Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm pim Fox.
Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
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Speaker 1: rally in the shares of Tesla after the company reports
Speaker 1: his first quarterly profit and a positive free cash flow. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here to tell us more about it is David Coudla.
Speaker 1: He is, of course, the chief investment strategist, founder and
Speaker 1: chief executive of Mainstay Capital and Bloomberg Markets. Brought to
Speaker 1: you by Commonwealth Financial Network, the number one r I,
Speaker 1: a broker dealer that JD Power has named highest and
Speaker 1: independent advisors satisfaction among financial investment firms five times in
Speaker 1: a row. Learn more at Commonwealth and dot com and
Speaker 1: we turned out to Mr Coula to learn more about Tesla. So, David,
Speaker 1: are you a believer or are you still skeptical about Tesla?
Speaker 1: I am still skeptical skeptical about Tesla, and I am
Speaker 1: was very excited about the news yesterday very excited about
Speaker 1: the rally and after hours trading. Unfortunately, I was only
Speaker 1: able to short the stock at a high of three
Speaker 1: twenty one. Today. Maybe I'll have another chance to short
Speaker 1: it higher. It's trading about three twelve now. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, we we expected with yearning announcement pull ahead,
Speaker 1: we'd have some good results, and we did even better
Speaker 1: than expected. But it's about the sustainability of those results,
Speaker 1: which we don't think they could maintain, and all that
Speaker 1: they did in the third quarter to generate these great
Speaker 1: results and as good as they are, best quarter by
Speaker 1: far in two years. Uh, you know, everything negative cash flow, negative,
Speaker 1: earnings negative in this whopping quarter and the stock is
Speaker 1: trading at three eleven. Yeah. Well, actually I was going
Speaker 1: to just say, what is your target? Because I'm looking
Speaker 1: right now. Bank of America, Mary Lynch. Their target is
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars underperform. Goldman Sachs target to sell. Cowen
Speaker 1: price target to fifty underperform. What's your price target? Our
Speaker 1: twelve month price target on the stock is one eight,
Speaker 1: and we think that longer term, the stock has to
Speaker 1: settle somewhere, uh, down between a hundred and a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty and we and we say that just compare
Speaker 1: to stocks, compare to automakers general motors trading at a
Speaker 1: PE of about five or six. And if we take
Speaker 1: this number and extrapolate it a number which we don't
Speaker 1: think they can maintain in terms of earnings. UH. Going forward,
Speaker 1: Tesla is trading at would be trading at a price
Speaker 1: to earnings multiple at forty to fifty times, which is
Speaker 1: higher than any automaker anywhere in the world. And you know,
Speaker 1: we know that as we go forward, they have a
Speaker 1: debt repayment that Elon must said in the call last
Speaker 1: night would probably mean a flat you know, no earnings
Speaker 1: in the first quarter. They've got a Model Wide to fund,
Speaker 1: they've got a China Giga factory to fund, They've got
Speaker 1: other operations to fund. And we know, you know, when
Speaker 1: you pass through the numbers, UH, there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of accounting tomfoolery to to uh, to make a
Speaker 1: good number. Elon Musk has been managing this company, headlined
Speaker 1: to headline. In the second quarter, it was about being
Speaker 1: able to say they built five thousand vehicles in one week.
Speaker 1: They only average a little over four thousand Model threes.
Speaker 1: They only averaged a little over four thousand model threes
Speaker 1: per week in the third quarter, after hitting that five
Speaker 1: thousand a week benchmark. Now he's got the headline of
Speaker 1: this great quarter. Um, you know, are our bare thesis
Speaker 1: is meant like some bears on on Tesla going bankrupt.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's someday that the stock comes down
Speaker 1: to reality and trades closer to where other automakers trade,
Speaker 1: even if it is a sustainable business and it's not
Speaker 1: going to be at three hundred or three fifty or
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars a share, how do you respond, David,
Speaker 1: to those investors or even those analysts who say that
Speaker 1: Tesla is not just an automobile company. Tesla is a
Speaker 1: technology company, and it will expand its offering to not
Speaker 1: just include automobiles sold through their own dealerships, but an
Speaker 1: attempt to lease automobiles for rides sharing or to compete
Speaker 1: against Uber and Lift, and also to provide charging that
Speaker 1: would really change the way people interact with their vehicles. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: I understand that that thesis that both talked about, But
Speaker 1: we've got now a ten year old company that drives
Speaker 1: more than of its revenue from selling automobiles less than
Speaker 1: ten percent of the revenue comes from those other businesses,
Speaker 1: whether it's solar panels or energy storage or UH solar
Speaker 1: roof shingles, all of those those other business activities in
Speaker 1: the energy division and solar divisions of the company. H
Speaker 1: As we look forward into the future of mobility, there
Speaker 1: is this assumption and Elon Musk talked about it last
Speaker 1: night in the conference call. There's this assumption by the
Speaker 1: Tesla bulls that that Tesla will just own the future
Speaker 1: of e V it will own the future of autonomous,
Speaker 1: it will own the future of ride sharing, it will
Speaker 1: own the future of robotaxis and autonomous Weymo is recognized
Speaker 1: as the industry leader UH. You know General Motors when
Speaker 1: when UH, When UM soft Bank UH passed on an
Speaker 1: investment in Tesla, they made an investment in General Motors
Speaker 1: Cruise division. When Honda, Japanese automaker wanted to look for
Speaker 1: their next generation of electric vehicle battery architecture, they bought
Speaker 1: it from GM. When they wanted to team up with
Speaker 1: somebody to work on autonomous, they did with GM. So
Speaker 1: there are a lot of competing technologies out there. I
Speaker 1: know there are those faithful UH people, followers of Tesla,
Speaker 1: but the future is going to look a lot different
Speaker 1: than what they might think and maybe what Elon Musk
Speaker 1: might might be preaching. David Coodla, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being with us and sharing your views. David Coodla's founder,
Speaker 1: chief executive officer, and chief investment strategist of Mainstay Capital
Speaker 1: Bold call shares below two hundred and the next twelve
Speaker 1: months interesting to see. Right now shares up eight point
Speaker 1: four percent, trading just below three huh actually right now
Speaker 1: nearly three hundred and twelve dollars to share. There has
Speaker 1: been a report in the New York Times about President
Speaker 1: Trump's phone, his cell phone, his personal cell phone, uh,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he continues to use it and
Speaker 1: it makes him susceptible to hacking. He has denied this,
Speaker 1: so has the Chinese government. What do we make of this?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but Clint Watts probably does. He's senior
Speaker 1: fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, also senior Fellow
Speaker 1: at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at the
Speaker 1: George Washington University. Thank you so much, Clint for being
Speaker 1: with us. So what was your impression of this particular story?
Speaker 1: Do you believe it? I want to say no, but
Speaker 1: every time I say no in a story like this,
Speaker 1: it turns out to be a yes. So I think
Speaker 1: there are some important things in the article um to
Speaker 1: think about. And one was the notion that the Chinese
Speaker 1: government essentially identifies friends of President Trump and then goes
Speaker 1: to influence the friends to tell Donald Trump and his
Speaker 1: friends what to think about different issues. And whether that
Speaker 1: happens on a cell phone intercept or in reality through
Speaker 1: business associates, this is a very adept influenced strategy I've
Speaker 1: also seen. I think this is actually the second or
Speaker 1: third story that I've seen about the president's cell phone
Speaker 1: maybe not being secured or used in a secure way.
Speaker 1: If you remember back to the start of the Obama
Speaker 1: administration when President Obama was addicted to his BlackBerry, you
Speaker 1: know this has come back to the two cousin eight,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of worry about how they
Speaker 1: would secure it. I think they eventually convinced him to
Speaker 1: not use it because of the security issue. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that that sort of convincing has been done in
Speaker 1: in the White House. And and one thing just tangentially
Speaker 1: is we've also seen a White House where a lot
Speaker 1: of aids, a lot of people that work in the
Speaker 1: White not S are recording each other. So every time
Speaker 1: I have doubt about these stories that we would have
Speaker 1: on secure lines that could be intercepted, I do find
Speaker 1: uh that there are users in the White House of
Speaker 1: cellphones uh, making recordings, uh, using things sort of in
Speaker 1: a loose fashion, which could could lead to something being insecure.
Speaker 1: So I'm not convinced one way or another yet, but
Speaker 1: I think the approach, whether it's intercepting a cellphone conversation
Speaker 1: or trying to influence the president through his business associates, uh,
Speaker 1: that I think it's very true. Clint Watch, Do you
Speaker 1: believe that authorities will intercept those individuals or individual who
Speaker 1: is responsible for those packages containing crew pipe bombs and
Speaker 1: envelopes with white powder that were addressed to the Clinton's
Speaker 1: at their Chappaquad, New York home, or to Barack Obama
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Or indeed John Brennan att CNN
Speaker 1: New York Studios. Yes, I would actually expect him to
Speaker 1: do it fairly quickly. Um, if you look at the
Speaker 1: packages they intercepted overnight, it seems like that they know
Speaker 1: what to look for. They've gone through the US postal
Speaker 1: system and been able to identify other ones that have
Speaker 1: been distributed. This gives them very strong leads to go
Speaker 1: back to where was the point of origin for these
Speaker 1: packages when they were disseminated. The other thing that's interesting
Speaker 1: about to ask this case as opposed to the last
Speaker 1: reason one, which was Austin. If you remember we had
Speaker 1: bombings in Austin, this show is a very weak delivery system.
Speaker 1: You know, there wasn't much reconnaissance done and the packages
Speaker 1: are are rendered to law enforcement and they're not exploded.
Speaker 1: This gives you tremendous amount of human forensics to look for.
Speaker 1: You can actually look at how they were constructed, if
Speaker 1: they had ever maybe tried to test these before. And
Speaker 1: so I imagine right now there's actually quite a bit
Speaker 1: of evidence. I think it's ten packages that I have
Speaker 1: seen have been intercepted or picked up. There's they've been
Speaker 1: routed to UH targets to make sense based on UH
Speaker 1: certain ideological mindset. So they're going to you know, descend
Speaker 1: on that fairly quickly. I think they actually have a
Speaker 1: lot of evidence to go on, as opposed to some
Speaker 1: like in the Austin bombings back in March, when the
Speaker 1: devices are exploding when they are are delivered you know,
Speaker 1: directly by the assailant or set up in an I e. D. Fashion.
Speaker 1: That's much tougher to go on. So Clint, do you
Speaker 1: have any sense of why the packages didn't explode and
Speaker 1: whether they were intended to explode or more intended as
Speaker 1: a warning. Yeah, just looking at it, you know, just
Speaker 1: from the pictures I've seen. Usually look for a few things. One,
Speaker 1: what is the actually the explosive material, and if this
Speaker 1: is mostly black powder from what I've heard, or or
Speaker 1: other things just packed into a pipe, that is usually
Speaker 1: your least sophisticated. If you remember back to the terrorism
Speaker 1: era with al Qaeda and the Zazi case for example,
Speaker 1: we were worried about peroxide based explosives. Um plastic or
Speaker 1: military grade would be even more sophisticated. But the other
Speaker 1: part of the device with the triggering device is that
Speaker 1: a remote that needed pressure debtonated. None of these went off,
Speaker 1: which means these could just have a device trapped to
Speaker 1: the outside that never could have you know, detonated the
Speaker 1: device at all. What we do know those these were
Speaker 1: explosive devices, That's what you know. We've seen that from
Speaker 1: several reports now and that they could have exploded. So
Speaker 1: I think the danger is there. I think the signal
Speaker 1: has definitely been sent, but it's not the most sophisticate,
Speaker 1: sophisticated bomb maker that you might encounter. Clint, I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: from your experience in the U. S. Army and as
Speaker 1: an FBI Special Agent on Joint Terrorism, I'm just wondering,
Speaker 1: do you think that the risk from domestic domestic terrorism
Speaker 1: has increased more than it has been in recent years.
Speaker 1: I don't even think it's increased more now. That is
Speaker 1: definitely the case. Domestics should be our main focus as
Speaker 1: opposed to international. But even going back about six years,
Speaker 1: you could see this train coming. If it wasn't for ISIS,
Speaker 1: and they're sort of spectacular attacks, success attacks overseas um
Speaker 1: rallying a lot of Americans to join online, we would
Speaker 1: probably be more focused already on domestic extremism. To me,
Speaker 1: it's is far outpacing international extremism. UM. That doesn't mean,
Speaker 1: you know, in this case, we couldn't. This could be
Speaker 1: an international extremist for some reason, trying to cloak themselves.
Speaker 1: I think that's unlikely. Uh. And so just based on
Speaker 1: the targets and impact. It looks like it's it's towards
Speaker 1: domestic extremism, but we should also look at a sort
Speaker 1: of a wild card hypothesis too, which is, if you
Speaker 1: want to create panic in the United States, particularly in
Speaker 1: these very divisive times of an election period, it's also
Speaker 1: an opportunity for a foreign government UH an intel service
Speaker 1: to create a provocation which stirs peer and panic in
Speaker 1: the audience space too. I think that's highly unlikely, but
Speaker 1: we shouldn't entirely rule that out, and I'm sure that's
Speaker 1: what the invest investigation the FBI is pursuing right now
Speaker 1: is trying to determine. Clint Clint Watts, Thank you, Senior Fellow,
Speaker 1: Foreign Policy Search Institute, also Senior Fellow at the Center
Speaker 1: for Cyber and Homeland Security at the George Washington University.
Speaker 1: You can follow him on Twitter at Selected Wisdom, and
Speaker 1: his most recent book is Messing with the Enemy, Surviving
Speaker 1: in a Social media world of hackers, terrorists, Russians, and
Speaker 1: fake news. Yesterday Wall Street hated big Tech. Today it
Speaker 1: loves it, and we're looking at green on the screen,
Speaker 1: led by Twitter shares up nearly eighteen percent after reporting
Speaker 1: earnings that beat expectations. Amazon and Alphabet parent company of Google.
Speaker 1: Such a report earnings after the bell, but those shares
Speaker 1: also climbing higher up give or take about four percent.
Speaker 1: Scott Kessler joining US now head of equity research for
Speaker 1: cf are, a Research in New York. Scott, let's just
Speaker 1: start with Twitter because we actually have data to look through.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about how they outperformed and what this
Speaker 1: means about sort of some of these big tech companies
Speaker 1: and social media companies being responsible when it comes to
Speaker 1: having members that count or users that count. Thanks. Yeah, Um, look,
Speaker 1: I mean when you see a stock like this moving
Speaker 1: in by the way, I mean, Twitter is no stranger
Speaker 1: to post earnings um volatility. I mean it's a stock
Speaker 1: that moves quite a bit after their report results. Um.
Speaker 1: This time, it seems they are performed pretty nicely. I
Speaker 1: think most notable was the revenue increase, which was far
Speaker 1: above the consensus. They reported about seven fifty eight million
Speaker 1: dollars in revenue and folks were looking for about seven
Speaker 1: million dollars in revenue. And I think there are a
Speaker 1: number of factors that contributed to that, but most obviously
Speaker 1: as they're continuing to focus on their strategy of health
Speaker 1: on the platform as well as providing a good experience
Speaker 1: for both users and marketers. And then in addition to that,
Speaker 1: I think we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge
Speaker 1: that they might have been benefiting to some extent from
Speaker 1: some of the challenges that Facebook has been going through recently.
Speaker 1: Scott Kessler, can you speak to the video aspect of
Speaker 1: Twitter's strategy? And also as a disclaimer, Bloomberg of course
Speaker 1: provides at TikTok, the twenty four hour streaming network for
Speaker 1: business and financial news for Twitter, tell us about video
Speaker 1: and how that plays into their future. Yeah, so him,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear that UM over the last
Speaker 1: year or so, Twitter is kind of refocused its strategy
Speaker 1: to some extent, and one of the big kind of
Speaker 1: UM thrust for them from a growth perspective is video.
Speaker 1: So they highlighted UM a number of UM new agreements
Speaker 1: with respect to their Live initiative, and their live initiative
Speaker 1: is you know, really at the core of a company
Speaker 1: is about which is really about UM getting people information
Speaker 1: and content exactly when they want. If you use a
Speaker 1: search engine, if you use UM some type of news portal,
Speaker 1: you might have to wait until it's surfaced with an
Speaker 1: algorithm or someone can actually report on it. Um. Twitter,
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people is really the
Speaker 1: go to source when it comes to breaking news, and
Speaker 1: so they've really capitalized on that by um, I think
Speaker 1: focusing on video as an opportunity, and they've done well.
Speaker 1: They've signed a lot of agreements, I think importantly though,
Speaker 1: they've gained some traction and you can charge more for
Speaker 1: the video advertising than the run of the mill um
Speaker 1: advertising that Twitter might have been uh, you know, involved
Speaker 1: with predominantly over the last number of years. All right, Scott,
Speaker 1: Let's shift for focus a little bit to Amazon and
Speaker 1: Alphabet both expected to report earnings after the bell today.
Speaker 1: Amazon shares up nearly fift year to date, pretty massive run.
Speaker 1: Do they have to actually know that they're able to
Speaker 1: generate a big profit this time or do people still
Speaker 1: not care? You know? What's interesting about these companies? And
Speaker 1: I can put everyone from Amazon to Twitter um in
Speaker 1: this kind of bucket of companies where people absolutely want
Speaker 1: to see the growth. But growth is by far um
Speaker 1: the most important thing. But then when you can throw
Speaker 1: in um profitability or significant profitability, especially when you might
Speaker 1: surprise people, and I think Amazon has done that. I
Speaker 1: think Tesla did that yesterday. I think that the magnitude
Speaker 1: of Twitter's beat was pretty significant. Even a company like
Speaker 1: Microsoft that reported yesterday, they're upside in terms of the
Speaker 1: UM revenue and earnings numbers versus expectations. Those give people
Speaker 1: confidence and that's really what I think a lot of
Speaker 1: investors are looking for right now. Scott Tesler, do you
Speaker 1: believe that Amazon, with its variety of revenue streams, whether
Speaker 1: the Amazon Web Services or it's hardware sales, it's online offerings,
Speaker 1: and of course the actual store itself, do you believe
Speaker 1: that Amazon is set for another round of growth? Well, Pim,
Speaker 1: what I can say is, um, we have another team
Speaker 1: member here to Nomobile who covers Amazon, and so my
Speaker 1: thoughts on the company are more broad. But I think
Speaker 1: it's fair to say, and we've been positive on the
Speaker 1: stock for UM years at this point. Um, Yes, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of levers for growth. UM. They seem
Speaker 1: to be doing a very good job at moving into
Speaker 1: new categories. But I would also say that there are
Speaker 1: competitors everywhere and they're looking to take share from Amazon.
Speaker 1: I think in the court e commerce market it's pretty
Speaker 1: challenging and it's becoming challenging and some of the cloud
Speaker 1: services offerings as well. But there are other areas that
Speaker 1: they're moving into where they're the upstart, they're kind of
Speaker 1: trying to take share, and so it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see how that plays out in the context of what
Speaker 1: they report later, especially from a cost and expensive perspective.
Speaker 1: Everyone's looking at UM cost going up because of UM
Speaker 1: the US Postal service contract and UM increasing expenses related
Speaker 1: to that. All right, thanks very much for spending time
Speaker 1: with us. Scott Kessler is the head of equity research
Speaker 1: for c f r A Research, and he can be
Speaker 1: followed on Twitter at Kessler c f r A. I'll
Speaker 1: just say that where the tech companies go is really
Speaker 1: where the market is probably going to go in the
Speaker 1: near term. Anyway, they've been the real driver, right so
Speaker 1: if these are disappointing earnings, it'll be an interesting day.
Speaker 1: Right now, though shares a Twitter higher by more than
Speaker 1: seventeen per cent. You're listening to Bloomberg Markets. I'm pim
Speaker 1: Fox along with my co host Lisa abron Woods. We
Speaker 1: are broadcasting live from the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studios. Brian
Speaker 1: Eggar joining us now Senior Gaming and lodging analyst with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence to talk about his experience buying a ticket
Speaker 1: to win one point six billion dollars in the Mega
Speaker 1: Millions competition that was drawn Tuesday night. Did you win?
Speaker 1: I did not win. That's why I'm here today, as
Speaker 1: I explained to him. But with the one out of chance,
Speaker 1: would you have? I don't know if I would have quit,
Speaker 1: but my sense of urgency might have might have been modified.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you didn't win, because we're so pleased
Speaker 1: to see you. So let's just talk about how much
Speaker 1: attention both this as well as the record powerball drawing
Speaker 1: that will occur Saturday night, how that's brought to the
Speaker 1: entire lottery industry, and who's benefiting from that business wise. Sure, so,
Speaker 1: there is a bit of a trend the watery operators
Speaker 1: that basically tighten y odds somewhat, which brings in more play,
Speaker 1: results in less frequent but much harder jackpots, and that
Speaker 1: in turn attracts more lottery ticket sales. And watery ticket
Speaker 1: sales for multi state games have grown in about a
Speaker 1: four and half percent, Ray Brannam over the last number
Speaker 1: of years. Brian, the companies behind this technology i GT
Speaker 1: International Game Technology and Scientific Games. Right, this is basically
Speaker 1: a duopoly because there's been a lot of consolidation in
Speaker 1: this industry. Yeah, that's true. I g T is nearly
Speaker 1: eight of US watery sales. Side games is about twelve percent.
Speaker 1: There's a company called Intra lot that's tem percent. But
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, it is effectively duopoly. Okay, so it's
Speaker 1: just the states. Are the companies that run the lotteries
Speaker 1: for the states or the duopoly that make the money.
Speaker 1: But are there any other companies that sort of benefit
Speaker 1: as people get into the mood to plunk down money
Speaker 1: that they may most likely will never see again. So
Speaker 1: the way, well, there's the states themselves, if you will
Speaker 1: get South Carolina with a big winner or New York State. Basically,
Speaker 1: thirty cents on a dollar spent goes to various state
Speaker 1: education funds. The lottery companies themselves basically get a small
Speaker 1: percent one or two percent of the lottery ticket sales
Speaker 1: in return for basically either running these facility management contracts
Speaker 1: or a lottery management agreement. So the lottery players do
Speaker 1: get a piece of the action, if you will, when
Speaker 1: people buy tickets. Brian, is this also a case of
Speaker 1: being able to adjust the odds. That is something that
Speaker 1: happened back in two thousand, fifteen and seventeen the Powerball
Speaker 1: and Mega Millions lotteries slightly tighten the odds. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is true that the resulting higher payouts and less
Speaker 1: less chance of winning results in a little more excitement,
Speaker 1: more media attention, and that does result in an elevator
Speaker 1: level of ticket sales, which, if it's a secular trend,
Speaker 1: would benefit UM, the I D T s and side
Speaker 1: games of the world. You know, I gotta say, do
Speaker 1: you buy lottery tickets? Him? Do you buy lottery tickets? Brian?
Speaker 1: On a regular basis? On a regular basis, I do not. Um.
Speaker 1: Do you know that two thirds of Americans gamble and
Speaker 1: that last year they spent nearly seventy three billion dollars
Speaker 1: on traditional lottery tickets and that is equal to more
Speaker 1: than two hundred dollars a person. Is there evidence that
Speaker 1: people are more likely to increase that amount if the
Speaker 1: total jackpot is bigger but they have fewer chances? In
Speaker 1: other words, is this like a get rich quick kind
Speaker 1: of scheme? Or is there enjoyment and sort of you know,
Speaker 1: see what you get chances if you get ten bucks, great,
Speaker 1: if you get one out of three hundred and three million,
Speaker 1: that's correct, So it's power. What happens, um is that
Speaker 1: although the jack pots are quite large and the odds
Speaker 1: of winning become infinitestinally small, nevertheless that the headline of
Speaker 1: that jackpot size and the associated excitement does bring in
Speaker 1: a little bit more play. And I think that's exactly
Speaker 1: what the lottery operators, as well as the wattery equipment
Speaker 1: suppliers White to White to observe. And is it worth
Speaker 1: noting that the companies behind the lottery and gaming and
Speaker 1: slot machines I G T and Scientific Games, these are
Speaker 1: international businesses, the internationally you know. I G T is
Speaker 1: actually fifty owned by an Italian conglomerate, the Augustini, and
Speaker 1: they get a large percentage of the watery business in
Speaker 1: Italy itself. And look at I G and Scientific Games.
Speaker 1: They age get about their business from kind of the
Speaker 1: North American lottery business, and of that a certain percentage
Speaker 1: goes to these multi state draw games which have become
Speaker 1: ever more popular. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: Debbie downer here for a second. But the sort of
Speaker 1: traditional belief is that lotteries are taxes on the poor.
Speaker 1: That's sort of something that a lot of people will
Speaker 1: say because people who are lower income are more likely
Speaker 1: to buy tickets. That is sort of the feeling. Is
Speaker 1: that true? I mean, that regressive scenario maybe maybe accurate.
Speaker 1: I think one one thing I have read is that
Speaker 1: as the jack bots get larger, uh, some of more
Speaker 1: affluent individuals would not be drawn to a smaller jackpot,
Speaker 1: might be more inclined to play. That being said, the odds,
Speaker 1: of course at one out of three hundred point to
Speaker 1: five million to one are not exactly making that a
Speaker 1: rational expectation of winning. But nevertheless, there is a little
Speaker 1: bit more excitement in the jackpots attract attention. So I
Speaker 1: think he's just said yes, but it's everybody. And honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean I know a lot of people who of
Speaker 1: all types who bought for this particular And there are
Speaker 1: forty four states that have watteries and and basically in
Speaker 1: terms of the contracts I g. T s and twenty
Speaker 1: five of them, and scientific games is about ten of them.
Speaker 1: So it is, with the exception of four continental states,
Speaker 1: a very popular activity. Well, we're very glad you didn't win,
Speaker 1: because We're very glad to have had you here. Brian
Speaker 1: Edgar is our senior Gaming and Lodging analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 1: telling us all about the one and a half billion
Speaker 1: dollar Powerball winner and the technology behind it. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or
Speaker 1: whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on
Speaker 1: Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo.
Speaker 1: It's one before the podcast. You can always catch us
Speaker 1: worldwide on Bloomberg Radio