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Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
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Posted - 2011.04.30 19:40:00 -
[1]
Rothbard's Casino is going public!
tl;dr Send Edwin ISK. get casino shares. profit!
Introduction: Rothbard's Casino launched on December 27th 2010. The casino offers a variety of games including Matari Pick'em, Can Flip, Blackjack "21", and the Mega Billions Lottery. The casino has enjoyed great success in the 4 months since opening its door. To date Rothbard's has over 1,300 registered players and gross deposits totaling 330,166,214,126.28 ISK.
The casino has earned a stellar reputation for honesty and customer service. The casino has grown steadily since inception and both player sign ups and growth are accelerating. To date Rothbard's Casino has been a privately held company. Now is your chance to own part of a premiere investment in Eve!
Corporate Structure: Rothbard's Casino operates at www.rothbards.com. Players create an account on the website and fund their account by sending ISK in game to me, Edwin Rothbard. Gamers can then play at the casino using the in game browser (IGB) as well as out of game browsers. They can redeem prizes and cash from the casino which is then sent to them in game.
Rothbard's Casino corp in game is a shell corp. It has no assets and at present has only 1 corp member, Sub Account B. The corp has issued a total of 10,000 shares. Note that in game the corp info window says there are only 9,000 shares. This is a bug and I've petitioned about it. CCP states they are aware of the bug. They did not give me an ETA on a fix. Dividends are funneled through the Rothbard's Casino corp and flow to its shareholders.
Dividends: The corp pays dividends weekly. The payments are generally sent late Wednesday into early Thursday Eve time. Currently there are only two shareholders in the corp. I own 7,500 of the corp shares and Zeeawk owns the other 2,500 shares. The casino has been cash positive each of the 17 weeks since it opened. Over its lifetime the casino has generated a net profit of 1.15 billion ISK per day. To date the casino has net profits in excess of 141 billion ISK. Daily profits are growing steadily.
Share pricing: Shares will be offered at 100m each. There are 10,000 shares total in the Rothbard's Casino corp. Today I am offering 200 of those share for sale. Investors in my previous three public offerings are given preference. Similar to my earlier offerings there is a maximum purchase of 10 shares per investor. If you are found to be purchasing IPO shares with an alt any ISK you sent for share purchases will be returned to you.
This does not preclude you however from acquiring shares in the secondary market. This restriction is in place to give smaller investors a chance at acquiring shares without being crowded out by the fat-cat capitalists.
I will likely give some of my shares away to friends. I will disclose publicly how many shares are given away and who the recipients are. Friendship has its rewards. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.04.30 19:42:00 -
[2]
Expected returns: With 10k shares priced at 100m per share on net revenues of 1.15b ISK per day the monthly dividend yield is 3.50%/month. This is somewhat of a conservative estimate since revenues in the early days of the casino's existence were much lower than revenues in recent weeks.
Assuming there are no negative events the monthly dividend yield will likely rise. Further there should be substantial potential for returns through increases in the stock price. These two coupled together should make for a solid long term investment.
The casino has a long-term mathematical edge on the games; however, the volatility can be very high from day to day and in the short run anything can happen. While the casino has never suffered a week with negative earnings, it is quite possible.
The casino uses a running journal to calculate profits. This means we use lifetime figures to derive our numbers. We use the following methodology: +cash deposits -cash withdrawals -player balances -prize withdrawal +prize conversion -misc expenses -dividend payments =free cash flow
The free cash number is what is distributed to shareholders weekly. The distributed amount is then added to the dividend payments total which zeros the free cash flow. The journal continues into the following week. Notice that player balances are never including as profits. Although their money is in the casino, itÆs still being held on their behalf.
On weeks where free cash flow is negative no dividends will be paid. This will not represent a loss to the underlying shareholder value but rather delayed earnings.
Investors should also note that I do not take any sort of management fee out of earnings. My income comes solely from dividend payments.
The casino also runs many promotions. Each player who signs up at the casino receives 1m ISK for creating an account. There are a myriad of other ways for players to earn freebies. These giveaways are deducted directly from earnings.
The casino also runs special events from time to time. On our three-month anniversary, for example, the casino sponsored a pvp event. The casino purchased and fitted 1b ISK worth of ships, gave them to casino patrons, which we quickly blew up in a nearby 0.0 system. These charges are added to the Misc. expenses on the profit report.
Strategic acquisitions are also taken against earnings.
Ownership: I'm advertising this investment as equity. Please note equity [stock] ownership in Rothbard's Casino doesn't exactly mirror a RL company. This offering has some bond-like qualities to it as well. Since the casino website operates out of game it's not possible to secure this investment.
The corp is only a shell corp. It contains no assets. The corp is only used as a mechanism for distributing dividends to shareholders. Unlike in RL your shares of stock are not buying you any underlying assets. In this instance the shares should be considered a "right to dividend future dividend payments" and not much more.
If shareholders hold a vote and oust me (or my alt) from the corp, the shareholders will not gain control of the casino, the domain name, or the source code. They only gain control of the in game corporation which holds no assets.
This makes equity very different than RL equities. The shares are only a commitment to an income stream. There is nothing backing them besides my word. If I decided to simply stop sending dividend payments shareholders would hold little recourse to recover their losses. I mention this to be clear about the structure of this offering.
Your ownership of shares does not grant power to dictate how I run the casino. If the shareholders start a vote (and it passes) demanding that I make some change it will not be binding. If you don't like the management your best recourse is to liquidate your shares. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.04.30 19:44:00 -
[3]
Length of Investment: I plan to run this in perpetuity. Like most RL corps I plan to run this for "the foreseeable future." I don't have any wind down or transfer plans because I'm not planning either. If/when I decide to make a change a public discussion will commence.
In the event that I sold the casino I would institute a share repurchase for all outstanding shares offering them the appropriate amount based on the share price. I would ensure current shareholders received their compensation before the new owner took control of the casino. It would then be up to the new owners whether they wanted to reissue shares.
Secondary Market: Players who wish to buy or sell their shares can do so in this thread. Unfortunately there is no way to trade shares securely in game. If you wish, however, I will be happy to act as a 3rd party between buyers and sellers of Rothbard's Casino shares.
Please do not send shares unannounced. There are no wallet entries when you send or receive shares. If you send shares without notifying me first I have no way to tell who the shares came from. Please contact me in game if you would like me to act as a third party for your shares transaction.
You are not required to use me or this thread to trade casino shares. You are welcome to do that in private if you prefer. If you get defrauded by another party however I will not accept responsibility for your loss.
In addition when either Zeeawk or myself buy or sell shares it will be noted in this thread. It's often a warning sign when principle investors in a company start unloading their stock and this way it will help increase transparency in the corp. I will also maintain a google docs spreadsheet that will list total number of outstanding shares, the shareholder names, and the number of shares they each hold. This will likely only be done quarterly.
Dilution: There will be no share dilution. I believe strongly in preserving shareholder value. Therefore if a vote is created to create new shares those new shares will be distributed to the existing shareholders. This means that whatever % of the casino you own you will always enjoy that amount of ownership.
Reporting: I also believe strongly in transparency. I will maintain a google docs spreadsheet that will list each of the weekly dividend payments. I will probably only update this spreadsheet quarterly unless someone would like to take on that role. I will also probably put together a quarterly report for shareholder with a brief rundown of the state of affairs at the casino.
Risks: Please note that expected returns listed above are by no means guaranteed. In the worst-case scenario your shares could drop to zero in value.
There are many risks to your investment. There are competitors in the gaming market and it's possible a current or future one will siphon off substantial numbers of customers. It's possible that the server could be rooted. The casino could suffer some permanently damaging public relations fiasco. Players could also find and exploit potential bugs.
CCP has long been touting their walking in stations. At this years fan fest they even alluded to their desire to bring gambling directly into Eve. It's possible that CCP will decide to internalize gambling and become "The" casino. It's not at all clear to me whether these in station casinos would be run by players or CCP.
Of course CCP has been talking about this for about as long as Eve has been around and at the rate they complete stuff it could be forever before we see. Also CCP are the guys who brought you ice mining and POS anchoring times thus it's quite possible they would blackjack about as boring as waiting for your freighter to align. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.04.30 19:46:00 -
[4]
Although it's possible that either Zeeawk or I could meet an untimely end, it's very unlikely that both of us will end up dead anytime soon. We live in different states and neither of us uses public transit so we should be relatively safe from the typical early-death scenarios.
There is zero risk of being scammed by me. Nevertheless you should strongly take trust into consideration before sending any ISK. Unfortunately there's no way to create scam-proof investments in Eve because of the weak game mechanics regarding corporate assets. Further, since Rothbard's Casino server operates outside of Eve there's absolutely no way to secure your investment.
I handle billions of ISK in transactions every single day. I have never had a single legitimate complaint from any of my 1,300+ customers that I scammed or defrauded them. In addition I do a lot of trading in game and although my stuff is expensive I've never once been accused of running a scam.
Further, I run a loan business where players send me their items at 25% under market value. They always receive their items back just as they sent them to me. Lastly, I have acted as a third party for many player-to-player transactions in game. All of these transactions have gone smoothly.
My best advice is if you don't trust the person you are sending your money to don't send the ISK.
About the owners: Both Zeeawk and I started playing eve in 2004. You can check the corp histories for Zeeawk and my original Character Veronica SP to see our birth dates and common corp histories. We have both had long breaks from over the years. We've been friends for close to 20 years. We've been to each others houses. I attended his wedding. We currently reside in different states.
I'm the public face, customer service contact, and marketing person for the casino. Zeeawk is the technical person for Rothbard's. We are an effective team.
I control two Eve accounts.
account #1: Edwin Rothbard, CEO & founder Interstellar Arbitrage [21m sp] Sub Account B, CEO & founder Rothbard's Casino [zero sp] Jasmine Vernora, CEO & founder Rothbards Casino [zero sp]
account #2: Veronica SP, founder VSP Corp. [49m sp] (My original character) Heather Cruise, Director VSP Corp. [zero sp] Angelina Sparks, CEO EveOnline Casino [zero sp]
Zeeawk controls one account. Both of his alt are zero-skilled characters. I'll leave it up to him whether he would like the reveal those characters.
Neither of us controls accounts beyond the ones listed above. Neither of us has bought or sold characters.
Qualifications: 1) I own/operate Rothbard's Casino. 2) I engage in contract trading. google docs. 3) I run a collateralized loan business here.
I also have three previous public offerings: 5b [equity] 1b [bond] 100m [bond] [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.04.30 19:48:00 -
[5]
Auditing & verification of assets: I have listed all 6 of my characters (links above) on eve board. I have a substantial liquidity position in addition to many illiquid assets. I have no outstanding debts. You can also check the contracting history for all 6 of my characters to cross referenced to the above linked spreadsheet to verify my in game trading business.
I invite you to review my casino, investment, and loan threads to see what others have to say about my various business concerns. A 3rd party audit would just confirm information that I've already made publicly available. My entire business model is predicated on trust from my customers.
Purchasing shares: You may send your ISK to me, Edwin Rothbard, for share purchases at any time. Please donÆt put the words ôCasinoö and/or ôDepositö in your reason code otherwise your money will be deposited into your casino account!
Previous investors will be given priority on shares purchases. Each share costs 100m ISK. There is a maximum of 10 shares per investor. Pilots using alts to purchase shares will have their ISK returned.
The IPO will run for 1 week. If the IPO fails to attract 20b in total investment those who have already committed funds will be given the option to purchase the remaining shares. If all 20b in shares still fail to sell all ISK will be returned and no shares distributed. As soon as all shares are sold and ISK received the shares will be distributed in game. Interest payments will continue to be paid on late Wednesday or early Thursday each week.
FAQ: This is just a big scam like T4U or Ebank right? No. Both were relatively poor business models run by crooks. This is neither. At its height T4U had roughly 450b ISK in public investments and was generating "only" 150m ISK in profits per day. By comparison Rothbard's is running on 0b in public funds and is generating 1.15b ISK per day.
Interestingly, pilots were accepting approx. 1%/month ROI on their T4U shares and purchased them to the tune of 450b ISK. Plus I'm not a crook. Ebank was paying higher dividends than T4U, but has numerous problems with its business structure. That coupled with the fact that it was massive fraud doesn't help any.
You have money, why are you borrowing more? There are many reasons to borrow money. Being broke or scamming are typical reasons in Eve to borrow money. I'm not typical. I have other motivations.
What are you going to do with the money I send you? This is another area where this venture differs from RL IPOs. Your money isn't going to the casino - It's going to me. I'm selling you some of my rights to future earnings. I get my earnings early while you will get your earnings later plus additional interest and share price appreciation.
Why don't you virtualize your shares? I considered this. I could have made my own virtualized exchange, but that would distract me from running the casino. I also considered using one of the other virtualized exchanges, but decided against them for a number of reasons. There are upsides to virtual shares, but I prefer the in game shares+dividends.
10,000 shares x 100m share price is 1T ISK valuation. You are joking right? No. People are buying T2 BPOs with negative rates or return for billions (or 10s of billions) of ISK. Others are buying T2 BPOs with ROIs of 2 or 3% per annum. I believe 3.5% ROI per month is reasonable. The 3.5% excludes any additional money realized from share price appreciation.
When the new forums return I will do my best to transfer the info in this thread to the new forums. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.04.30 19:50:00 -
[6]
reserved! [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.04.30 21:02:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Khanid Voltar I would like to reserve 10 shares, but I cannot send the isk until tomorrow.
Please advise if this is acceptable.
KV
Yes that should be fine.
I've already received 2.8b isk for shares in game. There are still 17.2b isk of shares available.
If all of the shares do not sell in 7 days I will refund everyone's money as stated above. I've also had a tremendous amount of interest in game. Thanks to everyone who has sent isk for their shares. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 10:18:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Moto Akimoto Btw, the ticker is "DBLDW", correct?
Yes correct ticker Moto.
1 minute after creating my post brock said
Originally by: Brock Nelson Holy ****, 1 trillion?
3 minutes after creating my post brock said
Originally by: Brock Nelson 5 shares for me
12 minutes after creating my post brock said
Originally by: Brock Nelson Actually cancel my reservation please
A couple minutes later he called me a scammer and block me from the SCC lounge. He was so busy mashing the reply button he never even read my IPO info. His later 'questions' are nothing more than trolling. I will not respond to him.
Originally by: egola put me down for 10 shares
She changed her mind a couple minutes later.
Originally by: Frenden Dax You have no assets to speak of, nothing that can be locked down, and no proof that your income or cash reserves are what you stated.
Good job captain obvious. My IPO clearly states that the corp is nothing more than a shell corp and contains no assets. Clearly you didn't bother reading that part. My previously linked Eve board profile clearly shows my cash reserves.
Originally by: Frenden Dax API release to a known auditor would be (in my opinion) a necessary precondition to any further discussion here.
Chribba has been in receipt of my API key for a little over 4 months now. You can see the results of his audit here. I stated this above. You failed to perform any due dilligence on the information I already provided to you. If you are too stupid to follow the links and do the reading I cannot help you.
Originally by: Frenden Dax Historically, EVE casinos and betting-related offerings have either closed because of potential exploits, failed because of operator incompetence, or been shown to be outright scams.
This is a distortion of the truth. SOME eve casinos have been frauds. You are making the argument that ALL of them have been. This is a lie. Blink is running successfully. Selene is also running a successful organization. So am I. Of course you conveniently skipped over the successful operations because they didn't support your straw man argument. Good job.
Originally by: Syds Sinclair ..With such a successful casino the only reason for scam would be for lulz. One trillion ISK would be lulz.
Actually there are many reasons. Not everyone is out to scam.
Originally by: Dagon Sirius
Originally by: RAW23
The comparison to T4U isn't really valid. T4U held assets equal to the investments made (roughly), so all dividends were profit.
How was the existence of that assets an advantage to investors when BB just walked away with them?
Precisely. The scammers lul the sheep into thinking their investments are secure as they run off with their cash. Amazing how ignorant RAW23 is. Kudos to you Dagon for pointing out what should have been obvious long ago to everyone else.
Originally by: cosmoray [Hai guis. i'm a degen gambler who lost all my investors money then fabricated a scam story so I wouldn't look like a complete tool. I would like to extend my 15 minutes by a few more. Can someone send me some moniez so I can go play poker?]
Originally by: Candy Oshea Posting to confirm Edwin is an *******...
Sorry Candy.
Thanks to everyone who has sent money for shares. We are roughly half way there. Not bad for 12 hours. I have updated post #7 with the names and number of shares for each investor. If I missed anyone or made a mistake on the list please let me know.
response
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Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 12:12:00 -
[9]
Originally by: Blueprint Seller Where are these deposits currently held?
www.rothbards.com/stats Players balances currently total about 1.9b isk. I hold that isk in my wallet. The rest of the 330b+ in deposits have since been withdrawn, converted into prizes, or lost from wagering. 1.9b is the casino's total liability to the players. I do realize I should have added this 1.9b to my liabilities in my IPO documentation.
Originally by: Blueprint Seller
Do you have more detailed historical figures? Can those be made public?
Most certainly. I keep extremely detailed records of everything I do. All of the weekly report data is stored in a database. I actually meant to provide a google docs that listed the dates and the dividend payments. As you can see my initial 5 posts of information provided to the public I forgot to include that data. I will see if I can cull the data into a google docs spreadsheet, set it to public and provide the link in this thread today.
Originally by: Blueprint Seller
I do not understand why the words "would just confirm" appear in this quote rather than the words "has confirmed" or "will shortly confirm". Can you please explain this further?
Sorry I will try to be more clear. From my understanding the API can only pull wallet entries back a couple of weeks. Thus there's no way for an auditor to confirm or deny the first 15 weeks of my data. It would show, however, exactly what I have in my wallet. You can already see this though on my eve board profile. Yesterday morning I had roughly 117b isk in my wallet. An auditor isn't going to add anything on that issue.
Auditors also call player to player wallet transfers suspect. Please realize that this is precisely how the casino operates. Players send money from their wallet to mine. The API then deposits that money into their casino account on the website. Cash and prizes redeemed are then sent by me back to players in game. My wallet is page after page after of player to player deposits and cashouts every single day.
My daily wallet balance from december 27th 2010 today is on Chribba's site. I'm perfectly ok with Chribba handing out all of the data points for my daily wallet balance from the day I signed up to today. On December 27th I had approx. 8.4b isk in my wallet iirc. I didn't go from 8.4b to 117b by accident. The trolls will never accept those are proceeds from the casino. After an auditor confirmed that there are various wallet transactions the trolls would just then say "BUT HOW WE KNOW THOSE AREN'T HIS ALTS??????" It's an argument I cannot win.
Sure I _could_ have bought approx 2x GTCs every single day since December 27th, and then used an army of alts to slowly deposit that money into my wallet over a 4-month period. No doubt some idiot like RAW23 would conclude just that. I hope everyone else realizes how silly such a plan would be. Further what would be the point of it? I Buy 110b in GTCs to wait 4 months and then scam 20b on the forums? I noticed BB made an appearance in this thread. Maybe ask him how solid of a scam idea that is since he's an expert on the subject.
There's already a huge amount of due diligence the public can perform. The links to my trade company spreadsheets are in the thread. You can cross reference this data with my completed contracts in game. You join the casino chat channel and see how it operates and see what players have to say about the casino. You can comb through my casino thread in the sell order forums with the 300+ replies from DIFFERENT people.
You could create a casino account and check it out for yourself to help determine whether you believe players actually play. You could closely look at the data for all 6 of my characters on Eve board. You could search each and everyone of my forum posts on Eve-search. Yet people like brock just want to spam the reply button and yell "SCAM!" [ Casino | Loans ] |
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Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 12:18:00 -
[10]
Originally by: Lederstrumpf My 5 cents: An empty "About Us" page is just not good enough to win my trust: http://rothbards.com/aboutus
I added that page more than a month ago. I haven't added anything to it yet because i'm still torn whether I want to put RL stuff on that page for us or if I wish to put RP stuff there. I haven't decided and thus it's still blank. Players are far less interested in my professional work career than they are in whether the limits have been increased at the blackjack tables. [ Casino | Loans ] |
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Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 12:25:00 -
[11]
Originally by: Blueprint Seller
Originally by: Edwin Rothbard Rothbard's is running on 0b in public funds
Originally by: Edwin Rothbard To date Rothbard's has over 1,300 registered players and gross deposits totaling 330,166,214,126.28 ISK.
These two quotes appear to contradict eachother. Can you please clarify?
Originally by: Edwin Rothbard The casino has a long-term mathematical edge on the games
Can you provide figures? What are your theoretical and historical payout percentages?
You don't seem to understand how a casino operates. Has no one here ever been to Las Vegas? 330b is how much players have deposited total. They have lost 143b of that 330b. That's 143b is my profit. Of the the money they didn't lose I hold about 2b of that in the player accounts. The remainder of the money has been cashed out of the casino in the form of isk and/or prizes.
I have a degree in mathematics; that's my qualification. The EV for the games is nearly spot on with the actual values. The house edge on blacjkack, for example, is 0.15% for a player who uses basic strategy and declines insurance. I have automated reports that check actual vs expected for each of the games. They are working as intended. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 14:39:00 -
[12]
Originally by: Blueprint Seller Thank you for your answers so far.
yw
Originally by: Blueprint Seller I understand that you and I have a difference of opinion about what constitutes public funds.
If a player deposits money it goes into their casino account it is still their money. I am merely holding it for them. If they then wager that money at the blackjack tables and lose it's now my money. It's no longer public funds if they wager and lose.
Originally by: Blueprint Seller
Can you provide historical and maximum figures for your player account balance? That is to say the historical total of public money you have held within the casino and the maximum level that has reached?
My guess is that intraday there have been times where the balance has been maybe as high as 5b or so. That figure varies a lot especially at busy times of the day and even more so if there are a number high stakes players at the tables.
Originally by: Blueprint Seller
Can you also provide the historical and maximum figures for your loan business?
I think the most i've had out concurrently for loans is approx 3b. To be clear that was me lending other pilots 3b isk spread across a number of collateralized loans. My loans are over collateralized as I only deal with high quality collateral and I only offer 75% LTV. I have never had a default.
Originally by: Blueprint Seller What are your theoretical and historical payout percentages?
I guess this question is not at all clear to me. Do you want the EV vs actual value for each of the games with a breakdown for each? I've already stated that it's working as intended. Can you explain why it is you need this data beyond what i've already provided? [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 14:45:00 -
[13]
Originally by: Nypheas Azurai Are there any plans to make the site IGB-friendly? I think this will increase its long-term success.
e.g. - use IGB for registrations: gather character name from headers, generate password directly in the browser, remove the need for external email/sign-up - automate adding of funds: e.g. a showInfo() pop on the recipient, or if CCP ever get to implementing a giveMoney() - anything else that streamlines the casino without the player needing to leave game.
1)The casino works using the IGB now so i'm not clear on your first point. 2)Yes to your second point. We do plan on using the IGB 'trust' system to gather registrations instead of the current email-driven signup system. 3) The API is already running every 30 minutes with automated deposits. At present the API does not support sending money back to players in game from the casino. There's nothing I can do on that front unless CCP adds that functionality. 4) Streamlining is good. Zeeawk and I chat daily about improvements to the casino.
Originally by: Chakirari I think not needing an email would be a good idea.
Either way, isk sent.
Agreed. Isk received! thanks. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 16:12:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Blueprint Seller
I understand the limited window provided by the API. I would still like to know what is contained within that window.
Just to be crystal clear here: my entire business is predicated on trust. There has never been nor will there ever be any sort of way to strucutre this investment such that investors are secured. I'm being very upfront and honest about that. I'm not going to purchase 1T isk in BPOs that we can lock them down in a corp hangar somewhere so everyone can feel good about themselves.
My casino is successful because of the very high level of trust players have in me. This extends to my loan business as well to the limited number of 3rd party services i've performed for other people. If I do something to ruin my trustworthiness in the community all of that goes away. There's no amount golden eggs you could tempt me with for me to kill the goose.
If you don't trust me or have even a hint that you think i'm going to defraud you then I would strongly suggest that you not buy any shares. An audit will show the transactions, but it's not going to make your investment in anyway more or secure. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 16:33:00 -
[15]
At this point Blueprint Seller it's clear that you have signifcant trust concerns about my IPO. I do not believe that i'm going to be able to answer your questions to your satisfaction. I see that you are getting to the point of just wanting to split hairs. I already aknowledged that the 2b in player accounts that I hold in my wallet should be counted as a liability. You want to beat a dead horse. I'm not interested in such a debate.
My best advice to you at this point is to not send me any isk. In fact if you do I will return it because I don't believe you will be happy. Maybe in 6 months with continued revenue growth and timely dividend payments you will feel more comfortable. Maybe not.
I've done my best to answer your questions, but there's not much more I can add.
[ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.01 19:30:00 -
[16]
Originally by: gnomer Interesting approach to answering questions. Ones you don't like you ignore or divert, or accues people of trolling.
yes.
Originally by: gnomer
Summary of some Important Questions, as a potential investor could you attempt to answer:
1) last I checked we didn't have slots. the vig on the games we do offer range from 0.15% to approx 25%.
2) perpetuity. If perpetuity comes to an end we'll re-evaluate. pretty sure I mentioned this in the original posts.
3) my business model is based on trust. audting the database serves no purpose because the numbers could simply be changed to whatever. No there won't be an audit of the database.
4) I've stated repeatedly that my entire venture is based on trust. If you are looking for collateralized investments you will want to look elsewhere.
5) I never sleep. I only log out because they turn off the servers for a bit each day. Come spend a day or three in casino chat to see how much i'm around.
6) I get paid for my earnings now instead of later. I take a haircut for that. There are ancillary benefits to selling shares. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.02 11:13:00 -
[17]
Isk received in game from the following pilots:
200m moto akimoto 1000m gatan hahran 800m moto akimoto 200m crimzim aprest 500m brynngaar 100m celladorre 1000m Zamestian Han 500m Velinqangi 1000m Saf Snafu 1000m Breaker77 100m Candy Oshea 1000m Tutskii 200m Khai88 1000m Krythas 200m Izidkiel 1000m Enigmatarius 100m Arancar 500m Deadspace synergy [Corp] 1000m Khanid Voltar 1000m Chakirari 100m Nypheas Azurai 1000m Egola 100m Candy Oshea 1000m Gei'neille 1000m Jean Baptiste Johansson 500m Tak149 ================== 15600m total
Reservations: 500m Bababoee ================== 500m total
Thus 16,100m of the 20,000m offering has sold!
With the 15.6b already received plus the 500m reservation things are going well. Pretty good for less than two days into the offering. This offer is still outstanding for another five days. I've had numerous requests from the current investors to simply purchase the remaining block of shares. I've declined their offers as I want to give the smaller investors a chance at owning the shares.
Dividends go out on Wednesday as previously noted. I'm hopeful that the remaining shares sell before Wednesday so I can distribute the stock so investors can start receiving returns on their investment!
[ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.02 13:24:00 -
[18]
Originally by: Blueprint Seller If Edwin sells some shares at 100m per share then following one method of valuation his business is worth:
100m x 10,000 shares = 1,000,000m
If the secondary market begins to trade those shares at a premium then using the same method of valuation his business is worth:
1,000,000m + ( premium x 10,000)
If Edwin wishes to sell his operation on to a new owner then such a valuation will be a viable starting point for price negotiatons.
He will get less than the final valuation for this set of shares but it is worth it in the longer term.
Debate on if this method of valuation is valid is a seperate topic. Even if you believe that method to be totally wrong it still gives Edwin an additional position to negotiate from.
If Edwin was to sell on this business for 1.5t isk in six months time he would not only be a very rich man but he would secure a place for himself in EVE history.
This is why I took this as the basis for my initial examination of this offering. I am not excluding other motives and outcomes but this one is the one that made for the most interesting analysis.
Exactly! Bravo! I was beginning to think MD was full of nothing but droopy-eyed armless children. I'm happy to see someone finally thinking beyond the typical reasons people in MD raise money: because they are broke or they want to scam.
Moreover, this offering increases my net worth by 750b isk. This is one of the primary reasons very successful privately held companies go public. They do not need your cash, the shareholders want to increase their net worth in exchange for sharing the fruits of their successful operation.
Further still, this offering increases Zeeawk's net worth by 250b isk. I told him when we started the casino that he would make billions. In all probability he would make 10s of billions. I also stated he could make hundreds of billions. I'm fullfilling that promise.
In before "LOL OMG 20b isn't 750B LOL." Bill Gates and Warren Buffett do not have billions in cash. They never had. What they own are millions of shares of stock in their own companies worth billions of dollars. I'm doing the same. When Mr.Gates wants another red Ferrari he can sell a few shares of MS stock. Now when I want to buy a red titan I can sell some shares of casino stock.
You are absolutely correct in that I want the secondary market to price the shares. I believe I have valued the company low. This will directly benefit those who buy shares early. If the secondary market prices the shares at 110m each then each investor instantly increases the value of their casino holdings by 10% while continuing to enjoy weekly dividends. This has the ancillary benefit of increasing the value of my shares by 10%. This is a win/win for both me and the other shareholders.
The best part is, I don't have to sell the casino to enjoy the increase in share valuation just like Mr. Buffett doesn't have to sell all his BH class A shares to enjoy their increasing stock price. If I decide to sell 10 shares later and they've been exchanging at 110m each then I should be able to sell mine at 110m.
To your other point. I don't have any plans to sell the casino. If I did sell the casino the other shareholders still benefit. Say that someone offered me 1.5T isk and I accepted. I would then institute a buyback of all the shares at the 1.5T isk valuation. This means each redeemed share would be worth 150m isk up from the 100m IPO price. Once again ALL of the shareholders benefit from the success. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.02 13:27:00 -
[19]
Originally by: Blueprint Seller That depends on what you consider to be good returns.
In my view good returns for long term investors are almost entirely predicated on Edwin selling the business for considerably more than the 1t isk valuation.
For short term investors good returns can be gained by selling the shares at a premium. This outcome is equally predicated on the belief that Edwin will sell the business for considerably more than the 1t isk valuation.
This is why I was left cold by the lack of available figures. Without them a lucrative sale seems unlikely.
I do not believe that simply delivering escalating dividends will be sufficient to convince a buyer. Dividends without supporting figures will appear to be cooked.
Please understand it doesn't matter what numbers I give you from the casino operations. Any of them could potentially be fabricated. Hence even if I released them it would not resolve the complaints. The only thing that can be verified without tampering would be my wallet transactions for which only the most recent two weeks are available.
My daily wallet history is listed on Eve board for the entire time the casino has been in operation. Those numbers are API veried and still people doubt them so adding 2 weeks of wallet transactions to the mix isn't going to satisfy anyone who already doubts the numbers.
I said I would publish the weekly dividends. I wanted to do this yesterday but simply ran out of time. Here's the google spreadsheet for anyone interested
dividends [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.02 13:44:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Khanid Voltar Feel free to send my bill back...
sent! [ Casino | Loans ] |
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Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.02 17:42:00 -
[21]
There are currently 24 pilots who have sent money for shares. 14.6b isk in shares have been paid for. 5.4b shares have not. Three of the investors who've already purchased the maximum number of shares have asked repeatedly to purchase the remainder of the outstanding shares.
It appears to me there are two groups of people here: ones who want to invest and make money and others who just want to troll with no intentions of investing. I'm mentally exhausted from dealing with the trolls. I've chatted in game with a number of the people who have already purchased shares and they are for removing the cap.
Thus if anyone who has already purchased the maximum numbers of shares would like to buy more you may now do so. If other smaller investors show up before saturday I will honor the commitment to let them purchase shares. If this kicks me over the 20b mark by a little bit so be it.
If anyone who has already purchased shares is not comfortable with the 10 share cap being removed early you may return your shares to me for a full refund until saturday. If you decide that you would like to return your shares please contact me first in game before sending them.
I will send shares in game shortly. If anyone who has previously expressed interesting in buying more than 10 is still interested now's your chance!
If any investors and/or potential investors has further questions or concerns here are the ways to reach me: 1) eve mail me in game 2) start a convo with me in game 3) stop by the "Roth IR" channel. This is the Investor Relations channel and all investors are welcome to hang out here. 4) come chat with me on our public TS3 server. I'll gladly send you TS details in game.
Trolling posts here will go unanswered. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.03 00:09:00 -
[22]
Originally by: Candy Oshea tl:dr get more sleep
excellent advice candy :)
The goal was to sell 20b in shares. Players sent 28.3b total. I'm pretty sure everything is correct, but if you didn't get your shares or the incorrect number please let me know. Thanks again to everyone who purchased shares. The first dividend payment is wednesday.
sleepy time! [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.03 12:34:00 -
[23]
Originally by: khai88 don't this mean for me (only have 2 share) can still buy a share at normal price of 100m ?
Yes khai you may. Although I will say we are rapidly approaching 30b in shares sold and I really do not want to go over mark.
Zeeawk setup an investors page at the casino for shareholders. If you create a casino account at www.rothbards.com I can set your status to investor which will give you access to the casino profit history with colorful graph! The data provided is very basic; it's just a start. The data will be updated weekly. Because of that I will probably not bother copying/pasting the dividend data into google docs because it's extra work.
I give all new signups at the casino 1m free isk this is extended to investors who create accounts. You can wander about the casino with your 1m free iskies in hand marvel at what you invested in!
[ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.03 12:43:00 -
[24]
Originally by: khai88 i will get another 1 share pls(isk send) and for every 10b ipo you get i will buy 1 more share
money received and share sent. Thanks!
Also forgot to mention to everyone. Your shares can be found in your wallet->shares tab. The name of your shares are "Rothbard's Casino." [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.03 18:17:00 -
[25]
All of the IPO shares have been sold. If you would like to buy or sell shares you can do so in the secondary market! [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.03 20:51:00 -
[26]
Originally by: khai88 can i know what is the value of IPO sell? 30b?
yes, post #7 has the totals.
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1504515&page=1#7 [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.04 11:07:00 -
[27]
Originally by: egola edit: roth can you set up my acct to investor status?
done
Originally by: egola Please note that i Didn't 'panic sell' coz i though this was a scam , but i was always going punt the shares on for a quick buck , & the amount of mails i got in response to selling the shares at 110m was astonishing, i can't turn down 10% for 2 days.
I figured there would be some day traders mixed in with the long-term investors. The fact that you sold your shares for more than the IPO price is good for all of the shareholders. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.04 16:53:00 -
[28]
Originally by: Arancar Australis Hi Edwin,
Can you double check to see if my share was sent, just check my Wallet and not showing up under the share Tab...unless i am looking at it wrong (which may be possible )
You are correct. I sent your share to the wrong person. You should now have your share in your wallet. Sorry for the mixup. regards, Edwin [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.07 20:22:00 -
[29]
I trained up social, corp management, and ethnic relations yesterday on Sub Account B so she can accept a few non-gallente characters into the casino holding corp.
With help from Gatan we did some testing and figured out that a corp member can view shares of the corp with junior accountant role + 1 corp wallet division access.
I'm looking for an investor to join the corp (and alt is fine) to publish a report of shareholder ownership. I was thinking maybe a monthly google docs spreadsheet listing each shareholder and the number of shares they own would work.
If any of the current shareholders would like to accept this duty please let me know. I'm not against having even two investors join the corp for this purpose if there's enough interest. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.09 15:20:00 -
[30]
Originally by: Edwin Rothbard I trained up social, corp management, and ethnic relations yesterday on Sub Account B so she can accept a few non-gallente characters into the casino holding corp.
With help from Gatan we did some testing and figured out that a corp member can view shares of the corp with junior accountant role + 1 corp wallet division access.
I'm looking for an investor to join the corp (and alt is fine) to publish a report of shareholder ownership. I was thinking maybe a monthly google docs spreadsheet listing each shareholder and the number of shares they own would work.
If any of the current shareholders would like to accept this duty please let me know. I'm not against having even two investors join the corp for this purpose if there's enough interest.
Candy Oshea contacted me in game and offered to fill this role. She applied to the corp with her trade alt. She's been accepted to the corp and given jr accountant + corp wallet access. [ Casino | Loans ] |
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Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.05.17 18:16:00 -
[31]
My father died unexpectedly Thursday morning. I have not been in eve much since then. I'm going to be away from eve for some time. I do not know how long this might be.
The casino is a customer-service driven business. Without me here the customer experience and earnings will both suffer. Thus I am offering to buy back shares held by the public. I am offering 105m or what you paid for the shares whichever is greater. If you bought the IPO shares and still hold them I will pay 105m a share. If you bought shares in the secondary market for say 130m/share I will pay you 130m a share. I screenshotted the shareholder list this morning so any share sales that happen in the secondary market after this post are not eligible for this buyback offer. Anyone misrepresenting what they paid for their shares in an attempt to get more than they deserve will receive nothing.
You are advised to add me to your watch list. If you wish to sell your shares back to me, please contact me directly via convo in game. Do not send me your shares unannounced. There is no way in game to tell who sent shares and if you send them to me before I can verify how many I am currently holding I will have no way to verify it. If you send your shares before you've contacted me in game and have been told that it's ok to send me your shares you will receive nothing.
If you wish to keep the shares you are welcome to do so, but I cannot guarantee that I will be available to run the casino or that I would be able to send dividends on time.
Edwin [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.06.07 00:14:00 -
[32]
Originally by: Sadhiq Wow, I replied to the thread without reading all the pages...
Easy to do since it is a long thread.
There are still 195 outstanding shares that haven't been sold back to me. I continue to pay dividends, but they are significantly lower than they were historically. I've only been able to log in about once every 3 days or so. Surprisingly, the casino operates very smoothly even without me around. regards, Edwin [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.06.18 00:04:00 -
[33]
Originally by: Breaker77
Yeah I noticed Been trying to catch you online to sell back my shares.
Sorry I keep missing you breaker. Eventually we will make contact. To date i've repurchased 150 shares. There are still 160 shares outstanding. Some of the investors seem content to hold their shares for now even with the lower returns. I also paid this weeks dividends today.
enjoy, Edwin [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.07.14 00:06:00 -
[34]
I sent the weekly dividend payment today:
Rothbard's Casino may have credited your account as part of a total payout of 7,516,051,554.0 ISK to their shareholders. The amount awarded is based upon the number of shares you hold, in relation to the total number of shares issued by the corporation.
There are currently 145 Rothbard's Casino shares held by the public. I continue to hold 7,355 shares and Zeeawk holds the remaining 2,500. I believe the investors who hold the remaining shares are happy to keep them at this point as i've had no new redemption requests in quite some time.
For the first time in a couple months I've been able to log in for more than 1 hour every 3 days or so. You can see that revenues increase substantially when i'm in game to help and interact with the customers. In recent weeks revenues were about 1.2b a week. Still not bad for something that runs on autopilot when i'm not here. [ Casino | Loans ] |
Edwin Rothbard
Interstellar Arbitrage
|
Posted - 2011.07.27 07:02:00 -
[35]
Originally by: morrosis What is the weekly payou to shareholders per share at this point in time?
The highest weekly earnings to date were 14b isk. that translated into 1.4m isk/share. The lowest weekly earnings was about 1b thus 100k isk/share.
If you want to create an account at www.rothbards.com and send me an eve mail in game I can set your account to investor status which will give you access to the dividend history chart. From that you can see what the weekly payouts have been.
Edwin [ Casino | Loans ] |
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