What would you call it if the seller of lottery tickets claimed it was a +EV investment?

But a lottery ticket is objectively negative EV, except in those rare progressive cases. There is really no objective assessment of Hellmuth's ROI in these tournaments. For all we know he really could be the GOAT and 1.8 is a steal.

Where do you draw the line then? If he was selling for 1.5 would it still be scam? What about 1.2?
You know what you are getting when you bet on Hellmuth: big name, big mouth, controversial behavior which includes showing up late and also some big scores with reasonable frequency. He doesn't hide information nor deceive anyone. He offers a price people are willing to pay. They are paying it most likely because they want to have fun gambling not because they think it's a way to grow their retirement account.

I think something like 1.35 is still too high for the actual best player in the world, but you can at least make an argument for it with a straight face. Is there a limit the other way though? Would a 2.5 or 3.0 markup still be harmless fun? 5.0? Recreational gambling generally has limits on percentage can be taken anyway. Rake, slot machines, table game bets, etc. are all regulated so players don’t get taken advantage of too hard.

FYP
Still all subjective, you seen the holds on fixed odds betting terminals in the uk?

Any amount is harmless fun in my book, it just wont be fun anymore when Im getting crushed so then I probably wont do it for long.

Does Hellmuth play all the high rollers? or was this a rare case?

For those who are saying the 1.8 markup is a scam (separate from the issue of arriving late to the tournament), what method or formula do you think Hellmuth should use to arrive at a fair price?

FWIW, I think Phil genuinely believes he is the best player in the world and that 1.8 is a fair price. His buyers must also believe 1.8 is a fair price because they are buying it under no particular compulsion or duress. Given that there is no way of knowing Phil's actual EV, I don't see how the fair price wouldn't be the equilibrium price that both Phil is willing to sell at and buyers are willing to buy at.

That just says that his buyers are stupid and are easy to scam.

As for determining his EV, you could compare with people that are actually good at poker and see what they charge in a turbo knockout format with little fish in it. Then you subtract whatever you think the edge is they have on him.

Hey, here’s a great idea. Instead of complaining, which poker players are great at doing, if you think the price is too high, don’t invest! If you think it’s fair, invest. Pretty simple.

Exactly.


And this. But you’re talking to poker players. They love to cry about how hard they have it.

How did PH get so wealthy and how does he stay wealthy? While he is obviously good at poker I doubt most of his wealth came from actually playing the game.

He has shown time and time again that he is willing to do whatever is necessary to get that paper. He has represented companies that rip off or scam their customers (UB). He has charged outrageous markup for years - such bad deals to investors it's impossible for him not to profit regardless of results.

He's one of the best bs artists ever. The ego he has and things he says are complete hypocrisy. He wrote a whole book on "positivity" yet he continually berates casual players and will do anything to stay in the spotlight.

There was a good podcast with him recently where he talked about hosting charity poker events and the fee he charges to host them. Quite hilarious but shows how he's basically just a c list celebrity milking his spotlight at any cost and for as much money as he can suck out before he fades into obscurity.

rofl yea dude surely a bunch of rando amateur/casual players would be better investments

helmuth is stupid, that markup is stupid, anybody who bought a piece is stupid, and this thread is kinda stupid, but it serves as a good PSA and reason to lolhelmuth

Grunching after the first 100 posts, but what people seem to be missing is that even if the investors lack poker-specific knowledge the same basic principle applies from the rest of the world, that one should always ask oneself that if it's a value investment then why does the person want to take the other side of the deal.

Basically it's like betting on horses, you pay for the sweat.

This isn't going to be a popular opinion here....Imagine making a stink over whether someone pays 1.2x-1.8x on their $20 investment when you're making a living off people making a massive -EV decisions sitting at the table with you. Do you advise fish to stop playing at your tables?

He also can't shut up about how many millions of dollars he has "raised" for charity at these paid appearances.

selling lottery tickets or any form of gambling is more strictly regulated and taxed at higher rates because of its predatory nature.

In this case the line is blurred and you can’t really prove intent but the spirit of the law would require for these types of ‘investment’ offerings be made in good faith.

If he sold in this Omaha 8 or better on twitch his investors should sue. He donked off 10 bets with one way hands in one orbit. Unreal Tilt approaching the money.

Surely the whole purpose of investing is identifying an assets true value in comparison to it's going rate.

For example, say Siever, or Berkey, or some other HS reg charged 1.2MU, how are we to know that is even a plus EV investment. Maybe they suck in the field and they've been running good in their previous results.

Nobody has been forced to buy at 1.8, they wanted to. If an investor overvalues this asset in comparison to the true value it is the fault of the investor only.

The twitter poker community getting outraged at this is laughable also. So many shady things going on, private HS games, roll sharing at HS in same game etc etc, which is actually super outrageous compared to this.

Free market. Charge what you want. Just don't expect people to buy it if overvalued.

good post

There seems to be a lot of useless conversation here. I'm not a tourney guy, but I imagine there's some website that has results of all major tourneys. If anyone really cares about this, just look at his results over the last 10 years and figure just how bad an investment in Hellmuth at 1.8 is. Why argue with words when there are numbers publicly available?

There isn't. Unless you just mean a list of cashes. There's really no way to get definitive information on all tournament entries.

The world lives off people unable to do the math. If people were better at math >90% of investment funds would immediately cease to exist. Darwinian selection

Do they track all buy ins, not just the ones they cashed? If not, how am I supposed to know the ROI?

I guess we should just eliminate pump and dump laws too while we're at it because, you know, there're a lot of even shadier things going on amirite?

Hellmuth just admitted he misread his hand and was "at a wall." Physical exhaustion wise. What would the mark up on rested Phil Hellmuth be? 2.8? Unreal to say that too investors. I think the problem is he lives in Bay Area where they talk in returns in 1000x investment and companies never really profit, you just dump your stock and move to next start up. Btw he is the slimmest man with sleep apnea I have ever met. Normally people are obese.