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How to play Fly
“One fact of financial life should never be forgotten. Wall Street–to use the term in its figurative sense–would like its customers to make money, but what truly causes its denizens’ juices to flow is feverish activity. At such times, whatever foolishness can be marketed will be vigorously marketed–not by everyone but always by someone,” Buffett warned.
Buffett was not always entirely anti-gambling. Before commercial sports betting expanded across the United States, he regularly offered $1 million annually to any Berkshire Hathaway employee who submitted a perfect NCAA March Madness men’s basketball bracket.
To date, no individual has ever recorded a verified perfect NCAA tournament bracket.
How to play Fly
The action will kick off with New Zealand’s David Yan in the lead, sitting as he does with 5.3 million chips, a good chunk more than his closest challengers Yuri Dzivielvski (3 million) and Niklas Astedt (2.6 million). Of those two, it is perhaps the Swede Astedt who will fancy their chances more than anyone, desperate to seal the deal having accumulated almost $2 million in winnings in the tournament series but never having closed one out to take the outright win.
Elsewhere, there are some superstars of the game who are taking their places lined up behind the leaders in pursuit of poker profit. Canadian poker legend Sam Greenwood comes into the final a little short-stack with 1.9 million chips, but he’s immediately followed by another luminary of the game in Mikita Badziakowski. The Belarussian only has 1.4 million but will be doing everything he can to get over the line. The final table betting prices are slightly different to the order in which the players find themselves in the chipcounts:
As you can see, David Yan has enjoyed the most money being places on him and goes into play as the 4.12 odds favourite. He may have the most money placed on him, but almost double the number of bettors rate the Swedish pro Astedt as a good shot to see out the win for the first time. Sam Greenwood is tempting plenty of punters at odds of 10 and 103 people have invested in the Canadian to upset the chipcounts.
What is Fly?
MGM Resorts International’s investment case is supported by Las Vegas, regional casinos, property assets and its 50% interest in BetMGM. Its own share price has been on a different journey to its online pureplay peers, having increased by 5% in a year, to $37.81 on 18 September.
“MGM offers a more diversified investment case, with BetMGM, regional gaming and Las Vegas operations reducing reliance on online sports betting alone,” says Beynon. Robinson makes the same point. “It is a Las Vegas and Macau property business with a betting JV attached, and that is precisely why it has held up.”
Entain sits somewhere between the two models. It has significant international scale and a valuable stake in BetMGM, but also more debt and greater exposure to UK taxation, as well as general regulatory turbulance across Europe.
