he probably borrowed money from the mob/cartels and they are telling him to GTFO, he's bad for business

There is no uniform form of governance in a private business. These things are defined in the corporate agreements one creates when they form a business, raise money from investors, etc. The only real governance comes when outside investors put in money and require protections and rights in return. I am pretty sure none of that happened with HCL and doubt they have any sort of a board.

Nick "stepped down" (quotes because we have no idea what his level of involvement will be going forward or if his economics have changed) because they needed to do something publicly to avoid being cancelled as a show. They have tried to do the bare minimum to stem the negative attention. Others knew or should have known and need to be held accountable also.

It's not a publicly traded company, so no board that a CEO would report to.

Pure speculation on my part, but my sense is that Vertucci and Feldman each put up money a few years ago to start HCL. For all we know, there were other investors, too--maybe even Hustler Casino. Again, total guess here but Vertucci probably put up more of the money, and Feldman took on much more of the day-to-day responsibilities. Continuing the "just speculating here" chain, I'd guess that Vertucci hasn't given up or sold any equity stake he had in HCL. He probably just agreed with Feldman and/or Hustler Casino to no longer be involved with the operation of the company or play on the stream.

It's a good question as to what would have happened if Vertucci had refused to walk away. Because it's a private company and no charges have been filed, he could certainly have refused to leave and there isn't really anything that anyone could have done about it. In the real world, though, Feldman and he probably realized that there would be financial implications if sponsors such as the WPT canceled their sponsorships so as not to be associating with an accused sexual harasser. In this way, staying would probably have taken money out of his pocket. And who knows if Hustler Casino put pressure on him to go. It sure sounds like Lauren might have cause for a civil lawsuit against the casino for firing her after she accused Vertucci of repeated sexual harassment. The last thing they'd want to do, you'd think, is double down on their Vertucci support given the stream of other women who have come forward to allege that Vertucci sexually harassed them.

I’m not a lawyer and have no inside info on HCL, but well organize partnerships will have a structure for dissolving the partnership agreed and laid out in the initial company documents. For a simple example there could be a provision where either partner can force the sale by giving a price and the other partner has the option to either buy or sell the company at that given price.

That would be a easy case of sexual assault to solve considering.....ITS RECORDED.

Everything you have stated on this thread is rife with ignorance, misogyny and outright bafoonery. Please educate yourself and gain some common sense.

Hustler Casino is in control here and not ryan or nick or any other investor. If there is evidence he sexually harassed an employee of Hustler Casino & that evidence is sufficient in the view of Hustler Casino, Nick would have been in some way forced out. HCL exists at the pleasure of Hustler Casino. They can shut them down. It will be interesting to learn has been banned from their properties.

btw, the real $ is not from the streams, it is from everything that happens around the streams. ask your friends who play in LA what the games they ran during covid were like.

HCL exists at the pleasure of Hustler Casino. In the end, Hustler Casino will directly or indirectly decide what happens. Lauren was/is an employee of Hustler Casino, not HCL. Her complaint of harrassment would have been directed to Hustler Casino HR.

Just replace Vertucci with Limon, problem solved for HCL.

Sex trafficking and non-consent in porn is a fact, you absolute imbecile.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr...ees-three-year
https://www.reuters.com/legal/transa...se-2024-06-14/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/15/busin...ved/index.html
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr...ing-conspiracy

No Joeingram emergency 10h stream? Zero Polk videos? Poker really is dying.

Just look at them ffs. If these two do not scream shady greaseballs, I do not know who does.

There is nothing preventing a private company from having a board of directors. In fact most do.

I know nothing about the specifics of the governance of HCL. I do suspect that HC, the casino, has much say on operations of HCL.

Yeah you don't get to use the name Hustler Casino without some oversight from Hustler Casino

If you go to High Stakes Poker Production LLC on CA secretary of state, it says that it's owned by 201903WY-50, LLC, which has a registered agent as its organizer. Long story short, who even knows what the corporate structure looks like other than it's an LLC owned by another LLC whose owners are not public.

If I had to guess Hustler Casino Live is a joint venture or partnership between Hustler Casino and HSPP. So probably Hustler Casino has some say and the operators of HSPP have some say.

"Position of power" is an argument founded in resentment and nothing else which is par for the course for California politics.

I disagree. I believe Hustler is a partner to an extent, but they're mostly just leasing out the space and licensed the name but they operate as a separate entity from the rest of the casino. The actual investment into the production was funded by NV and RF, and I agree with prior poster that there very likely was an agreement where NV puts up more money but RF handles the bulk of the day to day which is a substantial undertaking. They have employees whom I believe are paid not by Hustler casino but by the LLC RF/NV created for the venture.

As a business owner myself I am guessing the financials of the company are something like this:
-Initial buying of licensing rights from Hustler which includes a royalty on gross rev and stipulations allowing them decision making power in instances that might impact their gaming license since its on their property(i.e. when Airball was selling chips for cash p2p which was not in line with their anti money laundering laws)
-Equipment costs for production + building set
btwn the above I estimate they paid 250kish ???
revenue:
-Rent paid to Hustler
-Revenue from advertisers
-Revenue from streaming services
-Rake collected each half hour(to my knowledge this is solely earned by the Hustler Live entity)
-Labor for its employees in production(announcers, cameramen, editors, content)
- per hour wage to dealers pre tip(do they take downs in the normal casino floor or only Hustler Live?)

With that being said, I think whats happened the last few days is they announced, (quote from their Twitter) "Effective immediately, Nick Vertucci will no longer be involved with High Stakes Poker Productions. We look forward to continuing to deliver the best high stakes poker content to the community"

The key word being involved, this is a pretty ambiguous term that while seems decisive also leaves the possibility for NV to continue on as a silent partner and simply not being involved in playing on the show or any of the deals/big picture. Unless Ryan was able to buy him out, which could be a possibility as none of us really know what Hustler Live LLC is worth as a corp. Are they making money? How much is their brand worth? Value of partnership contracts etc.

Theres also the very realistic chance that they still haven't turned a profit and NV has been funding it along and he simply gg'd after this since why would he continue funding it after this.

This is how the bulk of LLC's ultimately are structured. You create an LLC in Wyoming due to tax laws and the ability to shield corporate ownership (you only need to have a "registered agent" in the State which you can set up for like $25 a month and a $200 upfront cost for registering + EIN. This LLC then can become the owner of LLC'(s) in other states and the income tax component of it passes thru to Wyoming and you just pay local licensing costs and the state you operates in wage laws

-zero chance hustler casino does not have a rock solid operating agreement with ryan & nick's co., literally zero. i have been a party to agreements similar to this with gaming entitites and national site operators outside of gaming, and its basically a take it or leave it agreement . i learned this after spending about 15k with an attorney to negotiate changes w/ las vegas sands with zero success. take it our leave it. what i am getting at is this: if Hustler Casino wanted to kill the stream tomorrow, they could. in the end, they call the shots. the non-cheating scandal was likely HCL Strike 1 & the problems the nicks/nik Strike 2.


-ca laws prevail over whom deals games on that property, lauren and magic are employees of hustler casino (confirmed). i have seen magic dealing other games.

in wyoming, the llc can be a DAO. nevada is actually a good state for llc's and privacy.

Oh I’m well aware, but some businesses don’t operate that way because they don’t care about having their info public. Also while not all businesses that do this are shady it does make it more likely to be shady.

value of HCL is probably about $5.2 million solely based off youtube subscriber numbers and average view counts/average live viewers. I'd estimate it brings in about $1.3 million in ad revenue a year and a 4x multiple of annual revenue is a pretty standard way to value a digital media business that doesn't have crazy overhead. all of the production staff is extremely replaceable in LA you can just go to pink's hot dogs and find audio technicians, video editors, camera operators etc waiting in line for lunch who will work for low wage. finding a poker commentator is even easier.

you could probably increase the multiple because the business is derisked and the obvious market leader.
in terms of whatever agreement they have it wouldn't have been as difficult to negotiate a deal with hustler when they did as it would be with the venetian lol. the venetian is a huge always successful property in vegas. hustler was basically a dead casino before HCL. you have a lot more leverage in that type of negotiation. you can just say if you don't want to do it we go to hawaiian gardens or commerce and steal the few remaining players you still get.

nobody ever incorporates in california for a lot of reasons but the biggest reason being if you do have to go to court for something, it takes like 4 years to even get the case in front of a judge.

There is pretty much zero chance they are making >1 million a year off ad rev

good point re: sands v. hustler. they would certainly have more leverage with hustler, but hustler has good representation. i know they use lewis brisbois and that firm is no slouch. i just can't get to 5.2m tho. not because your valuation basis is unsound, but who would buy it for that? your right about staffing, nobody is working right now. and ill say again, there is serious $ in everything around that game, just not on the stream