Skillz, owner of popular 21 Blitz card game app, is being sued by a hot 19-year-old chick in Vegas, and Mac Verstandig is her attorney

Really interesting case and I have a bit of a peripheral personal connection to it.

In 2018, I discovered "21 Blitz" because the aggressive advertising campaign they were running. Basically when ads would pop up on other iOS games, you'd be likely to see several 21 Blitz ads over time. After being inundated with these annoying ads, they got what they wanted, and I tried it.

I actually found the game interesting, and wondered if I had stumbled upon a possible under-the-radar moneymaking opportunity. When I asked around poker and the advantage play communities, nobody really knew much about it. It was clear that the great card players were all in the dark about this thing. Could I use this to my advantage?

I practiced at the free money games and tried to learn the best strategy.

While on the site, I noticed that a few people were constantly dominating the leaderboard. Among them were a guy named "prignum", who usually was consistently on top. A young, pretty girl named "lysnico" was also almost always in the top 5, and often in the top 3.

It was clear that lysnico, prignum, and the other leaders were playing a lot of high stakes ($180 per entry) matches there. I say "high stakes" because each match takes only about 2 minutes, and these people were playing a shitload, plus Skillz was taking 16.67% ($60) rake each time!

Could they really be winning? Or were they just on the leaderboard simply due to high volume? I was dying to talk to one of them about it, but I had no way to reach any of them. As far as I could tell, prignum didn't seem he was involved in poker, nor could I deduce his name. One of my friends told me he played against lysnico on Global Poker, but that she wasn't a regular there.

One day lysnico wandered into the chat room there. I talked to her, and claimed I was the one who had played with her on Global, in order to get her attention. We got into a discussion about poker and other stuff. She claimed to be 19, and the daughter of "two professional poker players", though she wouldn't name them. She swore that her model-like pics were real. Turns out that they were.

A post shared by on Jan 01, 2017 at 12:00pm PDT

 

https://instagram.com/p/BjLm18Sjmm4/

A post shared by on Jan 01, 2017 at 12:00pm PDT

 

https://instagram.com/p/BoDSmiflUvv/

More pics: https://www.instagram.com/lyssaball/

I traded some PMs back and forth with her, really hoping she would open up to me about the world of high stakes Skillz 21. Unfortunately, being a pretty young girl on an app like that, she was inundated with PMs, and mine got buried within the countless unsolicited messages she received. We lost contact, and then she vanished from the site shortly thereafter.

Around the same time, I also noticed prignum disappeared, as did many of the other top-placed regulars. Where did everyone go? At the time I blamed it on a combination of rake and the shady, secretive "player matching" algorithm.

See, on 21 Blitz, each person plays a solitaire-like game with a specific shuffled deck, and their opponents also play with that identical deck. That supposedly takes the "chance" element out of it, and makes it legal in certain states. The player with the higher score wins. However, since the players don't always play at the same time, how are they matched? It turns out Skillz only promises that they "won't match two already completed games". Well, that's not much of a promise. They can do plenty of rigging if they want by matching players to others who already completed, depending upon whether Skillz wants the player to win or lose.

In fact, Skillz admits they match people together "based upon skill", but they claim they do this for "fairness", which is of course BS. In reality, they want to rake the maximum.

But back to lysnico. What happened to her? Why did she vanish? Why did prignum vanish? I'll continue in my next post...

lysnico's real name is Alyssa Ball. She is from Vegas.

prignum's real name is John Prignano. He is from Texas.

It appears that the two didn't know each other prior to both independently becoming top players on 21 Blitz. Now they're both banned from the app, are together suing the company for $6 million, and notable poker attorney Mac Verstandig is representing them.

At the same time, Skillz is now valued at $3.6 billion, and is about to go public.

Could this case put a wrinkle in that? Perhaps, and it's one of the fascinating angles of this whole thing.

Ball and Prignano claim that they started losing really badly to a certain player on the site. Ball claims she lost $650,000 to this guy, and Prignano claims he lost $1 million to him. They both allege the player was cheating, and they both further allege the Skillz knew about this, but simply warned him and didn't kick him off.

The "cheat" tactic in question was actually rather simple. In fact, I discovered it myself last year, but chose not to use it, because I felt doing so would be dishonest.

21 Blitz is a timed game. You have 3 minutes, and you get bonus points for finishing with time left on the clock. Since you're playing with a single 52-card deck, and are using every single card, a player who knows the remaining cards at the end has a nice advantage. However, it is difficult for human beings -- even talented card counters -- to remember every card that has come out, especially when playing quickly and using their mind to strategize.

However, the solution to this is obvious. The game features a "pause" button, which can be used unlimited times. What if you simply paused the game every time a card was dealt, and noted it down -- either by hand or electronically? Then you would have exact knowledge of the remaining cards, and could play the end optimally.

Ball and Prignano allege that this unnamed cheater did exactly that, and crushed both of them. Ball claims she complained to Skillz, they warned the guy, but didn't ban him, and he kept on cheating. She claims to be in possession of the e-mail they sent the guy, though it's not clear how she got this.

After losing $650,000 to this cheater, Ball complained again, and found her account suspended for "verification". She then tracked down the Instagram account of the Skillz CEO, a 37-year-old named Andrew Paradise.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...w_Paradise.jpg

Paradise, who claims to have learned to code at age 7, was said to be very happy to be contacted by Ball. Paradise allegedly attempted to put the e-moves on her, writing, "Have we met somewhere? I feel like I’d remember as you’re too beautiful to be forgettable. Haha and if we haven’t met, we should, I’m in Vegas all the time."

Then, according to the lawsuit, this happened:



Shorty after that, Ball's account was banned, and her $28k in there was confiscated.

Keep in mind that Ball claimed in the lawsuit that she initially lost $50,000 on the app before becoming a winning player, and then subsequently getting crushed by the aleged cheater.

Prignano had an additional complaint. He was saving up his points (known as "Ticketz") to get a Porsche Boxter which was prominently offered as a prize. I guess he was channeling his inner Dario Minieri, who did something similar on Pokerstars in 2007. However, unlike Minieri, Prignano never got his car. He claims that when he got close, they abruptly raised the points requirement by 66%. Then, after he complained, they tried to negotiate with him by offering him a used Porsche Boxter instead (lol).

Finally, he suffered the same fate lysnico did -- he reported the same opponent for cheating, and found himself banned.

It's not clear how they found Mac Verstandig, but he is their attorney. This lawsuit was filed on May 17, 2020 in the US District Court of Nevada. This was lightly reported on within poker media in June, but somehow I missed it. I finally learned about it today when Mac tweeted about it. I have since obtained a copy of the lawsuit complaint filed by Mac.

How did Skillz respond? Read on...

Skillz did not explain exactly why they didn't throw this cheater off their platform. However, they came back with their own accusations about Ball and Prignano.

In short, they claim that Prignano and Ball were colluders.

How can one collude in a heads-up card game?

Recall that Skillz controls who gets matched up to play, and they rake 16.66% from the highest buyin games (and an even higher percentage from the lower ones).

Skillz claims that Prignano and Ball manipulated the system by agreeing to mutually disconnect every time they were matched up, thus resulting in a refund for the match for both players.

They claim that doing this allowed the two of them to circumvent their "fair play" system, and thereby matched themselves with weaker players without having to play each other. They claim this is the actual reason Prignano and Ball were banned.

However, even if true, this claim doesn't really answer the charges in the lawsuit, nor does it give Prignano and Ball an advantage against other players. It only cheats Skillz out of $60 rake each time they do this, but doesn't affect anyone else. They could have accomplished the same thing, minus the rake, by simply agreeing to reimburse each other offline. These aborted matches did not help their position on the leaderboard (which awards cash prizes), since the leaderboard simply is based upon wins, and not a won-loss record. In fact, these aborted matches actually hurt their place on the leaderboard, because neither would get any points for completing them.

It also doesn't answer to Skillz's shady behavior regarding the Porsche Boxster, involving Prignano. This looks like a separate allegation Skillz is making back at the pair, but otherwise isn't very relevant.

Here's Skillz's statement:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skillz

This suit was filed by two people who colluded to cheat the Skillz community. They were caught by our trust & safety team and kicked off of our platform in accordance with our terms of service and commitment to honesty, integrity and fairness. Their case has no merit and is an attempt to intimidate our company and obtain illegitimate gains. We will defend ourselves vigorously and are evaluating all legal remedies to protect our community

---

This isn't a fair statement, because their "collusion" didn't cheat the community at all, even if the allegation is true.

But there's a lot farther reaching consequences to this than just figuring out whether Prignano and Ball should get paid.

Read on to find out what I mean...

Skillz runs several real money games via apps, all of which use the "no element of chance" loophole to claim legality in most states.

Unfortunately, their ads, which I still frequently see, are highly misleading. Mostly aimed at married women, the ads imply that you can easily win $300/month with a short time invested each day. This is not the reality.

Without any numbers to back it up, it's my belief that their so-called "fair play" algorithm ensures that almost everyone loses. Not only do they ensure that you're never regularly playing significantly weaker opponents, by supposedly "matching skill levels", but they also have the ability to force winning and losing streaks by matching you to already-completed scores which are either bad or good.

For example, when you first get the app, no matter how well you played at free money, they will first match you at real money with really low scoring opponents, to where you're almost guaranteed to win. Then, after dominating these chumps for about 7 matches or so, they will start matching you with better scores. If you continue to play well, you will find yourself up against people with very high scores for that particular deck, many of which were already completed before you started. Then, of course, you'll remember winning just a short time ago, and you'll redposit. Rinse and repeat.

This isn't to say you can't win. Both Prignano and Ball were apparently long term winners on 21 Blitz. However, I believe they were among the very few. I believe almost everyone else loses -- even the very good players -- due to the way the matching algorithm is set up.

If you don't quite know what I mean, and why their matching algorithm is so awful, let me give you an analogy to a bowling competition.

Let's say you're a 200-average bowler. A fair match would be you versus another 200-average bowler. However, let's say the bowling alley could choose to match you with ANY 200-average bowler, AFTER they've bowled.

So let's say there were five 200-average bowlers, and their scores were as follows:

John 205
Mike 179
Bill 264
Mary 219
Carla 190

The bowling alley wants you to lose, so they choose to match you with Bill. Now you have to beat 264 -- something very tough to do if you're a 200-average bowler. Clearly this would be unfair. Even though Bill has equivalent skill to you, the match only occurred AFTER he had an outlier-good game!

I believe Skillz is pulling the same crap with their 21 Blitz game. I don't think they're only matching players of similar skill. I think they are also sometimes purposely matching people with already-completed scores, making them almost completely in control if players win or lose. I believe that only a tiny percentage of players there walk away long-term winners.

This makes their entire ad campaign -- that housewives could earn $300/month extra cash by just playing card game apps for a short time each day -- highly misleading.

I have always felt that these so-called "games of skill" for money need to be regulated. The way Skillz handles the in-game matching is atrocious, and if Ball and Prignano's stories are true, there's lot of other really shady shit going on there, as well.

These apps should be treated the same way as online gambling, and need to be subject to the same laws and consumer protections. Some states have outlawed them. Many have not.

It will be interesting to see if this lawsuit throws a wrench into this plan to go pubic.

Here are the questions I still have at this point:

1) How did 19-year-old lysnico have $50,000 to lose on the app at first?

2) How did lysnico get a copy of what Skillz sent to the alleged cheater?

3) What did Skillz have to gain by protecting this alleged cheater? Is it possible he works there, or is friends with someone there?

4) Given the $3.6 billion valuation of Skillz's attempt to go public, why were they acting so frugal regarding the Porsche that prignum won? It's would have been trivial money to them, and they could have marketed it big time the way Pokerstars did with Dario Minieri.

5) Is lysnico claiming that she would have won $650,000 more if she hadn't played the alleged cheater? That's a pretty eye-popping figure for an app where you can only play $180 matches maximum.

6) Who are lysnico's parents in the poker community? Anyone have any ideas? She told me they were around my age.


By the way, the Las Vegas Review Journal just did a story on this: https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/...g-app-2114105/

The article briefly talks about another woman, not involved in this suit. She told the Review-Journal that she lost $60,000 on the app, and was lured in by the "ads aimed at women".

Here's one of the ads I'm talking about. It's for a similar game they advertise called "Solitaire Cube", but I've seen the imagery of this ad used or 21 Blitz, as well.

Notice the variety of women depicted here, including the overweight everywoman. Clearly these ads are aimed at bored housewives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvGYZiFnhCQ

She actually is smoking hot. How did Sillz get billions valuations?

I read some other filings.

Some more info:

1) A woman they called "Jane Roe" (for some reason her name was suppressed) has been added to the lawsuit. Unlike prignum and lysnico, Jane Roe was a fish on the site, and was a loser from the start. She lost $60k on the platform, and that part of the suit indicates that 21 Biltz is a gambling app, and is being marketed as an app to effortlessly make money.

2) "Jane Roe" played on there as Breadnbutter37. I was not familiar with her, because presumably she didn't make the leaderboard (or if she did, it wasn't often).

3) lysnico didn't join the app until April 25, 2019, so she learned to get good fairly quickly.

4) Skillz claims that, in addition to using the "mutual abort" trick to avoid playing each other, prignum and lysnico threw matches versus each other in order to advance on the leaderboard. However, this would contradict the entire reason they were aborting matches, which was to avoid playing one another, even though such matches against each other WOULD help their spots on the leaderboard. It is possible that Skillz means that prignum would lose to lysnico if he already had a lead which couldn't be caught, and she was neck-and-neck with another player. However, this is not specified in their response. Otherwise, it seems their two accusations contradict one another.

5) Skillz also claims that prignum would purposely lose games (presumably at lower limits) in order to lower his overall rating, and get matched with worse players. However, I'm not sure why he would have done that, since the high limit pool is very small anyway, and I'd assume he'd be matched with nearly everyone at that level. But perhaps not.

6) Skillz claims that they banned Jane Roe after she chunked off almost $14k, because they determined she was irresponsibly spending (aka gambling). They claim she kept sneaking back on, in order to continue playing.

7) The lead attorney in this matter for Skillz is E. Leif Reid. Recognize that last name? It's Harry Reid's son. He's based out of Reno.

8) A big matter here involves the attempt to compel all three plaintiffs to do all of this through arbitration, instead of the court system. All players are forced to agree to binding arbitration when they sign up for real money play. While this is true, Mac raises the point that the arbitration term is buried in a TOS agreement which rarely anyone notices or reads, and that the terms also cap Skillz's liability to $50. Thus, Mac argues that the Skillz TOS simply seeks to allow themselves to do whatever they want, without any legal liability. Mac also shows that the TOS link is almost hidden under the NEXT button (which accepts all terms), to where many people will miss it. I agree with Mac morally, but I am not sure where this stands legally.

This is a very active case, with the last filing by Skillz being on September 11, 2020.

Here was lysnico's attempt to verify herself with Skilz in January, after her account had been suspended (but before being outright banned).

At around the 3 minute mark, you can quickly see on her phone that she has about $28.7k in the account (upper right in green on her phone).

At 3:10 or so, she starts playing 21 Blitz. For some reason she plays another game before it. There is some male filming her, who isn't seen on camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQmMyG0FmIY

This Skillz/Andrew guy seems like a Swarmy Creep. He doesn't sit right with me. He gives me the Creeps and the heebie jeebies. His picture looks like a human snake. He also didn't ban someone who was CHEATING which should have been an automatic ban. He merely "Warned" the cheater and soon banned the VICTIMS/Reporters and confiscated a lot of the VICTIMS'S/Reporters money! What a piece of shit this Andrew guy is. I hope Alyssa and Prignano win their lawsuit against him. Also, he is a REAL catch and a keeper hitting on some 19 year old girl who JUST turned legal when she contacted him for a BUSINESS Consultation. Gross. Just two years ago she was still legally a CHILD!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karen Nathan

This Skillz/Andrew guy seems like a Swarmy Creep. He doesn't sit right with me. He gives me the Creeps and the heebie jeebies. His picture looks like a human snake. He also didn't ban someone who was CHEATING which should have been an automatic ban. He merely "Warned" the cheater and soon banned the VICTIMS/Reporters and confiscated a lot of the VICTIMS'S/Reporters money! What a piece of shit this Andrew guy is. I hope Alyssa and Prignano win their lawsuit against him. Also, he is a REAL catch and a keeper hitting on some 19 year old girl who JUST turned legal when she contacted him for a BUSINESS Consultation. Gross. Just two years ago she was still legally a CHILD!

---

I have no idea what this company is doing. They have two Americans who are great at the game, one of which is an attractive young female player. They should be marketing the heck out of these 2 not continue to use those cheap fake lying ads, lower the rake and fix the pause glitch. This is a fun game and it could be a legit successful game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StoicJester

I have no idea what this company is doing. They have two Americans who are great at the game, one of which is an attractive young female player. They should be marketing the heck out of these 2 not continue to use those cheap fake lying ads, lower the rake and fix the pause glitch. This is a fun game and it could be a legit successful game.

---

Great point.

Huge marketing fail involving both.

With prignum, they should have thrown him a few extra bucks to pose for photos and videos with the Porsche, and hammered these images everywhere. From what I remember of prignum when I saw him on the leaderboard, he was your typical 30s-looking everyman. Guys would see that and think, "That guy reminds me of myself, and he won a Porsche just through tickets he earned from playing? Where do I sign up?" (It's kind of like how Pokerstars smartly marketed Chris Moneymaker's WSOP win in 2003.)

lysnico could have been perfect for marketing to both genders. Dudes would see her and join the app hoping to interact with girls like her, and women would think "If a 19-year-old girl like this can do it, so can I."

This really was a case of marketing malpractice. Though to be fair, the marketers probably never got wind of their story until it was too late.

Druff’s question how does a 19 year old that’s model lvl hot have 50k?
Answer Call Girl!!! I mean 500 an hour plus one John 5 nights a week equal
About 2500 a week tax free.Thats if she’s lazy if she puts that work in well it could be a lot more.
Or she just got rich parents or that other guy from Texas they know each other and he was bankrolling her.

Her IG is gone?

Amazing such an apparent idiot could be in control of a billion dollar company.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sidewinder

Her IG is gone?

Amazing such an apparent idiot could be in control of a billion dollar company.

---

Still here.

Click the link in the original post.

I kinda feel like the Skillz operation is a weird mixture of brilliance and incompetence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sidewinder

Her IG is gone?

Amazing such an apparent idiot could be in control of a billion dollar company.

---

Still here.

Click the link in the original post.

I kinda feel like the Skillz operation is a weird mixture of brilliance and incompetence.

---

Indeed.

Shout out to her trust fund/sugar daddy.

There is plenty of subterfuge to go around in this story. Not sure what the truth is.

I agree. Very hard to tell what the fuck is going on here.

My prediction is that Skillz settles and pays out Prignum his Porsche and his confiscated $283k balance, lysnico gets paid out her $28.7k balance, and "Jane Roe" gets a few token thousand to make her go away. And the settlement is confidential.

I think it's unlikely they ever pay a dime for the "cheating", and I think it's unlikely the cheating can be proven in a court of law.


Oh, and today a 21 Blitz ad came up on my phone, and Floyd Mayweather was promoting the game. This guy really is the Johnny Chan of boxing.

UPDATE

On November 12, US District Court of Nevada granted Skillz's motion to compel arbitration. The court had previously granted Skillz's previous motion to compel "Jane Roe" (third plaintiff -- the one who was the losing player) to use her real name in the suit. However, this becomes moot because the whole thing
is being forced back to arbitration.

The judge wrote this:

Quote:

---

Because (1) the plaintiffs agreed to the Terms of Service by creating accounts in Skillz’s app and (2) the arbitration agreement in the Terms of Service is valid and enforceable, I grant Skillz’s motion to compel arbitration.
.
.
.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendant Skillz’s motion to compel arbitration [ECF No. 22] is GRANTED and this action is DISMISSED without prejudice to the plaintiffs’ ability to arbitrate their claims in compliance with the arbitration agreement, minus the agreement’s fee-splitting provision.

---

Mac is apparently appealing this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dan Druff

UPDATE

On November 12, US District Court of Nevada granted Skillz's motion to compel arbitration. The court had previously granted Skillz's previous motion to compel "Jane Roe" (third plaintiff -- the one who was the losing player) to use her real name in the suit. However, this becomes moot because the whole thing
is being forced back to arbitration.

The judge wrote this:

Quote:

---

Because (1) the plaintiffs agreed to the Terms of Service by creating accounts in Skillz’s app and (2) the arbitration agreement in the Terms of Service is valid and enforceable, I grant Skillz’s motion to compel arbitration.
.
.
.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendant Skillz’s motion to compel arbitration [ECF No. 22] is GRANTED and this action is DISMISSED without prejudice to the plaintiffs’ ability to arbitrate their claims in compliance with the arbitration agreement, minus the agreement’s fee-splitting provision.

---

Mac is apparently appealing this.

---

Is there even a right to an interlocutory appeal from an order granting a motion to compel arbitration?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Peter Binklage

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dan Druff

UPDATE

On November 12, US District Court of Nevada granted Skillz's motion to compel arbitration. The court had previously granted Skillz's previous motion to compel "Jane Roe" (third plaintiff -- the one who was the losing player) to use her real name in the suit. However, this becomes moot because the whole thing
is being forced back to arbitration.

The judge wrote this:




Mac is apparently appealing this.

---

Is there even a right to an interlocutory appeal from an order granting a motion to compel arbitration?

---

No idea, but apparently it's being attempted.

BUMP

A stock analysis website is claiming they are bearish on Skillz (SKLZ) market value, for a variety of reasons.

https://wolfpackresearch.com/research/skillz/

Quote:

---

We are short Skillz, Inc. (Nasdaq: SKLZ) because its top games appear to be stagnant to declining, leading us to believe its revenue projections are farcical. Our research, including conversations with former employees, employees of Skillz’s two largest developers, and independent third-party app download data, all show us that the growth projections SKLZ and its SPAC sponsor continue to present to investors are entirely unrealistic.

We found that SKLZ’s top three games, representing ~88% of its revenues, had already plateaued by Q3 2020. What’s worse is that SKLZ growth story is falling apart in Q1 2021. While SKLZ is projecting 12.3% sequential revenue growth and 61.4% year-over-year (“YoY”) revenue growth in 1Q21, third party app data shows that SKLZ’s total installations are down double digits through the first two months of 1Q21. While SKLZ may very well eke out its numbers for Q4 2020, concerned investors should be seeking answers regarding Q1 2021 guidance on Wednesday’s earnings call.

SKLZ has a history of announcing deals/partnerships which have historically amounted to very little, or nothing at all. The latest of which was SKLZ’s conveniently-timed announcement of its purported partnership with the NFL, which pumped its stock 25% to all-time highs just days before filing an S-1 allowing insiders to sell millions of shares of stock at these inflated prices. Smart money seems to have figured out very quickly that, like so many of SKLZ past deals, this NFL “partnership” won’t amount to much, if anything at all – likely having seen what we saw.
.
.
.
Former employees we spoke to commonly referred to SKLZ numbers as “smoke and mirrors” and SKLZ recently settled a lawsuit with Eric Cooper, Skillz’s former Head of Finance and Administration, who claimed he was fired for not going along with CEO Andrew Paradise’s unattainably aggressive financial projections.

---

:what

You can see more if you click on the link above.

Shaaaaaaaaady.

Skillz really going all-in with Blackout Bingo, trying to make it the next 21 Blitz.

I keep seeing ads pop up for it when I play other (non-Skillz) games.

Here's one they recycled from 21 Blitz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EowTa0QqwK4


The $2,000,000 per week is BS. This is impossible, and nobody has ever come close to doing it. Total nonsense.


Here's another:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIe9q2POjsc



Again, notice these are aimed at females. I saw another Blackout Bingo ad with attractive young women talking about how one of them bought shoes with their winnings. LOL

Such a shady company.

It appears that Plaintiffs are not appealing whether they'll be forced to arbitrate under Skillz' T&C (they will be forced to arbitrate, though there is an unresolved dispute in the district court over whether Skillz will pay 100% or 50% of the fees for arbitration).

Jane Roe is appealing the district court's denial of her motions to proceed anonymously and her motion to seal the certificate of interested parties (which contains her real name). Her name was set to be revealed by the court on November 25, 2020, but that has been stayed pending the outcome of the appeal. Looks like Mac will be doing oral argument in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in August.

Monday morning quarterbacking here, but I think Mac should have tried noticing voluntary dismissal of these claims under FRCP 41(a)(1)(A)(i), which would presumably "close the file" as a "matter of right" and prevent the court from taking actions such as unsealing the certificate of interested parties. At least this seems like a good idea if the client's continued anonymity is worth more than any potential recovery from litigation, or arbitration seems like a complete dead end.

Not going to fully research whether this tactic would actually work, but google seems to indicate it did in the context of an anonymous plaintiff suing Donald Trump over rape allegations: https://princetoninfo.com/trump-rape...uptly-dropped/

Maybe Mac is just saving the FRCP 41(a)(1)(A)(i) card in case the 9th Circuit affirms?

I posted that stock analysis on March 10. I saw SKLZ went down today, so it made me go look how it's done since that analysis was posted on March 10.

In short, not well.

It was $25.70 on March 10, then went up for the next week an had a temporary peak at $31.65. It was $43.72 on Feb 5, crashed to $24.45 by March 8, and then started back up. However, after March 15, it was mostly straight down, hitting $12.55 on April 20, before rebounding back to $21.16 on April 26. Since then it's back down, and is at $14.41 at the close today.

I am getting indundated by Blackout Bingo and Solitaire Cube ads, which I wonder might be a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

Bought some put options on SKLZ for end of the month at $10 strike price.. Pretty cheap so Im not out much if they expire worthless but I suspect itll trend back down at make me a profit given whats going on.. the options today already went from .01 each to .10 so odds are its an indication a bearish trend is gonna push the put prices up..

SKLZ trading at around 11 now. Its all time low was 10. Looks like that analysis earlier this year was spot on.

Down to $7. This author thinks it may be going down to 0:

https://investorplace.com/2021/12/sk...ling-business/

Boy I wish I went with my gut and shorted this thing when I first mentioned it. I might actually do it now.

I have been poking around on 21 Blitz (their best game), and it's headed toward being a ghost town. People are complaining in the chat about it. Even the chat, which was once bustling with fast-scrolling messages, is pretty slow now.

Skillz looks like a 1-trick pony, and I think they've run out of suckers to get playing. The fact that such a high % of people lose there makes it to where they're unlikely to return. Their platform isn't technically impressive at all, and can't do synchronous gaming.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Down to $7. This author thinks it may be going down to 0:

https://investorplace.com/2021/12/sk...ling-business/

Boy I wish I went with my gut and shorted this thing when I first mentioned it. I might actually do it now.

I have been poking around on 21 Blitz (their best game), and it's headed toward being a ghost town. People are complaining in the chat about it. Even the chat, which was once bustling with fast-scrolling messages, is pretty slow now.

Skillz looks like a 1-trick pony, and I think they've run out of suckers to get playing. The fact that such a high % of people lose there makes it to where they're unlikely to return. Their platform isn't technically impressive at all, and can't do synchronous gaming.

---

What you missed by not shorting it before is nothing compared to what you can still make IF the author is right on it going to next to nothing.

Think of the percentages on the way down from 7, again if it happens. Definitely worth a small investment in a short if you think it’s going to happen.

2.89 now

I still never shorted this.

Oh well. The problem with shorting is that the upside is limited and the downside can be huge. That's kinda what drove me away.

The company is circling the drain, but I'm worried that another company could swoop in and show interest in buying them, which could send it rocketing back up. The concept they have is sound, but the execution is horrible.

The other problem would have been finding the shares to short, which may not have been trivial.

$1.19/share

The late 90's had dot com stocks and beanie babies. This time around it was SPAC stocks and NFT's/tokens.

This happens about every 20 years or so. The young kids that didn't experience the pain of the dot com implosion are feeling the pain now seeing their crypto balances get demolished. It will happen again in 20 years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Small_Banana

$1.19/share

The late 90's had dot com stocks and beanie babies. This time around it was SPAC stocks and NFT's/tokens.

This happens about every 20 years or so. The young kids that didn't experience the pain of the dot com implosion are feeling the pain now seeing their crypto balances get demolished. It will happen again in 20 years.

---

This isn't related to crypto/NFTs. Just a dumb business model and mismanagement, which was destined to fail.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Small_Banana

$1.19/share

The late 90's had dot com stocks and beanie babies. This time around it was SPAC stocks and NFT's/tokens.

This happens about every 20 years or so. The young kids that didn't experience the pain of the dot com implosion are feeling the pain now seeing their crypto balances get demolished. It will happen again in 20 years.

---

This isn't related to crypto/NFTs. Just a dumb business model and mismanagement, which was destined to fail.

---

I was comparing the current market implosion with the dot com bust. The 100's of SPAC's that went public, Including Skillz, have been demolished...similar to the dot com stocks with dumb business models. DraftKings was another SPAC and that has been an epic fail. Any stock that did a reverse merger with a SPAC is pretty much doomed to fail. They were unprofitable scams from the start.

BUMP

Well well well... looks like Skillz is now on the ass end of unethical behavior. While Skillz itself is on the shady side, for reasons already enumerated in this thread, now they find themselves being crushed by a company which allegedly stole their intellectual property AND is cheating its players.

Skillz is suing AviaGames for stealing its IP, and indeed it looks like they have a strong point here:

Look at the games "Blackout Bingo" (Skillz) and "Bingo Clash" (AviaGames), and you'll see it's virtually identical:

https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/u...C395&strip=all


Skillz has been suing AviaGames since mid-2021, claiming that Avia stole two of their proprietary games, and in fact stealthily took a contract position as a Skillz games developer in 2016, in order to learn their platform better.

A good description of the situation is here: https://venturebeat.com/games/feds-s...n-skill-games/



BUT WAIT... THERE'S MORE!

A more recent development had Skillz allegedly discover that AviaGames was running bots against its own winning players, crushing them out of any money they managed to rack up!

It's all in that article linked above.


Here's an ad for Skillz's Blackout Bingo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Srh6zlL1yY



Here's an ad for AviaGames' Bingo Clash:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HODu67P8UF0



Skillz is so butthurt over this that they are now posting notices in their games that AviaGames runs bots, and they're suing them!

I believe Skillz is probably correct, and AviaGames is likely even shadier than they are. But do I feel sorry for Skillz? Not at all. This unethical company misleads users into believing their games will help them "earn extra cash", when in reality their awful "fair play algorithm" assures almost everyone loses in the medium and long term.

Both companies suck.

BUMP

Class action lawsuit going on right now against Skillz, on behalf of stockolders.

A settlement was reached in 2025 for $10,000,000, but it hasn't been finalized yet.

https://www.flyingeaglestockholderslitigation.com/

Here's what it was about:

Quote:

---

On March 10, 2020, Flying Eagle, a special purpose acquisition company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger or other business combination, completed its initial public offering of 69 million units, with each unit consisting of one share of Flying Eagle Class A common stock and one-fourth of a warrant with an exercise price of $11.50 per share.

On September 1, 2020, Flying Eagle, FEAC Merger Sub Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Flying Eagle), Legacy Skillz, and Andrew Paradise, in his capacity as representative of the stockholders of Legacy Skillz, entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (such agreement with any amendments thereto, the “Merger Agreement”), pursuant to which Legacy Skillz would be acquired by Flying Eagle (the “Merger”).

On November 30, 2020, Flying Eagle filed a definitive proxy statement pursuant to Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the Merger (such proxy statement together with any preliminary proxy filings, as well as any amendments or supplements thereto, the “Registration Statement”). The Registration Statement set the deadline for Flying Eagle stockholders to request to redeem their stock as December 14, 2020.

On December 16, 2020, a majority of Flying Eagle stockholders voted to approve the Merger; the Merger closed the same day, and Flying Eagle changed its name to Skillz Inc. (“Skillz”). Flying Eagle stockholders redeemed 2,140 of their shares.

.
.
.

On April 12, 2023, Plaintiff Darcy Lien filed his Verified Amended Class Action Complaint (the “Amended Complaint”) alleging that Defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed to Flying Eagle stockholders by pursuing the Merger with the purpose of gaining a non-ratable benefit for themselves through their interest in Flying Eagle Class B shares and by issuing an allegedly false and misleading Registration Statement that misled unaffiliated Flying Eagle Class A stockholders about the diligence Defendants conducted into the viability of Skillz’s post-Merger future and that precluded unaffiliated Flying Eagle Class A stockholders from making an informed decision as to whether to exercise their redemption rights. The Amended Complaint sought, among other things, a Court order awarding Plaintiff and the other members of the class monetary damages.

---

I honestly don't know how Skillz is still surviving. Their apps are ghost towns, yet they're still spending money on advertising.

A burner account named "Eagle Eye" (presumably a reference to Flying Eagle, which was in the process of merging with Skillz) showed up on Twitter in August 2021 and claimed SKLZ was "one of the most compelling short opportunities of our careers. We think their accounting materially overstates true cash revenues. We see at least 80% downside from current levels."

He then goes on to show that Skillz is losing money on average with every user they acquire, as of 2020!

https://x.com/EagleEyeRsch/status/1392533145937977346


I can't imagine it's gotten better since then.