Some call it the Horseshoe. Some call it MGM Grand. Some call it the Bonanza. Some call it Three Coins:


https://vintagelasvegas.com/strip

"HORSESHOE
Three Coins Motel (1964-1967) | 3633 Las Vegas Blvd S. Opening date unclear. In 1967 the lobby was demolished and the motel wing was leased for use at Bonanza.

Bonanza (1967-1973) | 3645 Las Vegas Blvd S. L. Wolf, owner. Bonanza used two existing motels (Three Coins and Galaxy) with a new casino between each wing (RJ 1/24/67). H Rissman, architect. Opens July 1, closed in Oct (Moehring, E. Resort City in the Sunbelt. University of Nevada Press, 2000). 1968 Oct: Kerkorian purchase (RJ 11/1/68). 1969: Levin-Townsend (H. Levin, N. Jacobson) purchase in Mar., reopened May 28, closed in Jul. Dispute, separation with Galaxy Motel (Moehring, Resort City). 1970: Kerkorian purchase (RJ 7/30/70). 1972, Feb: Reopened, operated as training for future MGM Grand staff (Moehring, Resort City). 1973: closed March 30, demolished August 6 (RJ 7/11/73, 8/7/730). Replaced by MGM Grand parking.

MGM Grand (1973-1986), Bally’s (1986-2022), Horseshoe (2022-) | 1972: Groundbreaking 4/15/72. 1973: Opened 12/5/73. 1980: South tower construction; 11/22/80: fire. 1981: Hotel reopened July 30; South tower completed late 81 or early 82 (RJ 2/1/82). 1986: Sale to Bally’s completed in Apr. (source), name changed to Bally Grand Hotel by May. 1994: Parking lot andporte-cochère replaced with park and people-mover. 2001: Second sign. 2022: Renamed Horseshoe; south tower spun off into Paris Las Vegas."

Hey all:

I was watching SPRKLI videos the other day. It seems that the Trooper & Lady Trooper are having some difficulties.

HOWEVER, they do seem to be working through some of them.

I am curious about a few things:

A). Has the Trooper ever stated how much they can do in sales at a farmer's market or other event they go to? I can't recall him doing so, but I have not watched all his videos.

B). I have recalled him saying that they sold out OR that they came close to doing so.

C). On some of the videos, you can see pricing for the candy AND see approximately how many bags of it they have for sale on the table. I would think there is a good chance that they have some product NOT on display?

D). If you multiply the sales price times product shown, I've seen in the neighborhood of $500 worth of product out there. Could the Trooper be doing $500 in sales at a decent event? Could he be doing $1,000 in sales at a great one?

E). I would think that the gross margin on their candy should be AT LEAST 50%. Unless they are going bonkers on buying stuff like organic sugar or other super high things, that gross margin could be well OVER 50%, maybe 60% or even 70%? Thus, if they are selling a bag of candy for $10, they might have $3 or $4 of ingredients & packaging?

F). So if the Troopers could do $1,000 in sales, could they have $600 in gross profit? Now, they have to pay for their booth, gas, display, and other misc. things. They also need to be paid for their time!

So at a $1,000 sales day, subtract $400 for ingredients & packaging, $100 for the table, $50 for other things. They then have $450 in net profit to split between the two of them. One day of work for setting up, selling, tearing down. One day of work for purchasing & making the product? Four days of labor for $450? Not too good, but not a disaster either.

With the new kitchen could they increase productivity by a factor of 2X? 3X or even 4X? Could they buy in bulk and pick up a few points? Could they do a $2,000 show? If so, then they are on to something?

Of course, these are all guesses....anybody know any better figures?

you have to also factor in their kitchen leasing costs as well as their equipment leasing/finance costs as well.

$1,000 in sales at the farmer's market seems very optimistic too, I'd say it's closer to half of that.

If you look at their process it is still very labor intensive, the only difference the kitchen has made is they have bigger pots and bigger tables, I think 3 times more is about right in terms of increase in volume.

Their only hope is if their online sales take off and they can churn out brittle and can minimize farmers markets after a while.

They need to hire an illegal or 2 to package up all the stuff and set up and tear down the booth's multiple times a week, and get the labels put on for shipping etc.

Then they can focus more on churning out product.

those are some crazy numbers

if you could sell $1K worth of candy at a farmers market, it would be flooded with professionals

if I had to guess, on their very best day they won't come close to $500

I think the actual costs of the ingredients would be minimal especially for the pops. For the brittle it would be a bit higher but their margins should still be very good. The 3 main problems they have are:

high overhead costs of leasing the kitchen and the equipment

still very labour intensive to make, even if less so now with the kitchen

they are selling a relatively cheap product. Let's assume average online order is about $30. Let's be generous and say that the $20 of that is Gross profit. To cover their overheads and make a good profit they are going to need very high volume of orders week in week out

No way they clear $20 on a $30 order, you have packaging and shipping materials and boxes and then they have free shipping on some amount $50?

I would think that $500 in sales is an average day at the market for them, and $800+ on really good days.

Yeah it would really depend on what product it is. $30 worth of pops, they would definitely be making at least $20 gross profit. Probably much less with brittle because the ingredients are more expensive. I have no idea what their biggest seller is. I suspect it could be brittle, but they have never really discussed it on the vlogs.

I'd say that's probably in the ballpark. But even if we assume that they did have the occasional $1000 day in sales, that's still nothing when you factor the time and effort for 2 people and all the costs.

As much as I think Little Timmy is a POS. I don’t wish him harm. But in 10 years this little candy venture is a distant memory. Too many bad decisions on something that doesn’t make sense. Imho.

Hey all:

While I've only watch a fraction of the SPRKLI videos, there are several where the Trooper says they sold out OR very nearly so.

If so, then I would think they've done AT LEAST $500 of sales, perhaps all the way up to $1,000?

Also, I would think that they have flyers & a banner directing people to their online sales. Thus, they should get a few online sales from every show that they go to? If they pick up $50 or $100 during the week from online sales, that is great, as they are clearing out leftover inventory & making sales during down times.

SO, if the Trooper is indeed selling out of product from time to time, what can he do so that he almost NEVER sells out? Got to get more efficient & make product in bulk.

IF he is paying $3k a month for the kitchen, then that is probably a mistake of biblical proportions, as there is probably almost no way that he can do enough sales to pay for that.

IF he is doing $1k a month, he is going to have to do quite a bit more in sales, BUT if he is smart & organized, he should be able to cover it.

Wow, that is brutal, I didn't think it was that high.



Edit: When you have to put all your own equipment in it then it averages $1000 to $3000, So maybe it's closer to $2000 for them.

Im in the same camp.

The only thing I really disliked was when he started hustling his followers to freeroll him into WSOP main event. Before all that he was always just a bit of a comical character. Middle age angry little man riding around Vegas on his skateboard shaking his fist at the world while expecting everyone to clear a path, opinionated and grumpy, always complaining about something.

But we still watched on as it was hilarious to witness how he managed to squander the amazing opportunity of being the first poker vlogger on YouTube. While everyone else who came along after him literally blew up and made bank off his idea because they had an ounce of humility and weren't so arrogant and stubborn.

I suspect you could be right. Unless they actually have a valid reason to believe that they are going to be getting 100s of online orders every week. But what is the chance of that?

Rampage's latest video is him rambling incoherently for 10 minutes that his way to contribute to society is by giving his YouTube supporters passes to WPT Gold.
as long as that helps him sleep at night

Peanut brittle is their main product. Their customers must be octogenarians. They put it out in a bowl with butterscotch candies when the grandkids come to visit

My guess is Troop is getting some money from the outside world.

Investor?
Mom?
Pre-sale of the product?
Charity?
Giving poker lessons?
Winning weight loss bets?
Poker podcast?
Hosting a meet-up?
Selling money-socks?

I mean the question is how much do you need to live?

If each of T and LT nets $150/day that's basically $100k a year. I think that's enough to survive for two people.

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LT OF

There's a hell of a lot easier ways to make $150 a day!

What amazes me, and I just thought of this, is if trooper got into the app game scam he'd likely have had the opportunity to print money.

When you lookup candy making videos on YouTube, not only are none of the workers 50+ year old overweight male Twitter types, they wear full protective gear.

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Agree on the app. He could have had meetup games with players around the world. I know he plays on WSOP a lot.

Today's Rice video was more of the same. Three hour session with the promise of 12+ in the next video.

Watching the Magikarp video now and it's just proof that Rice wanted his cake and to eat it too. Play during the day when all the regs are out. Just put in poor hours at poor tables and say you play poker. Meanwhile this kid is playing late at night and the game looks incredible. $16 pre UTG gets like five callers. $45 3! gets cold called by J6 from the BB and gets like 3 other callers. But yeah no good games in Vegas any more.

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that's both people working 7 days a week for a year for not a lot
if a couple does that they won't survive physically or emotionally

Not necessarily. If you consider online orders that come in on days they don't work as income for those days.

Also I mean they are trying to start a business to succeed for the rest of their lives. They probably are putting in 80+ hours a week anyway.

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I would tend to agree on these three main problems. My opinion is they likely wont be able to overcome these hurdles,and i also agree with the poster that said in 10 years(or even 5 years for that matter) this candy business will have become a distant memory.

Edit: Also i would think 20 gross earnings on a 30 order is _very_ generous and likely overestimating it.

Anybody watching AbbyPoker? She's like a less-unhinged version of Corey Eyring (who she may or may not be hooking up with according to his last video)

I posted the above a little over 6 months ago on April 15th, so I decided to check back in and see if anything has changed. What was I thinking?! Of course nothing has changed! Except perhaps for even more focus on the candy-making efforts of a former poker vlogger, lol.

Well, see you all again in 6-12 months.

Maybe.

But I'm sure you'll all still be here.