This may have been posted before, but I saw an announcement today:

https://pokerindustrypro.com/news/ar...nter-us-market

Rush Street Interactive has acquired Run It Once Poker, revealing that the poker site will be added to its existing gaming network operating in several US states.

"The cost of the acquisition, as revealed on the company’s 2021 year-end financial report, was $3.3 million in cash and $2.5 million in stock.

Included in the deal are the RIO poker platform, Galfond himself, and his team."

Any comments, info or thoughts ?

Being bought was by far the fastest way for RIO to enter the US market. I'd be interested to know how much Galfond sunk into the project over the last few years.

their first raise was something like 30-40MM post money

So they raised $X at a $40mm post money valuation, or they raised $40mm?

Galfond should give up and stick to play where he has some knowledge. RIO trying to enter the row market was embarassing, its like they didnt even try.

Pretty sure at 40mm post money valuation?

$3.3mm in cash and $2.5mm in stock means investors probably took a 80-90% hit. I guess that's at least not a total loss..

What did you sell your company for?

Galfond should have realized that crypto was the future for online poker. He would have been better off to build a site like CoinPoker

It takes balls to actually throw your hat in the ring and give it a go. It’s pretty easy to second guess and take shots once something’s failed.

I wish Galfond luck in his next venture.

cant rem where I read or heard this, but wasn't RIO backend just this? If so, then what exactly did Rush street pay 5 mil for?

If not, then never mind, carry on

https://evenbetgaming.com/

Very surprising that it's for less than $6m

You oversimplify things and make a common mistake.

Accepting and encouraging crypto IS essential to optimizing transactions such as deposits and cashouts for poker, but that's the same for pretty much every online business. It has little to do with marketing or running an online poker operation.

Yes, "provably fair" seems like a great marketing tool, for block-chained based gaming, but the reality is that a blockchian-based poker operation has not proven very competitive in a lot of ways that seem to matter to the world of actual poker players. "Provably fair" has been around at least since the launch of SatoshiDice, but poker seems too complex.

Even a lightning-based operation would ultimately require a trusted operator.... in my opinion.

RSI is a sharp bunch, with the patience to grow regulated state-by-state as needed. That theyare multi-channel checks a needed box as well. Crypto may or may not prove a factor for US regulated online gaming in due course.

There are other, promising entrants into the regulated gaming states that may opt for poker as well. I will say, the future is brigher than before, but crypto has little to do with that.

100% this. Bunch of ****in captain hindsights sticking the boot in.

He tried, it didn't work out. I hope he recovers a big chunk of $.

did you guys read the rio thread in the internet poker forum? people gave all kinds of tips and suggestions but galfond did not listen and then disappeared after some time.

how on earth did he think it was a good idea to open a cash game only site? people told him to implement mtt's as soon as possible and offer freerolls to attract new players which is as obvious as it gets. they also told him to stop with that anonymous and dynamic avatars crap but the guy was stubborn and did not listen. thats why i think his try was pathetic. shows you that only because you are a good player does not mean you also understand how to run a site.

Might be a good thing for him if he doesn’t recover very much. That would mean he didn’t invest that much himself.

No you're right, you'd have done a far better job from your armchair.

This would have been a failure even if he recovered 100% of his initial investment, opportunity cost and all that. I would be a amazed if he didn't take a big hit on this (percentage wise).

Hope this means Galfond plays more live or online.

Would be great if RSI can make poker in US legal in all states.

Weird take considering you can dump 20mm into something, sell it for 1mm and be able to say "I sold my company for a million dollars!"

I think his point is that Galfond had a company to sell in the first place.

Not many people have the balls to try and build something. It’s a huge risk that rarely pays off.

As for the advice Galfond supposedly ignored: of course Galfond knew MTTs were important. There are a million things going on behind the scenes that posters are unaware of and that Galfond probably can’t get into. For instance, it’s common for investors to release funds in tranches based on achieving certain milestones. I have no idea if that was the case here, but it’s an example. Maybe they underestimated cost, a key employee quit, or a plethora of other issues that impeded the development of their software. For whatever reason they decided to roll out cash games first. I imagine they hoped traffic would be better and they’d be able to raise more money to implement MTTs, but they weren’t able to.

I’m not saying mistakes weren’t made, I’m sure there were plenty. There always is. I just think Galfond deserves credit even if he wasn’t successful.

While that is true, it’s also fair game for people on a poker forum to point out the failure of a poker product. Especially if the final product missed stuff that probably should have been in the MVP.

And yes, hindsight is 20/20. I’ve been in that position and it sucks. For yourself, your employees and the investors who lost their money. I hope Galfond didn’t start with a family & friends round; having to tell those people is the worst.

20mill? where did that come from. they were at it for what 4 years. 20mil would = 400K monthly burn starting in month one. how? who? also did they never generate any rake ? I have no idea what games they ever got going

They got 6mil in sale.

I thought they just licensed the software from eventbet so , not sure how they had much more than 6mil invested.
Also, not sure how they could have that much even if writing code from scratch, unless they hired all the developers from outside India / Eastern Europe, etc. and who on earth would do that for a project like this

p.s also keep in mind ... the code from Bangalore and other hotbeds is not only way less expensive than paying a developer in the US $150-200/hour, its also has become high quality as well

Totally, I just take issue with people saying he had no business trying and is ‘just a poker player’ when he’s already built a business before that I assume is profitable (training site).

In my experience, it’s almost certain he raised from friends and family.

its a shame that theres not enough honest professional poker players that could start an honest poker site for all of the us could play at. mxphytlx

Wow I forgot they had an online poker site, just thought it strange why “planned US entry was needed for a training site” but then remembered, the site was gonna be the saviour of poker and take over from Stars (but now GG have ) never mind.

Wonder how much of a loss the sites making / has made / cost since development?

Losing $10,000 week perhaps

Total loss $3,000,000 ? Maybe 5,000,000 since PG said to his sexy dime piece of a girlfriend- how can I turn myself grey and lose a large percentage of my net worth (takeing a massive amount of my own time to do it also)

I know I’ll throw money out of the window, she says nah build a poker site from scratch but have them pull funny faces according to how they play - the nerds will ****ing love it

And so the idea for RIO pokee site was born