$VIPZ Bringing on new revenue stream in the multi billion skill gaming market

VIPZ put out news this morning so wanted to update my prior posts and frame this within the same longer-term story. First the new news. VIP Play announced they’re moving into the skill-based gaming market, which they size at roughly 9 to 11 billion. This isn’t traditional sports betting and that matters because skill-based gaming generally doesn’t require the same state by state sportsbook licensing. That potentially opens up much broader and faster national reach if executed correctly. The company is framing this as a higher margin, non-seasonal revenue stream that can sit alongside their existing sports entertainment platform. The economics they’re pointing to are based on rake rather than betting exposure, which also changes the risk profile. Obviously still early and execution matters, but strategically this makes sense as an adjacency rather than a random pivot. Now stepping back to the bigger picture, because this isn’t happening in isolation. One thing I’ve consistently pointed out in earlier posts is management. They brought in experienced leadership and that’s continued to show up in how they’re approaching the business. This isn’t a meme stock chasing buzz. They’ve been pretty methodical about fixing what was broken first. The first thing the CEO Les Ottolenghi corrected was the payment system to make it much more simple and fluid for players to get their money. (I know that sounds simple, but it’s not as easy as basic pay systems due to the highly regulated market.) Over the past year they’ve talked about an operational turnaround and that’s actually been reflected in reported performance. Risk management improved, sharp exposure reduced, gross gaming metrics stabilized, and they’ve openly acknowledged what wasn’t working previously. That matters more to me than flashy press releases. They also released an updated investor deck recently which helped clarify the roadmap. It lays out the milestones, how different revenue streams are supposed to layer on top of each other, and what success would look like at modest user numbers. It’s not assuming crazy unreal adoption right out of the gate, which I appreciate. As for the trading history, this started out as a reverse merger, and like most of those, it came with legacy holders. Those sellers were a real overhang and pushed the stock down into the eight to nine cent range, particularly at the beginning of December when they were clearly trying to get out. That selling pressure appears largely exhausted at this point. It’s also worth remembering that the majority of shares were originally bought between roughly thirty cents and eighty cents, so at these levels the float should be relatively locked up with newer money rather than legacy paper. This new skill-based gaming move fits into that same framework. It’s not replacing the core business, it’s adding another lever that doesn’t rely on the same regulatory friction. If they can execute even at a small scale, it diversifies revenue and reduces dependency on pure sports wagering. As always, OTC is high risk high reward. This is discretionary capital only. This is not your core portfolio, retirement money, or plan B money. Not investment advice. I will say that if this is the type of situation that interests you, starter positions at these levels are not the worst idea, but again only with money you can afford to lose.