RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc.

And welcome to RCI Hospitality Holdings fourth quarter and year end fiscal 2023 earnings call. You can find the company's presentation on RCI's website. Click company and investor information under the RCI logo. That will take you to the company and investor info page. Scroll down and you'll find all the necessary links. Please turn to slide two of our presentation. I'm Mark Moran, CEO of Equity Animals. I'll be the host of our call today. I'm here in New York with Eric Langen, President and CEO of RCI Hospitality. CFO Bradley Shea is coming to us from Houston. Please turn to slide three. If you aren't doing so already, it is easy to participate in the call on Twitter spaces. Go to at Rick's CEO and select a space titled Rick RCI Hospitality Holdings Inc. for Q23 earnings call. To ask a question, you will need to join the Twitter space with a mobile device. To listen only, you can join the Twitter space on a personal computer. RCI is also making this call available for listen only through traditional landline and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow. This conference call is being recorded. Please turn to slide four. I want to remind everybody of our safe harbor statement. You may hear or see forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. We disclaim any obligation to update information disclosed in this call as a result of developments that occur afterwards. Please turn to slide five. I also direct you to the explanation of RIC's non-GAAP financial measures. Finally, I'd like to invite everyone listening in the New York City area to join Eric and me tonight at 7 o'clock to meet management at Rick's Cabaret New York, one of RCI's top generating clubs. Rick's is located at 50 West 33rd Street between 5th Ave and Broadway, a little in from Herald Square. If you haven't RSVP'd, ask for us at the door. Now, I'm pleased to introduce Eric Langen, President and CEO of RCI Hospitality. Eric, take it away.

Thank you for joining us today.

Please turn to slide six. I think our fourth quarter results are generally in line with what everyone was expecting. We generated revenue of $75.3 million, 5.4% higher than a year ago quarter, mainly because of acquisitions. This has increased more than offset the decline in same store sales of 10.5%. However, margins were negatively impacted as a percentage of sales. Because of the same store sales decline, results were also affected by higher non-cash impairments. As a result, we earned 23 cents per share. But on a non-GAAP basis, we were solidly profitable, earning $1.11 per share. We are operating in a unique and complex macroeconomic environment. In addition, last year's second half saw the highest operating leverage we've had in the past five years. Fiscal 2022 free cash flow also benefited from a $2.2 million tax refund in the third quarter. I am proud of the efforts of our talented and dedicated teams, as well as the strength and resiliency of our business model. In fiscal 2023, our performance same-store sales were up 9% compared to pre-COVID fiscal 2019, with nightclubs up 8.3% and bombshells up 12.6%. We also saw the second highest levels of free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA in the company's history, eclipsed only by the unique dynamics of fiscal 2022. Please turn to slide seven. We are pleased to report that during and subsequent to the quarter, we have made significant progress towards our key growth initiatives. These should begin to produce results in this fiscal year and next. We also implemented some changes to improve operations. Our capital allocation strategy continued to provide strong long-term results. Since its adoption beginning year-end fiscal 2015, free cash flow has increased on a compound annual basis of 17.2%. Subsequent to the fourth quarter, we continued to buy back more shares. We believe we have significant cash resources available to implement our strategies and plans. Please turn to slide eight. I'd like to take a moment to go into more detail on the progress of our three major growth initiatives. First, we continue to be excited about our two Central City Colorado casinos, Rick's Cabaret Steakhouse and Casino, and our Bombshell Sports Casino. We are awaiting the conclusion of the state's gaming licensing process. At the very beginning of this effort, we estimated it would take 12 to 18 months based on past Colorado history. We are still in line with that timetable. All indications indicate the process is proceeding. No other applicant has received a gaming license ahead of us. We are also awaiting liquor licenses for both of the casinos and a building permit for the Bombshells Casino. We have begun to form our organization. We have retained a director of casino operations. He has a deep and long-term experience in the Colorado market. During the first quarter, we received a billing permit for our Ricks Cabaret Steakhouse and Casino. Interior demolition has been completed and construction has begun. Based on all this, we continue to anticipate opening both casinos in fiscal 2024. Using simple math, we believe this represents a significant free cash flow opportunity. Our plans for a total of 400 slot machines and 9 to 12 table games, as well as sports betting, Looking at the slots, they have been averaging 133 adjusted gross proceeds per day in Central City and $307 per day in nearby Blackhawk. Blackhawk is higher mainly because they run on a 24-7 basis, which we plan to do also. We have assembled additional properties on Main Street for further casino development as well.

Excuse me, sorry about that. Please turn to slide...

Sorry, I'm sorry, slide nine. Got a little confused here. The Baby Dolls Chica Locust acquisition continues to perform well. Sales have improved every quarter since the March acquisition, and we finished remodeling the fifth location in June, which is contributing to that growth. Labor and direct operating expenses as a percentage of revenue have come down, and we are analyzing more ways to improve those margins. We are planning to open three more clubs in fiscal 24. Two use existing club assets that we own. They will both be branded baby dolls, helping us turn that into a major Texas chain. The third is the replacement club that we told you about in Lubbock, Texas. Construction is underway. As we previously reported, we named Dean Reardon and Sean Kevlin as director and assistant director of nightclub operations for RCI Management Services. This should enable Ed Anikar, President and Director of RCI Management Services, to focus more time on acquisitions and development of new clubs. We are moving full steam ahead with regard to acquisitions, but we will not overpay for the sake of buying more clubs. We continue to be actively engaged in ongoing discussions with numerous club owners. Off script a little bit here. 2023 was a very challenging year for us, but I've talked to many smaller operators And they didn't have the reserves that we've had. They've had additional slowdowns compared to what we are experiencing. And I'm expecting that many acquisitions over the next 12 to 18 months are going to come in front of us and be on very favorable terms. So I'm very excited about that. If you'll please turn to slide 10 to review our bombshell development program. In September, we announced a major expansion of the food offerings at our food hall in Greenwood Village, a suburb of Denver, to add to our existing successful bombshells kitchen there. We have later relaunched that location as Cherry Creek Food Hall. In November, we opened the first bombshells post-COVID. This is located in Stafford, Texas, a suburb of Houston. It is off to a great start. Regarding other new bombshells, construction is continuing on Rowlett and the Lubbock locations, and remodeling should begin soon for our downtown Denver site. All three are expected to open in fiscal 24. In other developments, we hired a new assistant director of operations with more than 20 years of multi-unit restaurant experience. For bombshells, I'm currently exploring with private equity groups, sale, partial sales of the concept, partnerships or mergers, basically all strategic operating or all strategic opportunities out there that we can use to maximize the value of this asset and basically accelerate our growth. I think that the concept to be highly successful, we need to get into that 80 to 100 units that we believe we can do. And I'd like to see us do that with capital outside of the company's capital, because I think we just have too many acquisition opportunities coming up, the expansion of the casinos. And I'd like to keep our capital more focused on those operations rather than expanding bombshells. If you'll turn to slide 11, acting upon our confidence in our capital allocation strategy, our strong free cash flow profile, and our valuation, we continue to take advantage of our low stock price in the first quarter of fiscal 24 to buy back more shares. As of December 8, we had repurchased 37,954 common shares for approximately $2.1 million or an average price of about $54.59 per share in Q1-24. We currently have $14.6 million in remaining stock purchase authorization, and while we continue to prioritize high cash on cash returns in developing our new casinos, clubs, and restaurants, we also continue to opportunistically and aggressively buy back shares when they trade materially below our view of fair value. Now, here's Bradley to detail more of our results, and I'll be happy to take Q&A at the end of this session.

Thanks, Eric.

Please turn to slide 12 to review our nightclub segment. Fourth quarter revenues increased $4.3 million year over year. This was primarily due to $9.2 million from the new acquisitions, more than offsetting the $5.1 million in same-store sales decline. By revenue type, alcoholic beverages increased 17.2%, food 15.9%, and other 8.1%. Service revenue declined 2%. The different growth rates reflected higher alcohol and food in the sales mix from the newly acquired Heartbreakers, Baby Dolls, and Chica's Locals clubs this year. They also reflected lower stadium store sales and the summer slump in service revenues. Service revenue was 42% of nightclub sales this quarter versus 46% a year ago. If the sales mix had been the same, we would have $2.4 million in the service revenue, most of which have been benefited free cash flow. Post-acquisition of Heartbreakers, Baby Dolls, and Chica's Locos, our quarterly sales have shown a steady improvement, coinciding with a notable decrease in labor costs and a corresponding decline in direct operating expenses as a percentage of revenue. Fourth quarter results included $8.4 million more in items typically excluded from non-GAAP calculations, mainly non-cash impairments. As a result, GAAP operating income was $12.1 million, or 19.8% of revenues, but non-GAAP operating income and margin was significantly higher at $21.6 million and 35.4% of revenues. Even with the macroeconomic challenges we've been facing, our strategies have enabled nightclub non-GAAP operating income to remain at the $22 to $24 million range per quarter since the second quarter of 22. Please turn to slide 13 to review our bombshell segment. Fourth quarter revenues declined $452,000 Lower same-store sales were partially offset by the $1.6 million in newly acquired locations, namely Bombshell San Antonio and the renamed Cherry Creek Food Hall with its Bombshells Kitchen. GAAP operating income was a profit of $1.2 million, or 8.2% of revenues, and non-GAAP was a profit of $1.4 million, or 10.4%. Please turn to slide 14. In our segment, revenues were approximately level at $727,000. Operating income was a loss of $793,000 compared to a year ago profit of $216,000. This delta was largely a result of $908,000 increase in items typically excluded from non-GAAP calculations, again, mainly impairments. Corporate expenses were $6.8 million, nearly level with last year. On a non-GAAP basis, they were $1.7 million higher. This reflected about $500,000 more in salaries and wages in the fiscal 23 fourth quarter and the benefit of a $1 million legal insurance payment in the year ago fourth quarter. I also want to note effective tax rate for the year was 19% compared to 23.4%. This fiscal 23 effective tax rate reflected higher federal tax credits that more than offset the higher portion of income subject to state income taxes. Please turn to slide 15. Here you can see three big spikes in the operating margin we had in the third quarter of fiscal 21 and the third and fourth quarter of fiscal 22 as we came out of the COVID era. Please turn to slide 16. We have a couple slides coming up that will discuss free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP. In advance of that, we wanted to present you with the closest GAAP equivalents on this slide, which are operating and net income. Please turn to slide 17. to look at some of our other key metrics. We ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $21 million. During the fourth quarter, we used $2.1 million to buy back shares. We also ended the year with $9.8 million in accounts receivable. This increased 16% from a year ago quarter because September 30th fell on a Saturday. This resulted in our carrying credit cards and our accounts receivable from Thursday to Saturday sales at the end of the quarter. Fourth quarter free cash flow was $11.1 million or 15% of revenues. Adjusted EBITDA was $20.2 million or 27% of revenues. Our more recent free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA conversion rates reflect a lower percentage of service revenues. Please turn to slide 18 to review some of our debt metrics. Our debt at September 30th declined $4 million from June 30th due to scheduled pay downs. Weighted average interest rate was 6.64% in line with what we have been paying. Total occupancy costs inched up a little bit on a sequential quarter basis at 8.1%, but still in our comfort range of 6 to 9%. The increase since the third quarter of fiscal 22 primarily relates to new club acquisition debt. Debt to the trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA stayed relatively flat at 2.8 times, September 30th versus June 30th. This metric continues to be in line in our comfort level of less than three times. We adjusted our September 30th debt maturity tables to reflect the previously announced October modification of our debt, the 12% unsecured debt, to be specific. As you can see, our maturities continue to remain reasonable and manageable. In addition to our cash position and our October rescheduling of our 12% unsecured debt, we have an estimated $30 million of unencumbered real estate that we believe we can leverage if we like. Please turn to slide 19 for our debt pie chart. Our debt composition is similar to the third quarter, and that's it.

So let me turn the presentation over back to Eric. Thanks, Bradley.

Please turn to slide 20. Everything we do is centered around our capital allocation strategy. We employ three different approaches subject to whether there's compelling rationale to do otherwise. Mergers and acquisitions, organic growth, and buying back shares when our yield on free cash flow per share is more than 10%. All of this is done with the ultimate goal of driving shareholder value by increasing free cash flow per share at least 10% to 15% on a compounded annual basis. We turn to slide 21. We stuck to our capital allocation strategy since the – we have struck – we have – to our capital allocation strategy since the end of fiscal 2015. It has worked very well. We have generated compound annual growth rates of 10.2% for total revenues, 12.1% for adjusted EBITDA, and 17.2% for free cash flow. At the same time, we have reduced our fully diluted share count by 1.3% on a compounded annual basis, and that includes shares used for acquisitions. I'd also like to mention we ended fiscal 23 with more than $200 million in retained earnings for the first time. The first Ricks Cabaret opened 40 years ago. I believe we will be here for the next 40 years. The future is bright for RCI. There continues to be a very strong demand for what we do. We believe the actions we are taking are setting us up for many years of financial success to come. Every piece of the puzzle has its place. We just need to stick to our plan. I'd like to have special thanks to our loyal and dedicated teams for all their hard work and effort and all the shareholders who believe and make our success possible. We can't do this without you. Now here's Mark.

Thank you, Eric and Bradley. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand in the Twitter space. When you finish, please mute your microphone to eliminate any background noise. We have a limited number of speaker spaces. After your question, we may move you to the back of the audience to free up space. To start things off, we'd like to take questions from Rick's analysts and then some of its larger shareholders. Our three analysts are Scott Buck of HC Wainwright, Anthony of Sidoti, and Rob of Grant Research. Scott, you're up first. Take it away.

Yeah, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Eric, could you give us a little bit more color on what kind of traffic and spending trends you're seeing in the clubs today? Curious at some of that, some of the softer trends in the fourth quarter have kind of dragged here into the first quarter.

Well, I mean, we've seen some of the drag, especially in the blue collar still, into this first quarter. The comps are becoming easier, not perfect for us yet, but easier. We did. It's tough to say. I'm a trend finder. It's what I do. I look at numbers. I see the trends. I watch the financials. And it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. I've called this a psychological recession. And as we all know, that means people are a little crazy about spending. I think the consumer, especially in the last 60 to 90 days, is loosening up a little bit, but I think it's still a little – there's cautious spending. people are unsure. You know, we're seeing a lot of tech layoffs now. So I think some of the higher end spend, you know, higher end spend is, is they're still spending, but they're a little more cautious. They want to guarantee that they're getting a good time for it. Our top clubs are doing better in clubs. We're in markets where we're number two or number three in the market or where we own all the clubs. The number one clubs are doing very, very well, but the other clubs are, are still off a little bit. I think that's kind of vindictive of that, but As far as trends, I don't see trends. I think the longest trend up or down I've seen in the last seven months is about a three-week trend. Then it's crazy again for a few weeks. We may trend for two weeks up, two weeks down, a week up, a week down. It's really unusual compared to what I've seen in the past. However, overall, we're seeing enough strength that I'm very optimistic going forward. I think that I think the lows are kind of past. The low sales weeks are kind of past us. And holiday parties seem to be picking up a little bit this week. So seeing some good numbers this week. I was in Miami Friday, Saturday, and Sunday because we got stuck down there because of the storm. We couldn't get into New York Sunday. And I mean, the clubs were incredible, especially Tootsie's in Miami was packed. We were setting up by the VIP booth, uh, area, uh, to the, to the counter, to the, to the, the rooms in the back. And I mean, there was a line all night long Friday and Saturday night. So, uh, that was very promising. Uh, Tootsie's having a really big week this week. And then of course we had the, uh, the home game with Miami Monday night, which was, which was good for business. Uh, football's football's really picking up for us, uh, right now, basketball's starting to heat up a little bit. So, uh, very excited about, uh, how we're going forward, uh, with everything we have on our plate with, you know, casinos, the, the, the new three, the three new clubs, the three new bombshells. Uh, I think 24 is going to be a fantastic year for us. Uh, even if, even if things stay a little, a little sluggish.

Great. I appreciate that color. And then I'm curious on bombshells, how far along are you with some of these strategic conversations? And can you give us any kind of, uh, sense of timing on when something could potentially be announced?

No. Just being honest, I mean, we're talking with several people right now. We floated it out there about 60 days ago to a couple of groups. We've got some requests for data that we're putting together with different groups for different ideas, whether it's a strategic partnership, whether it's a a partial buy that would give us capital to do the expansions with, or a straight out sale of the assets. We're basically exploring all those things. We're going to weigh it all out and see what we think fits best for our long-term goals for RCI. And as far as timing, some of the requests, I mean, we've been working on the case, so Bradley had a little bit. I would say we'll probably, January, we'll start getting that data put together and out to some of the groups that we're talking with. I'm sure after this, we're going to have more groups that talk to us, and we're going to have more ideas and more opportunities to explore, and we're just going to find what we believe is the best for the company to use those assets to build additional cash flow for the company. And at the same time, make it so that we can grow the concept without using too much of our own capital. Because like I said, I think that the acquisition side of the business is starting to heat up a little bit. There's some opportunities with groups we're talking with right now. And I really think we want to keep our cash to finish building these casinos out and make these acquisitions.

Very great. I appreciate that. And then one last one from me. I'm curious, how should we think about OpEx for next year as you start to layer in some of the new revenue from some of these growth initiatives? Do you have significant spend you need to add, or should we really start to see some significant operating leverage in the business? Are you talking about CapEx spends, or are you talking about maintenance CapEx? I'm sorry.

I'm talking about adding back office heads, support heads, that sort of thing. Oh, I don't think we're going to add much of anything. We're kind of Our payroll is kind of – you see it was kind of flat. I mean, we had some additional payroll, but mainly that was from the acquisition. As far as adding additional staffing in the office, I don't see a lot of expense growth in that part of the business. I think the overall growth will be much faster than the growth in that department.

Super. Appreciate the added color, guys. Thank you for the time. Thanks.

Thank you very much for your question, Scott. Next up we have Anthony of Sidoti. Anthony, take it away.

Yes, good afternoon and thank you for taking the questions. So, 1st, just to follow up on the previous question in regards to the weakness, I guess, in the blue collar clubs. This is not the 1st time that we've heard this before. I think Eric, you had mentioned this probably about a year ago. So just curious. Is it the same? group of blue collar clubs that you're seeing kind of weakness that you, as you saw previously and kind of maybe get as a frame of reference. So like what percentage of your clubs would you consider blue collar?

I'd have to actually, I mean, with 70 locations, I'd have to actually look through it. I'd call it the pickup truck crowd, the working, you know, the working crowd. I think, you know, gas prices are coming down for them, but bills are still expensive. Energy is still expensive. So they're dealing with some of those things still as far as their costs. I think there's just a little uncertainty here and there in the marketplace right now that's causing some of the hesitation of spend. But, you know, as I see the bombshells and we watch the overall sales for the company increasing a little bit from November to December, and so forth. I think that, uh, and, and even in some of the other quarters from September to October, uh, you know, we're, I'm very optimistic that, uh, that we've seen the bottom of it. It's just, I don't know when, you know, people are going to get, uh, I don't think they'll ever be 2022, uh, loose with their money again, but, uh, I think we're going to see a little bit of an increase. I think we'll go back to our standard, you know, three to 5% growth rates, uh, for existing clubs, uh, over the long period. And, uh, and definitely normalizing labor, overtime costs. So we're gonna be able to bring some of our costs, hopefully more in line and get our margins back to where they need to be.

Understood, okay. And then just curious, are you seeing any notable geographic differences in your same store sales for both the quarter that you just reported and the current quarter? Anything to call out or is it just consistent across the board?

it's inconsistent everywhere is the real problem. I mean, one month, you know, New York runs huge numbers, and the next month they're off a bit. Miami's been pretty consistent. We're down in the Miami market with our four clubs there. But, I mean, if you look at what we did in that market, you know, the previous year in 2022 was just, you know, numbers we couldn't even dream that, like, you know, take Tootsies, for example, at 39 plus million for the year. in 2026, I think we did 26 and change. So even if we drop down to $33 million, we're still up a considerable amount from 2019, but not doing those numbers from 2022. But I tell you, this week is an incredible week at Tootsie's. Crypto is up. Bitcoin is killing it. We actually processed, I think, $170,000 in Bitcoin in two days, on a Wednesday and Thursday, which really boosted the The numbers for the Wednesday and Thursday of this week, we're getting other requests on whether we're taking Bitcoin in New York, which we're working on doing, probably in Chicago. So if Bitcoin stays as strong as it is, I think that's going to be a nice little boost for us. I think I'm optimistic that this summer is going to be much better for us than this past one, because I think everybody went on vacation in June. Last year, especially Europe, Caribbean, South America, Mexico type deal, everyone was out of the country. Our VIPs and our spend suffered from that. I think this year that people are going to spread their vacations out over the entire summer. Everybody's not going to go the first couple weeks of June and stay gone for three or four weeks. I talked to a lot of people. They've come back, and they're like, Oh, it was horrible. They complained about the expenses, the crowdedness, the lines when they wanted to go see exhibits or museums or tourist spots. The price gouging because there were just so many people there. I think this year, this summer is going to be much more realistic and kind of a normal summer. I think we're kind of returning back to that 2019 pre-COVID stuff. If 21 and 22 was like the You know, the rush of it and the party of it, 23 has been the hangover. And now the hangover is ending, and I think people are going to return to more normalized behavior going forward. At least I'm certainly hoping that's the case. I think what we're seeing right now in this quarter, I think it's kind of starting in this quarter, and I expect that to continue through the next seven, eight months. Then I'll have an idea of a trend. It's just very hard for trends right now because, like I said, it just has not been consistent. We'll have really big weeks, really off weeks, mediocre weeks, and there's just no real consistency to it in the last seven months. So, you know, kind of like a hangover, right?

Right.

Do I get up and get sick right now, or am I going to go out and party again tonight? You know, I think that's what we're seeing. Got it. Okay.

And then you also talked about implementing changes to improve operations. Can you give us some examples of as to what you've done so far and what more should you expect going forward?

Sure. Well, we promoted Dean Reardon and Sean Kevlin, opened up Ed's time a little bit more, put in a little more oversight management, basically, through our regional management system, bringing up some up-and-coming guys. With the bombshells, we hired an assistant director of operations with a lot of, you know, 20-plus years of multi-restaurant experience We're starting to see some of those results in certain markets, I'm noticing, and I'm very optimistic that they're going to find the secret sauce again and basically as things normalize. And we've made some management changes. You know, I think during the exuberance of 21 and 22, some of our staff members got – used to making easy money and not having to work as hard, and now that we're having to really step the game up, some of them had gotten lazy. I think we've had to make some changes there, kind of wake some people up and say, you know, kind of like a remote worker who has to go back to the office. Our guys have been in the office every day because the restaurant or the club or their office, but they've had it pretty easy because, you know, there's lines. There's people spending lots of money, and now, you know, we've got to return back to basics, uh, get back to customer service, shaking hands and touching tables. I mean, that's, that's the name of our game. I mean, there's a reason we're called RCI hospitality holdings because we are a hospitality company. And, uh, you know, a lot of our team is getting that, uh, it's really stepping up. Uh, there's some, some, some great, great, uh, people in our company. And, uh, you know, I think we've had to just kind of rebuild that, uh, I don't know, bottom 10%, right. Uh, you know, uh, But 90, 80% of your problems are from 10% of your people. So we're, we're, we're fixing those and correcting that. And, uh, I think you're going to see that, uh, in our numbers and in our, you know, in our culture, uh, our ability to continue to attract, uh, top talent, uh, as we, as we move forward over through the next, uh, through the next seven, eight months.

I think you also mentioned that labor costs have come down as well.

It's getting easier. Kitchen staff is getting easier. Overtime is down. That's another problem. We're working some of our best people the hardest because they've had to fill in for people. Their work-life balance got a little out of whack, so we've got to get that back synced up. Like I said, just get everything on a more normalized playing field. The party's over, the hangover's over, and now we're just normalizing and getting back to our standard growth cycle and getting back to the basics of our business.

Okay. So would you say that as things kind of normalize, do you think you can get back to the historical types of operating margins? Maybe not the peak levels that you had like last year, but Do you think that as things kind of normalize, you can bounce back to that high 20s, I guess?

I mean, I think we can definitely get into the 20s on free cash flow conversion. I think our EBITDA will be closer to 30%. And we may be a point or two low for a little bit. But, yes, I definitely think that we will get back to that more normalized, you know, 20% free cash flow, 30% adjusted EBITDA margins. That's definitely the plan.

Got it. Okay. Well, sounds like a good plan. Well, thank you very much. Best of luck and happy holidays to all.

Yep.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Anthony. Next up, we have Rob McGuire of Granite Research. Rob, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you for taking my questions today. Just starting on the nightclubs, can you elaborate on the baby dolls locations? You talked about two new locations already using the assets you own. Are these the club expansions and can you give us more color?

Yeah, basically we're going to convert. We now have worked with the city of Ty near Abilene, Texas to get our liquor license approved up there. So we're going to be converting the old Jaguars into a baby dolls. And then of course the original baby dolls West has been been on our plans. We've got the building permits working right now, and that's the property that we purchased off of Mark 4 in northwest Fort Worth. So that one's kind of been on the plate for a while. And of course, the Lubbock location, where we had lost our club to a taking by the Texas Department of Transportation to expand the freeway there, and bought five acres to build a to build a location in another spot. That location is getting pretty close to being completed. I think we're waiting for the well permit and a couple of other things to put the well water in and whatnot. And we'll get that location open here in 2024. So those are the three clubs that we've been working on.

I appreciate that, Eric. And maybe I missed this or I'm curious, You have plans to expand to the Chicas locations. Is that still in effect, or is that a 2024 thing?

It could possibly be 2024. Right now, we promoted some people to kind of free up more time for Ed so he could focus on these things a little bit more. We've got the three projects going. We're not sure in the Dallas market right now. what we're going to do with that Chica's, the extra property there at Chica's there. In Houston, originally we were talking about maybe doing a second type location there, but I think now we're actually talking about whether or not we're going to expand the existing club. It's just doing so well. I was there Wednesday night. It was incredible. Probably about 120 entertainers there on a Wednesday night. And so the VIP room is a little small there. So we're talking about maybe expanding that VIP room or maybe putting in additional, building a whole new VIP room and expanding the existing VIP room into more club space. So we're in discussions there. I know when Ed has some free time after the first of the year, we're going to get together and visit that site and kind of hopefully make some decisions on exactly what we need to do there. We're also, you know, there's also talk of, well, it's going so well, do we really want to mess with it? So, you know, what do we want to do there? So I think we'll figure that out, you know, shortly in the next probably 30, 45 days. And maybe by the February call, we'll have a better idea of what we're going to do with those properties.

Thank you. And then shifting to Central City Tech. Theoretically, if you were to get a license tomorrow, how long would it take you to ramp and staff those facilities to the point where you could open them?

Six weeks. It's not just the staff. We also have to do testing. Everything has to be signed up. So once you get your license, then you put in all your machines, everything gets done, and everything has to be tested. It's a pretty in-depth process, but it takes approximately six weeks is what we're told. And our guy that we've hired... As our director of casino operations and casino management, he's definitely very experienced in that. He's opened up several in the Colorado market, so he's very familiar with it. He knows exactly what we need to do. We have our full plan, our standard procedure and operating procedure stuff all put together, and we'll be ready to go. However, if we got the license today, we still would not be open probably until April because the construction will take at least until the end of March, early April.

Okay, got it. And then with regards to your third property in Central City, I realize you've got a lot on your plate with the two casinos. Have you applied for a license for that third property, though? Or can you kind of give us a timeline on that one?

Sure. We have applied for the gaming license to have it licensed as a licensed casino. We have purchased additional property that's contingent or, I mean, continuous with that property. So I think we now have somewhere, I don't know the exact square footage off the top of my head, somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 square feet, depending on where we put the holes in the walls to connect the buildings and whatnot. So it's actually become a very large property. There are existing tenants there right now. We're going to keep those tenants in place, keep those storefronts open so that Main Street continues to stay busy. We're going to get the existing casinos open first. and then decide what we want to do with that property. But we also, it allows us, because that's the last vacant, those are basically the last vacant spaces on Main Street to basically control that entire corridor there between our other two casinos and anyone else coming in and competing. So we know all of our existing competition that we could possibly have, and we would be able to control if we were going with a third party I'm going to let somebody else build a casino there. We would remain the landlord, and we could put some clauses in the lease that would protect our existing operations.

Interesting. And then my last question is just with regards to Central City, are there other operators? I mean, as you just mentioned, that's sort of it for Main Street, but are there other plans by third parties to develop their own casinos or increase foot traffic to Central City?

We certainly hope so. There's three properties you could build mega casinos on, or resort-type casinos, as we call it. with hotels, 400, 600-room hotels, 1,200, 1,800 parking spots in their garages with anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 square foot casino space, which we would definitely welcome because it would bring a lot of new traffic to Central City. I know there's several casino operators and developers that have been looking at those sites, and I'm certainly hopeful. uh, that at some point, uh, those properties will be sold and, uh, and, and we'll get some of those properties built. Uh, as I think it'd be fantastic for that area. I think right now, uh, Blackhawk central city's 13th, uh, in gaming in the country. And I would love to see, uh, see that area move up into the top 10. And I think those type of casinos are what will bring it to that point. Uh, Denver is the number one feeder market to Las Vegas, so there's a lot of people that fly into Denver and then fly to Las Vegas. If we could just get them to drive the 45 minutes, stay in Denver and drive the 45 minutes up and make it a mountain vacation where they can go in the summer, go whitewater rafting, fishing, hiking, and in the winter go skiing. There's six major ski resorts within an hour and 10 minutes. Five of them are within one hour. I just think it's a fantastic...

opportunity for uh for for future development and for us with the uh the main presence on main street there thank you so much yep thank you rob thank you very much rob before we open this up to q a from our audience i'd like to encourage everyone to share and retweet this space and to please raise your hand with any questions

First up, we have Adam Wyden. Adam, take it away. Hey, can you guys all hear me?

Yes. Okay. So just sort of going back on sort of your hangover analogy and margins, you know, generally speaking after a crazy night out, you know, you're spending all this money and then, you know, you got to figure out what you're doing and you're on your hangover. I mean, for me, I like coconut water, but like, you know, if you think about that as an analogy, you know, labor is super tight. You had a lot of overtime. Now inflation is coming down. Labor is weaker. I mean, can you talk through sort of some of the initiatives you're doing to sort of tighten up margins where like comps are down and you expect them to come up, you know, modestly over time, but like there's sort of some belt tightening and recalibration. I mean, can you talk about that and talk about margin? Because at least the way we think about it, like, you know, bombshells has sort of been the source of revenue decline, but it's the lower margin product. And now you've got more nightclubs and the casinos coming online. I mean, I would think that if your casinos do what you think you're going to do, you know, margins should actually increase over time relative to the average. So I'm just trying to think about how you're thinking about rationalization of costs and sort of margin trajectory in the context of adding high margin casino revenue, fixing what you've already had. I mean, I would think that we would sort of seen the low point in the margin and then you know, perhaps even see margins go back, you know, higher than historical average just based on the aggregate mix. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that? And I have a second question.

Yeah, I mean, obviously the margin is going to depend on what changes, you know, with future acquisitions, with when and as we open up these concepts. When I refer to margins returning back to 20, I think we're 15% free cash flow margin for this quarter. I think for the year we were 18%. So, you know, not horrible. And a single quarter isn't a barometer for the 12-month period because of seasonality. And this is kind of a strange – I mean, this – I think – I'm hoping 2024 is the last year that we have this strange seasonality. And I'm hoping that, like I said, I think by June – by the June quarter, we should return to a much more normalized seasonality mix, I think. But it's really – Got to figure out the rest of this month here, get this quarter out, talk to you guys in February. We'll be partially through the second quarter, so we'll have a pretty good idea of how January and February are going. I suspect that January and February are going to be pretty decent based on what I'm seeing right now, what I'm hearing out there, talking with customers and guests. I've been on a, I guess today's day, 13-day run now. from Houston to Colorado to Miami, now in New York. I've spent a lot of time in the clubs. I've spent a lot of time talking to our teams. I've spent a lot of time talking to guests. I've spent a lot of time talking with entertainers. The consensus is that we've seen the worst of it. Customers seem to be getting more optimistic. Our staff is definitely more optimistic on on what they're seeing right now versus what they were seeing in the late part of the summer. So that's very promising. Like I said, we've made some changes of personnel. We've made changes in certain things. We've raised some prices here and there. We've adjusted some things. We've changed our specials. Our specials are starting to become more of a day-of-the-week type deal, which is typically what we see and have to do in a recession to keep our Mondays and Wednesdays solid. So those things are happening right now. And I think we'll just keep, you know, keep pushing through and do what we do. But as far as, you know, depending on the mix of what we buy going future, yes, we could change our projection on what we think the margins would be, whether it's going to be 18%, 20%, 22% or higher. Right.

And also this year, I don't know if you mentioned this on the call, but, my sense is at least, you know, when I look at, this was a big year, you acquired a lot of land, you know, I mean, and you, you know, when you use your cash to basically plant seeds, you can't use that cash to sort of be leverage, right. Or, or buyback or what have you. And so it sounds like you're carrying probably more debt, or at least this year you've carried more debt than you would otherwise carry because you bought all this land and, you know, you're developing, you've sort of got, you know, both from an OPEX and at least from a leverage perspective, sort of higher OPEX and higher, you know, interest expense running through the P&L without that corresponding revenue. And so, you know, I would think that like from a free cashflow margin perspective, as you add that revenue, you know, on, from an income perspective, um, you know, I would think that, you know, your free cash flow margin would go up, right? Because both on an OpEx and interest expense line, you're basically carrying non-income producing assets without the corresponding revenue or EBITDA or whatever. So I would think that, you know, that would also help your free cash flow, you know, relative to 20, you know, in 24 relative to 23, right? Because you, you know, basically, I mean, like Bob Schell Stafford, for example, like that just opened, right? But you've been carrying it. There's been OpEx against that, right? And that's, a bombshell that, you know, could do, you know, eight, nine, $10 million, at least for the first year. And, you know, there's been money against that, that, you know, sort of wasn't sort of income producing. So there's sort of have this sort of income versus expense, you know, sort of mismatch. I mean, that, that should be, you know, sort of reversing in 24, right?

Well, I can cut it quick, simple for you. I would estimate 2023 that those carrying costs are somewhere between four and $6 million in 2024. Hopefully as we open things up, we, we can cut that down to less than half of that and add additional revenue. So yes, at that point, those margins will, that's why I said I'm pretty comfortable overall saying, you know, we'll get those margins back to that 18, you know, 18% is very similar to 2023, maybe back to 20%, 24. And just depending on when we open the, you know, the biggest problem with the casinos, we just don't know when we're going to open. We could open April. We could open June. We could open in September. We just don't have any, way to judge when the state of Colorado is processing the applications. They haven't issued a license in three years. So surely they want to get those licenses issued, I would think.

If you have the things, the locations open in April, both the bombshells, you know, sort of sports bar, can you open them up as sort of restaurant liquor venues while you're waiting for the casino and basically get those things going? I mean, I don't know how the strip club licenses work, but I mean, if for whatever reason, you know, it was sort of taking longer. I mean, you'll have the buildings built. I mean, you could use them as entertainment venues ahead of the casino. Or is that even a possibility to just open them in April and then wait until the gaming stuff? Or is that sort of not, that wouldn't be like the appropriate marketing?

I would guess I'd wait till June to do that. April, May, we'll make those decisions, like open, operate without gaming or not. And I guess that'll just depend on what kind of feedback we're getting from gaming, whether we're on the gaming agenda, whether our licenses are approved. But, yeah, at some point I'm going to open up and start generating revenue and stop the bleed, right? I mean, at some point it becomes senseless to just sit there with a built-out, you know, property with our liquor licenses in place, with all of our other, you know, operations ready to go and just wait for the gaming, especially because I think the club side of it will do very, very well. in that market. So that's definitely an option for us. It's just too early to gauge if that's going to make sense or not. But definitely want to get something going in the summer because, you know, it's very difficult. If we open after the season ends, the prime season ends, and we get into the skiing season with the winter and the unpredictable weather and the roads and, you know, the drive through the mountains in the wintertime, it's harder to get people to move up there in the winter. So I would rather definitely open in the summer. So that's something we'll take into place that probably by the May call, we'll have something most definite on, on that regards.

But the construction should be done God willing through April. So like, you know, there is a shot that if the gaming commission moves quickly, that you could have these things open by April or May, right? Cause your construction is, is moving, right? I mean, you're, you know, that you, that part you can control.

I think April, May is optimistic. I think June, July is more realistic. And I think, you know, August, September is probably being pessimistic.

Right.

You know, that's kind of my thought process. I do think we get open in 2024. I mean, you gotta remember we filed for the first license, uh, november of 2022 so it's been over i'm going on with 13 and a half months or 13 months about 13 months right now so uh you know when you get to when you get to may i mean you're talking 18 months i would hope that uh that we we have a definite idea of where we where we are and when we're going to get those licenses approved uh by may at the latest

Right.

And the city's behind you because they've got revenue bonds and all the rest. I mean, they want you there. They want the money. So it's not like anyone's working against you, that everybody's on board.

If there's anybody working against us, we don't know who they are. We haven't heard anything like that. It's been very positive. I go to every city council meeting. I've missed three. Travis hasn't missed any. Travis was the only one in the room the other day at the end of the year when I was giving their speech. He was the only one in the room other than, I think, the city clerk that had perfect attendance. for, you know, for, for the year. So we've had somebody at every meeting. We, we, we are there. We're very active in that town. Uh, we're, we're making, uh, other investments in that town. Uh, I've made some personal investments in that town. My son has moved up there. He's made some investments in that town. Uh, we're, we're, we're, we're very committed to, to central city and the success of, uh, not just our venues, but, but the city itself. And yes, the city needs the tax revenue. Uh, The meetings are online. You can watch the last meeting was a budget meeting. You can see the city's budget's about negative $850,000 for 2024. And so us getting open early is going to be very important to the city, as well as the three other casinos that have applied for licenses in that city. We need the Department of Gaming for the state of Colorado to process these licenses, get these licenses issued. and get Central City up and operating so that, you know, 60% of the storefronts aren't vacant.

Good. Last question. You know, at Noble, I mean, I'm just going back and looking at my notes. At Noble last summer, I guess it's not last summer, it's almost, I guess it'd be two summers ago. I think it was July of 22. You talked about sort of your RCI capital allocation plan for the next three years. And, you know, you know, the joke is, you know, man plans, God laughs, right? You know, so obviously we have not allocated $200 million this year. And the goal I think was to allocate $200 million a year and add sort of 30 of EBITDA, 30, 35, 40, sort of over three years. You know, I guess the question is, you know, your competitors are sort of wounded. You know, there's, you know, the three, I guess it's the two Ds or the three Ds, you know, death, divorce, and I forget what the other one is, but you know, owners of small businesses have to sell regardless of what's going on. You know, can you talk about sort of, you know, it's been 12 months since you announced an acquisition. You know, can you talk about sort of getting the, you know, how that M&A pipeline looks and, you know, how you can get back to sort of a normal cadence of, you know, even if it's not 30 of you, but, you know, 20 a year, because we haven't really added any in

a year, and I would think that now... Well, we added in March, to be fair. We closed our major acquisitions, $66.5 million acquisition in March. We always say when we close a big one, we're going to wait six months before we do anything else. We've only been back on the market looking for about 60 days. We had a long list of people that had called us. We're calling those people back. Some people have an unrealistic valuation in their head right now because they think they're going to sell us at five times 2022 numbers when we all know that 2022 was, you know, excuse me, an incredible year. You know, we bought the Birch Clubs at about 4.2 to 4.3 times their numbers. We've increased those numbers, so it's going to be coming in at around four times for us. And we're looking at four times right now. If you want to come in and you want to look at your 2022 numbers, we'll look at them, but we're going to pay you about four times on those. Because the reality of it is no matter how good we are, there's going to be about a 20% decline from those numbers. That's what we're seeing overall. I mean, I've talked to operators who are down 35, 40% in certain markets. And, you know, we're talking to them and they're like, well, you know, I want five times, you know, I'll pay you five times your current numbers. Well, I don't want, I want five times my 22 numbers. And I said, well, that's not going to happen. And, you know, you're right. You're down 35% right now. How am I supposed to buy based on those numbers? Even if I, you know, I can probably bring, you know, get you down less than 20 or around and around 20, but I, you know, I'll pay you four times if you want to do that, or I'll pay you five times current. And so that's kind of where we're at right now. We're getting some, some positive feedback right now with a couple of different options that we're looking at. And, uh, you know, obviously Christmas is coming up, so I wouldn't expect anything the next few weeks, but, but I wouldn't be surprised, uh, if we have some, some stuff announced in the next couple of months. Uh, and I think once it starts, it's going to be pretty consistent, uh, Because, you know, once the next guy sells to us and we've reestablished the purchase multiple, then I think other guys are just going to fall in line and we're going to end up with a few more locations. Like I said, we're looking at several things right now. But we're going to pick. I mean, yes, I could go close acquisitions all day long if I want to overpay for them. But I don't want to overpay. It's not in the best interest of the company. The fifth grade math has to work. If the capital allocation strategy, when we do the math, if it doesn't work, then we don't move forward. We just wait. Unfortunately, sometimes that means we wait a little longer than we'd like to. But at the end of the day, I don't know what they're going to sell to if they don't sell to us. And if that changes, then we may have to get more aggressive. Or if the market changes, we get more aggressive.

So we just have to do what we do. Can we double click on that last statement that you had there? So like, you know, I mean, you have all these unrealistic sellers, right? But like, if you think about it, and you know, we've talked about this, but like, you know, I think it's important for other people to hear this, which is that like, you own a building, right? Or you own a building, you have a strip club, and it does 10 million in sales. And, you know, I don't know, 4 million of EBITDA or something like that. And let's say you can, you can pass through a rent of 600,000 or something. And, you know, you can even sell it at a, at a six cap or something, you know, that, that building, you know, that building could be sold for $10 million, but then you lose the cashflow of the strip club. Right. And so, you know, you can, you know, the idea is, is like, you can sell, you can sell your building for 10 million bucks, but that's the equivalent of two and a half times EBITDA for, for, for, for, for the strip club. Right. It's like, okay, like, you know, you can sell your strip club for two and a half times. Cause that's what the building's worth. It's like, I don't really know what the alternative is, right? Because you're the only person that's willing to A, buy the real estate and also operate the club. And so like, when I think about the options, right, for a seller, right? You know, yeah, you can try and sell it to your manager, but is your manager, you're not gonna take the seller finance from the manager? You know, is he gonna go and be able to raise the equity? Like who's buying, you know, strip clubs at five or 6 million? I mean, look, you know, interest rates are coming down, but there's still something, right? I mean, it's like, I don't really see a scenario where someone else is buying a strip club for five or six million and saying, hey, here's a strip club. I'm going to pay you $25 million, five times EBITDA. That's $15 million more than you would if you were just selling the real estate.

And that's why we keep landing the deals. That's why we're buying these clubs. We're picking up some incredible real estate in the transactions. future development of that real estate has value. We just got appraisals. We're in the process right now of putting together a cash out loan. We want to see how much cash we can get. We had all the properties that we purchased that we paid cash for. We're getting them all appraised right now. We figure we can pull 20 plus million in cash out since we're looking at some pretty serious acquisitions. We want to have everything ready to go in early January so we can make moves fast. Uh, and like, you know, the playmates property, I think we paid $4 million for it. The appraisal just came back at seven and change. Uh, we paid 7 million for the Scarlet's building just came back at 7.8. We're waiting for the casino, uh, deals to come in, but basically all the appraisals so far that we've gotten in are much higher than what we paid for the properties. as we bought those properties in 20 and 21 and even in early 22. So I'm very optimistic that we need a $41.8 million total appraised value to pull the cash we want to pull out and move the New York property out of an existing loan and pull it back in because its appraisal was so bad in 2020 when we had COVID. It's about a $15 to $18 million property and the appraisal came back at 6.9, I think. So we only owe about $5 million. We're only able to pull $5 million cash out of that building. I think when the new appraisal comes in, we're going to be able to pull about $11 out of it. So we'll pick up an extra $6 million by refinancing that New York property and pulling it into the new loan. So we're weighing all these things right now. So we'll have options available to us, right? Everything's about options for us right now. There's so much out there. We're sorting through it. We're going to kind of look at different things and find the right prices, the right pieces. Like I said, it's a puzzle. All we have to do is keep doing what we're doing, keep following our capital allocation strategy, put our capital to work, get the cash on cash returns, and continue to just wash, rinse, repeat. It's actually really simple. I've listened to shareholders and everybody I'm hearing, you guys need to do more club acquisitions and build less bombshells. And so I said, okay, but I believe in the bombshell concept and I don't want to give it away and I won't give it away just to get rid of it. But I will explore strategic opportunities to grow it at a much faster pace than we, if ourselves can grow it. I've been talking with some pretty smart people out there. The beauty of the restaurant business is there's some really smart people out there in that space. And they understand, we've talked to them about the value of uh they've seen they they put through our stuff they look through our margins what we've done how we've done it and uh you know we're getting some pretty positive feedback on it and i really think that uh we're going to figure it out it may take six months it may take three i don't know but we're going to figure out how to accelerate the growth of bombshells with capital from other people sure we'll have to share part of it but we will reap a big part of it for our shareholders and very little risk to ourselves. And if that, you know, if that's like infinite cash on cash returns, if it's other people's cash and we're, and we're making money off of it. So those are, those are, you know, I, I know, I know you think I don't listen sometimes, Adam, but I do listen. It just takes me time to digest. It takes me time to figure out, you know, what the best method to do these things are. And, but we're getting there. I'm always learning and I'm always listening. So, There you go.

Fantastic. Thank you so much for your questions, Adam. I'd like to encourage anyone with questions in the audience to please raise your hand, and we'll bring you to the front. Next up, we have Orchid Wealth.

Please take it away. Hey, Orchid Wealth, I think you're on mute. Are you muted still, Jason? I got it. How about now? You got me now? There you go. Yes, sir.

I got you. Perfect. Hey, how much more money do you guys think it will take to get Colorado up and going?

Well, once again, it depends on when we open.

Yeah, but I mean, just, you know, what are you saying to yourself right now? I got this much in. How much more do I need?

I think we're going to put between now and April, we're going to put another six million or so in. Could be eight, depending on the what we do on machines and a few other things. All in all, we're going to spend probably 14, I think we're over to about 20, 22 million, I think, is our budget. But that's including buying all the machines. Because of our new manager or ops guy that we brought in, he's got some great relationships with some of these vendors and companies and So we're starting to get some pretty good deals or maybe, you know, 12 months, same as cash. And we only have to pay monthly for 12 months after, and it does start to, until we open the casino. So the machines are already making money for us before we have to start paying for them. Uh, we've got some, some pretty neat, uh, uh, you know, terms and deals that we didn't have available to us before we hired him, uh, as a new operator, you know, they don't trust new operators as much. So these casino companies are much stronger about it, but, uh, They do know him. He's a very good operator in that market. He's very well known in that market. And so we're getting some nice offers from some of these companies. And I'm very optimistic that, you know, like I said, about six, to answer your question quick, six to eight million training now in April, May is my guess.

Okay, and then just to clarify, when you guys get your license, it applies to all three properties. You don't have to resubmit for each one.

We've already submitted for all three. The investigation has – so all three licenses have the same operators, have the same company. All the capital is coming from the same source. I believe that if they approve one, they approve all three, but I'm not the Colorado Department of Gaming, so I can't be 100% sure of that. But that is my understanding that once we're approved, there may be some formalities. The license will be approved, but the actual – what's called the go live is individual. So each casino has to do all their setup, all their testing, all their operating procedures. They have to walk through and do all the inspections. They have to pass all that. Then you get to go live. Those will all be independent for sure. But I think the actual approval for the three to actually – those processes should be all at the same time, if I'm understanding it correctly.

Okay. And then when you get your license, you already have people that are looking for the online partnership agreements that you guys were talking about?

We do. We have been talking with different groups. I think we'll, you know, obviously everything's going to be contingent on the license being issued because We have to have license issues, then they have to do their application, which takes another 30 days for that.

Okay. But it's not like they get their application. It's going to be another six months. It should not be.

Okay. But it's up to the Department of Gaming.

It's not up to me. Right. Okay. The gaming people haven't come back to you and wanted anything else. They completed all their interviews and stuff, and you haven't heard anything from them, right?

So it's just sitting on a desk somewhere. I'm sorry.

I said they haven't come back to you for anything else. They've done your interviews. You've given them all your financials.

They've come back with us multiple times. We've given them multiple data dumps, which is good. That means we know the process is moving forward. From what I understand, early January starts what they call on-site inspections. So they will be going and visiting some of our current locations. We have no clue which ones. We have no clue when they'll go, but we believe that will start in early January. And I know what the budget is, so I know what money they have to spend because we had to provide it.

They can ask for additional funds. Got it. You pay them to investigate you. Yes.

Got it. Okay. And they can ask for additional funds, which I do expect them to do. But there's limits on that. I don't know what the whole rules are. I have to go back and look at them. Okay. But basically, I think that once they do the site inspections, I think it'll be relatively quickly because before they get to that point, I think everything else in the investigation is done. So unless they find something they want to look into while doing the site inspections, I don't suspect that there'll be any other real issues. Okay.

And then my last question for now is just when you do an online partnership, these guys give you cash up front or some type of agreement of revenue share. How does that typically work?

Both. They give us cash up front. They give us guaranteed minimums and they give us a percentage. And if the guaranteed minimum is more than the percentage, then we take the guaranteed minimum. And if the percentage is more, we're going to take the percentage.

So in a weird way, like this online partnership that you may or whoever you pair with for these places could theoretically almost pay for the entire investment over a 10-year period from the revenue share? Typically, yes. Okay. So for all intents and purposes, this is just like, the question is how quickly are you going to get your money back? You're going to get it back in 10 years with an online partner or from the revenue from the machines and everything else, you can get it back in two. Okay. Could be, yeah.

I mean, that's, it depends on how much cash we actually use too and how much we're able to pull out. Because once the casino is open and operating, we can then borrow against it, right? I mean, that's, there's a lot of lenders out there that loan to casino companies to Unlike strip clubs, you can borrow against the actual business model and the business cash flow. I mean you can borrow against your machines.

You can borrow – I mean it's a totally different – Everybody wants to give you money when you're in the casino business.

Well, they don't build all those big buildings because everybody's winning. Yeah, all right, good. All right, thanks, guys. Thanks, Jason. If anybody else would like to ask a question, please raise your hand, and they'll get you in the queue here.

Thank you.

Adam, you're back up. And if there's anyone else out there in the audience with questions, please raise your hand and we will bring you to the front. Adam, take it away.

Hey, Adam, you're on mute. Mr. Wyden, you are on mute if you'd like to unmute yourself.

We are going to bring up payments advisor. Now payments advisor, please take it away with your payments question.

Payments you can unmute and feel free to chat.

Hello. Okay. Hey, thanks guys. Uh, thanks for taking a, you know, thanks for letting me on. Appreciate, appreciate the, the, the earnings call and you know, the whole breakdown. I just wanted to essentially, I think I posted on there hoping that I could have a chance to essentially just offer my services to RCI. I really love what you guys do. I've been watching you guys from a distance for the last couple of months, everything you're building out. I just kind of want to find a way to pay you guys. Essentially, you know, we're a wholesale payments processor. We can basically eliminate all your processing costs. and just reduce it to essentially 0% over interchange and pay you one cent per transaction. You guys can apply it towards debt pay down, expansion, share buyback. I was just wondering.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not the person that handles that. I would tell you to email Travis at rcihh.com. Perfect. We basically run our competitive bidding process online. uh, once a year. Uh, I don't know when he does credit cards, but I know he does it, uh, at least once a year. So we, we, we, we send this out, uh, and you're, you'd be happy to take a look at it and, and see if it makes sense.

Okay. Thanks, Eric.

So it's Travis at RCIHH.com. Yeah. So you can't find it. You can just go to our website, RCIHH.com and click on the board members and his, I think his contact email stuff's all on there.

Perfect. Thank you, Eric.

Thank you.

Thank you so much to Eric and Bradley as well as everyone who asked a question this afternoon. For those who joined late, you can meet me as well as management tonight at 7 o'clock at Rick's Cabaret New York, one of RCI's top revenue generating clubs. Rick's is located at 50 West 33rd Street between 5th Avenue and Broadway. a little in from Herald Square. If you haven't RSVP'd, ask for Eric or me at the door. On behalf of Eric, Bradley, the company, and our subsidiaries, thank you and have a good night. As always, please visit one of our clubs or restaurants and have a phenomenal time.