclub’. The article that was once claimed to exonerate brave Ben Stokes now links only to a missing content page, with a picture of a dropped ice-cream cone and the phrase ‘legal removal’ inserted into the web URL. In terms of consequences, Stokes missed one tour. When he resumed his career in January 2018, the Australians hadn’t yet ruined theirs. Their year-long bans looked much more stringent. But the Stokes case dragged on in other ways. With no criminal liability, the Australians confessed promptly enough for the sporting world to give them the full length of the lash. Their situation was ugly but there was closure. Stokes got stuck in legal stasis, unable to be fully backed or condemned. Instead his issue was always present, a browser full of open tabs that the ECB swore they would read any day now. Through 2018 Stokes was back but he wasn’t back, in the sunglasses and finger-guns sense. In his return one-day series he nearly cost England a match with 39 from 73 balls in Wellington. His first Test hit was a duck as England got rolled in Auckland for 58. At Trent Bridge while Stokes was injured, England posted a world record 481 against Australia. With Stokes three weeks later at the same ground they made 268. He crawled to 50 from 103, the second-slowest any Englishman had reached that milestone in 20 years. That span covered Alastair Cook’s whole career. It was apologetic batting, acting out responsibility via the scorecard. Stokes was creeping back into the team like he’d been kicked out in a blazing row and was hoping to tip-toe to the sofa. It was December 2018 before the ECB disciplinary committee ruled on him and Hales. In a ‘remarkable coincidence’, wrote Simon Heffer in The Telegraph, ‘the punishment both players faced in terms of bans from playing at international level was covered by the amount of games they had already missed when dropped by England’s selectors, in the furore that followed the incident’. The verdict compounded the omissions around the case by not addressing the violence at its heart. Nor did Stokes, apologising only ‘to my team-mates, coaches and support staff’, and then ‘to England supporters and to the public for bringing the game into disrepute’. The implicit next step was to rebuild that reputation. It might have been easier had his court defence not meant that he wasn’t game to admit any fault at all. It might have been easier if he or his advisers had been willing to change tack once the trial was done. Imagine a world where Stokes had stood outside court and apologised for overreacting, for the injuries he’d caused, and for the time and energy he had sucked out of other people’s lives. That would have been a show of responsibility beyond a scorecard. When the time came around to assess forgiveness, it might have meant forgiveness was deserved.
I'm old enough to recall a time before Victoria housed the country's largest Casino, and I can tell you - nothing good has come of it. Gambling in general hasn't been good for us. Apart from what it does to the lives of addicts, Crown casino was recently found to have facilitated money laundering. During COVID, Racing Victoria made $10.7 million dollars in profit - and is getting $16.6 million in COVID state emergency funds. Then there was the mass graves uncovered in the greyhound racing industry, as well as all the kills and public executions of horses during the horse racing season ...and this is ontop of what it does to gambling addicts. I'd love to get rid of it all, it seems like a source of toxicity, corruption and influence. Here's the Gambling Help website for anyone having trouble with gambling. There toll free number is 1800 858 858. We'd be better off without it.
Hello again, and good morning! This listing is for items that did not sell during the January 17 Auction, so you can buy anything you want right here and right now - no buyer's premiums, no additional fees. *FREE shipping for any order over $100. *All items priced at $1 are now .75 each Each lot was individually imaged (front and back) for the auction - so the easiest way for you to see exactly what you're buying is to visit the auction link (the auction is over, so I'm not advertising anything different or advertising an upcoming auction) - so here that is: https://www.invaluable.com/catalog/2qx7j50tq0?size=50&page=1&categories=&sort= Here is the required "prove you still have the stuff" photo with the username card and today's date: PHOTO Payment: PayPal only. I do not have Venmo/Zello/Bitcoin or any other form of digital payment at this time. No notes if using PPFF, please. (Thank you.) If you choose to use PPFF, please make sure to send me your shipping address here as it won't automatically load with your payment. Shipping: I will charge you what it costs me for the USPS label rounded up to the nearest dollar. For First Class that is usually $4, for USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Small Box it will be $9. I will get you a tracking number right after payment is received and will get your package scanned into the USPS system within 24 hours of receipt of payment. I will offer "Risky Shipping" (via stamped greeting card)at my discretionfor $1 - for single, small coins ONLY.NOTE: These prices are for Continental US shipping only - if you live outside the continental US, shipping will be more expensive. I am still happy to do it under the same rules as above, but just keep in mind it's going to cost more. What do YOU need to do to buy coins from this group: send me a list of which lots you want (for example, I want to buy lots # 51, 52, 53, 54, 55) and I will send you a total. There are too many coins here (plus there are duplicates) so I cannot look up the coins you want by description - just give me lot numbers and it will be much simpler. I'd like to make a simple and polite request - if I have sent you my PayPal information (meaning we've agreed to a deal) please finish it up as soon as you can so I can check you off the list and move on to the next person. This helps make sure you get all the coins we discussed and no one else is in limbo. I will do my absolute best to update the ad as soon as lots sell. LEFTOVERS: 52 China (Republic) 10 Cash $5.00 57 China (Hu-Peh Province) 10 Cash $1.00 59 Hong Kong - 1866 1 Cent NICE $8.00 61 China (Republic) 10 Cash $3.00 62 China (Kiang-Nan Province) 10 Cash NICE $20.00 63 China (Republic) 20 Cash $5.00 641977 D Eisenhower Dollar UNC MINT CELLO $4.00 67 British West Africa - 1940 1/10 Penny NICE $5.00 70 France (Perpignan) 1917 A 10 Centimes $5.00 71 1976 Shelbyville Dam (Illinois) Elongated/Smashed Nickel Souvenir $3.00 76France (Orleans/Lyon/Toulouse) 10 Centimes Transportation Token (good to 31 Dec 1918) $3.00 77 Papua New Guinea - 2008 2 Kina UNC $2.00 78 Missouri Insurance Company (St. Louis) Good Luck Token $3.00 79 1900 India (Rama-Laksmana) Type C #1 (Brotman) Temple Token NICE $40.00 801956 Roosevelt Dime UNC TONED $6.00 83 1955 General Motors "Motorama" Medal BU $15.00 86 Central States 70th Anniversary Convention Token Jerry Lebo Advertising $6.00 87 Consolidated Numismatic Advertising Token Good For $1 Edmundston, Canada $2.00 88 France (Perpignan) 1917 A 5 Centimes $5.00 91 France (Perpignan) 1921 A 25 Centimes Scalloped Edge $8.00 93Ukraine - 2003 100 Hryvnia UNC $2.00 94 German East Africa (Tanzania) - 1916 T 20 Heller $10.00 95 Illinois Governer Otto Kerner Inauguration Medal $2.00 96 5 Cent Trade Token NICE $3.00 98 Germany (Schleswig-Holstein) - 1923 10 Mark Notgeld UNC $10.00 99 A. Phillips Co Cambridge, Maryland 20 Cent Trade Token NICE $8.00 100 EZ Park Courtesy Token $1.00 159 Great Britain - 1949 Penny NICE $2.00 1631959 Type B Reverse Washington Quarter UNC TONED $12.00 165 Great Britain - 1932 1 Penny NICE $3.00 1661960 Type B Reverse Washington Quarter UNC $10.00 167 1960 Type B Reverse Washington Quarter UNC $10.00 169 Portugal - 1921 10 Centavos NICE $10.00 170Germany (Prussia) 1700's-1800's Jeton (Token) Wilhelm 3 "Neue Ehre Neues Gluck" $3.00 172 1963 Type B Reverse Washington Quarter UNC TONED $12.00 175 1964 D Washington Quarter UNC TONED $8.00 176 Canada - 1921 1 Cent NICE $4.00 179Stag Beer Wooden Nickel "Fair on the Square" $1.00 180 The TV Shop Slidell, LA One Wooden Buck $1.00 181 Canada - 1929 1 Cent NICE $3.00 1851962 Type B Reverse Washington Silver Quarter NICE $8.00 186 Canada - 1920 1 Cent NICE $4.00 1881957 Type B Reverse Washington Quarter NICE $6.00 192 Canada - 1945 5 Cents NICE $2.00 193 State of Missouri Sesquicentennial Medal $2.00 194 State of Missouri Sesquicentennial Medal $2.00 195 Canada - 1945 5 Cents NICER $4.00 196France - 1916 2 Centimes LOW MINTAGE $2.00 197Germany (Empire) 1914 J 2 Pfennig NICE $8.00 198 Mexico - 1946 1 Centavo NICE $1.00 200Mexico - 1924 2 Centavos BETTER DATE $6.00 2591954 S Washington Quarter UNC $10.00 260 1957 Washington Quarter UNC TONED $10.00 261 1963 Type B Reverse Washington Quarter UNC TONED $20.00 2621999 D Kennedy Half Dollar UNC from Mint Set GEM BU PROOFLIKE $3.00 263 1941 S "Large S" Lincoln Wheat Cent $1.00 2641941 S "Large S" Lincoln Wheat Cent $1.00 2661941 S "Large S" Lincoln Wheat Cent $1.00 267 1941 S "Large S" Lincoln Wheat Cent $1.00 269 Maybrook NY Golden Jubilee Good For 10 Cent Wooden Nickel $1.00 270 Maybrook NY 1975 Golden Jubilee 25 Cent Wooden Nickel $1.00 274 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 013 UNC $2.00 275World Silver - Barbados 1973 Proof 5 Dollars LOW MINTAGE $20.00 276 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 013 UNC $2.00 2772009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 013 UNC $2.00 279 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 012 UNC $2.00 280 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 012 UNC $2.00 2812009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 012 UNC $2.00 2822009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse Book Low UNC $2.00 2862009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 002 UNC $2.00 2871983 Lincoln Cent DDO FS-101 $25.00 2882009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 012 UNC $2.00 2892009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 012 UNC $2.00 2911964 D Washington Silver Quarter UNC TONED $8.00 293 1960's Terre Haute, IN Sesquicentennial Wooden Nickel $2.00 295 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 002 UNC $2.00 296 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 002 UNC $2.00 298 1982 Buffalo NY Sesquicentennial Wooden Nickel $1.00 352 Denmark - 1950 5 Ore KEY DATE $10.00 354 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 013 UNC $2.00 355 2009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 013 UNC $2.00 3562009 P Lincoln Cent "Formative Years" Doubled Die Reverse 013 UNC $2.00 357 1990 Rappahannock Area Coin Club Wooden Nickel $1.00 359Germany (Empire) - 1874 C 1 Pfennig $2.00 360 Old Time Wooden Nickel Co Support Our Troops Wooden Nickel $1.00 361 1941 S "Large S" Lincoln Wheat Cent $1.00 362 1941 S "Large S" Lincoln Wheat Cent $1.00 364 1980 D Jefferson Nickel Mint Error - Minor Curved Clip (@3:30) $3.00 365 1979 S "Type 2 - Clear S" Proof Jefferson Nickel $2.00 367Germany (Empire) - 1895 F 1 Pfennig $3.00 368Germany (Empire) - 1874 A 1 Pfennig $2.00 369Germany (Empire) - 1900 F 1 Pfennig $2.00 370Germany (Empire) - 1874 B 1 Pfennig $2.00 371 Australia - 1951 3 Pence $2.00 372Great Britain - 1861 3 Pence $3.00 373Germany (Empire) - 1875 J 5 Pfennig $2.00 375 50 Cents in Trade Token $1.00 376Germany (Empire) - 1874 E 2 Pfennig $2.00 377 Clear Lake, IA Perkins Wooden Nickel $1.00 378 50 Cents in Trade Token $1.00 379 Medallic Art Co Grand Canyon National Park 50th Anniversary Medal Bronze $3.00 380 Great Britain - 1981 25 New Pence UNC $3.00 382 Pomona National Bridge / Jackson County 200 Year Anniversary Medal $3.00 383Guyana - 1970 1 Dollar UNC $2.00 384Germany (Empire) - 1875 J 2 Pfennig $4.00 385 Illawarrra Numismatic Association Membership Discount Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 386 San Juan Quality Royale Casino Token $1 Face Value $1.00 387Canada - 1963 Prooflike 1 Cent Emerald Rainbow Toning $3.00 388 Artisan Silverworks Temecula, CA Wooden Nickel $1.00 389 Canada - 1966 1 Cent Emerald Toning $2.00 390Germany (Empire) - 1875 E 2 Pfennig $2.00 391Germany (Empire) - 1874 H 2 Pfennig $4.00 392 5 Cent Token $1.00 394Germany (Empire) - 1894 F 1 Pfennig $3.00 395 Denmark - 1904/804 1 Ore NICE $8.00 396 Netherlands Antilles - 1965 2.5 Cents UNC TONED $6.00 397 Germany (Empire) - 1874 G 1 Pfennig $10.00 398 Netherlands - 1921 1/2 Cent BETTER DATE $2.00 399 Netherlands - 1922 1/2 Cent BETTER DATE $4.00 400 Germany (Empire) - 1874 D 10 Pfennig $3.00 451Sweden - 1901 1 Ore $1.00 452 Norway - 1948 50 Ore Overdate 4/4 $5.00 453 Netherlands Antilles - 1959 1 Cent UNC $2.00 454Germany (Empire) - 1899 A 1 Pfennig $1.00 455Germany (Empire) - 1899 A 1 Pfennig $1.00 456Germany (Empire) - 1898 A 5 Pfennig $1.00 457Germany (Empire) - 1875 F 5 Pfennig $1.00 458 Canada - 1948 5 Cents $1.00 460 Denmark - 1951 10 Ore NICE $5.00 461Barbados - 1973 Proof 5 Cents in OGP $1.00 462Germany (Empire) - 1875 A 5 Pfennig $1.00 463 Barbados - 1973 Proof 25 Cents in OGP $1.00 464Germany (Empire) - 1876 D 5 Pfennig $1.00 465Hungary - 1965 2 Filler Key Date $5.00 466Germany (Empire) - 1889 A 5 Pfennig $1.00 467 Germany (Empire) - 1889 A 5 Pfennig $1.00 468Switzerland - 1968 5 Rappen UNC TONED $1.00 469Germany (Empire) - 1875 A 5 Pfennig $1.00 470Germany (Empire) - 1875 C 5 Pfennig $1.00 471Trinidad & Tobago - 1973 Proof 1 Cent in OGP $1.00 473Germany (Empire) - 1892 D 5 Pfennig $1.00 474 Germany (Empire) - 1897 A 5 Pfennig $1.00 475Germany (Empire) - 1890 E 5 Pfennig $1.00 477Germany (Empire) - 1890 D 5 Pfennig $1.00 478Germany (Empire) - 1894 D 5 Pfennig $1.00 480 Barbados - 1980 Proof 25 Cents in OGP cello $1.00 481World Silver - Switzerland 1975 1 Franc $6.00 482Germany (Empire) - 1897 D 5 Pfennig $1.00 484Canada (New Brunswick) - 1861 1 Cent $3.00 485Canada (Nova Scotia) - 1861 1/2 Cent $2.00 486 Austria - 1893 10 Heller $1.00 488 Netherlands East Indies - 1921 1/2 Cent NICE KEY DATE $8.00 489 Austria - 1895 10 Heller $1.00 490 Austria - 1894 20 Heller $1.00 492World Silver - Mexico - 1887 Do C 10 Centavos LOW MINTAGE $5.00 551South Africa - 1965 Proof 1 Cent LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 553Switzerland - 1902 2 Rappen KEY DATE FIRST YEAR $8.00 554 Panama - 1975 Proof 1 Centesimo in OGP $5.00 557 South Africa - 1965 Proof 5 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 560South Africa - 1965 Proof 20 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 561 Panama - 1975 Proof 5 Centesimos in OGP $1.00 562 Panama - 1976 Proof 5 Centesimos in OGP $2.00 563 South Africa - 1965 Proof 50 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $5.00 564 South Africa - 1966 Proof 1 Cent LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 565 South Africa - 1966 Proof 2 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 566 South Africa - 1966 Proof 5 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 567 South Africa - 1966 Proof 10 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 568 Panama - 1974 Proof 5 Centesimos in OGP cello $1.00 569 South Africa - 1966 Proof 20 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 572 Panama - 1973 Proof 1/10 Balboa in OGP $1.00 573 South Africa - 1967 Proof 1 Cent LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 574 Barbados - 1973 Proof 1 Cent $1.00 575 Panama - 1973 Proof 1/4 Balboa in OGP $1.00 576 South Africa - 1967 Proof 2 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 577 South Africa - 1967 Proof 5 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 578South Africa - 1967 Proof 10 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 579 South Africa - 1967 Proof 20 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $2.00 580 South Africa - 1967 Proof 50 Cents LOW MINTAGE 25,000 $4.00 584 Liberia - 1974 Proof 10 Cents in OGP $1.00 590 Mexico - 1923 1 Centavo NICE UNC TONED $8.00 593 Mexico - 1923 5 Centavos NICE $5.00 594 Bahamas - 1970 Proof 1 Cent in OGP $1.00 595 Mexico - 1935 20 Centavos NICE $30.00 596 Token "10" Unknown origin $1.00 652 Indiana Sesquicentennial Medal 1966 $3.00 654 Alleppey Dist Treasury 286 Token $3.00 655 Creotina Remedies Belleville, IL Token $3.00 657 Mexico - 2001 1 Peso UNC in original cello $1.00 658Germany (Empire) - 1903 A 1 Pfennig $4.00 662Germany (Weimar) - 1924 A 1 Pfennig NICE $6.00 664 Malaysia - 1977 50 Sen TONED UNC $3.00 665 Franklin D Roosevelt $2 Trade Token Union Maystern $3.00 666 Great Britain - 1953 5 Shillings UNC (Crown sized) $5.00 667 Russia - 1994 50 Roubles Blind Mole Rat LOW MINTAGE UNC $3.00 672 Mint of Romania Aluminum Token UNC $3.00 673 Bahamas - 1973 and 1974 Proof 1 Cents in OGP (two coins) $1.00 675 Canada - 1939 5 Cents UNC $20.00 676 Penny Press Mint 1 Dollar Token (Morgan Dollar Inspired Design) $2.00 677 Penny Press Mint 1 Dollar Token (Morgan Dollar Inspired Design) $2.00 678 France (Paris) Montmartre Auditing Firm "Good for one audition" Token $2.00 679 Thailand - Bangkok Institute of Accounting Token $1.00 680 Swedish Shooting Medal Double Pistols Design $3.00 681 1941 Mercury Dime Pin $4.00 682 Korea (Republic) - 1968 5 Won UNC $25.00 683 Korea (Republic) - 1973 50 Won NICE $5.00 684 Russia - 1994 50 Roubles Bison NICE LOW MINTAGE $2.00 685 Coca-Cola 1974 "It's the real thing" Silver Dollar City Token $5.00 686 State Mint of Romania Octagonal Token UNC $2.00 687 Canada - 1937 Dot 5 Cents UNC $10.00 688 France - 1977 10 Francs TONED $2.00 690 Saarland - 1954 10 Franken UNC $8.00 692 Mount Vernon, VA High School Token $1.00 693 Korea (Republic) - 1967 10 Won NICE $5.00 694 Korea (Republic) - 1967 10 Won UNC $40.00 695 Princes of Jerusalem - Cahokia Council A.A.S.RITE Valley of East St Louis Token $3.00 697 Magic Mountain Valencia California Souvenir Token $2.00 698 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Driver's Association "good for one full fare" token $1.00 700 Downtown Granite City (Illinois) Shopping Center Token $3.00 751 Canada - 1957 House of Commons Medal $3.00 753 Mr. Pizza (World's Worst Pizza) Wooden Quarter Token $1.00 754 National Pony Express Centennial Medal So Called Dollar UNC TONED $5.00 755 Pulaski Bowling Center Free Game Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 756 Four Canada 1991 UNC Cents (4 coins) in OGP CELLO $1.00 757 Four Canada 1991 UNC 5 Cents (4 coins) in OGP CELLO $1.00 758 Pair of Two Thomas Jefferson 1 Cent Postal Stamps $1.00 761 Mexico - 2000 10 Pesos UNC in original cello $6.00 764 Ye Olde Curiosity Shop Seattle 25 Cent Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 765 Mexico - 2000 20 Pesos UNC in original cello $10.00 768 Morocco - AH1320 10 Mazunas $8.00 773 Diamond Dolls Pompano Beach, FL Free Hamburger Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 774 Nadine's Backwoods Bistro One Free Tap Beer Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 775 Ocean Springs Mini Golf One Free Game Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 777Poland - 2014 2 Zlotych UNC $2.00 778 Lansing, Michigan University Quality Inn One Free Well Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 780 San Jose, California Donut Delight One Small Drink 40 Cents Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 781 H.E.B. Hustle Chip Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 782 Two Mixed Tokens $1.00 784 South Gate, California Robby's Tepee 1 Glass Draft Beer Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 785 Macadoo's One Free Sara Lee Bagle (with butter!) Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 786 Canada - 1970 1 Cent TONED $1.00 788 State Penal Institution 5 Cent Good For Token $3.00 790 Fishing Equipment & Tackle 10% Discount Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 791 District Treasury Alleppey 1860 Token Government of Kerala $2.00 792 Russia (Empire) - 1881 1 Kopek $1.00 793 Black Duck Buck Good For One Premium Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 794 Goodles, Michigan Cook's Cobblestone One Free Beer Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 796 San Diego, California My Yogurt Place One Free Frozen Yogurt Sundae Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 797 Canada - 1939 Coronation Medal $2.00 798 Ellsworth, Maine Bicentennial Headquarters Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 800 Suwanee River Attractions 25 Cent Admission Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 851 Sunnyvale, California Odyssey Room 1 Free Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 852 Great Britain - Queen Victoria 60 Years of Rule Medal $3.00 854 Belgium - 1944 2 Franc NICE $1.00 855 Fredericksburg, Virginia Rappahannock Area Coin Club Wooden Nickel Token One free month $1.00 859 Monarch Automatic Co Northhampton Good For One Coupon in Trading Token $2.00 860 Netherlands - 1881 1 Cent $1.00 862 Mexico - 2000 20 Pesos UNC in original cello $10.00 863 Fredericksburg, Virginia Rappahannock Area Coin Club Wooden Nickel Token One free month $1.00 864 Tullahoma, Tennessee The Finish Line Free Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 865 Here's Johnny's 25 Cents off Purchase Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 866 $1 Good For Token Large $3.00 867 Canada - 1939 Coronation Medal $3.00 868 Boise, Idaho Miller's Sewing Center 25 Cent Needle Package Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 869 San Antonio, Texas Dan's 10861 FM "Round TUIT" Wooden Token $1.00 870 Belgium - 1836 2 Centimes $1.00 871 Vandalia, Ohio Skipper's $3 off purchase Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 872 Roseville, California Onyx Club One Free Beer Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 873 Long Beach, California Fayette Cleaners Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 874 Beckett, Massachussetts 1965 Bicentennial Lee National Bank 5 Cent Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 875 Munhall, Pennsylvania 5 Cent Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 877Washington, Indiana Sesquicentennial 1966 Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 878 1953 Queen Elizabeth Coronation Medal $3.00 881 Fredonia, New York Coyle's Pub One Free Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 882 Monterey, California Wharfside Restaurant Complimentary Calimari Appetizer Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 883 Lyman, Wyoming Cecil Sanderson Military Token & Wooden Nickel Collector "Round TUIT" Token $1.00 884 Eastlake, Colorado Karl's Farm Dairy Inc 25 Cent Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 885 Elko, Nevada Ed's Coins & Currency "Cents of Humor" Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 887 Richmond Hot Stuff Deluxe Tattoo One Free Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 888 Australia - 2014 1 Dollar 100 Years of ANZAC $1.00 889 Sacramento, California The Tides 1 Free Beer Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 890 Lancaster, Pennsylvania The Comic Store Free Comic Wooden Nickel Token RARE $1.00 891 Bennington, Vermont Bicentennial 1961 5 Cent Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 892 Torrance, California Old Towne Mall One Free Play Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 893 Duenweg, Missouri State Bank One Quart Token NICE $3.00 894 Rotary International Token $1.00 896 Canada - 1930 House of Commons Medal $3.00 897 Greenfield, Iowa Al's Shoe Service 5 Cents Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 900 France - 1944 C 2 Francs $1.00 951 France - 1944 C 2 Francs $1.00 952 Poland - 2006 2 Zlotych $3.00 953 Poland - 2003 2 Zlotych $3.00 954 Aurora, Illinois Dairy Queen Free Small Sundae Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 955 Mullan, Idaho Silver Dollar Bar 1 Free Drink Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 956 Poland - 2004 2 Zlotych $3.00 957 New Horizons Computer Learning Center Turkey Token 10 Auction Dollars Wooden $1.00 962 Lake of the Woods 40th Anniversary Token $2.00 963 The Travancore Bank Trivandrum #103 Token $1.00 964 Perryville, Wisconsin Good For 1 Glass Tap Beer Wooden (plastic) Nickel Token $1.00 966 1925 Larkin Dollar Medal BU $8.00 968 Palmolive Soap Chicago, Illinois Good For One Cake Token NICE $5.00 969 Duenweg State Bank Duenweg, Missouri Strawberry Token Good For 1 Crate $6.00 970 Dallas, Texas City Hall Token $1.00 971 California State Numismatic Association 1973 53rd Anniversary Token $2.00 972 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (Mexico 20 Centavos) $3.00 973 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (Mexico 20 Centavos) $3.00 977 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (New Zealand 5 Cents) $3.00 979 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (New Zealand 5 Cents) $3.00 981 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (New Zealand 5 Cents) $3.00 983 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (New Zealand 5 Cents) $3.00 984 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (New Zealand 5 Cents) $3.00 987 Harry S Truman US Mint Bronze Medal in OGP $3.00 988 John Wayne US Mint Bronze Medal in OGP $5.00 989 Vietnam Veterans National Bronze Medal in OGP $3.00 992 2010 Korea Money Fair Token with original Flip $3.00 993 Matchless Metal Polish Co Liverpool 1906 Token $5.00 995 Marissa, Illinois 1967 Centennial Wooden Nickel Token $1.00 996 Central States Numismatic Society 2005 Token Original AirTite $2.00 997 Central States Numismatic Society 2005 Token Original AirTite $2.00 998 Central States Numismatic Society 2005 Token Original AirTite $2.00 999Rustler Silver Gas Token $1.00 1000 Worldwide Bi-Metallic Collector's Club World Money Fair Encased Coin (Euro 5 Cent) $3.00
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