Building a Crypto Casino Empire: Lessons from MonkeyTilt | Sam Kiki DSH #1265

Summary

Digital Social Hour Episode Summary: "Building a Crypto Casino Empire: Lessons from MonkeyTilt | Sam Kiki DSH #1265"

Release Date: March 25, 2025

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Introduction to Sam Kiki and MonkeyTilt

In this engaging episode of Digital Social Hour, host Sean Kelly welcomes Sam Kiki, the visionary behind MonkeyTilt, a burgeoning crypto casino empire. Sam delves into his multifaceted career, blending cryptocurrency innovation with the dynamic world of online gambling. From navigating regulatory landscapes to pioneering integrated reward systems, Sam offers listeners an insider's perspective on building a successful crypto-based gambling platform.

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A Wild Golf Bet and Unconventional Wagers

The conversation kicks off with a humorous and wild anecdote about a recent golf outing involving Sam and Bob. Sam recounts a high-stakes two-man scramble in Las Vegas where a friendly bet escalated into an outrageous challenge: if Sam won, Bob would receive a tattoo on the shaft of his penis.

"If you win, I will get a tattoo on the shaft of my penis."
— Sam [03:01]

The bet not only heightened the competitive spirit but also led to viral online chatter, with Sam and Bob debating the feasibility and potential social media impact of the tattoo wager. This story underscores the bold and unfiltered nature that Digital Social Hour prides itself on.

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Insights into Sports Betting and Strategies

Sam transitions into his expertise in sports betting, particularly focusing on NFL wagering. He shares his successful track record, highlighting an impressive 8-1 record during a recent NFL season leading up to the Super Bowl.

"I'm pretty good at NFL capper."
— Sam [08:36]

Sam emphasizes the importance of understanding betting lines and expected value, cautioning against the common pitfalls of player prop bets. He explains how the timing and pricing of bets are crucial for maintaining a positive return on investment (ROI).

"Sports betting doesn't matter what side you pick. It just matters the price you get."
— Sam [12:53]

He recommends educating oneself on the intricacies of sports betting, referencing Matthew Davidow's book, The Logic of Sports Betting, as an invaluable resource for beginners aiming to minimize losses and maximize gains.

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Navigating Casino Operations and the Las Vegas Landscape

Drawing from his extensive experience in Las Vegas, Sam provides a deep dive into the mechanics of casino operations. He discusses how major players like MGM, Caesars, and Wynn dominate the Strip, each contributing significantly to the region's revenue through a mix of gaming, food and beverage (F&B), and entertainment.

"The local casinos do a good job of giving higher payout slots. 3 to 2 blackjack, 10x on the odds versus for dice versus 3, 4, 5."
— Sam [16:19]

Sam elaborates on the psychological strategies casinos employ to enhance player engagement, such as the placement of game tables, ambient lighting, and scent marketing. He highlights the evolution of Las Vegas from a gaming-centric city to a diversified hub of luxury dining and high-end entertainment.

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Crypto and Gambling: The Future of Integrated Platforms

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the synergy between cryptocurrency and online gambling. Sam outlines MonkeyTilt's mission to create a unified platform where various risk-taking activities—ranging from crypto trading and sports betting to NFT collectibles—are seamlessly integrated. This ecosystem aims to provide users with consolidated rewards and a cohesive user experience.

"I think they should all live on one platform tied together by one wallet and one rewards currency."
— Sam [35:11]

Sam explains the challenges of regulatory compliance across different jurisdictions, as varying countries categorize and regulate financial services, trading cards, NFTs, sports betting, and casinos differently. Despite these hurdles, MonkeyTilt strives to offer a comprehensive suite of products that cater to global customers.

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Reward Systems and Customer Retention Strategies

Exploring the intricacies of reward systems, Sam discusses how MonkeyTilt intends to revolutionize customer loyalty by consolidating rewards across multiple platforms. He draws parallels to credit card reward systems, where higher-tier customers receive exponentially greater benefits to ensure their continued patronage.

"The rewards get infinitely better as the closer you get to the top."
— Sam [37:29]

By integrating all risk-taking activities under one umbrella, MonkeyTilt aims to enhance user engagement and incentivize higher levels of participation through a tiered rewards system. This strategy not only boosts customer retention but also maximizes the overall value proposition for users.

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Competing with Industry Giants: The MonkeyTilt Approach

Sam addresses the competitive landscape dominated by established players like Stake, praising their strategic partnerships and brand-building efforts. However, he articulates MonkeyTilt's differentiated approach, focusing on a more laid-back and fun brand identity to attract a diverse user base.

"We're fun, we're degenerate. We're a little less corporate and we're a little more fun."
— Sam [44:26]

MonkeyTilt's goal is not to dethrone industry leaders but to secure a significant position within the top five, leveraging creative marketing and a unique user experience to carve out its niche in the crowded crypto casino market. Sam acknowledges the challenges of high marketing costs and aggressive customer acquisition by competitors but remains optimistic about MonkeyTilt's potential to thrive.

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Future Plans and Expanding the MonkeyTilt Ecosystem

Looking ahead, Sam shares MonkeyTilt's ambitious roadmap, which includes expanding into new product verticals such as crypto trading, poker, and collectibles. Additionally, the platform aims to enhance its online presence through content creation across YouTube and social media channels, fostering a vibrant community around the brand.

"We're introducing a ton of stuff on the crypto trading front, on the poker front, on the collectibles front."
— Sam [39:47]

Sam also touches on the importance of authentic branding and maintaining accountability by associating a recognizable face with the platform, thereby building trust among users. This transparency is pivotal in establishing MonkeyTilt as a reputable and reliable player in the crypto gambling space.

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Conclusion: A Vision for Integrated Risk-Taking Platforms

Throughout the episode, Sam Kiki provides a comprehensive look into the intersection of cryptocurrency and online gambling, emphasizing the potential for integrated platforms like MonkeyTilt to redefine the industry. By addressing regulatory challenges, enhancing reward systems, and differentiating from competitors through a unique brand identity, MonkeyTilt is poised to make significant strides in the crypto casino landscape.

Listeners are left with a clear understanding of Sam's strategic vision and the operational complexities involved in building a unified risk-taking platform. Sam's candid and insightful dialogue exemplifies the raw and authentic conversations that Digital Social Hour is known for, offering valuable lessons and inspiration for entrepreneurs and enthusiasts alike.

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Notable Quotes:

• "If you win, I will get a tattoo on the shaft of my penis." — Sam [03:01]
• "I'm pretty good at NFL capper." — Sam [08:36]
• "Sports betting doesn't matter what side you pick. It just matters the price you get." — Sam [12:53]
• "The rewards get infinitely better as the closer you get to the top." — Sam [37:29]
• "We're fun, we're degenerate. We're a little less corporate and we're a little more fun." — Sam [44:26]
• "We're introducing a ton of stuff on the crypto trading front, on the poker front, on the collectibles front." — Sam [39:47]

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Stay Connected with Sam Kiki:

Follow Sam Kiki on Instagram at @SenorTilt to keep up with his latest ventures and insights into the crypto and gambling industries.

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Digital Social Hour continues to deliver unfiltered and thought-provoking conversations, offering listeners a front-row seat to the lives and stories of some of the world's most intriguing figures. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a crypto enthusiast, or simply curious about the future of online gambling, this episode provides valuable takeaways and inspiration.

Transcript

[Sam]

Risk taking regulation makes it really tough because different, different countries regulate different pieces of those products. You know, some of the products they call financial services, some of the products are like trading cards aren't even regulated. Some of the products like NFTs aren't regulated. Sports betting is highly regulated. Casino is the most regulated.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

So it's hard to put all of.

[Bob]

Them on one platform, but we're trying. Yeah. All right guys, we got Sam here from Monkey Tilt. Thanks for coming on, man.

[Sam]

Absolutely, man.

[Bob]

Yeah. You were golfing yesterday with Menary, huh?

[Sam]

I was.

[Bob]

How was that?

[Sam]

It was good. Did you see the bet?

[Bob]

No. What happened?

[Sam]

Oh, really?

[Bob]

Well, two on two, right?

[Sam]

So we're doing okay. So you know, Bob did the full send golf. Like he kicked off full send golf. So what we're doing is I don't go, I haven't golfed in two years. It took like a two year break when I found a monkey toe because I just. You need time to golf and practice and I just had no time. So Bob's been in my year. He's like, we have to have a monkey tail Golf channel. We have to have a monkey tail Golf channel. So finally I get a few days this week. And I said, you know what, we're in Vegas, the weather's amazing by the way right now. So let's go golf. So we created, we needed to create a format. I can't hit the ball that well right now. So we need to create a format that was like easy for me to slot in and just play without needing to practice a lot. So we created a two man scramble. So you know the format where basically both of you hit a drive and you, but you can play whoever hits the better drive. Then both you hit an approach shot, but you can play whoever hits the better approach shot. So you kind of, it's kind, you know, you can kind of only make one or two good shots a hole and still be in the game. It makes it very fun. So we create this new format. It's like a high stakes two man scramble where we challenge, you know, two man teams and we play a scramble. So yesterday Bob, Bob was going to get this girl influencer, this girl golf influencer out there and stuff. First of all, he didn't sleep the whole night before. He was at Durango all night just zapping, drinking, gambling, whatever by himself, like for good chunks of the time by himself. Right? And then, and then, I don't know. And then, you know, Bob does this thing where he always meets people at like a bar or something. Something. And then like those people become his friends for like two weeks or whatever. So he shows up to the golf course with this guy who's like a big litigator in the US Randomly. They just met at a bar, right? He was hitting on the guy's fiance, and then him. And then the guy comes back from the bathroom and him. Bob become friends.

[Bob]

Oh, my God.

[Sam]

So he brings him and he brings this girl. She's like a golf influencer or something. And then I hit up my buddy and I said, hey. Oh, no, Spencer. Spencer, our buddy?

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Says, hey, I got this friend. Adam would love to come play with you. And I said, great. We. The girl hadn't shown up yet. I said, great. So Adam shows up and Bob is like. Bob gets this thing where he, like, Bob thinks he's like the best golfer in the world. Bob thinks he's the best at everything. Bob said, you know what? Why don't I play me and the litigator against you and Adam and we'll play two man scramble. And I said, cool. I said, but what do you want to bet? Because Bob, you know, I. I don't do money with Bob anymore. It's stupid. So he goes, well, if I win, I want 25 grand. I said, okay, well, if I win, I want you to get a tattoo. That's why I left it at that. And he said, if you win, I will get a tattoo on the shaft of my penis. And I was like, you're kidding me. I was like, I would have settled with like a peck or like a. A neck tattoo. Would have been hilarious.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And he insisted that this. Right. So Spencer calls up this girl. Spencer is a tattoo artist. He calls up this girl, and she's down to do it. She's like, yeah, 100%. So like, we're making jokes the whole time, like. And by the way, my partner in the first two holes you watch the stream shits the bed. My partner's supposed to be like a really good golfer and. And just playing terrible, first of all. So Bob's getting cockier and cockier. He wants to press the bets, like the whole thing, right? Couldn't even play it in our hands any better. And Bob's drinking, drinking, drinking. Anyways, he crumbles like the middle. We fricking destroy him. We get him to press the bet too. So his second bet was for. I had to put up 7,000 and he had to do three blind dates of my choosing. Five on stream. He also owes me that. So right now, the whole Internet's like chasing him because he owes us a dick tattoo and a three blind date series on stream. On stream. So that, yeah, that was honestly one of the best golf days of my life. It was so much fun.

[Bob]

That was nuts. You think he'll actually get the dick tattoo?

[Sam]

Well, so now we're talking. Spencer's talking to onlyfans. And because we were like, we thought it was such a funny idea because we're out there on the golf course and stuff. Then we would go, oh, shit. Like, how do we stream this? Because you can't. You know what I mean? Kick, right? And so we were like, well, can we put this on porno? Like, what do you do? And then Spencer goes, I bet you we can get a deal out of Only Fans. So Spencer's talking to Only Fans and he's trying to get Bob stream this whole thing live on Only Fans. Oh my God. Bob might get a bag out of it.

[Bob]

Now he has to show his Kyle.

[Sam]

We were supposed to golf tomorrow on full send. Golf and against Kyle and Sleem. Kyle's like, I'm not doing it until you honor your bat. Snap.

[Bob]

Wow.

[Sam]

The Internet's behind me on this one, dude.

[Bob]

That is crazy. I don't think he'll do it, but we'll see.

[Sam]

I think he will.

[Bob]

You think he'll get it, by the way?

[Sam]

And I've offered because I think it's. I don't even. I didn't even know this was a thing. I didn't know you could do this. Apparently you can't. Apparently some people do this, right? So I didn't even know that was a thing. But I said to Bob like, hey, I'm willing to be cool about this. Why don't you? Like, you know, the bet was I risked 25,000, so why don't you put up like 5 or 10,000, right. And I'll let you get it somewhere else. Why don't you get the tattoo somewhere else like on your arm or leg or something normal? He's like, no.

[Bob]

Damn. He's all in.

[Sam]

He's all in.

[Bob]

Holy crap. Hey, guys.

[Spencer]

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[Bob]

The whole dick or just a little.

[Sam]

Picture and I said the monkey head. Monkey logos head home. Yeah. Yeah. There's. I mean there's all sorts of logistical things I don't want to get into on this podcast, but I mean I. It's crazy. I don't know if I'm going to watch it, to be honest, but it's kind of that sick thing on the Internet. You like, you kind of want to watch it, you kind of don't.

[Bob]

It's going to be unavoidable.

[Sam]

I feel like, I don't know.

[Bob]

That's going to break the Internet.

[Sam]

I think, I think if we can pull off this deal with only fans, this thing's going to go nuts.

[Bob]

Holy crap. That's crazy. How often do you, Bob, do these weird bets?

[Sam]

So I've known Bob, I met Bob in 2021 and we've been really good friends. You know, those four years Bob's been on an absolute life roller coaster in that. In that probably. I know me and you were talking before the show. You got to know Bob and stuff. Yeah, we bet, we've bet our whole relationship, like our whole life, our whole time together. We bet on all sorts of crazy stuff.

[Bob]

What's the craziest bet you've done with them?

[Sam]

That one for sure. Like takes the like, like that's not even close. Right. But like we've done. We got, we went and picked up this. We were gonna do this heads up poker thing, right? We still are actually working something out to do it on Poker Go where we play heads up poker for some crazy stuff.

[Bob]

You would destroy him.

[Sam]

I think so. So we played this. We played this heads up Poker match. We. Did you see the Tilt truck that we have?

[Bob]

Was that the one at the super bowl or.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So you can like cut that into this clip or whatever. But like we did this dope truck with west coast customs and we had this whole plan where we're gonna go and pick it up in LA and then drive it around L. A and invite people on to gamble with us. And Bob and I in between, we're just going to play heads of poker Nonstop for like 48 hours and stream the whole thing. Yeah, because he was like, he thinks he's better heads up poker player than me. So I was like, let's do it. Let's play like 48 hours straight on stream the whole thing. Right. So we're playing, but then of course the LA wildfires happen. So we turned it, we changed it into doing something for charity for the L. A Wildfires. And so we raised, we ended up raising $50,000 for the LA wildfires. Just driving around on the bus, posting on social media, acting like complete knuckleheads. Right. But in that same time, in addition to raising for the fires, we also. I beat Bob heads up for 17,000.

[Bob]

I mean, you have a poker background. I don't know why he would have.

[Sam]

Thought like, yeah, I like to play poker.

[Bob]

Yeah. I mean you, you are actually good at poker. You're a winning poker player, right?

[Sam]

I'm. Okay. I wouldn't say I'm like a winning. I wouldn't say I'm like winning. It depends who against. Against an average person, probably against someone like Andrew Robo or Alan Keating. Like no shot. They would crush me.

[Bob]

So you're better than amateur, but you're not a pro.

[Sam]

100%.

[Bob]

You're in between.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

Is that your favorite game, the gamble on poker?

[Sam]

I think sports is my favorite thing.

[Bob]

Sports betting?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

Wow.

[Sam]

Yeah, sports is definitely the thing that I've had the most success with.

[Bob]

Really?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

That's a hard one to make money in.

[Sam]

I feel like 100.

[Bob]

So what's your game like? NFL, NBA?

[Sam]

I'm really good at NFL, so I do this. I was doing this thing for fun this year. Colts and yours. Pick of the week. During NFL I was 8 and 1 going in super Bowl.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

Had a huge bet on the Chiefs, so I was 8 and 2 against the spread too. Right. So. So, you know, I'm pretty, I'm a pretty good NFL capper. And then, you know, I dabble. NBA, NHL, like bidding totals a lot.

[Bob]

Yeah. What's the biggest sports bet you Made money wise.

[Sam]

It's a big one, isn't. I don't want to say the number it was on.

[Bob]

It's that big.

[Sam]

It was on a boxing match. Yeah.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

I like to bet big on fights.

[Bob]

Wow. Boxing. Yeah. I feel like boxing, if you have the right information, is a good one, right?

[Sam]

Yeah. I mean, I had a ginormous bet on the Chiefs for the Super Bowl. I got crushed on which. That was a weird game.

[Bob]

That was a terrible game.

[Sam]

It was like I. It was. I've lost big bets before, but that one felt really gross because it felt like we would never had a chance.

[Bob]

Not at all. I couldn't even watch the game.

[Sam]

It was spooky, man.

[Bob]

I wanted a close game because I'm just a fan of sports. Yeah. So, like, I just wanted a good game.

[Sam]

We got spoiled last year with the Chiefs and 49ers.

[Bob]

That was a good one in the.

[Sam]

Overtime and I was there in Vegas and I mean, dude, that was. That was awesome. So to go from that super bowl to this one, which is a total bummer.

[Bob]

Super weird because everyone was saying the refs were in on the Chiefs and it seemed like they were going to win it all.

[Sam]

Yeah, I know. You know, refs weren't either. The first few calls went like the Eagles way, for sure.

[Bob]

Yeah. I don't know, people. I've had guests come on here, say the NFL is rigged.

[Sam]

No, I don't. I don't know about all that.

[Bob]

Yeah, that would seem hard to pull off. You know, who knows, right? Like, there'd have to be so many people in on it.

[Sam]

I feel like there's. I feel like a lot. There's been a lot of gambling scandals have been like the big thing that. You saw that headline the other day about the, the college basketball and NBA stuff.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Yeah. So it's. Obviously there's stuff going on with player props and things like that, and it's really unfortunate because I think most of the. I think most of the world's doing things pretty kosher, but I guess you're always going to get stuff like that happen.

[Bob]

Yeah. Michael Porter, jr's brother, right?

[Sam]

Oh, I didn't know.

[Bob]

Oh, you didn't know that?

[Sam]

No, no, I didn't know that.

[Bob]

Yeah, he would fake injuries and.

[Sam]

Yeah, that was like, allegedly. Or this is like.

[Bob]

Yeah, I'll say that to be safe, but I'm pretty sure it's like a known thing.

[Sam]

Wow.

[Bob]

Yeah. Just to get the under. You know.

[Sam]

Yeah, that's. I, that's. That's. I've never really bet player profs at all my life. Yeah, my whole life. I just never, it's never been my thing. I never liked daily fantasy. Never bet player profs. I always bet sides and totals.

[Bob]

I mean that's probably smarter because you can't really predict the player Stu. If they get injured or something happens.

[Sam]

No, and it's hard to get. I guess people don't talk about this, but it's hard to get big bets down on anything but main markets. So like I like to bet big. So like I. The only things that I can get down on are like major sports like NFL, NBA, NHL, mlb and major markets, major liquid markets. So like full game over unders, full game spreads, that kind of thing.

[Bob]

The casinos must hate you out here.

[Sam]

Okay, so. No, no, I'm good, you know, obviously because dude, I've been at a lot of these casinos, so like I've been so I think they love me as a casino player because, you know, it's impossible to win in the casino. So when you're playing baccarat and craps and stuff. So I'm a good casino player, I give good action. But yeah, I can't get down big on sports in any of these places. I'm limited like across the board.

[Bob]

Even at circa.

[Sam]

Circa will give me. I think circa gives like what, 25,000 a game or something like that.

[Bob]

Which for you is like nothing small. Yeah, damn. Yeah, because if you bet that, you can't really win six figures, right?

[Sam]

No, your ROI on a sports, like if you're really good at sports, your ROI is like, you know, low single digits, mid single digits. Some people have like things that are high single digits. But it's, it's very tough. Damn. The markets are really efficient, right. Like, you know, think about all the smart people betting every single day.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And I think what, what. And this is where people get preyed on all the time, right? Is they buy sports picks from people. And the problem buying sports picks from people is let's, let's just say I tell you I like the Chiefs minus six and a half, minus 110, right? And then you go and you bet the Chiefs minus six and a half minus 120 or you bet the Chiefs minus seven minus 110. To you you're betting the Chiefs, right? But to me you're just seeded multiple percentage points of roi. And so you just went from doing a plus expected value bet, positive expected value bet to a negative expected value bet. So most people are math illiterate and they don't realize that, and they get preyed on. And that's what I think is pretty, Pretty bullshit. Right? So sports betting doesn't. It doesn't matter what side you pick. It just matters the price you get. Because everything has a right price.

[Bob]

Yeah. The timing of the bet's important.

[Sam]

Right?

[Bob]

People don't know that.

[Sam]

Yeah, that's right. That's why, like, really smart betters aren't allowed to bet football on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Like when I used to first bet football, draftkings, I used to bet NFL on Tuesdays, Wednesdays. Then draftkings came back to me and they said, no, you were only gonna take your action on Sundays. Right. Because they want the. They want more efficiency in their line before they take a big bet from me. Which is fair enough, Right?

[Bob]

Oh, so the line would move so much by the time Sunday comes around, right?

[Sam]

Yeah, exactly.

[Bob]

Damn, that's interesting.

[Sam]

And I say this when I. When I give, you know, I don't. I don't need to sell sports picks, but when I give my sports picks out for free on my ig, I always say, like, hey, look, just remember the price matters. If there was one game, it was like, where it was the commanders, and I got plus nine and a half and the line closed. Like commanders plus seven and a half plus eight. Those are two different lines. It's a million things that can happen. And when you do sports, you're running Monte Carlo simulations. So just like taking all the data and running sims of what possibly could happen, and you're running thousands and thousands of these sims, so all sorts of scenarios. And then you create. There's a probability distribution curve of the percentage chance it lands on any given game outcome. Right. And so when you think about. There's key numbers, you know, you ever hear about key numbers in NFL and NBA? Like, there's key numbers in NFL. Like 3, 7, 6 has become a key number now. So those numbers have a lot of statistical value. So when you move off of that number, it's a huge change in the delta and percentage of expected value.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

Damn, you're intense with this stuff. Yeah.

[Sam]

There's actually a really good book on it for beginners. I don't even play, you know, I don't get paid to plug anything. Right. But there's. Yeah, it's called. It's by a guy named Matthew Davidow and his partner. I think it's called the logic of Sports Betting. Really good book. It just gives you. It gives you basic tools to understand how to bet Little. If you're betting sports every day or you're doing this just for fun recreationally, it just gives you a little bit of a compass to know. It's like if you're playing blackjack, right. Or if you know that's a bad example if you're shooting dice. Right. Everyone knows you're shooting dice. You're losing long term in the casino. But there's things you can do to massively minimize your loss that you should know about, like max backing the pass line. Right. Because that's an ev neutral bet. Making sure you're getting comps, all that kind of stuff. Making sure you're getting. Instead of 3, 4, 5x odds, 10x odds on the numbers. Right. These things all matter and add up over time. So it's really. I was listening to this conference call for the Wynn back when I was in my early 20s. And they talk about in the high traffic areas, they always put the games that are most advantageous to the casino. So they put like blackjack that pays six to five. Now if you're someone who's pretty knowledgeable at gambling, you'd say, well, where's the three to two blackjack game? Which is a huge difference. And of course they have it there, but it's hidden somewhere in the middle.

[Bob]

Kind of thing in the high roller, right?

[Sam]

Yeah, a lot of times. Yeah. They'll do it for their high limit players.

[Bob]

Yeah, that's right. Palms just brought back three to two blackjack.

[Sam]

That's awesome.

[Bob]

They're trying to revive.

[Sam]

Yeah. The local casinos do a good job of giving higher payout slots. 3 to 2 blackjack, 10x on the odds versus for dice versus 3, 4, 5. Yeah, all those things are very good for the player. Also, I mean, I hate when the casino plays mind games with you. And I know, I own an online casino. Some irony in this, but like when you. But you should just be honest about it, right? When you play commission baccarat and. And a normal person goes, oh no, I have to pay commission. Like this is terrible for me. I'm gonna go play no commission baccarat. But of course, the game mechanics and rules of no commission baccarat are way worse for you than commission bachelor.

[Bob]

Really?

[Sam]

Yeah. Or that you know that when I didn't know that. You know, in 21 there's all those variations of 21, like 21 plus 3 or switch card 21 and stuff. Yeah, those are all way, way, way worse for you mathematically than just regular blackjack.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

So what they do what these game Designers do is they come up with these really clever mechanics that are very appealing to math illiterate people that, you know, just like, you know, enjoy a game, right, and play it. And that's all fine. I mean, if you're playing for entertainment stuff and that you know what you should be doing, then that's fine. But you just need to understand that doing a little bit of homework helps you a very, very long way. Because this stuff all compounds. If you're playing regularly, you should like pay attention to a lot of these things. I gamble regularly, right. I know I'm getting taxed some amount for that over the course of every single year, but I get a lot of perks for it. I get to stay at nice villas, I get to eat at all these nice restaurants in Vegas. And so for me, it's like a small tax to pay. And I enjoy doing it. I do it socially with friends. But I'm playing like the thinnest edge stuff. Like you think about a player like me, I'm playing baccarat. I think what the household on baccarat is like sub 1%. And then I'm getting comps on top of that. And then of course, I've got really high limits, which helps me because I can, I can chase, right? And so the reason why a casino does. Well, casino has a game with a hold or return to player that's in their favor. But it's very thin, right? The percentage is very thin. So the way they get you is they put their max limits low. The delta between the min and the max limits is compressed. So you can't martingale out of it, Right? Martingale, where you double your bet mathematically if there was a big delta between the min and max bet. Let's say the min bet was 100 bucks and the max bet was 100,000. And the casino didn't stop you from martingaleing. I mean, statistically you can martingale your way through most of your life.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

It's actually nuts, right? Until like. Until it doesn't work. Right. But that is like some of these little math tricks is what the secret science found a casino. And then of course there's all the psychology that goes into it. Like UNLV has a gaming institute. And these guys will study the types of things and what their effects on player behavior is. Like the color of the felt, where they put side bets and stuff in games. The lighting in the room, the smells of the room, the music, the. The lighting. Did I say the lighting?

[Bob]

Right? Yeah.

[Sam]

The lighting. Yep. They, they study just kind of like all these different stimuli and their effects on their brain. You, you've heard some of the infamous stuff on the Internet that they pump oxygen. I've heard that and stuff like that.

[Bob]

Is that true?

[Sam]

I don't know. I, I, I've, you know, it's funny, I've worked in casinos a good chunk of my life. I actually have no idea. But it's definitely like when you walk into a casino, it's kind of similar to like walking to a good hotel lobby or you walk into like a, like, like an amusement park, you know, you know that like that smell. Yeah.

[Bob]

You feel it.

[Sam]

Senses get woken up right away. Right. 100% hard asleep inside.

[Bob]

When I walk in the aria, I feel different.

[Sam]

Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

[Bob]

Yeah. It's nuts how they do that. They got it down to a science.

[Sam]

Yeah, they do. They really?

[Bob]

Wow, I didn't know that.

[Sam]

They study everything from like placement of slots, the placement of table games to they, they, they're, they're very quantitative about foot traffic promotions that drive different kinds of foot traffic cross selling. So getting people into the hotel for cheap. But the hotel will be a loss leader. Then get them to, you know, gamble or whatever it is, make food a loss leader and get people to traffic that way. Make a poker room a loss leader, make sports a loss leader. So they're very good about getting you there and then figuring out how they're going to make their money off you. But it's funny, Vegas has evolved like it used to be that Vegas, you would do all these cheap buffets, cheap calm food, all that stuff. Now of course, the, if you look at a pie chart from how Vegas Strip made its money 10 years ago to how they made its money now, it's transformed dramatically. It used to be mostly gaming. Now it's actually mostly FNB and entertainment.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

Yeah, I mean you go eat out all the same places I eat out. Yeah, it's expensive.

[Bob]

Yeah, I'm dropping like 500 bucks if I'm with someone.

[Sam]

Yeah, that never was the case in Vegas 20 years ago. Damn, like $5 taken.

[Bob]

Yeah, I used to love the buffets back in the day.

[Sam]

Yeah, dude, me too.

[Bob]

The one in the wind's decent. The one in Caesar's Palace. Which one is. Yeah, I got the name.

[Sam]

I've never been.

[Bob]

Bacchanal. You've never been a bacchanal?

[Sam]

It's fire.

[Bob]

Oh, fire, bro. But now I go and it doesn't hit the same. Yeah, no, it doesn't Once you've had really good food.

[Sam]

I was. Exactly. I was raised on buffet food.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

I grew up in Vegas and you know, we didn't. We were just middle class family and stuff. So we. We at buffets a lot.

[Bob]

Yeah. I used to sprint to the food man.

[Sam]

Yeah. And unlimited desserts.

[Bob]

Yeah. It was fire. Yeah. I've never seen a casino go out of business out here though, Right. They know their business pretty well.

[Sam]

Mostly. There have been casinos have gone out of business in Vegas, but it's usually just overspending. Right. So, you know, there's. There's been bad projects where they've overspent on the development and stuff. They just never were able to recruit, recoup their capital.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

So there's a couple. And then there's of course, stories of casinos that have been bankrupted by players. So bad risk management on the casino's part.

[Bob]

Yeah. But that hasn't happened in a while though, right?

[Sam]

It hasn't happened a long time.

[Bob]

I feel like that with all the algorithms now they probably can.

[Sam]

They're very. I mean. Well, remember casinos used to mostly be privately held, and I think for the most part, a lot of them around the world are. But in Las Vegas, a lot of these guys are publicly listed. So MGM owns like 30, 40% of the Las Vegas Strip. Caesars owns 30, 40% of the Las vegas Strip. That's 80% of the Vegas Strip. They're both public listed companies. The Wynn owns Wynn and Encore. So that's whatever other percentage of the Vegas strip. Venetian and Palazzo are owned by Apollo Private Equity.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Dude, there's. I can't think of one thing on the strip that's. That's private. Oh, Circus. Circus Zone by Phil Ruffin. Yeah, he's like a multi billion.

[Bob]

They're selling though, right?

[Sam]

It's funny, I was at MGM when we sold it to Phil Ruffin.

[Bob]

Oh, yeah?

[Sam]

Yeah. But I heard, I guess there's rumors.

[Bob]

Going about Disney, right?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

Yeah. Who knows?

[Sam]

I don't know. I don't know the buyers, but yeah, we'll see.

[Bob]

You think Resorts World and Foul Blue are going to survive? They're not profiting right now. Right.

[Sam]

So I think, I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question about whether they're profiting or not. And Resorts World has a parent company as public.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Listed on the Hong Kong Exchange, their Malaysian parent company. I think they are profitable.

[Bob]

Oh, they are.

[Sam]

Oh.

[Bob]

So Vegas policy. You were wrong.

[Sam]

One of my good friends just took over as chairman of Resorts World. Jim Murran, he used to be one of my bosses. Really, really good guy. And he brought in a new team, and I think they're. I think they're doing pretty well. Fountain Blue, I really get. So I like Brett Muffinson a lot. He's a good friend of mine. Yeah, he's part of the ownership group. And I think it's, you know, they just. They spent a lot of money on that property. It's drop dead gorgeous. I don't know if you step.

[Bob]

No, it's.

[Sam]

It's really beautiful.

[Bob]

I go to power slop there.

[Sam]

Yeah, we did a monkey tilt event there. But the thing is, is that whenever you spend the target, the target that a casino is trying to hit is 10 return on investment. So if you spend $4 billion, you're trying to make 400 million of EBITDA a year. Just to give you an idea, I think. And these numbers might be a little stale, so check these numbers for me. But I think the win and encore combined makes 600 million of EBITDA.

[Bob]

Holy crap.

[Sam]

So when you think about that and Bellagio for a long time back when I was looking at this closely, makes. Makes about 500 million of EBITDA. So those are two of like, the highest earning properties on the Las Vegas strip. So you have to kind of like you're spending, I don't know how much Fountain Blue spent on development, but let's just say it was 4 billion. But just fact check that for me. But then they would need to make $400 million.

[Bob]

It's a million profit a day.

[Sam]

It's just hard. Yeah, it's super hard profit too, right?

[Bob]

Yeah. And is that including the restaurants and stuff or.

[Sam]

No, includes everything. Oh, everything includes everything. That's our target.

[Bob]

There are some big spots. Poppy steaks, probably bringing in.

[Sam]

I love David. So, you know, you saw my Socials. David Iron's my guy.

[Bob]

I love that you got the briefcase, so.

[Sam]

Yeah, of course I got the briefcase. He has that. He has that new thing.

[Bob]

What's the new thing?

[Sam]

It's like a carousel. It's like what? It's like, dude, go look at his ig. It's like a carousel. It comes out. It's like a bunch of bottles that come out with like these three big steaks hanging on like a. On like a cart, like a beverage.

[Bob]

Yeah, yeah, we'll throw up a video on this.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

Marketing genius.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

He's charging a thousand bucks for steak man.

[Sam]

And he has. You should get him on your pod. He's.

[Bob]

He's down yeah, we've talked.

[Sam]

Very cool story. He's gonna be in Vegas actually, upcoming this week.

[Bob]

Oh, hell yeah. I'll hit him up. Yeah. Cuz he's killing it. But New Syrette just went under. Did you see that Salt Bay?

[Sam]

I did not see that Salt Bay.

[Bob]

Had a restaurant next to the T Mobile Stadium. Yeah.

[Sam]

And you're saying that restaurant. That specific restaurant closed, went under?

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Bob]

I don't know why. Maybe it was location. That's a tough area.

[Sam]

Where is it?

[Bob]

T Mobile. But you got a. Parking's just a there, dude.

[Sam]

Oh, you mean like right outside of T Mobile? Yeah, that is tough because there's a. There's a Shake Shack there, right?

[Bob]

Yeah, I think so.

[Sam]

Yeah. That's just tough. That's a hard place to be because. Where do you park?

[Bob]

You can't park.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob]

Park at, like, Paris, I guess.

[Sam]

Location.

[Bob]

Yeah. But people are so spoiled. They want to park and just walk in.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

Or valet.

[Sam]

Well, dude, I'm so lazy. Like, I like to go to the wind because it's on the other end of the strip. So you can just. You can sneak in there. Where? And you can sneak off the strip, but if you don't already and stuff, you're in the middle. So when you spit out, you're still.

[Bob]

Stuck in your stock.

[Sam]

All that traffic. So, like, location matters a lot.

[Bob]

Yes. Is when your favorite spot to gamble. Right. Now, I know you got a lot of friends in this industry.

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah, I would just. I have a lot of. You know what? Actually, you. A spot. I don't want to just. Everyone's gonna think I'm getting paid to plug this. I'm not. The spot I like to gamble a lot lately is Durango, actually.

[Bob]

How'd I know you were gonna say that?

[Sam]

I don't know. But, like, I was. I was talking to my guys on my team, and we were walking through Durango on a Sunday. We're like, atmosphere is so pleasant, man. It's so. Everything's so brand new.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And they did such a good job with that property. And it's like, it's got the right mix. I always say a casino has to find that right mix between luxury and then the product for the everyday person. Because even people who like luxury stuff, who are wealthy, still like to feel like normal people. And like, every day go to a. Some go to a food court or, like, pick up a burger or pick up some, like a frozen yogurt or something. It's like Durango's food court. Is fire.

[Bob]

Fire. So Good Herbs Burgers. The pizza spot's good Herbs Burgers is fire.

[Sam]

Yeah, they have this ice cream place that's good. And then, and then what did you say? The pizza place. Pizza. But Prince street, right? Prince Street, Yeah.

[Bob]

You can't eat it.

[Sam]

No, because I'm like, I'm not supposed to eat dairy. Damn. Yeah, it sucks. But, but I still eat ice cream. But the sports book is killer. The sportsbook bar, whatever that thing's called. The George George or something.

[Bob]

I haven't been there.

[Sam]

Yeah. That's unbelievable.

[Bob]

Bel Air Lounge too.

[Sam]

Everyone tells me that I haven't been. Really? Yeah, everyone tells.

[Bob]

It's nice.

[Sam]

But I think Durango is awesome. I mean I, Wynn takes amazing care of me, dude. I just became part of the Chairman Club there.

[Bob]

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. What is that? I never heard.

[Sam]

Um, it's, it's, it's like the MX Black card, right? It's like an invite only program. They do it for their like top customers. Um, I've been playing at the Wind, dude, since it. I guess. How old am I? So. Since I was 21. I guess so.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

Yeah, 14 years or something. So they do a good, they know how to treat players and then they're opening up zero bond. So they're tying like zero bond into, you know, the Chairman's Club and that kind of stuff. So I think, and I like how they've done their, the way Wynn's done their development. Like they brought in Earth Cafe from la. They brought in Ciprianis. They brought in a lot of these cool little Delilah or is Delilah's. Yeah. Pop in. So I think Wynn has, whoever does their FNB in retail has a very good grasp on what's relevant, what's cool.

[Bob]

Crushed it. Yeah.

[Sam]

And so they're, they're like, you know, they're the marquee, you know, spot still on the Las Vegas Strip. And then Durango is just so cool for a local spot. Like I, I, Dude, I'm, I live not far. I live not far from the Strip. I live like 3 minute drive from the wind.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And so driving to Durango is a real pain in my ass.

[Bob]

It's a hike for you.

[Sam]

Yeah, it is. But I still go.

[Bob]

Damn. Yeah. Durango just feels cle. That's where all the, the Nelk boys gamble too, right? Steve and stuff?

[Sam]

Yeah, I think so. Steve and stuff. I, I've gamble with Steve there and at, at Red Rock.

[Bob]

Oh yeah.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

How'd you guys do that day that.

[Sam]

Was that day that Steve was down a huge number and we were trying to claw back. So, yeah, I've done well, actually. Durango, dude, I've done really well. Really? Yeah. You know, that's just variance. It's just statistical variance. But I've done really well at Durango. Had a much harder time at Wynn.

[Bob]

Well, their odds are probably better than Strip places, I'd imagine right off. Strip.

[Sam]

Yeah. And they comp better too. But the problem is, like, what do you, what do you want the comps for at the end of the day is, you know, so like the win, you know, you can spend those comp dollars at Delilah or at the golf club or, you know, they've got a lot of good assets for you to spend that currency on.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

Durango, like, Durango's good. Like, you know, I, you know, but I don't need them to comp herbs burgers, you know, or, like, I don't want to, like, stay in a room at Durango. Right. But, but like, you know, like, that's why I like playing it like, like in my family. Really? Like staying at MGM Mansions.

[Bob]

Yeah, I heard those are nice, dopest products.

[Sam]

Like, the butler service is incredible. It's like, dude, you walk into that courtyard and there's like a smell. They, like, spray the smell and, oh, my God, it's so beautiful and, like, peaceful. You're almost like, not in Vegas. Yeah, like a waterfall in the middle. They have a private Chinese restaurant that's really good.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

And so when you stay at Mansions, like, my family, like, staying at Mansions, so, so I'm like, okay, well, I can use my MGM comp dollars at Mansions when, you know, we throw, throw this fantasy party every year. We throw it at the Wind Villas and stuff. So, you know, that's kind of how you think, but I, you know, I'm not gonna stay in a Durango room, or I, I, I've eaten at Nicos. Nicos is pretty good.

[Bob]

That's the Italian one or the, or the steakhouse. Yeah, I don't know. Actually, I went to some restaurant there. I thought it might, might have been something else, but.

[Sam]

Yeah, but that the Durango team's good.

[Bob]

Yeah, I actually like for staycations. My favorite spot is Venetian.

[Sam]

Really?

[Bob]

Yeah. Have you stayed there?

[Sam]

Never stayed there.

[Bob]

All the rooms are sweet.

[Sam]

That's awesome.

[Bob]

Yeah. So it's like.

[Sam]

And then what do you do there when you, when you staycation?

[Bob]

I mean, Venetian has some good restaurants. If I had to, like, pick a hotel for favorite restaurants, it's Venetian.

[Sam]

Yeah. Ha. Salon is in there. Ha.

[Bob]

Salon. You got Mott 32.

[Sam]

Yeah. Matthew is fire.

[Bob]

That's my favorite Asian spot in Vegas.

[Sam]

Order the duck ahead of time.

[Bob]

Yeah, you got to order the duck there. They got me lows. They got. They got fire, man.

[Sam]

Yeah, you're right.

[Bob]

Yeah. Export, if you like hot pot.

[Sam]

Oh, I've eaten at xpot before.

[Bob]

It's really good banging, bro.

[Sam]

Do they still have that. That karaoke spot in there?

[Bob]

Karaoke?

[Sam]

Yeah, this little karaoke spot that they were trying to blow up. Kind of similar.

[Bob]

Oh, I think it's there. I haven't been, though.

[Sam]

It used to be a spot.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Or coveted it. Like, it was really popular.

[Bob]

Yeah. They got a new dart spot if you're in the darts.

[Sam]

Never done darts. Really? Yeah, I did. I tried. I tried ax throwing with my team.

[Bob]

It's actually hard. Right?

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

I couldn't even get the thing to stick.

[Sam]

Me neither.

[Bob]

Yeah. Ax throwing is no joke. Yeah. Shout out to those guys.

[Sam]

Yeah. 100.

[Bob]

Yeah, but no, Venetian's a sleeper, man.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Bob]

If you had to pick one hotel, like, to stay at. What's your favorite one?

[Sam]

Mansions.

[Bob]

Mjm.

[Sam]

It's not even close actually, because of the wind. The wind. I was gonna. I was thinking wind villas, but then I thought their butler services. Nowhere near the mansions. Like, I'm talking, dude mansions. There's like stuff I can say in the pond and stuff. I can't stand the pod. But, like, mansions is like, there's nothing that they won't do for you. Like, like you. You can be. You're in your room. You're in, like, the hot tub. Like, there's a hot tub in the. Like in the. Somewhere in the middle. It's like a ginormous hot tub, like, bigger than the size of this table. And like, you're in the room and then they're. They're like putting out fruit platters for you. They're hanging all these nice robes that, like, just came out of some, like, hot robe. They've got like, the attention to detail, the luxury, like, six star stuff that, like, it's just crazy. And they'll. They'll come in if you, like. You just walk in there with the clothes on your back. Whatever you need, they got it for you. Swimsuit, no problem. You need. I don't know, I'm just making like. You need workout clothes. No problem. They got it. Do you want. You know what's funny with me? I like the StairMaster.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Love hitting the StairMaster in the morning. When I come in, they put a stairmaster in my room for me in. In like my room. They buy it. They go and buy a brand new StairMaster and then put it in my room.

[Bob]

That's crazy.

[Sam]

And then my girlfriend really likes flowers, so they know the exact types of flowers she likes. They put them in every room.

[Bob]

No way.

[Sam]

You know the exact type of food we like.

[Bob]

Dude, that's insane.

[Sam]

They'll work with. If you have a chef you like somewhere in like the country or the world, they'll talk to that chef ahead of time and like pay them to get the ingredients and recipes. I mean, they are. There is no.

[Bob]

That's crazy. How much a night is this spot?

[Sam]

They don't. They don't, you know.

[Bob]

Oh, you can't just get it online.

[Sam]

They don't.

[Bob]

You got. It's invite only type stuff. Is it for the nor members?

[Sam]

They can't. They charge you a comprehy for the biggest room there is comprehensive, like 30,000 a night.

[Bob]

Oh my gosh.

[Sam]

But I know the end. I don't know what the entry is, but they. It's just comp. So who knows, right? I don't think they sell the room.

[Bob]

Wow. I wonder how many of them there are. There can't be too many of them.

[Sam]

28.

[Bob]

28. And they're. Are they all like by each other?

[Sam]

Like, they're all very private. They're all kind of there, you know, Very, very private. Although one time. I know I can't tell the story. Well, you have to say one time, One time we were. We were like having a great party in the room and we get a knock on the door. It's a very, very, very famous rapper.

[Bob]

Oh yeah.

[Sam]

Thought it was his room. And we're like, oh no. But then I was. Hey, can I take a quick pick?

[Bob]

Yeah. I think Mickey Mace used to stay there when he was gambling a lot, right?

[Sam]

Oh, I don't know. I don't know Mickey.

[Bob]

Oh, okay. Have you gambled with him at all? I don't know really.

[Sam]

I've never met him.

[Bob]

Damn. I'm surprised. You guys probably know a lot of the same people.

[Sam]

Yeah, probably a lot of mutual friends. I've never met him.

[Bob]

Yeah, Banks.

[Sam]

Banks is one of my friends.

[Bob]

Oh yeah?

[Sam]

Yeah, he's a mutual friend.

[Bob]

See? Big on gambling.

[Sam]

Gambles, but I think he's big on it.

[Bob]

Yeah. I think crypto is a form of gambling. Right.

[Sam]

It's very debatable.

[Bob]

Meme coins.

[Sam]

It's very, very debatable. I would argue. Yes.

[Bob]

I Would for meme coins. 100%. It's not even. Yeah, it's not even a question with Meme Coins, I agree. But for bitcoin, I guess you could see that as an investment.

[Sam]

Yeah, bitcoin's like a store of values. It's highly volatile.

[Bob]

Yeah, I know. You come from crypto a little bit, right?

[Sam]

Yeah, I, yeah, I do. So I built. If you think about Monkey Till, it's my third business in crypto as a startup. Like my first business I ever co founded was a company called Manifold Trading. It was a quantitative high frequency hedge fund in crypto. So my whole thing with crypto has been what do I think are the biggest use cases of crypto? The number one biggest thing was, did you, did you study abroad when you were in college?

[Bob]

I didn't. I wish I did actually.

[Sam]

So when I, when I studied abroad, one of the most stressful moments for me I remember was this one time when I needed money for something. And of course, no, I mean, you know, all your friends aren't gonna give you money, so you need your parents to send you money. And my dad didn't know how to send me money quick enough. It was like a three, four day delay or something like that.

[Bob]

This was before Venmo.

[Sam]

Yeah. No, no, but Venmo doesn't exist outside the us.

[Bob]

Oh really?

[Sam]

Yeah, yeah. So what? Yes, if you're in, if you're in Australia, a lot of Americans don't like real. Right. You're in another country. Like moving money from one country to another country is not instant, it's a delay. It's like a multi day delay. And I guess it depends, there's different services and stuff, but it is like, it takes time, right? And there's FX rates and transaction fees and all that kind of stuff. And sometimes back in the day, people used to use, what's that one? Cash, Western Union or something.

[Bob]

Yeah, Western Cash, yeah, I use that.

[Sam]

There's all sorts of different ways to move money cross borders, but it's all extremely expensive and takes a lot of time. So the number one use case for crypto is just money transmission. Right. Like if I, my daughters are in Australia and they need, I don't know, $5,000, I can send them Ethan ERC20 and it'll be there in two minutes, probably less. Right. But that's incredible. And then I think the second best use case for crypto is gambling. I mean, so you know what I mean, the store of value thing, I believe with bitcoin, I do believe bitcoin is a good store of value. It's. I guess you can believe in Bitcoin as much as you can believe in any fiat currency. Right. It makes sense. Or as you can believe in gold. But I think for some, for whatever reason, crypto as a basket trades as like a hyper beta index to tech in the US So when tech's hurting, crypto tends to hurt and when tech's doing well, crypto tends to do really well.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

So I, you know, I own a lot of crypto, as you can imagine. I also own a lot of gold. Right. And. Yeah, but. Oh, sorry, we were talking about my startup. So Manifold is a quantity of high frequency hedge fund. Then I spun a piece of technology out of that called Aether and then I sold Aether. So that's Monkey Tilt's my third company.

[Bob]

Damn. And it's a crypto casino.

[Sam]

Yeah, I think of it as like a crypto. It is right now it has a casino. Right. But over time I think of it as like a risk taking platform where I think all these things that you correctly identify are risky. Right. Or take some meme coins, collectibles like trading cards. Like we know when you buy a pack of trading cards, I don't know how many people are buying packs of trading cards to just hold the cards and put them on their wall. Like I think a lot of people hope they get that big $10,000 card, $100,000 card, whatever it is. So in some way that's gambling. Right. You know what I mean? You open a pack of cards or whatever and it's, it's a multi billion dollar a year business. Right. And so I believe that all of these things are risk taking whether they regulate them as gambling or not, you know, whatever. I'll let the regulators decide that. But, but I think they should all live on one platform tied together by one wallet and one rewards currency. Because how cool would it be if when anything you like to keep your dollars spent at one place that takes good care of you. So if you're a good customer at Monkey Till and you mess with collectibles on our platform, you trade crypto on our platform, crypto perps, you bet sports, you play casino, you play poker. These are all the product verticals we plan to introduce then. Now all of your sp, you could have been trading crypto on binance and you could have been doing collectibles and cards with fanatics or whatever. But if you're doing this on the Monkey Tilt ecosystem now all of a sudden you might be level One or two or any of those places, you know, all individually. But now at monkey tilt, you're level five on the rewards tier. And now all of a sudden you're getting free UFC tickets, free Formula one passes, all that kind of stuff. And I think that that's overall a better value proposition for the customer.

[Bob]

100%.

[Sam]

It's very. And I'm sure you know this because you dabble with a lot of stuff. It's very disaggregated. Right. It's like if I think about crypto, I've got some money on chain, I've got some money on centralized exchanges. I'm trading, you know, meme coins through telegram bots. That is my Solana wallets linked into. I'm using Dex screener to check, you know, the activity I'm betting sports on. You name it. Any of the list of guys you were just rattling off, I'm playing casino. I don't play casino online. I mostly played in real life. Right. And all these different prices. So like, you think about that and you're like, man, there's a lot of wasted rewards currency, a lot.

[Bob]

Yeah, it's all over the place.

[Sam]

Yeah. And rewards. And everyone knows this. Any, any good if you study reward systems? I, I'm fascinated. It's like one of my nerdy things is about studying reward systems. I don't know if you ever went deep down the whole.

[Bob]

I haven't.

[Sam]

Credit card reward systems, reward systems. There's. Dude, there's like, there are people who just do ridiculous amounts. Now you have chat GPT. Chat GPT. But before on the Internet, there's just all over these people hacking these systems. Right. But the overarching theme of these systems is that the rewards get infinitely better as the closer you get to the top.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

So the closer you get to the top, the higher the reinvestment in the customer is. Because the theory is acquiring a high value customer like that is going to cost so much money. So once you acquire them, you don't want to lose them. So you're willing to give that customer so much higher of a percentage back than you would to any of the customers lower down the ladder. Because ergo, should be easier and easier to acquire that each tier of customer as you go lower down the ladder. But that top echelon of customer, you don't want to lose. So you're almost willing to make it a super, super low margin proposition for you. So as a customer, you want to be able to consolidate all of your points into one ecosystem and run up the rewards ladder as quickly as possible. So that's what I'm trying to do at Monkey Tail is given all in one platform for risk taking.

[Bob]

Wow.

[Sam]

Regulation makes it really tough because different, different countries regulate different pieces of those products. Some of the products they call financial services, some of the products are like trading cards aren't even regulated. Some of the products like NFTs aren't regulated. Spitting is highly regulated. High casino is the most regulated.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

So it's hard to put all of them on one platform, but we're trying.

[Bob]

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a nightmare logistically. Holy crap.

[Sam]

Yeah. It's expensive.

[Bob]

Yeah. Because you got customers all over the world, right?

[Sam]

We do, yeah.

[Bob]

Damn. So what's. Is there a reward system in place right now at all or you're still.

[Sam]

And right now? No, there is one. It's really, really generous and it's. It's mostly focused on reinvestment back into the dollars on the platform. And then we take care of our VIPs and soft comp dollars in all sorts of ways. I mean, you were at our Formula one party. Throw a Super bowl party. Bought a big old to the Super Bowl.

[Bob]

You went hard. You gave away a million at that, right?

[Sam]

Yeah, I gave away another million dollars on top. For the Valentine's Day thing. We did a million dollar safe crack opening things. We do things like that all the time. I think the stuff like the million dollar Valentine's Day race is more targeted at VIPs and then stuff like the million dollar safe is more targeted at the everyday customer.

[Bob]

Yeah, yeah. It's smart that you take care of VIPs because you see that happens in Vegas. And that's why these casinos cr.

[Sam]

I mean, I am a VIP customer. Right. So I treat those VIPs the way that I would want to be treated. Needed. Yeah, that was. That's what matters.

[Bob]

Yeah. What's next for Monkey Tail? Anything fun this year?

[Sam]

We. I mean, just that, you know, we. We're doing a lot of the stuff I'm excited about. We're partnering with some very new personalities. Our product roadmap's super aggressive. So we're obviously introducing a ton of stuff on the crypto trading front, on the poker front, on the collectibles front. So whether those all come out all this year or a little bit bleed into next year, we're excited about them. And then I think just some of the stuff we do. So, you know, the content's been so much fun. That's been the new thing for me because I've Been such a private person, but the things we're doing on YouTube and social media and stuff, the different channels that were popping up, the podcast, the. The Golf channel, all this stuff, we're just gonna keep doing that and keep having more fun with it.

[Bob]

Yeah, yeah. What made you want to step out? Because you've been behind the scenes your whole life.

[Sam]

My whole life, yeah. Actually, the feedback was. It's funny, they just interviewed the guys who founded Stake recently.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

This is a really good article. The feedback from our customers was we feel more comfortable gambling and putting money on a platform where there's a face associated with it. So, like, we know the guy, we know his story. And I'm sympathetic to that.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

Because at the end of the day, if something goes wrong, at least they have someone to go after. They know I'm out there. Right. And so it's like, it's fair enough. I think that my customers deserve that level of accountability, and it's what I would also want as a customer. So it makes a lot of sense now. It came at some cost to me because it's not something I'm not used to having a public social media or anything like that, but it's been fun and I've just tried to lean in and appreciate the positive elements of it, which is just having fun, having some visibility. Now I go and gamble and people want to gamble with me and wow. I take pictures of me gambling and stuff.

[Bob]

Yeah, that's cool.

[Sam]

It's really funny.

[Bob]

Man. Those state guys crushed it.

[Sam]

They murdered it.

[Bob]

I don't. I don't know how they're doing still, but I know back in the day, other. Still crushing.

[Sam]

Yeah, still crushing it. They're focused on Kick now, that streaming platform.

[Bob]

Right. That was an interesting ticket for them.

[Sam]

Just as a cash cow at this point.

[Bob]

Well, that was probably a smart move because they were banned everywhere. Right. You couldn't post about them.

[Sam]

Yeah, it was weird. It. Twitch, like, kicked them off the platform. They weren't deplatform them. And I don't know if that's because of gambling or if it's just because of them. I don't know. I really don't know. But. But they had to create Kick almost out of necessity. I think their story is that they were gonna do it anyways or they were thinking about doing anyways and then getting deplatformed off of Twitch just accelerated. Yeah.

[Bob]

And partnering with streamers was a brilliant model.

[Sam]

Yes, 100% agree. I think Rubet maybe did that a little bit before them, but Stake, definitely. What Stake did a good job of doing is partnering with really big brand name celebrities. So even before the streamers, the Drakes, the Izzy Adesanyas, I mean they did a phenomenal job of just branding before those kind of offshore casinos and stuff. They didn't, they didn't do any branding.

[Bob]

Yeah, they were just, they were sketchy, right?

[Sam]

Yeah, sketchy fly by night operations. And so Stake did a good job of like, you know, resetting what expectations? I mean they created original games, they created insight chat, they created social communities through discord and Reddit and stuff like that. So they set the bar and then now it's on us. Like it's on people like monkeys, like new entrants to the market. It's on us to, to compete with them and find new and inventive ways to accommodate the customer and create new product experiences for the customer. But it's also fun. You know, they've, at the same time they do a really good job of being like the Costco of online gambling. They just squeeze and squeeze and squeeze the margins. So they make it really, really hard for new people to enter the market. And I have all the fucking respect in the world for that.

[Bob]

Really. How did they squeeze the margins?

[Sam]

Well, they just give more and more back to the player.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

So they make it, they make it like very hard for you to steal players from them.

[Bob]

Damn.

[Sam]

Yeah. And I think that's a super clever operating model. So that of course forces us to do the same to match those, which makes it very hard for us to make money for some amount of time. But the good news is for people like me, I have a track record of being a successful operator. So I couldn't do it with my own balance sheet alone, but with my investors balance sheets and with the backing I have that I can take on someone like Stake. And we're not taking them, we're not trying to win number one in the market. But we think there's going to be a top five in the market. So Monkey Tilt's goal is to be a number two or three in the market.

[Bob]

I love that. Yeah. Because to open this it must be really capital intensive.

[Sam]

It's very mostly on the marketing side because what happens is you go to enter a new market and I mean you're well aware because you're in the social media game, affiliate channels get very expensive. Right. So if you're marketing keywords, Stake's buying all the same keywords as you. Right. So you're going after. Okay, keywords, you can't do that. You go to find paid affiliate traffic, Stake's gonna pay a lot more for that affiliate traffic than you're gonna be able to pay right out of the gate.

[Bob]

Right.

[Sam]

You talk about things like celebrity endorsement deals and sponsorships that they're gonna be able to throw a lot more money at, but eventually then that becomes the big guy starts overspending and it becomes very ROI backwards for them. And they'll do that to some level until they can crowd out the market, and then they have to go back to making money. I look at this and I go. Rather than trying to take them head on in their own game, we try to take a very differentiated approach. I think you notice that our brand is very different than sticks. We're fun, we're degenerate.

[Bob]

You're more laid back.

[Sam]

Yeah, I feel so too. I feel like we're a little less corporate and we're a little more fun. And I do feel that our channels and the way we touch our customers very different than the way that, you know, that they go about it. So I have all the respect in the world for those two. And they're also young, Right. So when they founded this company, they were very, very young. So enormous amount of respect for that. I never met either of them, funnily.

[Bob]

Enough, but they're in Australia, right?

[Sam]

Yeah. But one of them, Bij, is American and Eddie's Australian, and then Bij moved to Australia. Yeah, but they are just. Yeah, they've built an absolute operational powerhouse.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And so now it's my job to go build a formidable competitor to them in the market.

[Bob]

Yeah, I remember they were kind of low key for a bit and then their houses got leaked.

[Sam]

Yeah. That's how they became public. Yeah, Well, I guess. No, they became public through Drake. Through the Drake.

[Bob]

Yeah.

[Sam]

And then. And then they bought like Eddie started buying every 50 million dollar house you could buy in two rags.

[Bob]

Well, the Drake stuff, allegedly. Right. A billion dollar contract, something crazy. I don't know the exact number.

[Sam]

No one knows, right, Hunter?

[Bob]

Mil or whatever.

[Sam]

Yeah, no one knows. But I'm sure it's a huge number.

[Bob]

That's nuts. Yeah, well, dude, it's been cool. Where could people. People keep up with you?

[Sam]

Yeah, absolutely, man. I appreciate it.

[Bob]

Yeah. What's your social media?

[Sam]

Social media is at senor tilt on Instagram and I don't know. Yeah, just add scenario tilt on that.

[Bob]

We'll link it below. Yeah. All right, thanks for watching, guys. Thanks.