Back in March, long before a short seller would raise questions about electric-truck company Nikola Corp. and hasten its founder’s exit, early investors in the company were expressing concerns of their own. Those investors, led by mutual-fund giant Fidelity Investments, were worried that Trevor Milton, for all his brash visionary talk and Twitter braggadocio, lacked the ability that Elon Musk possesses to deliver these sorts of newfangled products to market. They lobbied successfully to remove him as CEO before the company’s June IPO and for Milton’s father to leave the board, according to people familiar with the matter. When the deal was done, Milton only held the title of chairman, the post he resigned this month.
The back-room negotiations show that Milton’s past was a concern to investors months before General Motors Co. executives placed a bet on the company in a US$2 billion deal carved out after the IPO. They liked Milton’s vision and his ability to raise cash and felt the venture was safeguarded from his shortcomings in operations by his push upstairs, say people familiar with the matter. Nonetheless, the events that have unfolded since the short-seller report, with Nikola’s stock plunging amid a steady stream of negative headlines, have exposed just how high the risks still were.
Now, it’s up to former GM Vice Chairman Steve Girsky, whose blank-check company VectoIQ took Nikola public via reverse merger in June, and Nikola CEO Mark Russell to stabilize the business and regain investor confidence. The plan with GM was to use Nikola’s hot stock and Milton’s ability to raise money to build a hydrogen-fueled trucking business with GM’s technology.
“There is obviously someone on the diligence side who isn’t going to get a nice bonus this year,” said Reilly Brennan, founder of the venture capital fund Trucks Inc. “The best possible thing if you’re a shareholder is that Milton is no longer running the company and you have Girsky as chairman and GM providing technology.”
The GM deal was originally scheduled to close Sept. 30, and the automaker has said it plans to carry through, but that timing may slip, say people familiar with the matter. BP Plc is still engaged with Nikola in talks to partner on a network of hydrogen fueling stations for fuel-cell trucks the company hopes to sell, but also is slowing the pace for a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. BP and GM declined to comment.
Milton’s tale reads like a Greek tragedy. The report by short seller Hindenburg Research accused Milton of overhyping Nikola’s technology and has prompted investigations by the Justice Department and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A cousin has accused him of a decades-ago sexual assault, which he denies. The company’s value peaked at US$30 billion and is now worth about US$7 billion.
Girsky and GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra have both said publicly that they did plenty of due diligence. People familiar with the matter say that GM found out when scouting the deal that it had better batteries and fuel-cell technology but joined forces because Nikola had a working semi truck and access to capital markets. In addition, GM will get paid to build Nikola’s Badger pickup on existing assembly lines. Milton was so excited to get the Badger pickup program moving that he signed a deal that heavily favored GM, one of the people said.
Nikola’s stock and GM’s US$2 billion stake are worth less than half what they were on Sept. 8, when the deal was announced. Milton’s own stake is worth US$1.7 billion, down from almost US$5 billion at one point.
Milton said in a June interview with Bloomberg News that he grew up in modest surroundings in Layton, Utah. His family moved to Las Vegas when he was very young and he lost his mother to cancer shortly after moving back to Utah in the sixth grade. He wrote on Twitter he didn’t finish high school, earning an equivalency certification instead, and later dropped out of college. His Twitter account has since been deleted.
He grew up in a tight-knit Mormon family, according to Aubrey Smith, his first cousin. She went on social media recently and accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1999 when she was 15 and he was 17.
In a public account on Facebook and Twitter, and repeated in a phone interview, Smith said that Milton came onto her at the funeral of their grandfather. He took her shirt off without permission, Smith wrote, and then he touched her inappropriately before someone knocked at the door and she ran out.
Milton denied the allegations through a spokesman.
Smith said Milton raised money from family members to get his start. He founded and ran several businesses, including a home-security company that Milton claims he sold for US$1.5 million. Next, in 2009, he founded an e-commerce platform called Upillar.com, which Milton claims “pioneered the shopping cart online.”
Then he got into clean propulsion but ended up embroiled in litigation with dHybrid Inc., which he founded in 2009. The company retrofitted diesel vehicles with natural-gas-burning turbines, claiming the dual system had greater efficiency.
But a deal with Swift Transportation Co. in 2010 ended in court when Swift alleged dHybrid defaulted on a US$322,000 loan and that it retrofitted only half of the agreed vehicles. The case was dismissed in 2015.
Milton later tried to sell dHybrid to a company called sPower in May 2012 but that, too, got mired in lawsuits after sPower backed out and accused Milton of exaggerating its technological capabilities.
Amid the litigation, Milton started another company with a very similar name, dHybrid Systems, selling it in 2014 to Worthington Industries.
During an interview with Bloomberg in June, Milton said that dHybrid Inc. was a success but conceded that, “we ended up closing that one down because of some litigation.”
His next startup was Nikola, founding it in 2014 in Salt Lake City before moving to Phoenix. Emulating Musk, he took the name from the electricity pioneer Nikola Tesla, and the company was soon billed as the Tesla of Trucks. His plan was seen as potentially disrupting the entire transportation industry by making trucks that ran on batteries or hydrogen-fuel cells. He also planned to build a network of hydrogen filling stations.
Friends and Family
Milton had friends and family members working for Nikola despite resumes that didn’t match the job. His brother, Travis Milton, is director of hydrogen and infrastructure. His LinkedIn profile shows that most of his experience was being “self-employed” in Maui. The short seller, Hindenburg Research, said that Travis Milton poured concrete as a contractor. Milton’s father Bill was originally on the board but stepped down when VectoIQ took the company public.
The company’s stock prospectus said that Nikola had awarded more than 3 million stock options “to recognize the superior performance and contribution of specific employees.” The list included Travis Milton and an uncle, Lance Milton, the document said, acknowledging that they are relatives.
As Milton went public with Nikola’s technology, questions soon arose involving his claims about the company’s fuel-cell system. He bragged in an investor video in 2019 that the company had created “what other manufacturers said was impossible to design.” But while Nikola holds patents in fuel-cell and battery technology, most of its planned hardware was coming from German supplier Robert Bosch Gmbh.
Nikola Demonstrations
It became clear that Milton had gotten ahead of himself. A 2016 demonstration showed a truck that didn’t have a working hydrogen-fuel-cell system and was missing key parts, people familiar with the matter said in June. Milton said at the time that the parts were removed as a safety precaution.
In July of this year, he recorded a video of the semi truck in which he ran alongside the vehicle as it coasted at low speeds in a parking lot. Aping Musk’s combative social-media persona, Milton took a shot at his detractors saying, “these damned trolls, I wonder if they are going to apologize to everyone for the lies they spread the tens of thousands of comments about how fake we are.”
Girsky said in the webcast “Autoline This Week,” in which Bloomberg participated, that he has been in Nikola’s fuel-cell trucks and that they work.
Still, when the GM deal was done, GM will be supplying all of the technology for every global market except Europe. Nikola’s pickup truck, called Badger, will use GM’s Ultium battery, and the semis will run on a fuel cell developed by GM and Honda Motor Co.
Since Milton’s departure, Nikola has billed itself more as an integrator of other technologies into its Badger pickup and semi trucks.
For GM’s part, the automaker is protected from any financial downside. GM got 11 per cent of the stock for no cash investment and gets paid for its technology. If Nikola fails, GM won’t lose a dime.
Milton has remained silent and is out of the company. He unknowingly presaged his own downfall in the June interview with Bloomberg: “Part of becoming a better person in life is losing everything you have got and having nothing left.”
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/nikola-founder-milton-s-fall-reveals-what-his-backers-feared-1.1500376

First, I want to thank everyone for reading last week, and also for shouting me out in this sub when my Isabella take hit. I had a ton of fun screaming in my living room when Isabella scored twice as a 1% rostered player.
Before I get to this week’s pickup, I wanted to spend a moment to review where we’re at with players I recommended in previous weeks. So far, every player I’ve recommended has gone on to score a touchdown the week that I recommended them. That kind of success rate is unsustainable. I’m bound to hit regression at some point. What I hope I’ve demonstrated so far, is that if we find data to support our claims, we can find guys on the waiver wire that the hive mind has dismissed unfairly. That’s how we win. On most of my rosters, I try and keep one slot open to cycle through players who might break out soon. To me this is a better use of your bench spots than holding a player who will likely be just barely better than what is on the waiver wire anyway. We want to shoot for upside whenever we can. Even if we’re more skilled than our opponents, we can expect to lose most leagues we’re in. This is a game with a lot of variance, so we want to make moves that might give us enough upside to win the whole damn thing.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling is in line for a huge workload with the news that Allen Lazard went to IR. This one is interesting, because I was ultimately wrong about MVS overtaking Lazard for the WR2 role on the Packers, but now that doesn’t matter. Aaron Rodgers is throwing the ball well and we should have MVS in our lineups this week, since the Falcons pass defense is terrible. Someone might have dropped MVS after his dud last week. I would double check and see if he’s available.
Corey Davis has been meh, and now he’s unexpectedly on bye this week. In smaller leagues, I might consider dropping him, but if you have the room, I would hold for now. Adam Humphries is on the Covid list, so Davis is in line for more targets if the Titans are able to play week 5. Also, AJ Brown is set to return, which might leave Corey Davis a bit more open as he battles with lesser cornerbacks going forward.
Andy Isabella is still poised to break out. I think it’s clear at this point that he’s a better player than Christian Kirk. Last week, Isabella was used more in the slot and got 2 red zone targets, which he converted into two touchdowns on limited snaps. Christian Kirk and Deandre Hopkins are both questionable for week 4 right now, and I would certainly be willing to start Isabella if both Kirk and Hopkins were to sit this week. I added Isabella in every single league where I didn’t have him already, and I think you should too. If both Kirk and Hopkins play, I’m going to keep him on my bench.
On to this week’s “drop your kicker” player of the week… Justin Jackson. Now to get this out of the way, I’m not saying Justin Jackson is necessarily going to see playing time right away. I’m not saying to add him over guys like Brian Hill or Rex Burkhead who you’ve heard about all week. As a reminder, this column is intended for people who play in deeper leagues, with at least 12 teams, where you can start 3WR and a flex, and 6-8 bench spots. This advice is also primarily for people who play in FAAB leagues, where pickups become expensive after they break out. We want to add these players before they breakout so we don’t have to use our precious FAAB dollars on them later.
Justin Jackson is third on the depth chart right now, so why are we adding a guy who Numberfire predicts a workload of less than one touch for? Going into the season, it was unclear who the number 2 RB on the depth chart would be for Chargers. A lot of people started to hear buzz about Joshua Kelley this off season, and for managers who scooped him up, he’s been a good fantasy asset so far. He’s been getting a lot more work than your typical back up RB, and this whole offense is doing a lot better with Justin Herbert under center. Kelley is still a better add than Justin Jackson if for some reason he’s still available. I would also add guys like Brian Hill over Jackson. But that’s not why you’re here. This column is for people in deep leagues who have nothing left on the waiver wire.
Joshua Kelley lost a fumble last week. Rookie QB Justin Herbert also threw an interception and lost a fumble as well. The Chargers lost their second game in a row at least in part due to those turnovers. Coach Lynn has already publicly shared that he has plays ready for Justin Jackson if he is going to be active. I imagine Jackson will get at least a few touches, based on what Lynn is saying. But what happens if Kelley fumbles again? Lynn sounded pretty angry about the turnovers at the end of the game last week, and he did start using Ekeler way more after Kelley fumbled last week. Even if Jackson is not active for this game, he still has an out if there is an injury ahead of him, or Kelley fumbles the back up role away.
I’m not saying to start Justin Jackson this week. I’m not even saying to add him over Kelley. In the two leagues where I have Kelley, I added Justin Jackson also. We’ve seen that this backfield can accommodate two productive RBs at once. Both this year with Ekeler and Kelley, and in previous years with Ekeler and Melvin Gordon. Imagine if Ekeler has a season ending injury tomorrow. You might actually have not one but two starters on a weekly basis. At one point this season Kelley and Ekeler were both in the top ten RBs in terms of touches. That’s the kind of opportunity share we should be chasing. A lot of people were drafting Jackson early this off season, since it wasn’t clear that Kelley had secured the number 2 job until he broke out in week 1. Jackson was still getting work that game before he left with an injury.
Justin Jackson comes from Northwestern, which doesn’t necessarily have a history of producing great NFL running backs, but we already saw Jackson be productive at the NFL level, so I think we can throw our college evaluations out the window, now that he’s shown he can produce in the NFL. In 2018, he had two games with over 15 PPR points helping a lot of people dealing with RB injuries late in the season who grabbed him off the waiver wire. He didn’t do nearly as much last year, but he also just didn’t have nearly as much opportunity. On player profiler, we can see that Jackson has an 84th percentile burst score, which can be predictive of RB success in the NFL. He also had a high college target share of 12.8% which is in the 87th percentile. Running backs who have a good target share in college tend to do better than those RBs whose college team did not trust them in the passing game. Joshua Kelley has a low 23rd percentile burst score, and 9.2% percent target share at UCLA, which is in the 69th percentile.
All we can really do when looking at real deep league plays is find a player who has the talent to produce, who also has a route to more opportunity. The Chargers have the third lowest implied team total according to Vegas betting lines, and we saw last week that Kelley’s usage can be game flow dependent. I think they’re more comfortable using Jackson as a pass catcher than they are Kelley. So if the Chargers fall behind, and they don’t want to give Ekeler too much of a workload, we could definitely see them turn to Justin Jackson. And then we just wait and see if he produces. If he doesn’t we simply swap him out for next week’s top waiver claims.
Please don’t start Jackson over better options this week. And speaking of better options, you can find a player I would pick up instead if I needed a RB starter this week over on my Twitter. If you like my column, consider giving me a follow.
Thanks for reading, and remember, churn that roster!

Some of you might remember me from what StraightBumSauce called a "Carolina Reaper Pepper level hot take." I posted last week that Marquez Valdes-Scantling would break out and become a top 24 WR in PPR this year. You can read my write up on that here:
MVS breakout article
and here:
https://www.reddit.com/fantasyfootball/comments/irripe/let_russ_cook_fading_popular_narratives_in/
This week I'm calling out the Corey Davis breakout. Yes, that Corey Davis (I know). Here's the thing, we know from last week that J.J. Zachariason's WR breakout model tells us that breakout WRs rarely come from nowhere and that they usually don't have a WR on their team picked in the first two rounds of fantasy drafts. Corey Davis fits both those criteria. When I bring up Corey Davis, a lot of people bring up the times in the past when he didn't break out. We shouldn't let these past bad experiences hold us back from making good decisions today. The moments when Corey Davis flashed in the past are actually a sign that a potential breakout could be coming, and yet fantasy managers are instead holding it against him. It's extremely rare for a rookie to break out right away in the way that AJ Brown did last year. It used to be that WR were expected to break out in year 3, but lately the fantasy community has been writing guys off who don't outperform their expectations in their rookie and sophomore seasons.
We have plenty of data indicating Davis's potential to break out. He played 81% of the snaps, the same amount as A.J. Brown. Pro Football Focus analyst Dwain Mcfarland shared some reasons for a Corey Davis breakout on a recent PFF fantasy podcast:
Corey Davis had 81% catchable targets, this is much better rate than he had with Marcus Mariota to begin his career.
Davis was open on 50% of his routes. It's not normal for a WR to be open this often, this should be read as a sign of good route running.
We also know that in week 1, the Titans played more up tempo than usual. The Titans breakout is real. Oftentimes we become too focused on regression. Analysts have been saying that the Titans can't possibly keep up their level of efficiency from last year all off season, but at a certain point we need to just realize that the Titans efficiency might be a sign of talent rather than randomness. And if their up tempo pace continues, there will be a lot more pass attempts to go around. In week 1 Ryan Tannehil had 43 pass attempts, and while that number could go down, it's an encouraging sign for his pass catchers.
Corey Davis is a great athlete who showed promise from a young age. We know from Player Profiler that Corey Davis had a high college dominator rating and a young breakout age, both strong predictors of future NFL success.
Finally we know from Bernie-Standards thats A.J. Brown's injury might be more serious than we were led to believe. Read is work from this sub reddit here
Corey Davis is currently rostered in 35% of Yahoo leagues. If you play on Yahoo, and you have your waiver settings as "Game-time-Tuesday." You can drop your kicker and pick up Corey Davis, wait and see how he performs in the early afternoon games, and then pick up a kicker after Davis plays. This move will cost you nothing, and it might have huge upside. This only works in Yahoo leagues with this setting to my knowledge. But in other leagues you might have a player with way less upside on your bench. You should drop them for Corey Davis. You don't need to start Davis this week if you have better options. I'm starting Davis in a league where I lost A.J. Brown to injury, but in leagues where I have better options, he's on the bench. The Titans have one of the highest implied team totals according to Vegas betting lines this week. Buying into high implied team totals is an effective strategy that DFS grinders have employed for years.
Last week I told readers to drop their kicker for Marquez-Valdes-Scantling. If you listened, you would currently have MVS, the WR12 in PPR scoring from week 1 on your roster.
I'll be back next Saturday with my new weekly column, "Drop Your Kicker" where I highlight breakout players that you should drop your kicker for.
Thanks for reading. If you like my work, consider giving me a follow, BillyPeters14 on Twitter. I'll also be revealing another hot taek there that you can't find in my Drop Your Kicker Column on reddit. Good luck this week, and remember, churn that roster.

"Damnit I was told there'd be no math!!"
Many of you know that I've posted a number of stats-heavy posts, which can be difficult to digest. But they are meant to improve your overall understanding of the game of fantasy football. So I wanted to make a single post meant to function as an archive.
Below you'll find links to the analysis posts. I have also highlighted some "nuggets", in bullet point form, so you don't necessarily need to go back and read the whole posts.
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Description of "what I do" in this year's Intro post: [Link]

Posts about Overall FF Statistics

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(1) Predictability and Randomness, for each Position [Link]:
(overview of how to understand the basic stats behind the game)

• Even though QBs are often considered more predictable, their variances and prediction errors are largest. Contrary to what some people think, Kickers actually contribute the lowest variance of all fantasy positions. Related:
  • The weekly point errors for kickers fall in a distribution between -10 and +10, which is half as wide as the QB error.
  • No fantasy position adds more randomness than skill to the overall roster-- even for kicker.
• The post explains why each position's skill/luck ratio is well-represented by the accuracy correlation coefficient. (Values range from 0.2 - 0.4)
• By combining multiple players, rosters reduce the relative amount of randomness. The overall point predictability becomes slightly higher than the level of randomness. (22 points vs. 19 points).
  • So you could say Fantasy Football is balanced: "just a bit more skill than luck".
  • (Not shown) The roster correlation coefficient effectively becomes ca. 0.75.

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(2) Updated Values of the Skill/Luck ratios, for each fantasy position, covering 3 years: [Link]

• Most fantasy positions are about as predictable as game scores (i.e. Vegas betting lines, correlation coefficient 0.36).
• The order of predictability is: QB (0.38) > RB1 > DST > TE1 > WR1 (0.23).
  • With my projection model, kicker predictability (ca. 0.3) is better than WR1.
    • Most other sources have poorer kicker projections, so usually Kicker < WR1.

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(3) Defensive scoring can be adjusted to be more predictable. [Link]

• The predictability of each individual D/ST factor is presented:
  • Yards > score > sacks > interceptions > FRs > TDs
• If you wanted to make D/ST scores more predictable, for your league's scoring, then: emphasize yards-allowed and de-emphasize most other factors.
• (Not presented, to be investigated...): I think a sensible scheme would be to reward points for each drive, according to the yard-line of the final down. My gut says this should be very predictable, and it would have the appealing effect that scoring would increase upwards from 0 during the game. (Something to work on and test; would love to hear someone willing to help find the data!)

​
(4) Streaming QBs is a viable strategy-- if your league is not too deep. [Link]

• Analysis was for 2018-- when there were not as many significant QB injuries as seen in '17 and '19.
  • This shows that streaming QBs is viable even when all top QBs remain healthy.
    • The analysis shows how expectations depend on #QBs already claimed.
  • Streaming is shown to be more successful when the QB model is more accurate. (Surprise surprise /s...) (Not shown: in 2019 my model seemed to improve accuracy over other sources, which ought to make streaming more reliable.)
• QBs add at least as much point randomness as D/STs-- both overall and on an individual level.
• QBs have a steeper drop-off in fantasy output relative to D/STs, which would make streaming less viable. Luckily, QB output depends on the opponent, strongly enough to enable streaming based on match-up.

​
(5) Streaming Kickers can be more effective than trying to own the top kicker: [Link]

• The analysis presents how expectations depend on #kickers already claimed in your league.
  • Streaming based on match-up is viable, especially if your league-mates simply chase the high-scoring kickers.
• When we conclude "who was a top kicker", it is mostly made in hindsight. (Yes I was also surprised.)
  • Chasing the top-scoring kicker surprisingly does not give the best results.
• It appears that my own kicker model should enable you to stream with a "top kicker" experience, even if your league-mates already own top kickers.

​

Commentary on how to approach rankings

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(1) "Fantasy Points Allowed" are not very useful for making lineup decisions. [Link]

• When using Points-allowed, the accuracy correlations are poor and can lead to bad decisions
  • Best case is correlation 0.1 (for QB); otherwise 0.05 for RB and WR, and approaching 0.0 for TE.
  • The exception is of course D/ST (not an offensive role).
• My own projection models permit more reliable fantasy scores predictions, in contrast to using points-allowed. (QB / RB / WR / TE / K /DST)
  • My models already account for opponent points-allowed, to exactly the extent they matter.
  • My models have significantly higher predictive value (correlations up to 0.35-.4).

​
(2) Why Rankers don't always rank teams the way you expect. [Link]

• A breakdown of which D/ST factors are predictable (interceptions, TDs, etc.) and therefore become useful factors in statistical models (vs. factors which are random/ not dependable).
• A very rough equation you can use for D/ST projection [Could use an update]: = 25.3 - 0.23*(opponent score) + 0.12* (-spread) + 0.02*(defensive yards-allowed) + 0.03*(offensive yards) + 0.8* (sacks allowed) + 0.3*(interceptions allowed) + 0.4 * (defensive interceptions).
• The chances are low that most suggestions for model improvement could actually pan out, for a model that is already top-accuracy. Models only work well consistently if all the variables have passed rigorous tests for predictability.

​
(3) There are good ways and bad ways of assessing weekly accuracy: [Link]

• The method that FantasyPros uses is not very reliable for trusting as an "accuracy" measurement. So you can take their overall rankings with a grain of salt: the #20 could be better than the #1.
  • No statistician would try to optimize a regression by minimizing the "error gap" that they define.
• I use correlations in my accuracy reports, because they are more robust and better indicative of future reliability-- they carry some meaning beyond only the current week.

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(4) Here are some intuitive (fun...?) ways to interpret the "accuracy correlation coefficient" in fantasy football [Link]

1. Accuracy can be represented by the "controllable range of points" (often around 8-12 points)
2. ... or as the "expected rank" outcome of the weekly #1 ranked player (often around the #8 spot)
3. ... or as the "probability that the lowest ranked player outscores the top-ranked player" (often around 5% - 15%).

​
(5) Why and when to stash D/STs around playoffs [Link]

Less useful stuff...: Just some old, oddball statistical observations etc.

​
(1) Pulling out meaningful trends, from the seasonal randomness: [Link]

• There is less than 20% chance that a single week’s score implies a trustworthy trend. In other words, 80% of the time, high/low fantasy scores simply reflect the usual high level of variance.
• From one season to the next, D/ST fantasy outputs have a correlation coefficient around 0.2 on average.
• Unfortunately, it usually makes sense to continue incorporating last season’s data for essentially the whole season. (Update needed: exception e.g. RB points more accurate using only the last 5-6 weeks.)
• In-season data doesn’t converge on a reliable average for about 13-19 weeks, and therefore you cannot reliably identify a top D/ST from just a few games.

​
(2) A more meaningful calculation of "consistency", for fantasy production: [Link]

• There is a highly reliably linear relationship between 3 different calculations from players' seasonal fantasy points:

1. Seasonal "win rate"-- each score relative to the whole collection of scores
2. Sharpe ratio (a useful measure of risk/reward)
3. Truncated average-- a procedure where you apply score cut-offs before averaging.

• These all comprise a better way to compare "which players had the best fantasy production" for a given year.

​
(3) Correlations I found interesting (this is outdated and could use an update): [Link]

• A stronger WR2 more often makes the WR1 stronger.
• A TE1 and a WR1 on the same team won't usually both score a lot during the same game, unless they're on a super-strong offense.
• If a team scores a lot, the kicker's probably gonna score a lot too. But if a team scores a lot, and the team has a bad QB, that's the bestest.

​

Descriptions of my models

2020 intro. DST 2019 intro. Kicker 2019 intro
​
You are welcome to plant the seed in my head for any similar types of analysis you'd like to see. Bigger tasks I may not get to it right away, but at least I can collect ideas for the off-season.
Some of you have previously asked if you can support this stuff as well as my projection posts. So I set it up and now you can tip a $3+ field goal at my newly created Patreon site (suggested by you). It's totally voluntary, but know that donations go directly to lifting my spirits.

I don't think there has been much discussion about this in the Dota 2 subreddit.
Over the last few hours, several prominent female Dota 2 esports personalities have come forward and have made allegations of sexual harassment.
The Tweets:
(I wanna just add that the fact that this needs a compilation is sickening)
Sajedene (Former Digital Chaos Manager, Former Streamer, esports manager, and consultant):

Know what happened when I tried to speak up about my abuse in the industry to people in my circle? I watched my colleagues and people who I thought were friends stay and side with the abuser and talk shit behind my back. That's why we stay silent. Outcome is rarely positive.

Moxxi (Dota 2 Caster)

1. "Everyone is talking about sexual harassment in gaming as if it hasn't been occurring the whole damn time. How are y'all surprised that sexual assault is happening when we regularly get harassed and when we complain, the response is "iTs JuSt PaRt oF tHe CuLtUrE." Fuck off.
2. The fact that I hesitate when parents approach me at events saying their daughters love my casts and want to be a part of esports breaks my heart. Esports is amazing but the amount they'll have to fight and constantly be on guard (just as a gamer, not even as a pro) is insane.

Reinessa (Streamer, Host, Writer)

1) I've been harassed, hit on, cornered, inappropriately approached, propositioned, grabbed at events etc. My stories are mild. For many of them, I even educated them about why it was bad.
BUT to do so - I surround myself with trusted & large men. I'm never alone. I'm very careful
2) The first thing I teach my cosplay volunteers for DreamHack is how to check in with cosplayers, identify if they are uncomfortable, and give them specific tools/phrases to give the cosplayer an easy escape from any situation
It's heartbreaking that this is necessary.
3) Now this is an old one from dota that someone reminded me of recently - comments about a dota caster from a pro player that referred to a trans woman as ‘it’ and apparently the ‘pro’ community thought this an appropriate topic to bet on.
[Attached Tweet of Dota 2 Caster LlamaDownUnder calling out ixMike.]

Tobiwan's replies (1, 2) are unsavoury at best
Kips (Former Coach of Complexity, Vega Squadron, Fnatic and TNC)

1) Reading today's stories of sexual assault in esports has been heart-wrenching--not because I didn't know these things happened, but because the victims had to wait so long before they could feel moderately safe talking about it. And they are just the tip of the iceberg.
2) Believe victims. Out loud. Not just because they deserve support but also because all the others who stay quiet deserve to know that they too would be heard and believed.

TI7 Afterparty Incident
@cofactorstrudel (Idk, who exactly she is, I think she writes for LiquidDota or JoinDota She is a mobile game scenario writer)

1) We telling esports sexual harassment stories?
TI7 afterparty. One drunk caster slurring at me and literally wouldn't let go of my hand, I had to wrench it off him with all my strength.
Another person aggressively propositioned me for sex, even started undressing.
2) A new friend I'd made thankfully noticed the latter situation and came and got me out of that situation because FUCK was I uncomfortable. People talk about the fight or flight response.
For some reason nobody talks about the fucking deer in the headlight response.
3) I don't think anyone could accuse me of not being an assertive person. But I freeze like a fucking prey animal in those situations, and the shame that brings on afterwards is massive.
Please, if you see these situations be like my one friend. "Hey can I talk to you for a sec?"

Replying to a question: (Did u report that caster?? Does he still do casting??) she says:

4) Report him to who? The DOTA police? 😂 Yeah he still does casting, more popular than ever. Nobody would care. I just privately urge other girls to stay away from him if I know they'll be around where he is. That's how we've been handling things for years.
5 When I went to TI4 I got messages from other girls warning me some DOTA personalities to stay away from.

@WickedCosplay (Cosplayer) replying to this thread.

Ah yes, the year I pulled away a very distressed looking girl from a dude who was aggressively touching her at the afterparty, to dance with me, and the dude running shoved me from behind, called me a bitch, and when his friends came to get him they told me to mind my business.

Replying to the same thread Reinessa said:

yeah that was the event I got the 'hey baby where you going, the party is over here' line for the first time. 10/10 never again pls

Edit:
Moxxi Replying to this thread.

This is a real thing. I can't tell you how many guys I've been warned about at after parties by other ladies telling me "Don't go anywhere near x, dude's a creep"

Edit 6:
@cofactorstrudel:

Fuck it. The hand-grabby person was Grant Harris. He didn't hurt or threaten me (well, he hurt my wrist a little bit not letting go when I pulled). Just made me feel gross and slimy.

Grant Harris=GrandGrant for those unaware.
Edit 7:
GrandGrant's Response:

No one should ever Feel uncomfortable or slimy in any situation or at an event , What I did is inexcusable alcohol or not, And I sincerely Do apologize for the pain I put you through. Thank you for opening up to me when I messaged you, You didn't have to.
I know my community will not be harsh, they are much better then I am. Also my DM's are open, I want to talk and I want people to help me learn what I can do to help the community , so please anyone dont hesitate to message me With concerns or ways you think I could help Improve.

Edit 8:
@cofactorstrudel:

Grant. You should know that someone else has reached out to me to say that you assaulted them. I don't know the specifics, but is it possible I'm not the only person you need to be making amends with right now?

Edit 2:
Ashnichrist (Twitch streamer, Youtuber, Podcaster, Cosplayer)
Ashnichrist:

Women don't owe you sex just because you buy them stuff, get them connections, or help their careers.
We are not piggy banks you put kindness tokens into and sex falls out...

Nahaz:

I’ve known lots of guys who otherwise conducted themselves in exemplary fashion but still expected this kind of quid pro quo with women. If you act this way you’re an asshole, period.

Ashnichrist:

I will never forgive Zyori for what he did to me.

@n00ance:

Uh you saying he did something, ash?

Ashnichrist:

Yes I am

Edit 4: Ashnichrist's Full story about this incident
Edit 5: Zyori's Response
For what its worth, I think it is very important to listen to his response and his side of the story.
Final Edit: A TL;DW of Zyori's version of events
During The Summit 2 after-party, after hitting it off and confirming that she was indeed interested in him through a mutual friend, they slept on the same bed. He too confirmed that since they were tired from the event, nothing happened. He acknowledged asking her if he could lie to his roommates (he clarified that it wasn’t the community) and say that they something did indeed happen that night in order to look cool in front of them. She agreed to this proposition.
He corroborates that he invited her over to the BTS house for Christmas and that she agreed. He acknowledged that Ashnichrist said that she was on her period, so she says they can still hang out, but nothing more. He stated that he said the period wasn’t a big deal for him. He confirmed that they did sleep with each other during this period but that he thought that it was mutually consensual up until now.
He says that he remembered sending the pictures of the bloody bedsheet, but he doesn't remember the context. He says that he probably sent it because he thought it was funny and that he never meant for it to appear as a threat.
Edit 3:
Nahaz's comments on the matter
Several other non-Dota 2 esports personalities have also spoken about this issue over the last 24 hours.
Please don't start witch-hunting.

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
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Trump’s playbook is Russia’s playbook

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in July withheld an intelligence bulletin warning of a Russian plot to spread misinformation regarding Joe Biden's mental health. The bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of U.S. Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” was blocked by the office of acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf on July 9.

• The bulletin states that analysts had “high confidence” in their conclusion. However, a DHS spokesperson tried to defend the “delay” in issuing the document by saying it did not meet the agency’s standards. This is curious because just a week later, on July 16, DHS circulated a bulletin on anarchists in Portland that officers admitted they had “low confidence” in. Why was the Russia memo held back but the Portland one released?
  
• Trump has been pushing the same line of attack against Biden for months - yet another instance of Russia and Trump operating from the same playbook. For instance, in March Trump said there was “something going on” with Biden; in June Trump ran selectively edited ads asserting that Biden is “unfit to serve as Commander in Chief”; last month Trump ran a digital ad portraying Biden as perpetually confused and mentally unstable. Most recently, Trump said questions about his own health are only in the news because “they want to try and get me to be on Biden's physical level."
  

DHS is just the latest agency in the Trump administration to erode election security, following actions by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) last month. DNI John Ratcliffe announced he was ending in-person congressional briefings on election security ahead of November and AG Bill Barr removed a leading career official at the Justice Department’s national security division, replacing him with an inexperienced political appointee.
The ODNI’s decision to halt congressional election briefs may have been influenced by top White House officials. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among others, have repeatedly discussed in meetings with staff and with Trump “how to restrict and control the flow of information on such sensitive topics to Capitol Hill.”

One White House official told The Daily Beast that Meadows has for months been wary of the type of briefings on Capitol Hill that Democratic sources can potentially use to try to make Trump look bad through surreptitious leaks to media outlets.

Meanwhile, interim Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio (R-FL) said last week that his committee will be granted an exception to the ODNI’s new policy and continue to receive in-person briefings from top U.S. intelligence officials about election-security issues. This essentially means that only Democrat-led committees have been cut out of the process ensuring election security.
House Democrats wrote to Ratcliffe insinuating if his office does not provide the previously scheduled briefings this month they will issue subpoenas and/or defund the ODNI in the appropriations bill due by the end of the month. Read the letter here.
In addition to attacks on Biden’s health, DHS has determined that Russia is seeking to “amplify” concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud. Intelligence analysts say this strategy has been underway since at least March, coinciding with Trump’s own assaults on mail-in voting.

• For instance, in March Trump said if he agreed to funding vote-by-mail expansions in the first coronavirus stimulus bill, the U.S. would see “levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again” (clip). Fact check: Neither party has historically benefited. On April 7, at the White House press briefing, Trump claimed: "Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they're cheaters… They're fraudulent in many cases" (clip). Fact check: There is no evidence that mail ballots are dangerous or fraudulent.

At a White House press briefing on Friday, Trump denied there is any proof that Russia poisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Instead of backing the German government's analysis of Nalvany's illness, Trump then redirected the criticism from Russia to China (clip).

"I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic. It's terrible; it shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look. It is interesting that everybody is always mentioning Russia - and I don't mind you mentioning Russia - but I think probably China, at this point, is a nation that you should be talking about much more so than Russia. Because the things that China's doing are far worse.”

Trump then went on to say he’s “taken stronger action against Russia than any other country in the world,” but added “I do get along with President Putin” (clip).

• RELATED: Leaked notes obtained by the Telegraph say that when Theresa May asked for Trump to take a strong stand after Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal, Trump replied “I’d rather follow than lead.” He pushed May to “put together a coalition” first.

The Trump administration plans to deport a Russian national living in America, a move experts say is in response to a politically motivated request by Russia. Gregory Duralev was persecuted by the Russian state for exposing corruption. He fled to America and applied for asylum in 2015. While waiting for a decision on his application, he was arrested by ICE and jailed for nearly 18 months. His case is now in court.

“DHS has acted no better than the Russian authorities,” Duralev said. “They simply fabricated charges against me for violations I never committed — and if DHS can trump up charges against immigrants with impunity, nobody can guarantee they won’t start doing it” to regular Americans. “So that’s the main message I now hope to send.”

Michael Cohen & Peter Strzok

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok has a book coming out called “Compromised.” In it, he alleges that FBI investigators came to believe it was “conceivable, if unlikely” that Russia was secretly controlling President Trump after he took office:

“We certainly had evidence that this was the case: that Trump, while gleefully wreaking havoc on America’s political institutions and norms, was pulling his punches when it came to our historic adversary, Russia,” Strzok writes. “Given what we knew or had cause to suspect about Trump’s compromising behavior in the weeks, months, and years leading up to the election, moreover, it also seemed conceivable, if unlikely, that Moscow had indeed pulled off the most stunning intelligence achievement in human history: secretly controlling the president of the United States — a Manchurian candidate elected.”

He now says he doesn’t believe that Trump is literally a Russian spy: “I don’t think that Trump, when he meets with Putin, receives a task list for the next quarter,” Strzok said, referencing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “But I do think the president is compromised, that he is unable to put the interests of our nation first, that he acts from hidden motives, because there is leverage over him, held specifically by the Russians but potentially others as well.”
In an interview with Politico, Strzok confirms that he and then-deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, opened a counterintelligence case on the president, but that it likely was never pursued. Two weeks ago, NYT reported that Rosenstein secretly closed it.
As if there weren’t enough political books coming out this summefall, Michael Cohen is releasing his, called “Disloyal: A Memoir.” The following a couple of quick takeaways:
Cohen says that he, Trump, Aras Agalarov, Emin Agalarov, and others, watched a strip show in Las Vegas where one performer simulated peeing on another performer, who pretended to drink it. Trump reportedly reacted with “delight.” Aras Agalarov, a Russian real estate mogul, is a trusted associate of Putin and reportedly served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian president during Trump’s trip to Moscow.
WaPo:

On Russia, Cohen writes that the cause behind Trump’s admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin is simpler than many of his critics assume. Above all, he writes, Trump loves money — and he wrongly identified Putin as “the richest man in the world by a multiple.” Trump loved Putin, Cohen wrote, because the Russian leader had the ability “to take over an entire nation and run it like it was his personal company — like the Trump Organization, in fact.”
...According to Cohen, Trump’s sycophantic praise of the Russian leader during the 2016 campaign began as a way to suck up and ensure access to the oligarch’s money after he lost the election. But he claims Trump came to understand that Putin’s hatred of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, dating to her support for the 2011 protest movement in Russia, could also help Trump amass more power in the United States.

USPS & mail voting

According to a Washington Post report yesterday, Postmaster Louis DeJoy engaged in campaign money laundering, also called a straw-donor scheme, at his former logistics business. Five of his former employees told WaPo that they were “urged” to donate to politicians in North Carolina and would be paid back through bonuses from DeJoy. Such a plan would allow DeJoy to illegally circumvent campaign donation limits.

“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” said David Young, DeJoy’s longtime director of human resources, who had access to payroll records at New Breed from the late 1990s to 2013 and is now retired.
“He would ask employees to make contributions at the same time that he would say, ‘I’ll get it back to you down the road,’ ” said [another] former employee.
...A Washington Post analysis of federal and state campaign finance records found a pattern of extensive donations by New Breed employees to Republican candidates, with the same amount often given by multiple people on the same day. Between 2000 and 2014, 124 individuals who worked for the company together gave more than $1 million to federal and state GOP candidates. Many had not previously made political donations, and have not made any since leaving the company, public records show.

More than one million mail-in ballots were sent late to voters during the 2020 primary elections, an audit by the USPS IG’s office determined. Most of the ballots were late, the USPS says, because local election boards sent the ballots to voters at the last minute. Official press release.

[The audit] found the problems during primaries had been most pronounced in Kentucky and New York, where a combined 628,000 ballots were sent out late. In 17 states, the audit found, more than 589,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters after the state’s ballot mailing deadline. In 11 states, more than 44,000 ballots were sent from election boards to voters the day of or the day before the state’s primary election.
One particularly troubling situation, auditors found, unfolded in Pennsylvania, where 500 ballots were sent to voters the day after the election.

Furthermore, only 13% of the ballots were mailed with the recommended bar code tracking technology.
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) was blocked from attending two scheduled tours of USPS facilities last week. Local Postal Service officials informed her and union leaders waiting to accompany her into the building that national USPS leadership had directed them to bar the group from the building. A Postal Service spokeswoman said they simply needed more notice for a tour.
Many states, including important battleground states, are not legally permitted to process mail-in/absentee ballots until Election Day, leading to concern that results will be delayed by days or weeks. For instance, in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan election officials cannot even begin processing ballots until Election Day. Processing involves opening envelopes, flattening ballots to run through the scanning machine, and prepping for the scanning.

"When voters have to wait so long for results, it erodes trust in the process and leaves room for partisan bad actors to dispute the will of the people," said Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit organization.

AG Bill Barr made three stunning false claims about mail voting during an interview with Wolf Blitzer last week. First, Barr wouldn’t even acknowledge that voting twice is a crime - because just hours earlier, Trump encouraged his North Carolina supporters to vote twice to “test” the state’s mail-in voting system (clip).

BLITZER: It sounds like he’s encouraging people to break the law and try to vote twice.
BARR: It seems to me what he’s saying is, he’s trying to make the point that the ability to monitor this system is not good. And it was so good, if you tried to vote a second time you would be caught if you voted in person.
BLITZER: That would be illegal if they did that. If somebody mailed in a ballot and then actually showed up to vote in person, that would be illegal.
BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”
BLITZER: You can’t vote twice.
BARR: "I don't know what the law in the particular state says.”

Then, Barr tried to assert that foreign countries could fake ballots, but when challenged he admitted he had no evidence (clip).

BLITZER: You’ve said you were worried that a foreign country could send thousands of fake ballots, thousands of fake ballots to people that it might be impossible to detect. What are you basing that on?
BARR: I’m basing — as I’ve said repeatedly, I’m basing that on logic.
BLITZER: Pardon?
BARR: Logic.

Finally, Barr cited a supposed incident of mail-in voting fraud in Texas. Too bad it doesn’t exist.

The payroll

Charles Rettig, the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner who has refused to release President Trump’s tax returns, has made hundreds of thousands of dollars renting out Trump properties while in office. Rettig makes $100,000 - $200,000 a year from two units at Trump International Waikiki. When first nominated, Rettig failed to disclose his financial ties to Trump Waikiki. When questioned by Congress, he did not directly answer concerns about the properties.

CREW: With Trump’s name removed from some buildings as it began to hurt property values, we can only imagine how toxic it would become if a bombshell in his tax returns were released. Which means the IRS Commissioner has a vested interest in the success of the Trump brand—and of preventing anything that could damage it.

Voice of America staffers say Trump appointee Michael Pack is threatening to wash away legal protections intended to insulate their news reports from political meddling. Since arriving, Pack has fired the network's leaders, pushed out agency executives, refused to approve allotted budgets, and refused to renew visas for foreign employees.

• Further reading: “Deleted Biden video sets off a crisis at Voice of America,” Politico.

Pack suggested the staff he fired and foreign journalists he essentially kicked out may have been foreign spies, without offering any evidence to support his claim. A group of 14 senior VOA journalists are openly disputing his explanation:

“Mr. Pack has made a thin excuse that his actions are meant to protect national security, but just as was the case with the McCarthy ‘Red Scare,’ which targeted VOA and other government organizations in the mid-1950s, there has not been a single demonstrable case of any individual working for VOA — as the USAGM CEO puts it — ‘posing as a spy,’ ” they wrote.

The White House is searching for a replacement for Federal Trade Commission Chair Joe Simons, a Republican who has publicly resisted President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on social media companies. Simons, a veteran antitrust lawyer, cannot legally be removed by the president except in cases of gross negligence. But the White House has already interviewed at least one candidate for the post.

• RELATED: The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William P. Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case.

Richard Grenell, formerly the highest-ranking out gay official in the Trump administration, has joined a law firm founded by Pat Robertson that has a history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights. Grenell also recently joined the Republican National Committee to do outreach to LGBTQ+ voters.
The Trump administration has quietly named a new acting State Department inspector general. Matthew Klimow, the U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan since mid-2019, is the third acting IG since Trump and Pompeo ousted Senate-confirmed IG Steve Linick in May.
Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s current special envoy to Northern Ireland, former Chief of Staff, and former acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is starting a hedge fund focused on financial services regulation. Ethics experts say Mulvaney explicitly using his knowledge of CFPB to place bets for and against companies gives him an unfair and perhaps illegal advantage.

Court and DOJ matters

Court cases
The Trump administration must, for now, stop winding down in-person counting efforts for the 2020 census, a federal judge in California ordered.
The three-judge panel hearing a challenge to Trump’s new anti-immigrant census policy seemed hostile to the government’s arguments in a hearing last week.
A federal judge has stopped the Trump administration from enforcing a rule change that would let health care providers deny medical services to LGBTQ patients on the grounds of religion.
Justice Department
Federal prosecutors are preparing to charge longtime GOP fundraiser Elliott Broidy in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests. Broidy helped raise millions for Donald Trump’s election and the Republican Party.
Barr ordered another round of changes to FISA rules, tightening the use of government surveillance on political candidates or their staffers — a move conservatives will likely cheer, as they have long criticized how the FBI investigated the Trump campaign in 2016.

Before conducting physical searches or wiretaps of a federal election official, members of the official's staff, candidates for federal office, or their staff or advisers, the FBI must now consider giving them a "defensive briefing," to tell them that they could be the target of foreign influence.

“The reason why the manor is so controversial is because nobody is saying what’s actually happening in here and that’s out of respect for the manor and myself and what we’re trying to produce here. If the people who go through the haunt want to spill all the beans and say everything that happens, they certainly could but they don’t and that makes the haters crazy because they don’t know what’s happening. That’s why you hear all the insane rumors because they’re just making things up in their mind of what is happening.” - Russ McKamey

What is McKamey Manor?
McKamey Manor, founded by Russ McKamey, is known as the most extreme “haunted attraction” in the United States. However, what separates this attraction from the rest is the fact that there are no zombies or ghosts. Rather, there are actors who are legally allowed to bind you, gag you, and push you to your mental and physical limitations. Of course, the experience isn’t for the average person. To even get the chance to experience the Manor, you would be required to be at least 21 years of age (or 18 with parent’s permission), pass a physical exam, a background check, and a drug test. The tour, which operates year-round and can last up to 10 hours, offers participants the chance to earn $20,000 upon full completion. According to McKamey, not a single participant has ever successfully endured the full 10 hours.
Just a handful of patrons are permitted to enter each weekend. There is no entrance fee, though McKamey asks that participants donate a bag of dog food upon their arrival. Besides meeting the necessary qualifications, McKamey requires that his participants refrain from swearing and physically engaging with the actors. Violation of these rules would be grounds for subsequently ending the tour.
Now based in Summertown, Tennessee, and Huntsville, Alabama, the Manor bills itself as “an audience participation event in which YOU will live your own horror movie.” However, others describe it as a “torture chamber.” McKamey Manor has received criticism from the public, the “haunt” industry, and even some participants. Critics have branded McKamey a “psychopath” who found a “legal loophole” to fulfill his sadistic tendencies.
Frequently asked questions range from “Is this legal?” to “Is this a hoax?” McKamey assures the public that not only is the attraction 100% within its legal rights of operating, it is also not a hoax.
Waiver
If all goes to plan, prospective participants are required to sign a 40-page waiver prior to the tour. The waiver asks that the participant understands and agrees to:

“19. Participant was warned numerous times about the intensity of MM and by the Owners and other members of the crew that YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO DO THIS.”
“20. Participant agrees and understands that your life in reality is not in danger and this is just a game.”
”21. Participant agrees and understands that during the Tour and Participant is in the van, they will not be secured by a seatbelt or other safety device.”
“22. Participant understands and agrees that they are not being tortured and this is just a game.”
“23. Participant understands and agrees that they are not being beat up, kicked, slugged, or actually physically harmed. You will be roughed up but no one is there to hurt you. Knowing that, MM is very rough and not for the meek. Participant will have bumps, bruises, possible black eyes, swelling of the face, etc.”
“24. Participant understands and agrees that they are never being held against their will.”

The waiver continues to stress that the experience is just “a game” several times. By number 28, the waiver starts to detail what the participant may be subjected to:

“28. Participant fully understands that by signing this waiver that they are giving MM permission to keep nothing off the table (except sexual or inappropriate situations). Everything else imaginable can and will happen inside of MM. You are aware of this and are giving full permission for any action that may happen inside of MM.”
“29. Participant agrees to and has full knowledge that if selected to visit the barber, Participant may leave MM completely bald, including eyebrows.”
“30. Participant agrees and knowledges that mousetraps are used within the Tour which may result in bruising, cutting, or breakage of fingers.”
“31. Participant agrees that if selected, they could be buried alive under 12 feet of dirt and rock to which they will have a limited amount of air and that they will have to figure out how to escape and they could possibly breathe in a significant amount of dust, dirt, or foreign objects that may cause death if Participant does not breathe properly or hold their breath at the right time.”
“32. Participant agrees to partake, if selected to participate, in a height stunt that involves walking a plank 25 feet above ground without a safety net.”
“33. Participant agrees that if selected they will come in contact with a variety of live poisonous animals. It is the Participant’s responsibility to not panic or agitate the animals. If Participant is bitten, it is because the Participant made a sudden movement within a confined secured environment.”

The waiver continues for several more pages, the intensity increasing with each page.
Consenting Participants or Victims?
One San Diego participant, Amy Milligan, says that experience was more than “just a game.” According to Milligan, she suffered several injuries beyond “cuts and bruises.” Milligan was waterboarded during her tour. Milligan claims that, while exclaiming she could not breathe, actors laughed while they continued to waterboard her.

“My hair is wrapping around my neck and I start freaking out. I’m telling them I can't breathe and they’re just laughing and doing it more.”

Despite the “traumatic” experience, Mulligan spoke highly of the tour during her exit interview, going as far as adding that she did not feel like she had been “tortured” and treated it “as a game.”
However, Mulligan claims that the only reason she left a positive review was to ensure that McKamey would upload the footage of her tour to YouTube. Mulligan had intended to use the footage as evidence of her excessive abuse. However, Mulligan found herself disappointed when she watched the video. According to Mulligan, the most distressing portion of her tour had been edited out of the footage.
In an interview, Mulligan says that she begged to go home but was forced to continue to tour. “I’m like ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I need to go home let me out, let me out,’ and they’re like ‘you’re not done.’” Mulligan adds, “[They] shoved my head back in the water and I was like, ‘They’re not going to let me out. I’m going to die in here.’”
Another San Diego participant, Laura Hertz Brotherton, shares a story similar to that of Mulligan’s. Like Mulligan, Brotherton left the tour with more than just cuts and bruises. Prior to Brotherton’s scheduled tour, McKamey sent Brotherton tasks that she would have to complete in order to prove her loyalty to McKamey. Brotherton was required to purchase an adult onesie that she would wear on her tour and videotape her visit to a nearby Halloween store. Brotherton described her initial interactions with McKamey as “fun,” and was looking forward to the day of her tour. McKamey instructed that Brotherton upload her assignments to Facebook. While navigating McKamey Manor’s Facebook page, Brotherton became romantically involved with another fan on the other side of the country, despite the fact that they were both in, albeit estranged, relationships. To Brotherton’s surprise, her affair had struck a nerve with McKamey. So much so that upon Brotherton’s arrival to the Manor on October 23, 2016, McKamey publicly exposed Brotherton, who was in the company of her boyfriend. While Brotherton’s boyfriend was aware of the affair, her online partner’s wife was not aware.
According to Brotherton, McKamey was cold to her for the remainder of the tour. Despite that Brotherton had just been humiliated, she was determined to power through. Brotherton had traveled to San Diego from Colorado and felt that it was too late to turn back. According to Brotherton, her experience was more extreme in comparison to others. Brotherton believes that McKamey was particularly harder on her. Brotherton believes that McKamey’s knowledge of her affair factored into the excessive abuse, noting that he appeared to be “personally offended” by it. Speaking of her experience, Brotherton says,

“I was waterboarded, I was tased, I was whipped. I still have scars of everything they did to me. I was repeatedly hit in my face, over and over and over again. Like, open-handed, as hard as a man could hit a woman in her face…” More graphically, Brotherton adds that she was blindfolded with duct tape and submerged underwater by her ankles. According to Brotherton, she was submerged underwater for so long that her body started involuntarily thrashing. Brotherton was later forced to dig a hole in dirt with nothing other than her bare hands. Brotherton was then forced to lie in the fresh hole while they covered her and her face with dirt, giving her only a straw to breathe through. “[The dirt] started to go into my throat, and I started to swallow it. I’m coughing and I keep saying ‘I need water,’ and they would just splash water in my face. That went on for, I want to say, 20 to 30 minutes.”

Brotherton repeated the safe word for several minutes before the actors finally relented. Like Mulligan, Brotherton had to record an exit video. In the video, Brotherton also spoke positively about her experience. Though according to Brotherton, it was because she was “forced” to.

“Before Russ turned the camera on he said to me, if I do not say good things about McKamey Manor and I start telling what actually happened, he’s going to sue me for $50,000. I signed a waiver saying this could happen. So Russ forced me into saying all these great things, like, ‘Oh my God, my tour was so amazing, it was exhilarating,’ blah, blah, blah.”

After her experience, Brotherton went to the hospital but refused to tell the hospital staff who or what caused her injuries. As a result, the hospital staff called the police. Brotherton, however, was discharged and left before the police arrived. Brotherton says that she later worked up the courage to report the incident to the police, but was told that she didn’t have a criminal case because of the waiver she signed. Brotherton took photographs to document her injures. According to journalist Megan Seling, who interviewed Brotherton for her article, Tennessee's McKamey Manor: Torture on Demand, the nature of Brotherton’s injuries included:

“In one photo, Brotherton is in a neck brace and a hospital gown and her face is markedly swollen. She has scrapes on her cheeks and a lump on her forehead, her lips are red and puffy, and there are small cuts at the corner of her mouth.
In another image, you can see a large, bloody wound on Brotherton’s left knee. She says that’s an old surgery scar that opened up after McKamey’s actors cut off her knee pads and made her crawl on the ground. Her legs are covered in scratches, and there’s a large purple bruise on top of her left foot. There are also two pictures of her torso, showing large purple bruises that stretch across her hip and stomach. She says X-rays showed a hairline fracture in her foot, and the inside of her mouth was so scratched up from the hitting and “fish-hooking” (“Where they take their two fingers and they put them inside your mouth and they stretch your mouth open”) that the hospital sent her home with medical mouthwash, which she had to use every two hours for three days.”

According to Seling, McKamey didn’t deny Brotherton’s claims, though he did shed doubt on the fracture in her foot. McKamey also admitted to exposing her affair but claimed that it didn’t affect her tour in terms of increasing severity. Rather, according to McKamey, “Any personal information we have, we’ll use it against you in the tour.”
Towards the end of the article, Seling states, “Here’s the thing: There is no $20,000. There’s no caiman named Ralphie, there’s no quicksand-like mud that will swallow you whole, and McKamey will certainly never slather your body in flame-retardant gel and lock you in an incinerator somewhere in Huntsville, Ala. None of that is real.”
McKamey himself commented on the article, suggesting that Seling reported her opinions rather than facts. The comment read,

“Russ here, I'm posting this FB post here because I think it's worth mentioning. There really is only one part of your story that I have an issue with. Sure the way you went on and on about Laura B. without having the real facts was to be expected. Clearly if things happened the way you suggested in the piece...I would be in jail. I can assure you, Laura's tour was no tougher then other "Chamber" tours in San Diego. If you would have spoken to other contestants who have taken multiple tours (up to 5), including the same tour that Laura took...you would have received a balanced take on the San Diego shows. I offered you their names, but you decided to go with the most salacious participant. The person who has been banned by all other extreme attractions. Why...because she causes trouble and she does not speak the truth. The bottom line Megan Seling is this. Why did you feel it was important to get one final (unsubstantiated), dig in at myself and the Manor. Would you top off a story about a magician or illusionist with a statement about what is real or nor real? But for some reason you felt it necessary to do so covering the MM story. It may have been understandable to include your final paragraph if for some reason you really felt inclined to complain because I wasn't giving away my secrets, but you did so much more then that. You left your readers with the impression that what you were saying was fact. And that's were I have a big issue with what you presented to your audience. You deceived your readers by presenting your "opinion" as a factual statement. You even admitted to other FB readers that you you knew what you did was going to upset me, but you went full steam ahead nonetheless. In hindsight, that's probably the effect you were looking for. As you and I both know, I called it from the first phone call and several hours working with you on your story, how you would eventually spin the article. And as usual in these cases deal with the media...I was correct. But let's get back to the actual statement you presented to your audience as fact...not opinion. You wrote the following: "Here’s the thing: There is no $20,000. There’s no caiman named Ralphie, there’s no quicksand-like mud that will swallow you whole, and McKamey will certainly never slather your body in flame-retardant gel and lock you in an incinerator somewhere in Huntsville, Ala. None of that is real." That is not an opinon...you're stating this as fact. I would like to offer this challenge to you publicly here in your papers comment section. I have already done so numerous times as you're well aware. Because you're so keen on exploring what is real and not real at MCKAMEY MANOR, and because you're so inclined to make that the final impression of your story, I have a very simple way to bring this to a very exciting conclusion. All you have to do Megan is to actually take the tour. I would think as a professional journalist you would be more then happy to participate in this little adventure. If for no other reason just to get the actual facts correct. Unfortunately we all know you will never do that. Instead you'll sit behind your desk in the comfort of your safe space, writing about second hand information instead of actually seeking the truth from your own experience. I understand that there are those that are "participants" in the world, and others who simple watch from the sidelines. In your case I'm offering you a chance to actually become an active player and not just a computer warrior. If you would care to sign up for the tour, I'm pretty sure you would change your statement. What do you have to loose? Don't just toss opinions out as fact. Maybe you're absolutely correct that MCKAMEY MANOR in not real in the faintest, and that nothing is what it seems. My challenge to you is to be a real real journalist and find out the facts. Imagian the great story you would have, and I know your supporters would love to see you get away from your desk and safe space to show us all what MCKAMEY MANOR is real all about. Is MM just "Smoke and Mirrors," or it it something much more exciting and magical. This would make an excellent follow on piece for your paper. Do you have what it takes Megan to actually find out the truth? If anyone would like to participate in the MM experience, please fill out the contact form at www.Mckameymanor.com. Be advise you must be able to meet all basic requirements and you must provide a doctors letter stating your mentally and physically cleared to participate in our little adventure called MCKAMEY MANOR. And no matter what you may have read in this article, the chance to win 20,000.00 is absolutely real. Do I believe that will ever happen...not on your life ladies and gentlemen. MM is looking forward to meeting each and every one of you. One final note, I'm the most transparent individual you'll ever have the opportunity to meet. If anyone one of you reading this comment have any questions for me, feel free to call me directly at (omitted by u/BubbaJoeJones). I will answer any and all questions...concerning anything. Thank you for reading my little rant :-). Russ McKamey”

Questions and Theories

Real, or Staged?

McKamey, who is a fan of filmmaking and acting, uploads footage of participant’s tours to YouTube. Or, he used to. McKamey has since stopped uploading to YouTube, presumably because of backlash. However, McKamey hasn’t stopped uploading footage of the tours entirely. According to Facebook users who are in McKamey Manor’s private Facebook group, McKamey still privately uploads, and occasionally live streams, the tours. The tours, which resemble movies backed by professional editing, lighting, and props, raise questions as to whether or not what we’re seeing is staged.
In one video, the footage shows three individuals reading the waiver aloud prior to signing. During the reading, McKamey repeats the Manor’s tagline, “You don’t really want to do this.” While the individuals are attempting to read the waiver aloud, they are having their hair pulled out of their scalps, being smacked in the face, and being choked with rope rung around their necks. Footage later shows the individuals having their eyebrows and hair shaved off (and later being forced to eat it), including other sadistic acts such as having drills forced in their nose and mouth, being locked inside a freezer, and being forced to eat raw dead animals.
These acts lead some people to theorize that it’s “just a movie” and that the participants themselves are actors.
People speculate that not only what is shown on camera real, neither is the alleged waiting-list. According to McKamey, there is a waiting list totaling about 27,000 prospective participants in 2015. However, there is no evidence to support the claim that there are 27,000 prospective participants on the waiting list.
There are also people who question the existence of the $20,000 prize upon completion. According to McKamey’s comment, “the chance to win 20,000.00 is absolutely real.” However, some people, including Seling, find it suspicious that nobody has ever been able to claim the prize. McKamey has said on record that though the prize exists, it’s “impossible” to attain. Though, as Seling pointed out, it’s not due to being unable to complete the tour in its entirety, it’s by design. According to some participants, McKamey decides when you’re through, even if you never withdrew your consent. As a result, despite what McKamey claimed, many believe there was no $20,000 prize.

How Does McKamey Afford it?

One question that remains unanswered is how McKamey is able to fund the Manor. McKamey, who is a US Navy Veteran, does not profit off the Manor. As mentioned before, McKamey accepts his payment in the form of dog food, which is later donated to Operation Greyhound. Additionally, McKamey invested $500,000 out of pocket into the establishment of the Manor in San Diego. According to McKamey, he was shelling out about $250-275 a night for an on-site EMT and somewhere between $15,000-20,000 per year on specialty insurance. McKamey estimates that it cost around $500 per haunt. How is/was this experience bankrolled?
Theories and rumors have ranged from believing that McKamey sells the entirety of his footage on the Dark Web, to taking a cut from a betting pool who watches the live streams from Las Vegas.
Though according to McKamey, he doesn’t profit off the Manor “at all.” McKamey admitted to struggling financially after having lost his job as a Veteran’s Advocate. As a result, he found that he had to move the Manor where it would be more affordable. As a result, McKamey moved San Diego home and purchased property in Tennessee and Alabama.
According to McKamey, his only source of income is his $800 monthly retirement check.

Is it Legal?

There has been some debate regarding the legality of operating McKamey Manor. As mentioned before, Brotherton reported the incident to the police and was told that there was nothing that can be done as she had signed a waiver. Moreover, the police were called to McKamey Manor on more than one occasion. According to Seling, police arrived to find one woman in a basement, shivering and bruised with duct tape over her mouth. When police asked the woman if the interaction was consensual, the woman said yes. Police had no option other than to leave.
According to the Brent Cooper, District Attorney of Lawrence County, Tennessee, McKamey Manor is legal. Cooper says that as long as McKamey participants are there voluntarily, no crime is being committed. However, Cooper does add that a participant can withdraw consent in the state of Tennessee at any time. If McKamey were to disregard the withdrawal of consent, a participant would then be classified as a victim who is being held against their will.
McKamey Manor Today
McKamey Manor’s Tennessee location is, according to McKamey, far less physically involved than it was in San Diego. According to McKamey, the experience in Tennessee and Alabama is more of a “mental game.” Rather than being physically tortured, the participant is manipulated into believing that torture is being inflicted upon them. In response to an online petition demanding that the alleged “torture chamber” be “shut down,” McKamey clarified,
“There’s no torture, there’s nothing like that, but under hypnosis if you make someone believe there’s something really scary going on, that’s just in their own mind and not reality. If you’re good enough and you’re able to get inside somebody’s noggin like the way that I can, I can make folks believe whatever I want them to believe. I’m like the most strait-laced guy you could think of, but here I run this crazy haunted house. And people twist it around in their little minds. It really is a magic act, what I do. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.”
However, that isn’t to say people escape the Manor unscathed. McKamey stands by the possibility that one may leave with cuts and bruises, as stated in the waiver.
Despite people having attempted to shut down McKamey Manor by signing petitions and filing police reports, McKamey Manor is still operating year-round in Tennessee and Alabama. According to McKamey, some people have grown so defiant to his presence that they have sent death threats and shot through his windows. Out of the hundreds of threats that McKamey has received over the years, McKamey recalls the one time that he was involved in a potentially life-threatening incident. Shortly before McKamey moved to Tennessee, a single bullet flew by his head while he was working outside in his yard. However, McKamey never reported the alleged incident to the police, claiming that he didn’t want to bring any more attention to himself.
Conclusion

“I’m not going to open it to the masses–I like keeping it a secret. I like the mystery of the manor. If you saw everything it’d be like any other haunted house. That’s my goal, even when I’m dead and gone, to make sure people are still talking about McKamey Manor. That’s why nobody is really going to ever see behind the wall.” - Russ McKamey

To date, little is known about what took place at McKamey Manor in San Diego. Mulligan and Brotherton maintain that they were subjected to excessive abuse, despite that they signed the waiver. As McKamey said, many of his participants choose not to detail their experiences out of respect for maintaining the mystery of the manor. Thus, there are very few accounts available on people’s experiences at the Manor. Although McKamey claims that the Manor in Tennessee and Alabama is the most “toned-down version of the Manor ever,” people continue to sign petitions in an attempt to shut the Manor down. Despite their efforts, McKamey says that he will continue to run the Manor as long as he is able to.
Links:
McKamey Manor
An ‘extreme’ haunted house requires a 40-page waiver. Critics say it’s a torture chamber.
San Diego terror attraction McKamey Manor runs into opposition at new Tennessee home
'There's a chance of death': Extreme haunted tour employee explains their terrifying 40-page waiver
McKamey Manor 'victim' speaks out
Terror attraction McKamey Manor is leaving San Diego for the south

EDIT: Wiki now exists

Overview

What is this place? What is theta gang?

/thetagang is a sub for traders who are interested in selling options.

An option? What's that?

Options are derivative financial instruments, which means they derive their value from an underlying, such a stock or commodity. Options are a contract in which the buyer has the right but not the obligation to buy or sell the underlying at an agreed upon price on or by a certain date.
All options have an expiration date after which they stop trading. Because they eventually expire they are also wasting assets, which means they lose extrinsic value as time passes. This is where theta gang comes in.

Uh huh... I don't really understand anything you just said, but I'm curious, why would anyone want to trade options?

There are two main reason why someone would want to trade options: hedging and speculation.
Consider an investor who buys a stock but is worried about a price decline. They can purchase options (put contracts) to protect themselves if the stock's price were to fall. And if they think a stock is overvalued and want to short it, they can purchase options (call contracts) to protect them should the price rise. In both cases the investor is hedging their trade because they are trying to profit from the stock and not the options.
The other reason is speculation. Options allow someone to make a directional bet on a stock without buying or selling the actual stock (the underlying).

Why would someone bother with trading options when they can just trade the underlying?

Leverage. Equity option contracts are standardized and each contract (also called a "lot") is for 100 shares of the underlying. It's a way to have exposure to the underlying without needing the capital to buy or sell 100 shares for each contract. In other words a smaller amount of money controls a higher valued asset.
Options allow a buyer to make amazing profits. If a trade goes incredibly well, they could see profits anywhere from 100% to 10,000% (a few are even lucky enough to get 100,000%). And despite being leveraged the most amount of money they can lose is what they paid to buy the options. This is known as the premium and is paid to the seller.
The option buyer's losses are limited to the premium and their profits are potentially unlimited, whereas for the seller the losses are potentially unlimited and the profits are limited to the premium.

WHAT?!? Why on Earth would anyone sell options with a payout like that? Especially when you could become rich so easily?

If only it were that simple.
The reality is most options expire worthless. If you buy options not only do you have to get the directional bet right, but you have to get the timing right as well.
If you buy a stock and it goes nowhere for a while and then suddenly takes off in price, you make money from this trade. Not necessarily for options. They eventually expire and if the stock soars after the option expires, tough luck. You get nothing and lose all your money.
All of the incredible gains you see with options happen because the underlying made a huge move in a relatively short period. In other words, you have to take an immense amount of risk to make a boatload of money. It's far more likely that the options expire worthless and you lose everything.
And if getting the direction and timing right wasn't hard enough, it gets even worse. Options are priced to lose. Recall that options are a wasting asset. An option slowly loses extrinsic value as time passes. This is referred to as theta decay. If the underlying doesn't move in price fast enough (in the right direction, of course) to offset the loss in theta, you lose money.
This leads to an interesting outcome: an options buyer can be right and still lose money, and an options seller can be wrong and still make money.

WHAT?!?! How can someone be wrong in a trade and still make money?

The value an option has can be split into two parts: intrinsic and extrinsic.
Remember how options have an agreed upon price to trade the underlying at? That's called the strike price. As an example, if a call option has a strike of $10, and the stock is trading at $10.50, the option has $0.50 of intrinsic value.
The extrinsic value is also known as the time value of an option. It's the risk premium the seller receives for taking on the risk of selling options. Using the same example as earlier, if the option is trading for $1.10, the extrinsic value is $0.60.
The intrinsic and extrinsic value combined are the option's premium, and the seller receives this premium in full. So if at the date of the option's expiration the stock is trading at $10.70, the option is worth $0.70. The seller's $0.40 profit is the buyer's loss. And if the underlying is at $10 or less on expiration? It expires worthless and the buyer loses 100%.

This sounds too good to be true. If most options expire worthless why doesn't everyone sell options and get rich?

If only it were that simple.
It's true options are priced to lose and that most expire worthless. What is a wasting asset for the buyer is a wasting liability for the seller. However, it's still a liability and sometimes that liability can end up being a real loser.
It's not just a matter of a win/loss ratio. The magnitude of the wins vs. losses must be considered. The most an option seller can make is the premium, but they can lose far more than that if the underlying moves against them. It's possible for a seller's loss to be multiples of the premium they received for selling an option. If an option seller is really unfortunate, they can experience a loss on a single trade that wipes out months of profits.
There's no easy money to be made trading options.

The Greeks

Let's pretend that I know what options are. How do the Greeks apply to option sellers?

Delta

Delta has multiple meanings:

1. How much the option's price changes relative to a change in the underlying's price.
   
2. The option's equivalent of a position in the underlying (a directional bet).
   
3. The probability the option expires in-the-money.
   

Definition #2 is important to understand when making delta neutral bets (discussed later). These profit from a decrease in volatility along with collecting theta. It's possible to construct a trade where a movement in the underlying does not change the position's value (or by much).
Definition #3 is an approximation. Many option sellers like to sell out-of-the-money options with a delta of 0.30, which means they have an approximately 30% chance of expiring ITM.

Gamma

Delta is not a constant. An option's delta changes as the underlying's price changes. Gamma measures how much delta changes relative to a change in the underlying's price. Option buyers have positive gamma, whereas sellers have negative gamma.
Long (positive) gamma works in favor of the buyer. As the underlying moves further ITM, gamma increases delta and profits accelerate. As the underlying moves further out-of-the-money, gamma decreases delta and losses decelerate.
Short (negative) gamma works against the seller. As the underlying moves further ITM, gamma increases delta and losses accelerate. As the underlying moves further OTM, gamma decreases delta and profits decelerate.
Gamma is bad news for sellers. Theta gang has always been at war with gamma gang. Gamma is also the reason that delta hedging is so difficult when it comes to being delta neutral.

Theta

Beloved theta. The namesake of /thetagang. It's why we're here all here and why you're reading this.
Theta represents the time value of an option. It's the extrinsic value of an option, and as each day ticks away the time value decreases a little. That amount is determined by theta. Theta decay is nonlinear and accelerates as expiration approaches.
The goal of an option seller is to profit from collecting theta. One could sell an option that's ITM and profit from the underlying moving OTM, but that's not a theta bet, that's a directional bet. ITM options also have less time value than at-the-money options. ATM options have the most time value and so the most theta to collect, but are at a greater risk of expiring ITM compared to OTM options.
The more days to expiration an option has the slower the theta decay. 30-45 DTE is a very popular period to sell. Others prefer weeklies.

Vega

Vega measures how much an option's price changes relative to a change in implied volatility.
The IV of an option is the market's estimate of how volatile the underlying will be in the future. The higher the IV the greater the time value of an option, which means options with higher IVs are more expensive.
Option buyers want to buy when volatility is low because options are cheaper. Sellers want to sell when volatility is high because options are more expensive.
The best time to sell options is during the gut-wrenching periods when no one wants to sell because volatility is so high (such as the March 2020 crash). Options become extremely expensive and there are juicy premiums to collect. Look for large spikes in IV.

Vomma

Vomma (or volga) is a much lesser known Greek. It measures how much an option's vega changes as the implied volatility changes.
Out-of-the-money options have the most vomma. This detail will be discussed later in a horror story of option selling gone wrong.

Rho

Rho measures how much an option's price changes as interest rate changes.
No one cares about rho anymore thanks to interest rates being stuck at rock bottom for over a decade.

Volatility

What are some basic details about volatility that are important to know?

Both option buyers and sellers care about volatility (at least they should). Buyers want to purchase when IV is low and sellers want to sell when IV is high.
An option's IV in isolation does not actually tell you if IV is high or low. It must be compared to the historical IV for that option. Two popular methods are IV rank and IV percentile.
For example, if options on XYZ have an IV of 35% and options on ABC have an IV of 45%, on the surface ABC has higher IV. But if XYZ has an IV rank of 75% and ABC only 40%, XYZ's IV is actually higher relative to its historical IV and may be better suited for selling.
There are different ways of measuring volatility and it's important to not mix them up:

• Historical volatility: This is how volatile the underlying actually was. It doesn't tell you anything about the future volatility of the underlying. This is also called realized volatility.
  
• Implied volatility: This is the market's prediction of how volatile the underlying will be in the future. It could be greater than, less than, or about the same as the historical volatility. It's only an estimate and can easily be wrong.
  
• Historical implied volatility: This is simply the IV of an option over time. When you're looking at historical data and overlay HV with HIV, you can see how right or wrong the market was estimating future volatility.
  
• Implied volatility rank: IV rank is calculated over a period of 52 weeks. The formula is 100 * (current IV - 52 week low IV) / (52 week high IV - 52 week low IV).
  
• Implied volatility percentile: This tells you the percentage of time HIV has been lower than current IV. The formula is # of days with lower IV than today / # of trading days in a year (252 is normally used).
  

What is volatility skew?

To understand what volatility skew is we have to go back to the 1970s.
You may have heard of a theoretical options pricing model called the Black-Scholes or Black-Scholes-Merton model. This model was published in 1973 and became very popular. It was widely adopted in the options market.
The original Black-Scholes model predicts that the IV curve is flat among the various strike prices with the same expiration. It didn't matter if the strike price was OTM, ATM, or ITM, they all had the same IV.
IV stayed this way until the stock market crash of 1987, where the DJIA dropped 22.6% in a single day. This single event changed the options market forever. The IV curve was no longer flat but instead demonstrated a volatility smile (conceptual graph). Strike prices further from ATM started trading at higher IVs.
The crash was a gut punch to investors that taught them extreme moves in markets were more common than you would expect, and options started being priced accordingly. But the volatility smile is not symmetrical, it's actually skewed.
OTM puts have a higher IV than OTM calls. This is due to markets falling much faster than they rise (they take the escalator up and the elevator down). This causes more demand for OTM puts to protect long portfolio positions. Most investors are long the market, and some will sell covered calls which increases the supply for OTM calls.
Note that this is true for equity markets. Commodity markets behave differently. Normally there is a floor in commodity prices (although for commodities with storage or delivery constraints, as we learned in April 2020 they can dip below zero) and IV is higher for OTM calls compared to puts, because commodities can suddenly spike in price due to supply side shocks.
In equity markets IV is inversely correlated with price, that is, IV rises when prices fall (reverse or negative skew). This isn't necessarily true for commodities where rising prices can mean an increase in IV (forward or positive skew).

The story of James "Rogue Wave" Cordier of OptionSellers.com: A tragic lesson in how not to sell options

James Cordier is a former money manager who has the dubious honor of not only losing all the money of his clients by selling options, but even leaving them with a debt because the losses were so staggering.
James was a proponent of selling options and had even written a book about it. He had a now defunct website, OptionSellers.com, which targeted individuals with a high net worth. His strategy was simple: he was selling naked options on crude oil and natural gas. For years he made he made his clients plenty of money. Things were great. Until they weren't... and the results were catastrophic. His clients lost everything and even owed money to their broker, INTL FCStone. Where did James go so wrong?
James was selling naked strangles on natural gas and crude oil. In November 2018, both markets moved against him, but the real losses came from his naked natgas calls. He sent an email with the subject line "Catastrophic Loss Event" to his clients on November 15th, dropping the bombshell that not only was all their money gone, but they may be facing a negative balance.
If you look at a chart of natgas you can see why his accounts blew up. Natgas experienced a huge spike in November and his broker liquidated their positions at an absolutely massive loss.
What mistakes did he make and what can we learn from them?
1. Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller
Part of his strategy involved selling deep OTM naked calls on natgas (call leg of short strangles). Deep OTM options typically don't sell for very much, so in order to collect more money you sell a bunch of them to make it worth the trade.
This is a terrible idea and no one should ever sell a bunch of deep OTM naked options. It can work great for years, until one day it blows up your account. In order to collect a decent premium you have to overleverage yourself. This is extremely risky and you will eventually experience a major loss one day. The odds are not in your favor.
The underlying does not even need to cross the strike price for you to lose money. The underlying's price simply needs to move significantly closer to the strike price and you'll be deep in the red. This is made even worse if volatility spikes, which increases the option's price and your losses (discussed in detail in the next point).
Notice what happened the following months: natgas prices crashed back to what they were before the spike. Had James not overleveraged his positions, he could've ridden the losses out to a profit. In fact, all those options probably would've expired worthless.
There is another reason not to sell deep OTM naked options. Imagine you're a speculator with a small account (e.g., /wallstreetbets). They want to trade but they can't afford to buy ATM or slightly OTM options, so what do they do? Buy deep OTM options, bidding the price up. When a market moves big and the small-time speculators want to trade it, all they can afford are the cheap options, which are deep OTM. This is bad news when you're short them.
2. Not understanding the relationship between price and volatility
Remember how for commodities volatility can be positively correlated with price? Natgas is one of them, and when the price spiked so did volatility. James did not understand the consequences of this.
When you are short options, you have negative vega. As the price spiked so did volatility, and the short vega position piled up his losses in addition to being short delta.
But vega is not a constant. We finally get to discuss vomma now. Vomma measures how much an option's vega changes as IV changes. In other words, as IV increases, so does vega thanks to vomma. When you're short vega and vomma, this is bad news.
Remember which options have the highest vomma? That's right, OTM. So as IV increased, not only did his losses increase due to rising IV, but vega itself started increasing thanks to vomma, further accelerating his losses.
He got wrecked four different ways: being on the wrong side of delta, gamma adding to delta, being on the wrong side of vega, and vomma adding to vega.
3. A total absence of risk management
Risk management is essential when it comes to trading, and selling options is no exception. Selling naked options can expose you to extreme risks, and to ignore it is simply reckless. It's more important to avoid a huge loss than to make a huge profit, because all it takes is one big loss on a trade to make recovering from it impossible, ending your career in theta gang.
Tail risk is a very real concern in trading, and those "rare" events actually happen more frequently than traders expect (fat tails). Look at a price chart of natgas over the past twenty years. You can see random spikes sprinkled throughout the chart. James never stopped to think, what would happen to the value of my positions if natgas were to suddenly spike in price, which I know has happened in the past, and will happen again someday? How could I protect myself against this scenario?
It's pretty obvious that if a one-day or even few weeks move manages to blow up your account and completely undo years of profits, you have zero risk management in place. This stems from not understanding how the natgas market works, and trading it with no regard to risk.
Selling naked calls on natgas is a terrible strategy because natgas can have sudden price spikes, and IV will spike with it. A much better strategy would've been selling a call backspread. You sell an ATM or OTM call, and you buy two or more calls that are further OTM. That way if natgas did spike your losses are limited, and you might even turn a profit on the spike.
Spend the time necessary to learn about the underlying. And don't neglect risk management. If you're going to sell options, you absolutely must understand how the underlying behaves and its relationship with volatility, otherwise you cannot have proper risk controls in place.

Miscellaneous

What are some popular option selling strategies?

The most popular would be covered calls and cash secured puts.
CCs involve selling OTM calls on a stock you own. The short call position is covered by owning the underlying, hence the name (opposite of naked). A single equity options contract is for 100 shares, so an investor sells one call for every 100 shares they own. If the stock price rises beyond the strike price, the seller keeps the premium, but the options will get exercised and the shares called away. They sell them at the strike price, missing out on the extra gains beyond the strike. The seller still makes money on the sale, just not as much as they would have if they sold them at market price. If the stock grinds sideways, the options expire worthless. And if the stock falls in price, the options will also expire worthless, but the seller will lose money on their long stock position. Chances are they will lose more money than the premium they collected from selling the CCs.
A CSP is a naked put that's sold either ATM or OTM with enough money in the account to cover the stock purchase if the option gets exercised. If the stock grinds sideways or rises in price, the puts expire worthless. However, if the stock falls in price the options will get exercised, and the seller will be forced to buy the stock from the options buyer at the strike price, most likely suffering a loss greater than the premium they received.
A CC has the same downside risk as a naked put. If the stock declines in either scenario the investor risks losing far more money than the premium received. If you are comfortable with the risk of selling CCs you should also be comfortable with the risk of selling CSPs. However, you can lose more money in the CSP scenario if you buy back the put before expiration if IV rises enough, vs. holding it to expiration.
Selling a CSP always means selling a naked put. It is not a covered put because you have cash to buy the stock. Whether or not you have enough money in the account to buy the shares at the strike price is irrelevant. A CP means you are also short the underlying, hence it is covered. It's the same idea as a CC, except it has unlimited risk due to there being no theoretical limit the price the stock could increase to, whereas a long stock position can't go below zero (not a guarantee for certain commodities).
Other common strategies are wheeling and volatility crush.
The wheel is similar to selling a strangle but not quite the same. You sell CSPs on a stock you wouldn't be opposed to owning, and in the unfortunate case of being assigned, you then sell CCs to recoup your losses. If you've been selling CSPs for a while you may still be net up when assigned, but if the stock craters you're looking at a significant loss. You hope the stock slowly climbs while selling CCs, but if the stock suddenly spikes your shares may get called away and you miss out on recovering your losses on the upside.
There are variations to the wheel before being assigned. A jade lizard is selling an OTM call spread where the max loss on it is less than the premium collected from selling the CSP. Ideally the stock will trade in between the short put and call strikes and all options expire worthless. You can also trade a ratio put spread instead of just a put.
The volatility crush trade is a delta neutral strategy. It profits not from a change in the underlying's price, but from IV decreasing. It's very popular right before earnings. IV on a stock can spike just before an earnings report is released due to uncertainty (vol rush). Unless you have insider information, you can only guess what the results will be. After the report is released, IV crashes because the uncertainty is gone (vol crush). Everyone knows the results.
You find a company who's about to report earnings and the IV on their options has spiked. You then sell expensive ATM calls, and because ATM options have a delta of about 0.5 you buy 50 shares for every call sold. Your net delta is zero (delta neutral) because you've offset the negative delta from the short call position by buying shares which gives you positive delta. By hedging your delta you've eliminated directional risk. After earnings are released, IV craters and you buy back the options at a cheaper price and sell your shares.
In theory this sounds like an easy way to profit. In reality it's not due to our archnemesis gamma gang. Delta is not a constant and as the underlying's price changes so does delta. If the stock soars after earnings, the call option's delta will increase and your delta exposure will become increasingly negative as the stock rises in price. If the stock tanks, your delta exposure will become increasing positive as the stock falls in price. In either scenario you start losing money from your changing delta position, and the amount you make from IV decreasing must be greater, otherwise you lose money overall on the trade.
You can try to nudge your delta in a direction to hedge against this. If you're bullish on the stock you can overweight your exposure and buy more shares so that you have a positive delta. If you're bearish you can underweight your exposure and buy fewer shares so that you have a negative delta. If you're correct, good news for you. But if you're wrong, you lose more money than if you were delta neutral.
Then you have a plethora of spread trades, such as vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and ratio, some with creative names. There are far too many to cover in this guide in detail. All of them have at least two legs (each leg is a component of the options trade) to the trade where you are both long and short options.

How does assignment work?

There are two main types of option styles: European and American. European options can be exercised only on the expiration date. American options can be exercised at any time before (and of course on) the expiration date.
When an option is exercised, the Options Clearing Corporation randomly selects a member firm that is short the option, and the firm uses an exchange-approved method to select a customer that is short the option. The OCC processes all assignments after market close, and because it processes closing buys before assignments, there is no possibility of assignment if you buy back your short position during the day's trading hours.
An option buyer can exercise their option even if it makes no sense financially and they would lose money. It's their right to do so and you are obligated to fulfill it if assigned. Even if an option expires worthless it can still be exercised. The buyer may be speculating that major news gets released after hours (some options trade until 4:15 PM ET) and when the market opens again the underlying has moved favorably and their gamble paid off. To avoid risking this scenario simply close out the day of expiration.
Only about 7% of options get exercised and the majority occur close to expiration. This is because options still have extrinsic value before they expire, and once exercised the buyer loses the extrinsic value. It makes more sense for them to sell it.
Be aware that if you are assigned you may see a large negative balance or buying power in your account. This may be because the underlying stock trade has not settled yet. It normally takes T + 2 (trade date plus two business days) to settle. Settlement means an exchange of money and securities. Payment is made from the buyer's account to the seller's, and the seller's securities are transferred to the buyer's account. The other reason would be the value of the new stock position. If you have a small account and are now long or short hundreds or thousands of shares, the market value could far exceed the cash value of your account. You'll be forced to close out by your broker. Once either the trade settles or you close out the large negative balance disappears.

What are some scenarios I can expect assignment, especially early assignment?

If an option expires ITM you can expect it to be exercised. Unless instructed otherwise, the OCC will automatically exercise any option that expires at least $0.01 ITM.
Deep ITM options about to expire are candidates for being exercised. They start behaving like the stock itself since there's zero real chance of them not expiring ITM. They have no extrinsic value and in fact may trade slightly below their intrinsic value (at a discount to parity, parity being the intrinsic value). This is because no one really has any incentive to trade the option anymore, especially when they could trade the stock instead, which has more liquidity. A market maker would agree to buy it at a discount and at the same time open a position on the stock and exercise the option, profiting from the discount arbitrage. For example, XYZ is trading at $50, and a 45 call is trading at $4.95. A MM buys the call while simultaneously shorting 100 shares, exercises the option and collects the risk-free profit of $0.05:
(50 - 45) - 4.95 = 0.05
Selling spreads is a very common theta gang strategy, so let's examine the case of early assignment and assignment after expiration.
You sold a 50/55 vertical call spread for $1.40 on XYZ that's trading at $53. It expires in a few days but for whatever reason the buyer decided to exercise early and you were assigned. You're now short 100 shares at $50 while still long the 55 call. Because vertical spreads are risk defined trades, this isn't a big deal. You're still long the 55 call, so you have upside protection which will cap your losses at $360 (500-140) should the stock move past $55. You could take the risk of riding it out and hoping the stock falls or you can close out the trade, accept your losses and move on.
The other scenario is assignment at expiration. This is actually the more dangerous case of the two. Imagine the same circumstances except it's expiration day (Friday). The stock closes at $53, the short call expires ITM, and the long call expires worthless. The short call is exercised and you're assigned. Because you no longer have upside protection anymore, this is not a defined risk trade but instead undefined. You're short the stock over the weekend and no one knows what the opening price will be Monday. If major news gets published Sunday the stock could soar. Or it could crater. This is not the kind of risk theta gang likes to take. You should always close out of your short options on the day of expiration if there's a real chance of them expiring ITM, especially when your long options will expire OTM. Otherwise at that point you're now delta gang.
If both the short and long options are ITM at expiration, the most you can lose is the spread minus the premium received. You might as well close out to avoid the hassle of being assigned and exercising your long options.
The specter of early assignment gets raised quite a bit around the time dividends are paid. The scenarios are different for calls and puts.
You may have read that if the time value of an ITM call is less than the dividend, the call is at risk of being exercised early. This is not because the investor will make money from exercising. Let's illustrate with an example. To be paid a dividend you must own the stock before the ex-dividend date. Call owners do not receive dividends. If you buy the shares on or after the ex-date you won't be paid the dividend, so the call owner will exercise it the day before the ex-date.
XYZ is trading at $50, and a 45 call is trading for $5.25. It's paying a $1 dividend and the ex-date is tomorrow so the buyer exercises the call. They're now long XYZ at $45. The ex-date arrives, the dividend is paid, and the stock is discounted by the amount of the dividend, and is trading at $49. They sell and wind up losing $0.25. What happened? Simply add up the numbers:
(49 - 45) + 1 - 5.25 = -0.25
Whenever you exercise an option you throw away the extrinsic value. It doesn't matter how large the dividend is, since the stock's price is discounted by it on the ex-date. This is a losing trade. The only way the trade could make money is if the stock isn't discounted by the full amount. Sometimes this happens (other news gets published) but this is nothing more than a gamble if attempted. It's not an arbitrage opportunity.
In fact, as the ex-date approaches you may see ITM call options trading at parity. This occurs because the stock's price will be discounted by the dividend, and so the option's intrinsic value will decrease as well. Buyers don't want to be left holding it going into the ex-date because they're going to lose money, so the selling pressure drives down the option's price to parity. It may even trade at a discount, presenting the earlier discount arbitrage opportunity.
If the corresponding put with the same strike price as the call is trading for a price less than the dividend minus interest, then the call would be exercised and you would be assigned early. The trader long the call would exercise their call and buy the put, since this has the effect of recreating the same trade, except they receive the dividend.
It's actually puts that offer a dividend arbitrage opportunity if the time value is less than the dividend. Using the example from earlier, a 55 put is trading at $5.25. You buy 100 shares of the stock at $50. Ex-date arrives, the stock is discounted to $49. You exercise the put, selling the stock for $55, collect the $1 dividend and profit a risk-free $0.75. Add up the numbers again:
(55 - 50) + 1 - 5.25 = 0.75
You may already be guessing what happens to ITM puts as the ex-date approaches. Their price increases due to buying pressure, since the option's intrinsic value is about to increase by the dividend's amount. Once the time value at least matches the dividend the arbitrage opportunity no longer exists.
One other scenario where you may be assigned is when the underlying is trading close to the option's strike price on expiration day. You don't know if it will expire ITM or not. This is called pin risk. What should you do if you're short? Close out. It's not worth the risk if the underlying moves adversely after market close and the options are now ITM. Just close out.

Should I close out of a position after collecting most of the premium earlier than expected?

This is a good idea. A lot of people follow a rule where if they've collected at least 50-80% of the premium they close out of the trade and move on to the next. They especially follow the rule when it happens much sooner than expected.
Collecting the last tiny bit of premium isn't worth what you're risking (a relatively large amount of money to make a small amount). You're picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. What will happen one day is the underlying will make a dramatic adverse move, eliminating all of your profit and even putting you at a loss. You'll be cursing yourself for being greedy and not closing out earlier.
A lot of brokers will even let you close out of a short options trade for no commission if you can buy it back for only five or ten cents.

My position moved against me. What can I do about it?

You have a few choices.
1. Close out
Close the trade. Accept your losses and move on. How do you decide if it's a good idea to close? Ask yourself, if you didn't already have this position would you do it now? Would you open the position now given the current price and market circumstances? If not, close out.
You're going to end up on the wrong side of trades sometimes. It happens to everyone. Sometimes closing out is the right idea. Other times it's not. You can't predict the future, so don't beat yourself up when you make the wrong decision. But always be mindful of risk management and keep your losses small.
2. Ride it out
It's not unusual for option prices to spike only to collapse in price later on. If you haven't overleveraged yourself you have the funds available to ride out the trade. If the answer to the earlier question about opening the trade now is yes, it's reasonable to ride it out. You might even consider selling more contracts, but remember to never overleverage.
Just make sure the HAPI (hope and pray index) isn't high, otherwise it's a sign you should close out.
3. Roll
Rolling is a good idea when you think the trade in the short term is a bad idea, but long term will make money. You close out of your existing position and open a new one. This is ideally done simultaneously so you don't trade into the position one leg at a time, risking a poorer fill on price (slippage) or only getting only a partial execution and your positions are now wrong.
Rolling up is rolling to a higher strike price. Rolling down is rolling to a lower strike price. And rolling out or forward is rolling to a later expiration date. Typically you roll out, and possibly up or down. Whatever you decide, the goal is to roll to a new position that you can sell for more than the loss on the old position. That way you can at least recover your losses, and if you're fortunate, still turn a profit.

I'm doing great! I'm winning on all my trades collecting that sweet, sweet, theta. I want to sell even MOAR!

Slow down there, speed racer.
The second worst thing that happens to new traders is they have a series of winning trades (the worst being they lose all their money). They become overconfident, think they have it all figured out, and place a trade that's way too big for their account. They of course don't realize how clueless they are, discover to their horror the trade was completely wrong, and end up digging through the remains of their now smoldering account.
You've made a bunch of winning trades. Great. Don't let it go to your head. Don't start scaling up massively simply because you've been winning lately. A better strategy is to risk a fixed percentage (e.g., 1-2%) of your account on each trade. As you make more money the dollar value of each trade increases but the percentage stays the same. That way when a trade ends up being a loser, which will happen, the damage is minor and you can still recover.
Theta gang is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you're going to commit to this you're going to be doing it long-term, which means slowly making money.

I like to sell options on stock indexes like the S&P 500. Anything I should know?

SPY is extremely popular for trading options but there is a much better alternative: SPX. Why?

• Contract size: Both SPY and SPX options are for 100 shares, but SPX trades the full price of the S&P, so ten SPY contracts equal the notional value of one SPX contract. This cuts down commission costs by a factor of ten.
  
• Cash settlement: SPX is cash settled so your account is either credited or debited and you never have to deal with any shares of the underlying.
  
• No risk of assignment: Because SPX is cash settled there's no possibility of assignment. You'll never have to worry about early assignment.
  
• Favorable tax treatment: SPX options are 1256 contracts, which means they have different tax treatment. It does not matter how long you hold 1256 contracts for, whether less than a minute or over a year, all trades are taxed the same: 60% of gains are treated as long-term and 40% short-term. Theta gang trades are almost always short term (one year or less), so this is the biggest reason why you should trade SPX over SPY. You'll get to keep more of your profits.
  
• Minis are available: If you want to trade SPX options but don't have enough money, fear not. XSP is 1/10th the size of SPX, so it's the same size as SPY but has all of the benefits of SPX. The only downside is it's not as liquid.
  

If you like to trade options on other indexes (or commodities), you should consider futures options. Both futures and futures options are 1256 contracts and receive favorable tax treatment.
EDIT: Hit character limit, rest of post here