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My Options Overview / Guide (V2)
Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls, I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps. I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders. While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months. Any feedback or additions are appreciated Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer. Here's what I tell options beginners: I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot. I like this beginner book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7 Helpful websites:
Tasty Trade (TT) and Ally Invest have helpful articles and videos.
ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.
Basics / Mechanics
Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.
General Tips and Ideas:
Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
“Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
Understand Liquidity and volume.
Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
Time in market vs timing the market:
It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.
Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation
If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out onby not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.
Trade Planning & Position Management Tips
As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
Covered Calls:
If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.
-Advanced Beginner- Spreads
Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
Spreads usually require margin trading.
Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
Vertical Credit spreads:
Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
Short Straddle:
Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation
Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
Short attacks:
Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
Some people say short ladder attacks don't exist. I've seen some very strange stock nosedives off low volume, so I tend to think they do.
If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
Due to this video I don’t fully trust Cramer. His show can give you stock ideas to buy (or inverse), but you never know where his true loyalties lie.
Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306
-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)- You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another. Options Strategy Finder This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below. https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx Short Strangle / Straddle
Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
Limited risk / limited reward.
Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Debit to open.
LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)
PMCC / PMCP
PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.
Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.
Disclaimer: I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you. I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.
FuboTV DD (First time making DD, please give advice)
I tried to make it easy to skip around if you just want to see the financials or estimates. Just scroll to them if you don't care what the company is or their sectocompetition/management. TL;DR at bottom with final thoughts. Introduction “FuboTV ($FUBO) is an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies. Launched on January 1, 2015 as a soccer streaming service, FuboTV changed to an all-sports service in 2017 and then to a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) model. As a vMVPD, FuboTV still calls itself sports-first but its expanded channel lineup targets cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated features that can be streamed through smart TVs, mobile and tablets and the web. The service is available in the United States, Canada and Spain as of 2018." From their home page: They are the only competitors in their space of digital sports broadcasting, offer 4K streaming and upscaling of live sports, cloud DVR capability ranging from 250 or 1000 hours on standard plans, and is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Android TV, Android Smart TVs, and Android/iOS smartphones and tablets, with plans ranging from $24.99/month to $79.99/month (not including add-ons). They have also recently acquired one company and have made plans to acquire another to allow for in-house sports betting. They have stated in a press release that they plan to release a sportsbook before the end of the year. This will push them into a broader spectrum outside of only TV and sports streaming, and into the sports betting sector along with DraftKings ($DKNG), FanDuel ($PDYPY), and Penn National Gaming ($PENN). Plans and Add-ons FuboTV offers three standardized plans as of February 8, 2021: the Family plan is priced at $64.99/month (normally $75.97/month), Elite at $79.99/month (normally $100.95/month), and Latino Quarterly at $24.99/month, along with offering additional add-ons. Each plan offers a range of channels, cloud DVR capabilities (which allows fast-forwarding through commercials), and casting to multiple devices simultaneously. Only the Elite plan does not offer a 7-day free trial (Channels page). The Family plan includes 117 channels (mostly news and entertainment with roughly 40 that offer sports, including ESPN), up to 250 hours of DVR space, and casting to 3 devices at once. The quarterly prepaid includes a free upgrade to 1000 hours of DVR space and 5 casting devices at home with 3 on the go (Channels page). The Elite plan includes 164 channels (includes an additional “47 entertainment channels”), up to 1000 hours of DVR space, and casting to 5 devices at home with 3 on the go. This plan does not offer a quarterly prepaid (Channels page). The Latino Quarterly plan includes 250 hours of DVR space and can be streamed on up to 3 devices at once, but only has 32 channels. This plan needs to be prepaid every 3 months for a total charge of $74.97 and does not offer a monthly service (Channels page). Upgrades include additional DVR space--1000 hours for an additional $6.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly--and increased device casting--an additional 2 devices at home with 3 on the go for another $9.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly plans. You can also add a variety of channels and sports packages (the Latino Quarterly has fewer channel add-ons compared to the Family and Elite plans, which both have the same channel varieties). Sports Plus with NFL RedZone is an additional $10.99/month, but includes all professional and college sports broadcasting services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, fighting, etc. (Channels page). Fubo has recently removed its former Standard plan, which included only 65 channels, up to 2 casting devices, and only 30 hours of DVR support for $60/month. Financials and Growth Fubo has yet to file an annual report as they have gone public in October of 2020, but they have filed a 10-Q for Q3 2020. All numbers in thousands. Assets- Between December 31, 2019 and September of 2020, assets have increased from $368,225 to $799,313 (a 117% increase) . Total current assets increased from $17,973 to $58,016, but accounts receivable decreased from $8,904 to $6,975--this may be attributed to the increase in prepaid subscriptions which increased from $1,445 to $12,177 which shows strong customer satisfaction and retention. Liabilities- Liabilities have increased from $145,049 to $290,376 (a 100% increase). The largest contributors to their liabilities are “Due to related parties” increasing from $665 to $85,847, “Warrant liabilities” increasing from $24 to $28,085, and “Accounts payable” from $36,373 to $61,679. Long-term borrowings have decreased from $43,982 to $25,905. Revenues- Subscription revenues increased by $53,433, totaling $92,945 for the year. Total revenues including advertisements and licensing have increased by $61,202, totaling $112,669 for the year and an increase of 47% YOY. Q4 revenue is estimated to be between $94,000 and $98,000 which would be a 77-84% increase YOY. Expenses- Subscriber related expenses total $114,315 for the year. Total expenses have totaled $500,249 for the year. Subscribers- Ended Q3 with 455,000 paid subscribers, a YOY increase of 58%, and plans to end 2020 with over 545,000, an increase of 72% YOY. Competition Its closest competitors are Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney ($DIS)), YouTube TV (owned by Alphabet ($GOOG)), and Sling TV (owned by Dish Network ($DISH)). Hulu + Live TV
Includes league networks
50 hours of free DVR (200 hours for $9.99/month)
More than 74 channels
Unskippable ads on DVR without upgrade to 200 hours
2 streams at a time
$64.99/month
Can add ESPN+ and Disney+ for an additional $7/month
YouTube TV
Includes league networks
Unlimited DVR storage
More than 85 channels plus YouTube Red Originals
3 streams at a time
Sports Plus package for an additional $10.99/month
NBA LeaguePass for an additional $40/month or $119.99 annually
Starting at $64.99/month
Sling TV Blue
Includes league networks
DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
More than 45 channels
3 streams at a time
Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
Starting $35/month
Can be combined with Sling TV Orange for a total of $50/month
Sling TV Orange
Includes league networks
DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
More than 30 channels
1 stream at a time
Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
Starting at $35/month
Can be combined with Sling TV Blue for a total of $50/month
Merger with FaceBank for $100 million revolving credit
Analysts and Estimates Average analyst ratings put Fubo at a Buy to Strong Buy rating with an average price target of $45.50 with a high of $60 and a low of $30. EPS estimates are estimated to be -5.23 for 2020 and -1.64 for 2021. Currently has a short float of about 75%, but the short volume has been holding at roughly 15-20% over the last month and has drastically declined from its October short volume of over 50%. Originally valued at $700 million less than a year ago, a current valuation of $3.19 billion is respectable for this company and is on par for its current performance. Risks
Marketing fails and Fubo is never known as a household name, so consumers stick with other more known providers
Their sportsbook fails and becomes dead weight and wasted money
Subscriber count and streaming drops as quarantine lifts, reducing revenues while maintaining expenses
Consumers opt for cheaper options
People paying for the sports package cancel when the season is over, creating a boom and bust cycle if not managed correctly
Final Thoughts / TL;DR With its drastic growth over the last year (400% in the last 4 months), support from FaceBank and well-known investors, and plans to join the sports betting sector, FuboTV has potential to become a household name and grow well beyond its current valuation by combining both sports broadcasting and online sports betting into one convenient place. Although unlikely to overthrow any of the current forces, it can become the best live sports broadcaster that people can turn to when they cut cable but want to keep live sports. It has many hurdles to overcome (creating their sportsbook, better marketing, increasing subscriber count, etc.) before it is any real competition to its already established competition. At a $3.19 billion market cap and very high (75%) short interest, it will be very difficult to realize consistent growth, but it is on par for a company with almost $100 million in revenue. My Position 25 shares at $47.30 Edit: edited final thoughts/TL;DR Please provide feedback! First time actually researching and compiling information for a company and not just reading about them on here. Also, please ask questions to clear up any confusion; it was kinda hard to put everything together neatly, so I might have accidentally left stuff out or oveunder explained some things.
I am 35 years old, make $56,000 ($231k combined), live in Seattle, and work in higher ed administration
Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long! Section One: Assets and Debt As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design. The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now. I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding. Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar. Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account). Equity: None, we rent. Savings account balance: Approximately $45k. Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k. Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance. Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded. Section Two: Income Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid). Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college. I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that. Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck. Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID. Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice. Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None. Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month. Section Three: Expenses Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost). Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month. Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing). Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc. Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard. In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years. Debt payments: None. Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times. Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month) Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future? Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.) Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share. Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time. Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time. Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month. Regular therapy: $0 Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies. Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k. __________ Day 1 Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though. I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip). Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch. I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point. Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine. Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53). I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week. Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai. Daily total: $222.89 Day 2 Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning. Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants. I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill. Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments. K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01). Daily total: $22.01 Day 3 Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out. Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error. Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point. Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack. After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle. Daily total: $0 Day 4 Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good. Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48. Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing. We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget). Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly. Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course. Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it. Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast. K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm. Daily total: $239.34 Day 5 Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious. We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin. Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm. The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free! In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip). Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek. Daily total: $80.51 Day 6 Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain. By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners. On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb. Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side. We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo. Daily total: $0 Day 7 Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay. One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly. Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out. I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet! I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo. Daily total: 70.36 Food + Drink: $395.23 Fun / Entertainment: $26.40 Home + Health: $26.60 Clothes + Beauty: $0 Transport: $16.40 Other: $170.48 Grand Total: $635.11 I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.
Before I get started with this, let me just pre face by saying that I am pretty new to trading and investing. Unlike many that I have seen, I was lucky enough to have not lost money on Game Stop. You do not have to lose any more either. / Hedge funds have the upper hand due to rampant corruption in our system, even going so far as to potentially pay people to make bad due diligence. Our only hope in what can only be presumed to be the largest upcoming bear market in history is to cut losses and find reliable stocks and cryptos to climb out of the holes that we were forced into. Losses are losses, but they do not have to be infinite. Do not let any of these “diamond handed apes” tell you otherwise. Get into an ARK fund, look for shorts that are not already squeezed, hell throw it all in crypto. Me personally? Everything I have got will be going back towards buying BNGO. Having said that, I admire what those of you actually holding are still trying to do. I just grow concerned over the “loss porn” I’m seeing over GameStop and $GME. There are extremely helpful resources if you are feeling afraid or alone. Please don’t be scared to use them. There is as real a chance these shares get shorted down to $0 as there is they shoot up to $10K. Remember not to invest more than you can lose. And having said that, I feel it necessary to mention this is less investing than it is gambling. To be perfectly honest, you may as well be throwing your hard earned money into Dogecoin and praying for an Elon tweet. In addition, the forced sale of Robin Hood ABSOLUTELY could have led to the shorts covering their position. The number of sales compared to buys in those days in which Robin Hood and other brokers limited buys didn’t have to get the shorts out of their entire hole of over 100% shares shorted for the little guy to lose. They only had to get back under 100%. They know that young and new investors who are doing this out of emotion will eventually move onto the next big thing. This is not the next Tesla or Amazon. If anything, it’s just another Blockbuster with the luxury of social media keeping them relevant. I feel like I am rambling but there is a point to this madness. A concerning amount of people have jumped from the idea of making money to a full blown cult-like status. Screenshots are being shared with no evidence that hedge funds are paying people for negative and bearish comments. What makes the $GME followers any different than Q-Anon when we are not looking at valid sources for our information? Jeez, one thousand words is a lot to type for just a small fee to confirm whether this works. Let us hope the hedgie bot does not see this small excerpt. I want to throw these profits into more block buster stock. Moving on to my next point, if $GME would have had a solid business plan to move forward to the next generation of gaming and online sales, they would have announced as such during the pinnacle of their hype train. Think about it. What better way to say “we are not going anywhere” than to do something like announce some plans along with the Hail Mary hirings announced last week. As if a major player in Amazon Web Services and some other schmuck could make $GME the top of the line online retailer when it comes to PC and console gaming. What does Ryan Cohen think he is going to do? Turn Game Stop into the Netflix or Amazon Prime of gaming? Do you know how much work and experience in the market that would require? Does Cohen even have a plan? Or is he, like many bag holders, in way over his head? Many of us got into $GME and the Game Stop madness for the same reasons. We wanted a better shot at the pursuit of happiness for ourselves and our families. We saw corruption and knew it was wrong. But that does not mean we can take it down. That would take a lot of trust in a decentralized group of people. And it’s not like that exists anywhere in the monitary world, otherwise Bitcoin would be at an all time high or some shit. Nonetheless, that does not mean this sub should be left for dead. This would be an excellent place for those of us who did take losses to share our experiences. Help each other through these bearish times and reinforce the fact that good times will come again. Just not for Game Stop. Fuck me running I still need two hundred words. The point is that Game Stop was a bonding experience for many new investors. Younger investors are getting into the market at the same time the boomers did, potentially leaving most of us in good positions long term if we make wise decisions. Unfortunately it does not appear that game stop will be one of those decisions. For those of you who have concerns or feel like you need to talk to someone, please feel free to reach out. I am available via direct message at any time. Your local and state governments will help you in a difficult financial situation. You just need to be willing to reach out for the help. Before I left you all finish this due diligence of minimum requirements, let me leave you with a too long did not read: Are you really willing to lose it all for game stop? Please reach out if you need help. Everyone here wants what is best for you. Sometimes it is best to cut your losses. Trust is difficult when decentralized. Read your information straight from the source. Only listen to valid sources. No one knows what’s best for you but you. Go get into a safer stock. The hedge funds will likely win. Other than that I’m running out of words. Get into crypto. Even your state representatives are with the HFs. This is getting difficult but I needv to make a point. Hedge funds most likely covered their shorts. Every “diamond hand” comment could be a lie. Really, you are still reading this? Edit: Removed SH references.
Here are my recommendations of games that I played for the first time in 2020. S-tier games that have become my all-time favourites made this list. 2020 was the year where I finally realised which games I actively want to play and it’s made my gaming experiences so much more entertaining. Here are also some games to completely avoid with exaggerated opinions. These are some of the worst games I’ve ever played, ranging anywhere from confusingly irredeemable to malignant, insulting games that are only holding back video games as an entertainment and art form, and hate you for playing them. I’ve listed some better games at the end of each review as much better alternatives with similar gameplay or style. Please vehemently disagree with me in the comments Best:Resident Evil 2 Resident Evil 2 has everything I want from an action game. The core gameplay of running around a police department, escaping fights with monsters and zombies while working out puzzles is Resident Evil’s thing, and Resident Evil 2 adds solid gunplay, meaningful weapon upgrades and rewarding items for putting in extra effort. I only missed one which required some backtracking near the end of the game, and realised that about 5 minutes after a point of no return. The Tyrant chasing you around adds a lot of flavour to the game, forcing you to adapt strategies and plans. Resident Evil 2 also has my personal distinction of being the only game I’ve ever finished twice back to back, finishing Leon and then Claire’s story in a week. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Take everything I said about Resident Evil 2, plus frightening horror that actually got to me at points, a better story, and a first person perspective that works incredibly well, and that’s what I have to say about Resident Evil 7. Absolutely the best in the series as it amplifies what makes the Resident Evil games so great while adding equally interesting new ideas. The Baker family’s grotesque transformations and gory boss fights are highlights, chainsawing an old man’s face and shotgunning a crazy old woman is the most fun I’ve had this year. Bloodborne It’s between Bloodborne or Bioshock as my favourite game of all time. I fear that I could spend hours typing what fascinated me about this game, so I’ll save my collected thoughts for another post. Bloodborne’s world is captivating from beginning to end. It unravels as you gather insight on the desecrated city of Yharnam, learning about the Healing Church forsaking the city with its endless hunts. My character, a woman who has left her land after her family were slaughtered by the same beasthood that ravaged Yharnam, fit perfectly with the story, and even thematically mirrored a DLC character’s past. By the way, The Old Hunters DLC is the best DLC ever, no doubt. If you’re going to buy Bloodborne go with Game of the Year edition, it’s spectacular. Of course you don’t need the DLC to fully enjoy the game, but it adds an impressive amount of gameplay hours, new story that adds to the main story, the excellent Research Hall level, the most dramatic boss fight and a pizza cutter weapon. Bloodborne’s gameplay is equally as fascinating as the story, with a fast-paced almost fighting game style combat system, a nearly completely connected immersive world, expert level design, some of the best bosses in any video game, and terrifying difficulty. For many players, these may seem too much or ‘not for me’, (always disappointing to see people give up on the Souls games, but understandable given the lack of beginner friendliness), and I certainly felt the same way at first. When I learnt to persevere and actively focus on the game, quitting out whenever a mild inconvenience in real life happened, it became a joy to play. I had mastered and overcome a godly challenge. I’m pretty terrible at games generally, so I honestly feel proud that I managed to beat this game and the DLC. Bloodborne’s cathartic moments, its incredible story and the pure art of the game which can be captured in a screenshot, or the masterful soundtrack, are all why it’s likely my favourite game ever. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Overlooked is an understatement. Made by the director of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, this game is metroidvania almost perfected. Almost, as there’s some inconsistent game design towards the end with a specific puzzle, but that’s my only real criticism. It’s also a well deserved ‘fuck you’ to Konami, with a pachinko boss fight and David Hayter practically voicing Snake. Gameplay is excellent with intuitive dungeons, bonus areas, RPG-style weapon, skills and armour customisation, and some crushingly difficult bosses. If you want a rest from the main game, you can always return to the beginning town and complete quests - my favourite is making meals for a constantly hungry old woman, as you can later buy and use them for permanent stat boosts. Shamefully, I really liked dressing up Miriam, the main character anime girl. Messing around with her skin colour and unlocking hairstyles is worth the £20 alone. With free upcoming DLC, it’s a perfect patient gamer game. Spec Ops: The Line Spec Ops: The Line is a perfect game. Many criticise the cover shooting, but it twists the generic mechanics into something amazing. In games such as Gears of War or Uncharted, taking cover is used to stop enemies shooting at you, reload, regen health, have a cup of tea or anything you can do while crouching. Spec Ops, however, puts you against relentless enemies who will suppress your fire when in cover and move to flank you, meaning you are forced to move and take damage, or work out a strategy with your teammates on the fly. It’s not deep strategy, but it really adds a new dimension to the game which sets it apart. The level design is excellent too, with plenty of memorable combat arenas like a decaying stadium, a destroyed luxury hotel, and an abandoned mall, which all go hand in hand with the story, which needs no introduction. Dubai has been wiped out by a sandstorm, and a rogue US army battalion led by your former leader and some civilians remain. Each level adds another piece to the PTSD puzzle, as you mow down hundreds of American soldiers who scream out in fear and panic as the game slow-motions their heads being destroyed by one of your bullets, while death rattles of wounded soldiers permeate the arena. Walker, voiced expertly by Nolan North, slowly changes over the course of the game as his honest, heroic decisions turn out to be, well, not very heroic. One of my favourite details in a video game is how his reload and command voice lines change the further you go into the game, as the weight of his task to rescue civilians and extract his mentor becomes unbearable. Even the main menu changes throughout the game, representing the entropy of the city. I haven’t tried the multiplayer as there’s no one online, but the fact it’s there makes me appreciate this game even more. Spec Ops: The Line is video games as a narrative experience exemplified perfectly. Rayman Legends Incredible 2D platformer that removes many conventions (lives, starting a level over, time) and is better for it. Each level has depth with collectables that unlock new characters and levels, and side challenges. The highlight is the music stages, which remix songs to fit the world’s theme, and the platforming is based on rhythm. Disappointing to hear of Michel Ancel’s departure from Ubisoft, as that means we’ll likely never get a sequel. I sympathise with you, Beyond Good and Evil fans. Now if only Ubisoft executives could stop trying to mount every female in the workplace and work on another of these games (Seriously though, fuck Ubisoft for the sexual assaults and their PR coverups). Mario Kart Wii I never owned a Wii as a child. It pained me to see all my friends play Wii Sports Resort and Super Mario, but one game in particular eluded me: Mario Kart Wii. The speed, the soundtrack, the plastic wheel you put over the Wiimote - I remember being captivated by it and wishing I could have a gaming experience like that in my own home. 12 years later, the Wii and Wii U have as much grasp on popular culture relevancy as Game of Thrones, which is the perfect time to buy an old console and a copy of this game. Mario Kart Wii is exactly as I remember. Coconut Mall, DK’s Snowboard Cross, battle mode, plus all the tracks my friends never unlocked make this one of my personal favourites. I debated putting it on this list as I’d find it hard to compare to a game like Bloodborne or Bioshock, but any game that creates the same childhood wonder in me is instantly going in my favourites list. Mario Kart Wii is fun racing with enough depth to get good at, and even more exciting playing it with friends. Especially when you’ve got a spiny shell. Worst:Rise of the Tomb Raider Basically ‘ok’ can only last so long before becoming tedious. Rise of the Tomb Raider does nothing notable with its gameplay. Most egregious is the plot that’s basically stolen beat for beat from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Mountains, evil super-Russians, and annoying bullet sponge mythical enemies at the end (although they’re better than the bootleg Thanos’ you fight in U2, but basically anything is). Lara Croft is insufferable, she has no personality and grunts and shoots her way through every situation. Definitely the best of the worst list as I finished only this and Detroit but I really shouldn’t have wasted my time. Instead play Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Saints Row Mid-2000s 50 Cent and Soulja Boy era hip hop aesthetics were always cringe. Saints Row goes for that materialistic objectify all women attitude without much irony and actually takes itself seriously. The beginning is every angry teenage white boy’s dream of various women trying to sleep with you, surviving a gang attack and then being recruited to this gang because they noticed you’re such a chad. I’m surprised he didn’t also win a rap battle against Eminem. It’s trying to be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with its satire and comedy, but it ends up being cringy rather than funny when you’re listening to the stereotypical camp gay guy shouting down the radio without any smart jokes or wordplay. The game also runs terribly, even on my original Xbox One. I’m really hoping the other games in this series are as good as everyone says, and this is only a false start. Instead play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare I imagine the pitch for this game was ‘Consumers didn’t like consuming the new Halo’s that they’ve consumed. Anyway, fellow executive, how will we make consumers consume another Call of Duty?’ ‘Let’s make the consumers consume Call of Duty while ripping off Halo down to the weapon and ship designs and promise a sci-fi experience with 2016 relevant celebrities and the usual passionless gameplay, and completely break the multiplayer with pay-to-win weapons. That way we can consume all of the disappointed Halo consumers’ money plus the yearly sycophants’ who’ll buy our games every year anyway. Wanna test our brand loyalty by releasing the worst trailer ever?’ Instead play Halo 4 Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 malignant and represents the worst of ‘live service’ microtransaction lootbox fuelled games. Literally a pay to win £50 (70 USD) game with overpowered weapons only in lootboxes that Activision promised not to include, no campaign and another cringy comedy zombies mode. Fuck this game and fuck Activision. I hope the executives’ spoilt and probably racist children are happy with the money they’ve got from gambling addicts. Instead play Doom Eternal Detroit: Become Human malignant and represents the worst of emotional story-driven artistic pretentious wank games. Horrible storytelling about racism and abuse, no interesting or likeable characters, nonsensical plot twists and unbelievably miserable forced drama. Obvious and rudimentary observations about complex and incredibly serious social issues are constant. It feels exploitative and contrived to see humans try to rape and murder the harmless androids when in the game’s own context it makes no sense. I’m really sick of seeing this stuff in games and films, the obvious contrivances like stabbing a pregnant woman in the Last of Us by accident, ‘Now you must hate her, audience!’ Terrible writing. If you don’t make the choices the game wants you to make you’re railroaded until you play the game ‘properly’, so your choices mean nothing. I chose not to rescue a character who explicitly hated me because I was an android, which locked me out of a good (relative) ending, because your choices affect a good ending/bad ending binary system. Not playing the game the way David Cage wants you to? Bad ending, though the ‘good’ endings are equally poorly written. While I did actually finish the game, it is absolutely NOT representative of how much I enjoyed it compared to the others on this list. I only stuck around to the ending because my friends constantly recommended it, and because of the praise from reviewers desperate to give any high profile game a positive review if it increases their chances of working for a game company. See this year’s Game Awards as perfect example. David Cage has no ideas that aren’t already from much better movies, the talentless misogynist. I’m pretty sure he ripped the narrative straight out of Humans, a 2015-2018 UK TV show from the few scenes I’ve seen from it. At least Kojima makes good games when he steals from movies, and dubiously sexualises women. Instead play Batman and Batman: The Enemy Within (and watch Seven, Memento, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049) Aliens: Colonial Marines it’s awful, but I’ll still take this over Black Ops 4 or The Division. Every level has basic and boring corridors with broken AI targets to shoot. I gave up after a broken stealth section. Pretty funny to watch, though. Instead play Doom Knack memes aside, Knack sucks. Broken combat where every enemy is so vastly more powerful than you, no real combos in a beat ‘em up, strange Lego knockoff character designs. I can’t wait to play Knack 2 after I’ve finished literally every other game in existence Instead play Lego Marvel Super Heroes and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga Dragon Ball Final Bout No idea why I played this, I don’t even like Dragon Ball. Anyway, it’s unplayable due to the abysmal controls Instead play Tekken 3 Wii Music Nintendo are pretty cool, but not free from making terrible games. Wii Music has no real gameplay. As soon as you put in the disc, you’ve won the game. Waving the Wiimote around without any rhythm or skill gets you through every song in the limited track list, which lacks any Killing in the Names or Through the Fire and the Flames(s). No fun at all, and especially disappointing from Nintendo. Instead play Tetris Effect: Connected Tunnel B1 obscure mid-90s game. The colour brown. Best left forgotten. Instead play Star Wars Battlefront II Tom Clancy’s The Division The Division proves that the gaming industry is often going backwards. It has less gameplay than Gears of War, another third-person cover shooter from 2006, released ten years before the Division. Even basic enemies are bullet sponges, meaning every encounter is hiding behind a chest high wall and waiting to unload 30 more rounds into them. The story is completely tone deaf and idiotic with a huge disconnect from the gameplay. If you’re a highly skilled operative why is one random thug so much more powerful than you? One of the most infuriating, lazy ways of designing combat, the anti-power trip. Life-wasting Ubisoft hollowness. At least I didn’t waste a weekend, as you can see all the game has to offer in about 4 hours. Instead play Spec Ops: The Line
[Videogames] Zhengtu Online, The Original Sinner of free-to-play gaming and lootboxes
Hi everyone, this is my first contribution to HobbyDrama, I hope this is an entertaining read and also to the community's standards. Let's go!! Brief glossary before we begin (and some foreshadowing) MMORPG: massively multiplayer online role-playing game, MMO for short. A videogame genre that generally invites hundreds, or up to thousands, of players to share a space. Depending on the game, anything from general adventure to large-scale war to economy and politics can be simulated. I find it hard to believe that anyone reading this could possibly not know what this is but it's included anyway. Electro-convulsive therapy: ECT for short, it is a form of treatment where electrodes are "carefully" hooked up to a person's head and a "precise" level of electric shock is delivered, in order to treat major psychiatric disorders. Developed in 1938 when most psychiatric treatments was in their infancy, it is still used today occasionally for serious cases of depression, mania, or psychoses. In its early days however, there were widespread claims of abuse associated with its use. Pt1: The Root of all that is bullshit Zhengtu Online (hereafter referred to as ZT) was an immensely popular MMORPG that was developed in China and primarily served a Chinese playerbase. Released in 2006, at its peak it boasted more 2 million players, which while not particularly impressive relative to World of Warcraft (8mil worldwide at the same time), was a truly insane amount of success in a gaming scene that was very much in its embryonic stage. The game itself was an unimpressive Diablo-style top down fantasy setting, and its gameplay loop primarily revolved around improving your ability to kill various things, but what made it special was the overarching metagame: every player population (sharing a server) was divided into 10 kingdoms. Kings and generals were all individual players, and they dictated politics to their neighbors--primarily in the form of initiating player-vs-player (or PVP) warfare. Most contemporary MMOs had an upfront price plus a monthly subscription fee. In China, such pricing models were mostly replaced by paying oney for a set amount of ingame playing time. Unlike all of them, ZT was completely free to play (F2P). Free to play, however, meant pay-to-win: the best weapons and armor, and even leveling up your character, needed you to pay real money. Since so much of the game was focused on PVP, it also created an eternal arms race between players, each paying for the privilege of not being evaporated by a high level enemy. The way they did this was unique at the time. While F2P online games had already seen their rise in South Korea, equipment was generally priced explicitly via in-game currency and bought in virtual shops. ZT fused this with the sweet, sweet taste of gambling: gear in the game was primarily obtained in loot boxes, and you had to pay for keys to open them. It needs to be emphasized that gambling of any kind was illegal in China, but, in an eerie parallel of American CEOS in the future, ZT's developers said it wasn't gambling because, well, you weren't getting your money back. By combining this with multiple other exploitative practices, such as providing a small amount of premium currency like a casino giving you a free bet on the house, or awarding special items to the player with the highest number of lootboxes opened in a day, ZT was making money like taking candy from a candy-hating baby, and made gaming history. As far as what this means for gamers, this was Eve giving Adam the apple, Oppenhemier splitting the atom, Prometheus stealing fire, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and goddamn Helen Keller signing "water". If you play any kind of videogames today, you've stepped through the long shadow that ZT had cast. Zynga (developers of Farmville) would be founded in 2007 and focused exclusively on free games with real-money integration. Lootboxes made it into Team Fortress 2 in 2010, one of the first major western-developed games to include them. Similar mechanics (with varying degrees of exploitative practices) came to FIFA in 2010, Mass Effect 3 in 2012, Counter-Strike in 2013, League of Legends in 2016, and NBA 2K in 2017, infecting every genre of gaming under the sun, including the most popular MMO, World of Warcraft. As an aside, corporate defense of lootboxes in Star Wars Battlefront II also led to the most downvoted Reddit comment of all time. Finally someone speaks out The System, an article published in the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly in 2007, was a hard-hitting expose on the exploitive practices of ZT. It chronicled the rise and fall of a gamer who accidentally becomes the monarch of one of these in-game Kingdoms, her addiction to the game, and final disillusionment when she realized that in-game player behaviour was being explicitly manipulated by its designers for the purpose of creating addicts and selling more lootbox keys. The whole article is worth a read, even if it is sensationalist in a way that immediately tells you the writer was clearly a failed novelist of some kind - describing virtual destruction with the kind of prose most people would consider and then discard for a gang rape, for starters. But it had gotten its point across. It created an explosive backlash against the game in China, and was even translated into English and propagated across gaming forums. The fallout In an act of censorship usually reserved for the CCP government, this article--including its English translation--began to be scrubbed from the internet, with speculation pointing to the immensely powerful CEO behind ZT. I mean, who else could it be, right? This article would light the fire of China's first moral panic regarding videogames. In its wake, swift legislation would be enacted regarding internet gaming addiction as well as online proxy gambling. ZT would heed the new laws and remove its lootbox mechanics in the following years and many other similar games followed suit. Most tragically, the panic (which, to be fair, was fueled by a very real problem) allowed unscrupulous characters such as Yang Yongxin, vice chairman of a hospital in Shandong province, to create "internet addiction centres". With its legitimacy established by a docuseries ("Fighting the Internet Monster") on the state-run television channel CCTV, these centres charged terrified parents exorbitant prices in order to keep teens by force in, essentially, private hospitals and asylums, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and abusive ECT in order to "cure" them of their disease. It was estimated that Yang earned the equivalent of more than $6million USD from his addiction centre in the short space of 2 years. While his centre was eventually closed by state order, he received no punishment of any kind. As for ZT, it limped on until 2018. A mobile game reboot was made in 2015. A tie-in fantasy movie was released in 2020. it was not very good. ~~~~~~ Addendum: how we got here: Of Mice and levers In the 1950s, an American scientist named BF Skinner discovered the following: when mouse is put in a box with a small lever that, when pressed, dispenses a food pellet, they will quickly learn to start pressing on the lever as fast as possible. If you then stop the food from dispensing, the mouse will lose interest quickly after pressing a few times and seeing no food coming out. If, however, you hooked up the lever to dispense food at random intervals, the mouse will be practically glued to the lever and hammer on it nonstop, sometimes long after they become full, and long after any food has been dispensed. This discovery, known as variable outcome operant conditioning, formed the foundation of our understanding of addiction and gambling. Skinner would go on to try and fail to make bombs guided by pigeons, but we're not interested in that here. His research tool--the Skinner Box--would become a descriptor you may have come across when discussing exploitive game mechanics. Summary Once upon a time, a game combined the random outcome of videogaming with real-money gambling. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Full credit to u/AlbibiG. The original post was posted on February 8th 2021. Enjoy. -
Introduction “FuboTV ($FUBO) is an American streaming television service that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports, including NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer, plus news, network television series and movies. Launched on January 1, 2015 as a soccer streaming service, FuboTV changed to an all-sports service in 2017 and then to a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMVPD) model. As a vMVPD, FuboTV still calls itself sports-first but its expanded channel lineup targets cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated features that can be streamed through smart TVs, mobile and tablets and the web. The service is available in the United States, Canada and Spain as of 2018." From their home page: They are the only competitors in their space of digital sports broadcasting, offer 4K streaming and upscaling of live sports, cloud DVR capability ranging from 250 or 1000 hours on standard plans, and is available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox One, Android TV, Android Smart TVs, and Android/iOS smartphones and tablets, with plans ranging from $24.99/month to $79.99/month (not including add-ons). They have also recently acquired one company and have made plans to acquire another to allow for in-house sports betting. They have stated in a press release that they plan to release a sportsbook before the end of the year. This will push them into a broader spectrum outside of only TV and sports streaming, and into the sports betting sector along with DraftKings ($DKNG), FanDuel ($PDYPY), and Penn National Gaming ($PENN). Plans and Add-ons FuboTV offers three standardized plans as of February 8, 2021: the Family plan is priced at $64.99/month (normally $75.97/month), Elite at $79.99/month (normally $100.95/month), and Latino Quarterly at $24.99/month, along with offering additional add-ons. Each plan offers a range of channels, cloud DVR capabilities (which allows fast-forwarding through commercials), and casting to multiple devices simultaneously. Only the Elite plan does not offer a 7-day free trial (Channels page). The Family plan includes 117 channels (mostly news and entertainment with roughly 40 that offer sports, including ESPN), up to 250 hours of DVR space, and casting to 3 devices at once. The quarterly prepaid includes a free upgrade to 1000 hours of DVR space and 5 casting devices at home with 3 on the go (Channels page). The Elite plan includes 164 channels (includes an additional “47 entertainment channels”), up to 1000 hours of DVR space, and casting to 5 devices at home with 3 on the go. This plan does not offer a quarterly prepaid (Channels page). The Latino Quarterly plan includes 250 hours of DVR space and can be streamed on up to 3 devices at once, but only has 32 channels. This plan needs to be prepaid every 3 months for a total charge of $74.97 and does not offer a monthly service (Channels page). Upgrades include additional DVR space--1000 hours for an additional $6.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly--and increased device casting--an additional 2 devices at home with 3 on the go for another $9.99/month for the Family and Latino Quarterly plans. You can also add a variety of channels and sports packages (the Latino Quarterly has fewer channel add-ons compared to the Family and Elite plans, which both have the same channel varieties). Sports Plus with NFL RedZone is an additional $10.99/month, but includes all professional and college sports broadcasting services for football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, fighting, etc. (Channels page). Fubo has recently removed its former Standard plan, which included only 65 channels, up to 2 casting devices, and only 30 hours of DVR support for $60/month. Financials and Growth Fubo has yet to file an annual report as they have gone public in October of 2020, but they have filed a 10-Q for Q3 2020. All numbers in thousands. Assets- Between December 31, 2019 and September of 2020, assets have increased from $368,225 to $799,313 (a 117% increase) . Total current assets increased from $17,973 to $58,016, but accounts receivable decreased from $8,904 to $6,975--this may be attributed to the increase in prepaid subscriptions which increased from $1,445 to $12,177 which shows strong customer satisfaction and retention. Liabilities- Liabilities have increased from $145,049 to $290,376 (a 100% increase). The largest contributors to their liabilities are “Due to related parties” increasing from $665 to $85,847, “Warrant liabilities” increasing from $24 to $28,085, and “Accounts payable” from $36,373 to $61,679. Long-term borrowings have decreased from $43,982 to $25,905. Revenues- Subscription revenues increased by $53,433, totaling $92,945 for the year. Total revenues including advertisements and licensing have increased by $61,202, totaling $112,669 for the year and an increase of 47% YOY. Q4 revenue is estimated to be between $94,000 and $98,000 which would be a *77-84% *increase YOY. Expenses- Subscriber related expenses total $114,315 for the year. Total expenses have totaled $500,249 for the year. Subscribers- Ended Q3 with 455,000 paid subscribers, a YOY increase of 58%, and plans to end 2020 with over 545,000, an increase of 72% YOY. Competition Its closest competitors are Hulu + Live TV (owned by Disney ($DIS)), YouTube TV (owned by Alphabet ($GOOG)), and Sling TV (owned by Dish Network ($DISH)). Hulu + Live TV
Includes league networks
50 hours of free DVR (200 hours for $9.99/month)
More than 74 channels
Unskippable ads on DVR without upgrade to 200 hours
2 streams at a time
$64.99/month
Can add ESPN+ and Disney+ for an additional $7/month
YouTube TV
Includes league networks
Unlimited DVR storage
More than 85 channels plus YouTube Red Originals
3 streams at a time
Sports Plus package for an additional $10.99/month
NBA LeaguePass for an additional $40/month or $119.99 annually
Starting at $64.99/month
Sling TV Blue
Includes league networks
DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
More than 45 channels
3 streams at a time
Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
Starting $35/month
Can be combined with Sling TV Orange for a total of $50/month
Sling TV Orange
Includes league networks
DVR up to 50 hours (200 hours for $5/month)
More than 30 channels
1 stream at a time
Sports Extra package for an additional $11/month
Starting at $35/month
Can be combined with Sling TV Blue for a total of $50/month
Merger with FaceBank for $100 million revolving credit
Analysts and Estimates Average analyst ratings put Fubo at a Buy to Strong Buy rating with an average price target of $45.50 with a high of $60 and a low of $30. EPS estimates are estimated to be -5.23 for 2020 and -1.64 for 2021. Currently has a short float of about 75%, but the short volume has been holding at roughly 15-20% over the last month and has drastically declined from its October short volume of over 50%. Originally valued at $700 million less than a year ago, a current valuation of $3.19 billion is respectable for this company and is on par for its current performance. Risks
Marketing fails and Fubo is never known as a household name, so consumers stick with other more known providers
Their sportsbook fails and becomes dead weight and wasted money
Subscriber count and streaming drops as quarantine lifts, reducing revenues while maintaining expenses
Consumers opt for cheaper options
People paying for the sports package cancel when the season is over, creating a boom and bust cycle if not managed correctly
Final Thoughts / TL;DR With its drastic growth over the last year (400% in the last 4 months), support from FaceBank and well-known investors, and plans to join the sports betting sector, FuboTV has potential to become a household name and grow well beyond its current valuation by combining both sports broadcasting and online sports betting into one convenient place. Although unlikely to overthrow any of the current forces, it can become the best live sports broadcaster that people can turn to when they cut cable but want to keep live sports. It has many hurdles to overcome (creating their sportsbook, better marketing, increasing subscriber count, etc.) before it is any real competition to its already established competition. At a $3.19 billion market cap and very high (75%) short interest, it will be very difficult to realize consistent growth, but it is on par for a company with almost $100 million in revenue. My Position 25 shares at $47.30 Edit: edited final thoughts/TL;DR Please provide feedback! First time actually researching and compiling information for a company and not just reading about them on here. Also, please ask questions to clear up any confusion; it was kinda hard to put everything together neatly, so I might have accidentally left stuff out or oveunder explained some things.
Hopefully a post like this can be stickied since a lot of people are posting the same questions. If you are new or just getting back into collecting basketball cards then please read. For the New Collector How do I start? Collect what you like. What do you enjoy the most? A player or a team? That should guide your collection. Then figure out how you want to get your cards; either buying boxes or buying singles. Buying boxes are always a gamble as you don't know what you are gonna get. Buying singles from eBay or comc are typical ways to go about this. Boxes are so expensive, what gives? Currently, we are in a bull market for cards in general but especially with basketball. The demand for them has increased exponentially. A lot of previous collectors, when they were younger have come back to the hobby. Also, influencers like Gary Vee have touted that basketball cards can be assets, so you have wealthy people looking to invest getting into the hobby as well. Hobby boxes of Prizm used to be $60-100 when they initially came out but now 2019 Prizm are $800. Group Breakers are also pushing this. I have the money and I want to buy boxes, which box? (For this discussion, I'm only focused on hobby boxes) NBA boxes come in tiers: Low Class (I don't mean this in a bad way...just that these are usually the cheapest in terms of pricing) NBA Hoops (usually the first release of the season) Panini Panini Complete Donruss Middle Class (just like in real life, middle class is slowly becoming high class in terms of affordability especially for Prizm,Optics,Mosaics) Certified NBA Hoops Premium Stock Court Kings Absolute Revolution Prizm (most sought after for general public for refractors and colors) Mosaic (colors) Optic (colors) Select Timeless Treasures Gold Standard Chronicles Illusions Origins Upper Class (dollar dollar bill y'all...either you have a really good job or you are swimming in credit card debt lol) Spectra Noir Impeccable Immaculate One and One Obsidian National Treasures (most sought after for RPA - rookie, patch, auto) Flawless Opulence Eminence (15k per box!! WTF?!?!?...It's now listed at 50k!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Now, where do I find these boxes? Boxes can be separated into Hobby or Retail. Hobby boxes can be bought at your local card shops or online at sites like Blowout and the like. Retail are typically found at big box stores like Walmart, Target, etc. Retail can also be found online as well. Because of how hot the basketball market is, it is super hard to find retail boxes because people are literally camping out or stalking the distributers that restock those shelves. So for many people, once those shelves are stocked, someone will come along and purchase everything. Sometimes it's someone who will rip it all or worse yet, sell it all at 3-5x MSRP. But what about the college boxes/cards? Prizm Draft Picks or Flawless Collegiate or National Treasures Collegiate don't hold too much value to us NBA fans. So if you buy these boxes, please don't expect for those cards to increase in value. It's obviously ok to like the cards of the players you like or the college team you like but those cards will not hold the value like their NBA uniformed card counterparts. If you do buy these boxes and want to sell them, the best time is around the draft time and before the first NBA cards comes out (usually NBA Hoops). What happened to Topps and Upper Deck? Isn't Panini a sandwich? Panini is an italian styled sandwich but it is also a huge company that got big by selling stickers. Stickers of all things! I know! They are so big that they are bigger than Topps and Upper Deck combined i think. Anyways, back in 2010, Panini got the exclusive rights from the NBA to produce cards and thus forced Topps and Upper Deck out. Topps had baseball and football so they were fine with it and Upper Deck had hockey and a number of financial issues that I think still plague the company. So now we are stuck with Panini for better or worse. There's so many color variations? Which ones are valuable? As a collector, whichever one catches your eye. As a flipper, look for the serial numbering. Typically the lower the serial numbering, the more valuable it should be. /1 > /5 > /10 > /49 > /99 > /199 > etc... A note on color, a lot of collectors place a premium on the color parallel if it is the same color as the team's colors or jersey colors. But I've seen non-numbered silvers sold for more than the numbered colors? What gives? That is the market sometimes...If the general public decides that the silvers are more desirable than that is whats going to happen. Yay! I pulled a Zion silver prizm rookie card! It will be worth $100k in 10 years right?I can now retire right? NO. While Zion is definitely the sexy new cards, there can be a whole host of things that can derail your retirement plans. First, Zion may flame out. He may have a career threatening or altering injury like Derrick Rose or Blake Griffin. He may never live up to his hype like Wiggins. He can become a player that the fans hate or turn on like Durant. The basketball card market starts to crater if all the new money wants to start selling and get out of the market. I've dug up some old cards. Most are from the late 80's and early 90's and with this basketball card boom, I'm rich right? NO. You have literally found kindle for a fire. Just kidding but not really. Unfortunately, a lot of the cards in the late 80s and early 90s were massively overproduced. If you think there a tonne of prizm cards, it still doesn't compare to the sheer number of 1988-1995 cards (Hoops, Fleer, Upper Deck, Topps). That 1990 Hoops Michael Jordan? You're lucky to get a $2 for it. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble about it but that's the truth. When is the best time to sell a card? Usually during the season and the playoffs. If you want the most, do not sell during the off-season. Another thing to think about is the player that you are looking to sell. If it is a player that is not a star or superstar, it's best to sell after that player has strung along a few good games. If it's a star or superstar, the best time would be if that player is about to win a championship. Case in point, Kawhi's value was through the roof when he won in Toronto and now his value has dropped since his failure with the Clippers. Rookie cards are too expensive. What do I do? If the rookie cards are a little too much in price, you can always collect the 2nd year cards. This seems to be the case more than ever now as younger collectors just don't have the financial resources. To me a base is a base, so a 2nd year card is the same as a 10th year card. But that's just my opinion. Is my card valuable? Before asking this question, please for the love of god look it up on ebay. Type in the player, year, brand of the card and scroll down until you see the Show Only filter and click on Sold Items. This will pull up all the previous sales of that card. This will give you your best answer as to how valuable your card is. But what about the Beckett value? Before the internet and ebay, Beckett was the best way to figure out approximate value of a card. But now we have the internet and ebay and 130point. But what if I have a One of One? How do I know how much it's worth? Congrats! You have a pretty cool card. If it is of a superstar like Lebron or Luka, you just gained a $1k+ card. No one can accurately tell you the value of the card until it is sold. But if the card is of a common player or scrub, you might be lucky to get $20. From u/kHartos, he wrote the following for Retail Boxes: Here is another thing I see asked a lot - retail box formats. So here they are in order of smallest to largest. Not all formats are available for all products. Gravity pack - smallest packs, typically 4-8 cards. Comes from gravity feed boxes. Fat pack - jumbo gravity pack. Available for low end sets like Hoops and Donruss. Cello pack - multiple smaller packs wrapped in cellophane. Hanger - A small box of multiple packs Blaster - The sh*t fliplifers most try to get you to buy for 4x MSRP (which is always 19.99). This is larger than a hanger, smaller than a Mega. Mega box - Exclusive to Target and Walmart. MSRP at $49.99. Usually Target and Walmart Megas get their own exclusive parallel/s. I hope this helps for the newbies. Feel free to add as I'm sure I have missed some tips. Edit: Formatting
I live in a small mining town in the mountains of Colorado. Someone is building a massive casino nearby, Pictures Included
I grew up in a small mountain town named Eureka. It was founded in the late 1800s during the gold rush, but after the mines dried up the town began its slow descent into decay. Half the houses are empty or abandoned now. You can see a picture of the kind of houses here in Eureka: First house Second house When a massive construction project began nearby, it was the talk of the town for weeks. Why would they build something in a sleepy dying town like Eureka? It wasn’t until my sister Selene talked to a few construction workers that we discovered they were building a casino. A casino up in the mountains, over two hours away from Denver. None of us could understand why they’d chosen here of all places. After a few months of work, the casino was done. I took a picture of the town with the completed casino in the background to the right. The ten-story-structure sticks out like a sore thumb off in the distance. Town+Casino After the casino opened, they hired a few dozen members of the town, offering high paying jobs to work as dealers or cleaning staff. I was already employed as a firefighter, but my sister Selene got a job as a blackjack dealer. She’s a widow with two young kids, so the paycheck was a real lifesaver. Still, something about the situation seemed too good to be true. The jobs over there paid far too well, and the management was far too accommodating. The fire station where I work is located high on a hill overlooking the town, so I began watching the casino from a distance each day. I had initially thought that the casino was located in a terrible location, but I was apparently wrong. True, Eureka was hours from any major city, but despite that, a bus full of people arrived every morning and left every evening. One night I was over at my parent’s house and had dinner with Selene and her kids. I asked her about her experience as a dealer. “It’s Ok,” she said. “Just a little boring I guess.” “Boring?” I asked. “I’m surprised you don’t have your hands full.” “Why’s that?” she asked. “It’s like you said, Eureka’s too small. I never have people playing cards. The casino is almost always completely empty.” I wasn’t sure what to make of that. If the place was always empty, what happened to the people who I’d seen arriving on buses? “I’ve been keeping an eye on the building,” I said. “A bus full of people typically arrives around 9 AM every day.” “Really?” she asked, looking confused. “If that’s true, I’ve never seen them. “I can see it from the fire station,” I said. “If you head out for a smoke break at 9 AM, you’ll probably see them arriving.” “Interesting,” she said. “I’ll do that. If they’re being processed for their organs or something, I’ll let you know.” She laughed. “Har har,” I said sarcastically. The next night she sent me a text calling me over. When I arrived, she was nearly breathless with excitement. “Orin, You were right,” she said. “A big group of people did arrive, but they didn’t walk into my part of the casino. Instead, they all walked into an elevator at the back of the building. I’m not sure where that goes.” She looked thoughtful. “It was weird. They looked… How can I say it? Desperate? Something about the whole situation was very off. I’m gonna check out the elevator tomorrow.” I told her to be careful, though, to be honest, I was excited to hear about what she discovered. When I visited my parent’s house the next night, I found her two kids there alone. They told me that Selene had never returned from work. I called all her friends, then all our neighbors, but no one had seen her since she left for work that morning. Our conversations regarding the casino flooded my mind, then a plan began to form. Early the next morning I walked across town in my nicest pair of jeans and a button-up shirt. I pushed through the door to the casino and saw that Selene wasn’t lying. The place was all but deserted. Three dozen slot machines crowded the walls surrounding a few tables interspersed throughout the floor of the casino. The only players in the whole building were Bob and Donald, two locals. I walked up to a nearby table where Bridget, a girl I’d gone to high school with, was shuffling cards. She broke into a grin when she saw me. “Hey Orin, you here for a few rounds of blackjack?” “I wish,” I said. “No, I’m here to ask about Selene. She never made it home last night.” Bridget’s expression darkened. “Really? Have you asked around?” “I already called around. Have you seen her?” She shook her head. “No, our schedules rarely line up. I’ll be sure to let you know if I--” Her eyes focused on something behind me, and she cut herself off. I turned around to see the casino’s pit boss watching us both. He was a tall thin man in an impeccably clean black suit. When I turned back towards Bridget, she was looking down at the table and shuffling cards absent-mindedly. “Well, if you hear anything, let me know,” I said. She nodded, so I turned around and headed for the pit boss. I stuck out my hand. The temperature of his hand was so hot that I had to pull my hand away after a few seconds. “Have… have you seen my sister Selene?” I asked. “She hasn’t been seen since her shift here yesterday.” He smiled. “Sir, this floor is for players. You’re more than welcome to head to the tellers for chips, but barring that I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” I stared at him for a long second before stalking towards the door. When I looked back, he was talking with Bridget. I checked my watch. 8:55 AM, just as I’d planned. I walked around the back of the building and waited as the morning bus pulled around the building. I waited for the telltale hiss of the opening doors and the sound of people descending before I rounded the corner and joined the crowd. None of them paid any particular attention to me as I walked with them into the casino. The crowd walked through a side door down a hallway to an elevator. Small groups of people entered the elevator as the rest of us waited for our turn. I shot a glance at the casino patrons, surprised at their diversity. There seemed to be people from all different countries and ethnicities. I heard one speaking Japanese and another speaking what sounded like an African language. My turn came along with a few other patrons in the elevator. A sickly woman hobbled into the elevator beside me carrying an IV that was still connected to one of her veins. We piled in and rode up to the top. The elevator rose for a few long seconds. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I steeled myself for something horrible. The elevator’s speaker let out a TING, then the doors opened. We all walked out onto what looked like a standard casino. Another few dozen slot machines ringed the walls, but on this floor, they were almost all occupied by customers. I took in the scene, confused at why they’d have a ground floor that was almost completely empty when this place was almost-- Selene was dealing cards at a nearby table. I jogged over and sat down at an open seat. None of the players around me paid me much attention. “Selene!” I said. “Are you OK? Did you spend the night here last night?” Her eyes were glassy and confused. She looked up at me with a dumb expression and didn’t respond to my question. “Selene?” I asked. “What’s your bet?” she asked me. “This table is for blackjack players only.” “I…” I trailed off, looking at the players around me. None of them were betting with chips of any kind. “What’s the minimum bet?” I asked. “Three years,” she responded. “Three years then,” I said, not knowing what that referred to. Selene nodded, then began dealing cards. I shot a look down at my hand. King and a 9. Selene dealt out cards for herself, showing a 9. I stood, then leaned forward again. “Should I call the police? Are you--” “Congratulations,” she said tonelessly. An almost impossibly warm hand grabbed my shoulder. I spun to see the pit boss I’d spoken to earlier. He gave an impressed smile. “Orin, was it? I’m impressed, truly. Would you mind if I had a word with you?” I shot a look back at Selene who was dealing the next round of cards. Then I got to my feet, balling my hands into fists. “What did you do to her?” The pit boss clasped his hands behind his back. “Nothing more, and nothing less than what I’m going to do to you. That is, offer you the chance to play.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The pit boss nodded his head towards a nearby slot machine. A woman in a wheelchair pulled a lever and watched the flashing numbers spin. They exploded in a cacophony of sirens and flashing lights. “WINNER WINNER WINNER!” The machine screeched. The woman in the wheelchair put her feet on the ground and stood up on a pair of wobbly legs that had clearly never been used before. “As in any other casino,” the pit boss said, “you must wager for the chance to win.” “She... won the use of her legs?” I asked, feeling light-headed. “Wait,” I said. “I played blackjack just now. ‘Three years,’ Selene told me. What does ‘three years’ mean?” I asked. “Three years of life, of course. Did you win?” My mouth felt dry. “I-- Yes, I won.” He smiled warmly. “Congratulations. I hope you enjoy them. I can tell you from personal experience that watching the decades pass is a bore. Give it some time and you’ll be back to spend them.” I watched the pit boss’s face. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, and I was in my early thirties. I looked around at the casino. No one was playing with chips of any kind. “So what?” I asked. “I won years of life. That woman won the use of her legs. What else can a person win here?” “Oh, almost anything. They can win almost anything you can imagine.” A cold feeling settled in my stomach. “And what do they wager?” His eyes flashed with greed. “Almost anything. They can wager almost anything you can possibly imagine. Anything equal in value to the item they want in return.” He nodded towards a nearby roulette table. A man stood by the table, cradling his hands. “Another finger,” he called out. He only had three fingers remaining on his left hand. As I watched, the ball came to a stop, and another finger disappeared from his left hand. The pit boss extended his hands. “Feel free to try any of our games. Bet and win whatever you’d like.” He reached out and snatched my hand. A feeling of intense warmth passed up my arm to my chest. “There,” he said. “I’ve even given you some house money to get you started. An extra decade of life, on me.” I ripped my hand away, staring at him in horror. Then I looked back at Selene. Something clicked in my mind. “You offered her the chance to play. What did she want?” I asked. “Her husband,” the pit boss said. “Quite the sad story. He died two years ago. She wanted him brought back to her.” “What did she wager?” I asked. “She wanted the chance to win a soul, the most valuable object in existence. I’m sure you can imagine what she needed to wager for the chance to win it. What she wagered is unimportant. The important question is: What do you want, Orin?” I stared at Selene with a flat expression. “I’m sure you can imagine.” His eyes flashed with greed again. “How wonderful. The casino could always make use of another dealer. Feel free to make your wager at any one of our games; I’ll be eagerly awaiting the results of your night. Oh, and do take advantage of our waitresses. We always supply food and drink for ‘high rollers’.” He walked away. I spent the next few hours trying to decide which game to play. I was going to be wagering my soul, so I wanted the highest chance possible. Slots and roulette were out. I’d done some reading online about counting cards, so I figured that blackjack gave me the best odds. I walked up to Selene’s table and sat down. “Bet?” she asked with that same toneless voice. “Three years,” I said. I spent the next hour or so doing my best to remember how to count cards. I knew that low cards added one to my count and high cards decreased it by one, but the casino used three decks. I had read something about how that was supposed to change my calculation, but I couldn’t quite remember how. Every time I won a hand, I cursed myself for not putting everything on the line. Every time I lost, I breathed a prayer of thanks that I’d waited. And all the while, I kept track of the count. I had lost fifteen years of life when the count finally reached +5. “Bet?” Selene asked. “I wager my soul so you can be free,” I said. The table around me fell silent. Selene’s eyes flickered, but she showed no other emotion as she dealt the cards. I watched my first card, punching the air in excitement when I saw a Jack. My excitement turned to ash when my second card was a four. Fourteen. I looked at her hand. One card was facedown, but the faceup card was a King. I swore loudly, staring down at my hands. “Hit?” she asked. The entire table was silently watching me. “Hit,” I said, not looking down. The table erupted in cheers. I looked down to see a 7 atop my two other cards. 21. Blackjack. I looked at Selene who flipped over her facedown card to reveal a 9. 19. I won. The glassy look left her eyes immediately. She looked around in surprise, then her eyes locked on mine. “Orin?” she asked, then almost immediately began to cry. The entire casino broke out in cheers. I grabbed her hand and headed for the elevator. The doors had begun to close when the pit boss reached out with a hand to stop them. “Congratulations,” he said, beaming. He seemed to be honestly excited. “Shouldn’t you be upset?” I asked. “Not at all. Casinos love it when we have big winners. It inspires the other players to make larger bets. I imagine I’ll gain two or three dealers before the night is through from your performance.” “Great,” I said flatly. “Now let us go.” “Not yet,” he said. “You didn’t just win, Orin. You got a blackjack. And blackjack pays out 1.5 times your bet. You won your sister’s soul and more.” I stared, not sure what to say. “What are you saying? I won half a soul extra?” The pit boss grinned wildly. “Just remember what I said. You’ll find living for decades and decades to be a boring experience. After a few centuries, you’ll be back to gamble that half a soul away. Congratulations!” He removed his hand, and the elevator doors slammed shut. I helped Selene back to her house. Her children were relieved. I watched them cry, then moved into the kitchen to start making dinner. It’s been a few days since that experience. The casino is still out there, and buses full of people still arrive. I… I cut my hand pretty bad a few days later. When I checked it an hour later, it had already healed, no scar or anything. I’m not sure exactly what I won at that casino, but there’s no way I’m ever going back. X
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