[HN Gopher] DraftKings: a $21B SPAC betting it can hide its blac...
___________________________________________________________________
DraftKings: a $21B SPAC betting it can hide its black market
operations
Author : samizdis
Score : 148 points
Date : 2021-06-15 12:43 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hindenburgresearch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hindenburgresearch.com)
| clusterhacks wrote:
| Maybe companies that went public via SPAC are going to become
| attractive targets for short sellers? I know Matt Levine has been
| writing about how SPACs can market their "upside" without the
| normal scrutiny that an IPO would bring.
|
| Any of our HN readers playing around with shorting the stock of
| public companies as an individual investor?
| gregwebs wrote:
| Shorting is a more time consuming investment approach. You need
| high conviction to open a PUT without owning a CALL or the
| stock as well.
|
| One thing I have learned is that a SPAC or any company with a
| low stock price may have low liquidity, particularly for
| longer-dated options. This risks making a short position
| dramatically less profitable. So SPACs end up not being the
| gold mine for shorts that you might expect.
|
| For me a short position is not about speculating but instead
| about being strategically "long volatility". Which means you
| can actually make money when the rest of your stocks (which are
| "short volatility") are tanking and provide a better return for
| your portfolio. So I now try to always have PUTs open (along
| with CALLs that balance each other out).
|
| Don't buy your short position with margin: that introduces
| short volatility to what should be a long volatility position.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Any of our HN readers playing around with shorting the stock
| of public companies as an individual investor?
|
| This seems really risky without any institutional backing. If
| the market is volatile or "irrational" (WSB + GME for example),
| you can be margin called and lose a lot of money even if you're
| _eventually_ right. Unlike a normal equity you can 't just hold
| your short through volatility.
| gregwebs wrote:
| You can buy a long-term short with cash rather than margin.
| You can hold onto such an option until it expires. Options
| have a reputation for risk, but this mostly seems to come
| back to using margin.
| earnesti wrote:
| They should have raised ICO instead.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| Are you aware of any ICOs that have raised a cool $21B?
| samizdis wrote:
| > Unbeknownst to investors, DraftKings' merger with SBTech also
| brings exposure to extensive dealings in black-market gaming,
| money laundering and organized crime.
|
| > Based on conversations with multiple former employees, a review
| of SEC & international filings, and inspection of back-end
| infrastructure at illicit international gaming websites, we show
| that SBTech has a long and ongoing record of operating in black
| markets.
|
| > Contrary to representations made to Oregon's state lottery, a
| former employee told us SBTech had extensive operations in Iran,
| violating local laws in a market subject to heavy U.S. sanctions.
| We were told SBTech knowingly operated there for 4-5 years with
| the founder directly overseeing the operation.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Perfectly legal gaming operations outside of the USA have been
| considered illicit and had employees arrested.
|
| The US does seem to have a lot of puritan hang-ups not helped
| by local gambling monopolys.
|
| Surprised that draft kings don't go with one of the UK online
| gaming firms.
| adamrezich wrote:
| on the other hand, when I visited Ireland a couple years ago
| I was kind of shocked at how common sports betting
| establishments were there, much like you'd see payday loan-
| type places here in poorer areas of the States
| [deleted]
| vmception wrote:
| More black market companies should be publicly traded so that
| exposure and price discovery is established. Or certain
| categories of vices whether they are legal or illegal in their
| jurisdiction.
|
| Whats the revenue multiple or the price to equity ratio on a
| brothel? If you don't know, thats the reason to float those
| shares.
|
| People treat being publicly traded as a reward, and thats the
| mistake that clouds their judgement.
| driverdan wrote:
| Better yet, stop making these things illegal and let
| individuals live their lives the way they want.
| sbarre wrote:
| Yes of course because the world is really that simple.
| vmception wrote:
| Hopefully replaced with better consumer and worker
| protections.
| NationalPark wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure DraftKing's organized crime partners will
| totally respect the NAP. Or GAAP.
| ldh wrote:
| This is usually the part of the discussion where we get to
| have a laugh about "private courts".
| driverdan wrote:
| Legalizing prostitution, drug use, and gambling would
| eliminate most of organized crime.
| rchaud wrote:
| Isn't that why Las Vegas exists?
| chrisgd wrote:
| I don't know enough about online gaming in Asia to be informed,
| though some of it looks suspicious. The Iran talking point is
| strange-They discovered it, shut it down and moved on it seems.
| The talking points of selling shares is stupid-that is the point
| of being public so you can start selling stock. And transferring
| shares to a trust doesn't relieve the trust of public reporting
| requirements when the insider is still responsible for the trust.
| Valuations for a lot of companies are strange but being valued at
| 2x a peer when it has agreements with the NFL is not absurd.
| adventured wrote:
| Hindenburg got a decent hit with Nikola, they have to keep
| constantly producing those or their business will vanish very
| rapidly.
|
| It frequently happens with short-focused groups. There are
| dramatically fewer hits to be had on the short side of the sort
| like Nikola, than there are hits to be had on the long side
| (you could have practically closed your eyes and tossed darts
| at cloud stocks and hit homerun after homerun after homerun for
| the past decade). Inevitably short groups get desperate and
| overreach, constantly walking the line between revealing
| something legitimately suspicious and conjuring a fake short
| tale (they do that through blending the story, one part
| something bad, three or four parts bull, and the one bad thing
| is meant to fool people into believing it's all super bad).
| Which isn't to suggest that shorts are any worse than lying
| pumpers / bulls that blast positive propaganda all over the
| Internet, rather, it's that there are always far fewer short
| homeruns to be had inherently (outside of comprehensive black
| swan events like the banking & housing crisis). As such the
| shorts are stuck in a far more difficult segment with fewer
| legitimate targets, and I think it pushes them toward
| desperation more often than almost anywhere else (perhaps
| outside of penny stock pumpers).
| elliekelly wrote:
| > And transferring shares to a trust doesn't relieve the trust
| of public reporting requirements when the insider is still
| responsible for the trust.
|
| It looks like TFA author is correct that they structured the
| transfer specifically to avoid Meckenzie or the trust falling
| within the definition of "beneficial ownership" that would
| trigger a 13D reporting obligation and since they transferred
| 0.7% of outstanding shares (less than 1% with a bit of wiggle
| room for market movement) I'm assuming the shares were
| transferred to an irrevocable trust so they'd be outside the
| scope of Form 4 unless he's serving as trustee which is
| unlikely (although, not entirely impossible) judging by the way
| the disclosure is phrased in his SEC filing:
|
| > On May 26, 2021, Mr. Meckenzie transferred his beneficial
| interest in 19,075,875 shares of Common Stock (the "Shares")
| for no consideration to a trust for the benefit of his spouse
| and children and remoter issue and for which an independent
| trustee has been appointed (the "Trust"), and the Trust
| immediately transferred the Shares to a company (the "Company")
| wholly-owned by the Trust (the "Transfers"). Mr. Meckenzie does
| not exercise voting or dispositive power over the Shares or
| have a right to reacquire the Shares. As a result of the
| Transfers, Mr. Meckenzie no longer has or shares, directly or
| indirectly, voting or investment power over the Shares.
|
| If he's acting as co-trustee alongside an independent trustee
| and phrasing it in such a way to insinuate he's not at all
| involved that would be _very_ shady indeed.
| freshhawk wrote:
| Aren't SPACs just nonoperating shell companies that own only
| cash? I thought the whole point of them was to be allowed to
| disclose nothing and report nothing.
| chrisgd wrote:
| In the merger process, the target can issue more information
| and forward projections. In an IPO, you cannot issue forward
| projections. The point of the SPAC is to take companies
| public that are more forward oriented. As they are learning
| though, it is hard to be a publicly traded company. You still
| have to comply with regular SEC requirements once the merger
| is complete.
| jollybean wrote:
| I love Hindenberg reports. Their 'releases' are more exciting
| than most things I can think of.
| hogFeast wrote:
| There are quite a few mistakes here.
|
| 1) These markets aren't "black market"...they are unregulated.
| Operating in unregulated markets is fairly normal, investors
| don't like it because it is risky but there are other operators
| doing this (Entain is one). 2) It is also fairly normal to white
| label your product in Asia. Betfair does this, almost everyone
| does this because the Asian market is the largest in the world.
| Again, totally unregulated but it is not particularly shady
| (there are larger gambling companies than DraftKings in Asia
| owned by individuals). 3) The FBI has repeatedly accused people
| in this business of being linked to the Triads. So far, this has
| been unproved but, whether this is true or not, these businesses
| are legitimate and are some of the largest gambling companies in
| the world.
|
| I don't doubt that the merger pre-listing is suspicious, this is
| why SPACs aren't a very good idea. I don't doubt that DK is an
| overpriced PoS (their marketing RoI is terrible). But, as ever,
| much of what people just coming to the industry write is nonsense
| (and usually related to whether they grew up somewhere where
| gambling was illegal...the ironic thing about the weird moralism
| about gambling in the US is that the unregulated companies are
| usually far more ethical than firms operating in the US).
| sQL_inject wrote:
| For those of you not familiar, Hindenburg Research has done a
| riveting, blistering critique and 'takedown' of the sham company
| "Nikola."
|
| Highly recommend the read: https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/
| erhk wrote:
| They also profit immensely off of these "takedown" articles.
| bob33212 wrote:
| It would be a pretty stupid business plan to do a ton of fake
| research about a company just to make a quick buck off the
| initial drop in the stock. If NKLA turned out to be a great
| company that was on their way to huge success the researchers
| would look incompetent, regardless of if they made any money
| off of shorts.
| intro-b wrote:
| welcome to the world of activist investing
| sQL_inject wrote:
| I don't see this as a conflict of interest or foul play if
| their assertions are correct and truthful, although I get a
| sense of your potential hesitation with the practice.
|
| To abstract it a bit for the sake of argument: the police
| profit from policing, and can continue to do so as long as it
| remains a societal net good -- if it tips into nepotism then
| of course it should be corrected.
|
| I view these sorts of firms as a mechanism of reversion to
| the mean.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Of course, should they not get compensated for calling out
| fraud and protecting investors?
|
| "Infamous" short sellers play a big part in public market
| ethics after all - contrary to current Reddit sentiment. The
| real villains hide behind anonymous forums like WSB, using
| social media media to pump and dump stocks and change the
| public narrative.
|
| Hindenburg also published this piece to emphasize the
| importance and dispel the negativity of short sellers
| https://hindenburgresearch.com/clover/
| vmception wrote:
| A catalyst towards proper price discovery and liquidity.
| These are correctly aligned incentives.
|
| If the entire market doesn't care, as it shouldn't, then its
| merely informative and helps more investors be aware of the
| great revenue printer.
|
| If the market freaks out because they think others will freak
| out, those traders are the stupid ones and Hindenburg played
| the gullible people.
|
| From what I read, the money losing company will likely have
| some brand conscious companies disassociate, while the money
| winning company will continue printing revenue.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Of course. Why else would they publish them?
| [deleted]
| aerovistae wrote:
| I interviewed at DraftKings and didn't like it.
| socialist_coder wrote:
| Why?
| genpfault wrote:
| Since TFA never got around to it...
|
| SPAC: special-purpose acquisition company[1]
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special-
| purpose_acquisition_co...
| ggggtez wrote:
| > roughly 50% of SBTech's revenue continues to come from markets
| where gambling is banned
|
| Yeah, duh. Isn't that the whole point?
| Animats wrote:
| First lawsuit filed.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.frankcruzlaw.com/cases/draftkings-inc/
| mgh2 wrote:
| Disney has also invested in Draftings and is the reason why they
| changed their anti gambling stance.
|
| I am no longer a Disney fan, considering their influence on
| children and families
|
| https://www.lineups.com/betting/how-disney-became-a-part-own...
|
| Note: I can't blame them after their resorts closed due to COVID,
| they were pressured by investors to ramp up profit - ex:
| canceling stock dividends, investing heavily in Disney+ content,
| get into sports gambling. But being so close to children (family
| values), having their corporate values corrupted was a big
| disappointment.
| mgh2 wrote:
| * this comment is at risk of offending some Disney fans
| cwkoss wrote:
| I haven't been a disney fan for a while, because their
| lobbyists are arguably the primary reason copyright terms have
| been extended to such absurd lengths: they want complete
| control of the mouse.
|
| Steamboat Willie was created in 1928. It won't enter public
| domain until 2024 (assuming Disney isn't successful in
| extending copyright yet again...)
|
| Disney raided the public domain to build it's animated films
| empire, then pulled up the drawbridge to the magic kingdom
| behind themselves.
| vmception wrote:
| Disney isn't pursuing copyright extensions again,
| specifically because people noticed.
|
| How does that make you feel?
| cwkoss wrote:
| Cautiously optimistic
| vmception wrote:
| That their behavior is tied to people noticing what
| they're up to?
| pjc50 wrote:
| Isn't that true of a lot of people and companies?
| moate wrote:
| Yea, just not the ones we should want to support.
|
| Accepting that there are bad actors and actively
| supporting them are 2 different activities.
| adamrezich wrote:
| "I'll believe it when I see it"
| fedreserved wrote:
| Steam boat willy doesn't bring in any $$$. When one of the
| early classics that still sells (Bambi, snow white, etc)
| comes up please believe an extension is right around the
| corner
| teruakohatu wrote:
| I agree with you that they will want an extension before
| Bambi, but Steamboat Willie does bring in money. When it
| goes public domain so does the original Micky and Minnie
| Mouse. In 2025 you could produce a non-Disney Micky Mouse
| movie.
|
| And they do sell steamboat merch, or have in the recent
| past:
|
| https://www.lego.com/en-nz/product/steamboat-willie-21317
|
| I don't see it going into the public domain. Steamboat
| Willie should have entered public domain in 1956 and
| Disney keeps winning.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Forget mere investments, there are several Disney-property
| games on the App Store right now that include gambling
| mechanics. The sooner this stuff gets the same regulatory
| treatment as traditional gambling the better.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| When were their corporate values not corrupted? Walt Disney was
| a Nazi sympathizer [1] in manners that seem a lot less family
| friendly than a token investment from one entertainment company
| into another. I agree with you that it's still not a great look
| for a supposedly family friendly company to do. What I question
| is whether it ever was very family friendly to begin with
| rather than simply family targeted.
|
| [1] https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/walt-disney/walt-
| the-...
| erhk wrote:
| I would never allow myself to trust in a publicly traded
| company to uphold any values.
| rodgerd wrote:
| The Values of the Carphone Warehouse:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2firijxQOo
| mgh2 wrote:
| Does being public necessarily lead to wrong incentivizes?
| pjc50 wrote:
| It leads to only one incentive: maximize the stock price.
| Everything else, good and bad, flows from there.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Depends on how they do it, that is the point.
|
| If a company chooses to rise its stock price by buybacks,
| shady business practices (SPACs, ads) and covering with
| PR, or investing in R&D to create real value.
| asdff wrote:
| In a world where not being evil is considered "leaving
| money on the table," I have little faith that there are
| many that don't resort to these practices.
| echelon wrote:
| I'm surprised Disney has been allowed to buy up so many media
| companies. They control the box office, have a major interest
| in sports and news, and seem to have an appetite for more.
| [deleted]
| mgh2 wrote:
| Disney's main revenue sources:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/193140/revenue-of-the-
| wa...
|
| I might also add their growing influence on advertising, by
| leveraging these media channels
| https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/disney-wraps-upfront-tv-
| adv...
|
| Everyone smells money on this industry and is trying to
| capture market share (ex: Microsoft Bing and Amazon Search).
| Disney might not be that different than Google after all,
| except for targeting a different demographic (closer to
| Facebook) - making it more disturbing.
| Animats wrote:
| Is the real purpose of this deal money-laundering by organized
| crime? DraftKings was supposedly losing money, while SBTech makes
| money illegally.
|
| The BTi/CoreTech CEO was formerly the CEO (and previously CTO) of
| SpotOption, the binary option scam run out of Ramat Gan,
| Israel.[1] That was a big operation. Out front were the fake
| "binary option brokers", in reality bucket shops, such as Banc de
| Binary. SpotOption provided the back-end services, while the
| front companies ran call centers to recruit more suckers. Some of
| the front companies appeared to be operated directly by
| SpotOption, although that was never entirely clear.
|
| Until 2017, it was legal for Israeli companies to scam non-
| Israelis in this way.[2] When the binary option business was made
| illegal in Israel, the companies were given three months to move
| to another country. "Officials say that numerous Israeli-owned
| binary options firms have already begun moving to countries where
| the activity has not yet been banned." SpotOption moved to
| Bulgaria.
|
| The scam goes on, under new names.[3] "Since then, some scammers
| have shifted to schemes involving forex trading, CFD or
| cryptocurrency speculation."
|
| So that's the back story here.
|
| [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/sec-charges-israels-main-
| binar...
|
| [2] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/israel-bans-
| bin...
|
| [3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-police-raid-call-
| center...
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| It's interesting to me that people like this can continue to
| succeed in modern democracies. There seems to be no
| consequences for massive financial crimes anymore, and the more
| brazen you are the more you are rewarded.
|
| If I broke into the homes of millions of people to fleece them
| of their life savings I'd never be seeing the outside of a
| prison but these guys do it via a confidence scam and the
| internet and never see the inside of a prison. Then they become
| CEO of another company and start all over agin.
|
| I stop believing in democracy when I read stories like these.
| jl2718 wrote:
| White collar law enforcement picks easy targets. They know
| these guys will outspend their legal budgets.
| api wrote:
| > There seems to be no consequences for massive financial
| crimes anymore, and the more brazen you are the more you are
| rewarded.
|
| Finance is too big to fail.
|
| Number must go up or everything breaks and there is chaos in
| the streets. If we hold huge scale financial criminals
| accountable, it could spark financial contagion and number
| may not go up.
|
| Virtually all countries are in this boat to some extent.
| lainga wrote:
| The nuance is slightly different - it's like the CEO's
| breaking into the homes of millions of _Americans_. The
| fellow participants in his democracy (in Israel) were not
| affected; there are two separate jurisdictions.
| rchaud wrote:
| "Well, we barred them from doing it within our borders" is
| not a great example of a democracy in action. These firms
| were allowed to operate a criminal enterprise until 2017 on
| the voters' home soil. Just because it wasn't against the
| laws at that time doesn't absolve the political leadership
| of responsibility.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > "Well, we barred them from doing it within our borders"
| is not a great example of a democracy in action.
|
| It kind of is, though. The voters voted to protect
| themselves. And while you could think of that as selfish
| and not be wrong, at least they _were_ able to protect
| themselves against a well-funded lobby that almost
| certainly would have liked to prevent them.
| Animats wrote:
| The entire Times of Israel series on binary options [1]
| tells a sad, sordid story. It came out slowly. At first,
| it just looked like a few minor scammers. But as the
| Times dug deeper, publishing over 50 articles, it came
| out that at peak, the binary options scam was 40% of the
| Israeli financial sector and had enough political
| connections to stall enforcement.
|
| The Israeli crackdown came only after the scam was
| starting to hurt Israel's foreign relations.[2] Israel's
| "public diplomacy" minister:
|
| _"Leaving aside the profound moral questions this
| raises," [referring to reports estimating that billions
| of dollars have been stolen from unwitting customers by
| fraudulent Israeli binary options firms], "I come from
| the field of foreign policy, protecting Israel from
| delegitimization and BDS [the boycott, divest and
| sanction movement]... These activities threaten Israel's
| legitimacy. [The industry] will "contribute to those who
| want to delegitimize us if these charges turn out to be
| absolutely true. It's very, very disturbing...
| horrible."_
|
| So now there's a large community of scammers who, having
| been kicked out of binary options in Israel, are looking
| for new areas in which to operate. Forex, contracts for
| difference, and cryptocurrency scams have been found.
| DraftKings has some of the same people involved.
|
| This is one of the worst things that can happen to a
| country - developing a large, successful criminal class.
| It's really hard to get rid of them, and they may end up
| running the country, as happened to Russia after the
| downfall of the USSR.
|
| [1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/topic/binary-options/
|
| [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/michael-oren-backs-
| knesset-pro...
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| Sorry but how does this relate to democracy? This seems like
| your issue would be with the sovereignty of the various
| countries involved.
|
| What does it matter if those countries are democratic or not?
| axus wrote:
| They really mean "un-corrupted government that cares about
| the concerns of its average citizens".
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| And that is the root of the confusion. Democracies may be
| less prone to corruption, but they're certainly not
| immune to it.
| pempem wrote:
| They really mean "governments that uphold the rule of law
| and apply it equally to all"
| api wrote:
| These things happen in autocracies too, and often with the
| blessing of the autocrats in exchange for huge bribes.
|
| Money talks... in all systems of government.
| rchaud wrote:
| Autocracies don't posit themselves as a model of governance
| for the rest of the world.
| jandrese wrote:
| The difference is that people in a Democracy are supposed
| to combat corruption like this. In an Autocracy it is just
| the order of the day, nobody tries to seriously oppose it.
| Or they die trying.
| adolph wrote:
| _it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
| Government except for all those other forms that have been
| tried from time to time_
|
| https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government
| 99_00 wrote:
| >in reality bucket shops
|
| Not related to your main point, but I was reading about
| historical bucket shops on wikipedia yesterday. It's my
| understanding that they are inherently a scam. They are
| basically people betting on the movement of stocks without ever
| taking a position in the stock market. They were outlawed in
| the US in the 20s.
|
| Are you using the same definition I am, and in practice are
| modern bucket shops basically always a vehicle for fraud? (I
| mean, why wouldn't you just buy the stock if you are legit. The
| barrier in 2021 is so low.)
| smabie wrote:
| Bucket shops have historically offered high leverage,
| something that is not possible when buying equities outright.
|
| There's a whole gamut of different kinds of bucket shops,
| some being on the less shady side others on the outright take
| your money and don't let you withdraw it side.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Yeah, if you're a legit buyer, there's no reason not to use a
| legit broker. Bucket shops today offer higher leverage, and
| sometimes binary options. They are also basically a black
| hole for your money. If you're lucky enough to win, they'll
| make excuses and never actually return any cash.
| Animats wrote:
| The definition of "bucket shop" has not changed. The question
| is always "who's the counterparty". Who has to pay up if you
| win? Do they have the assets to do so? Can you make them pay
| up if they don't want to?
|
| With a real broker, the broker is not taking any risk. They
| just take a commission between buyer and seller. With a
| bucket shop, the broker has a risk, so it's in their interest
| to make the customer lose.
|
| A big market move can wipe out a bucket shop. See "Madoff
| scam". Madoff was a bucket shop operator. The assets his
| statements said the investors owned did not really exist.
| smabie wrote:
| Sure, but is betfair a scam too? Or what about an OTC desk?
| Both of these are similar to bucket shops wrt who's the CP.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I'd be very interested in any bucket shop wikipedia articles
| you might have stumbled across if you care to share! Or any
| historical cases of securities fraud that pre-date/coincide
| with the Martin Act, '33 Act, and '34 Act, if anyone happens
| to know of any worth sharing.
| onetimemanytime wrote:
| EU has poured HUNDREDS of billions in Eastern EU. Corruption
| there is more honest than in USA: no government contract unless
| you kickback xx%. Then think of the public land thefts, tones
| and tones of drugs and you get the idea. That money has to be
| laundered in industrial size machines.
| rasz wrote:
| Drugs in Eastern EU? Did you perhaps mean Spain (cannabis),
| Italy (heroin), Belgium (cocaine), Netherlands (mdma,
| amphetamines etc). You can pull leftwing ideas out of
| tabloids, or you could you know, read some of EU own reports
| - just google "European Drug Report. Trends and
| Developments".
| xrd wrote:
| My favorite part: "company's recent hire of supermodel Gisele
| Bundchen to advise on governance issues."
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| Hmm...A sports book hires the wife of one of the leading NFL
| quarter backs for "governance issues". "Hey Gisele, can you
| 'govern' us on how Tom doing this week? His elbow seem OK?"
| avipars wrote:
| As a Jew in Israel, I've grown quite skeptical of these Israeli
| startups. On multiple occasions, some of these founders have been
| caught doing shady things and they get away with them (mostly)...
|
| In general these israeli startups tend to be way overvalued
| snake_plissken wrote:
| I like this report, just enough scandal and shady characters to
| make sense. But also, you have to think the SPAC sponsor and
| DraftKings performed a good level of due diligence on SBTech? The
| one thing I really took out of reading this report was how many
| breadcrumbs we all leave out there on the internet.
|
| Which then, to me, boils this all down to: A) the due diligence
| was sufficient and the lawyers signed off on everything or B)
| this is some sort of scheme to launder money and the whole thing
| is dirty.
|
| Or, C) they did their due diligence and decided it was worth the
| risks.
| helios_invictus wrote:
| I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
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