The Rift

How to play The Rift

Two years later, I see a post from my friend Robbie Strazynksi of CardPlayerLifestyle, about this guy Bill Beatty looking for a new financial writer for some gambling website called CalvinAyre.com. I said I was interested, didn’t know much about gambling, but I know about finance. I could swing it. Bill gave me a shot, trusted me, and in March 2014, I wrote my first article. Macau stocks were at all time highs, and I wrote that they were about to implode. They did, for the next two years. But not for the reason I thought.

Then my life went into a sort of holding pattern for the next few years. I was getting tired of freelancing. It was too limiting, and I wanted to start my own thing. So in February of 2020, I started to set up the groundwork for going out on my own. It is now up and running at The End Game Investor (EGI). The theme is precious metals investing and trading in the context of the End Game, the end of the financial system as we have known it since 1971, taken from an Austrian Economics perspective.

Then, one month later, the end of the world as we know it actually happened. The Coronombie Apocalypse, everyone masked up and the Fed printed a skrillion dollars and I lost most of my other freelance arrangements as everyone went into hiding and confusion and pandemonium.

How to play The Rift

While Station has remained steadfast in its opposition to Culinary, the union has made gains elsewhere in recent years. The entire Las Vegas Strip is now unionised, and Culinary used city-wide strikes as leverage in late 2023 and early 2024 to gain new multi-year labour agreements with the city’s major operators, including Wynn, Caesars and MGM.

Other than Station, Las Vegas Sands had been the other largest non-union holdout in Las Vegas for many years. But when the Venetian-Palazzo was sold to Apollo Global Management in 2021, the firm had no issues with Culinary and ratified the property’s first-ever deal with the union in 2024.

The animosity between the sides has become political over the years. Station is owned and operated by the Fertitta family, who have been prominent Republican donors for many years. Culinary is a largely Democratic organisation that typically supports and endorses left-leaning candidates.

What is The Rift?

Stevenson added that the NCAA is determined to keep local student organisations informed of key regulations. 

“Even though we are seeing legalization of sports wagering, it is still a violation of NCAA rules. I do think people and member institutions really need to make sure that their student athletes are aware, so that they don’t walk themselves into any kind of issues,” she said.

In the full interview, Stevenson explains the NCAA’s approach to integrity and elaborates further on the concerns the organisation has towards U.S. sports betting. And if you haven’t yet, watch all of our videos as they go up by subscribing to the CalvinAyre.com YouTube channel.