Tony G on Crypto, NFTs and Poker

In this episode of Cryptonews Podcast, our host Matt Zahab interviews Antanas Guoga aka Tony G, a Lithuanian businessman, crypto enthusiast, professional poker player, philanthropist, and CEO of Cypherpunk Holdings. They talk about crypto, NFTs, poker, and much more.

Episode timestamps:

0:00​ - Intro
1:01​ - Life in Dubai
1:53​ - Journey into crypto
3:20​ - Blockchain Centre Vilnius
4:24​ - NFTs
7:10​ - F-1 Delta Time
10:40​ - Lympo & Marc Cuban
13:00​ - Basketball
16:08​ - Cypherpunk Holdings
21:00​ - Sponsored by PrimeXBT
22:20​ - Poker
28:52​ - CoinPoker
29:30​ - Bitcoin
31:15​ - Top sectors in the next 10 years
32:00​ - Confucius 
33:20​ - Betting & U.S Elections
35:54​ - Who's opened the biggest door for you?
37:54​ - What gets you going these days?
38:30​ - Outro

The episode premiered on March 25, 2021.

This episode is brought to you by PrimeXBT.

PrimeXBT offers a robust trading system for both beginners and professional traders that demand highly reliable market data and performance.

Traders of all experience levels can easily design and customize layouts and widgets to best fit their trading style. PrimeXBT is always offering innovative products and professional trading conditions to all customers.

PrimeXBT is running an exclusive promotion for listeners of the podcast.

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Episode transcript: 

Matt Zahab: 0:08

Ladies and gentlemen, boy oh boy am I ever fired up for this one. Today's guest has an impressive track record and is nowhere close to being finished. This man is one of the most beloved professional poker players of all time and tormented his opponents for years with his crazy antics, a former member of European Parliament and continues to be a philanthropist to this day, a family man and lover of daytime beach clubs. Currently, he's the CEO of Cypherpunk Holdings, a publicly traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange, also known as the CSE. He's a serial entrepreneur and a crypto veteran that started investing well ahead of the masses. Welcome to the crypto news.com podcast, Tony G. Tony, welcome to the show!

Tony G:

 0:54

Thank you for having me.

Matt Zahab:

 0:56

It is great to have you here. I understand you are currently in Dubai. That must be nice. Tell me, how is life in Dubai and why do you love it so much?

Tony G:

 1:04

Dubai is nice! Well, I like the day beach clubs, rather the day clubs, whatever. Especially in Vegas, I was a consistent regular at the area, the liquid club and I had the cap. So I still have that hat liquid, and we had a lot of great parties there so I'm missing everyone back there in Vegas in the USA. But Dubai is alive and kicking and we have a beach club here called the Drift. The one and only and I was there today. So that's a lot of fun and I guess that's why I'm here because it's open and I kind of can't be closed up. So I'm enjoying freedom in Dubai.

Matt Zahab:

 1:47

That must be incredible. I've still never been to Dubai. It's definitely on the to do list and hopefully I can get out there this year. The topic of the show is crypto and I'd love to start with your journey into crypto. I understand that you got in very early. Me personally, I wish I did. Everyone wishes they got into crypto super early but how early did you get in? And why did you choose to go full throttle into crypto?

Tony G:

 2:11

Well, I think on the record in the European Parliament in 2016, I said to all the honorable members that get some Bitcoins. And I think the price was like $1,000 then but I kind of entered the market around 2013 with different investments and in the infrastructure and so on. So I've been a player a long time and I had success and ups and downs and even then I remember Mt. Gox when you know, when I kind of got in when it kind of crashed and we had some issues. So I've seen it all, but yeah, probably you know, 2013 would be the year that I really got involved in it. As a poker player, you naturally get into it without even trying because of a lot of the settlements and stuff just go through through crypto makes it very, very easy, very comfortable for people and not having to carry balances on the books or carry cash.

Matt Zahab:

 3:12

We'll definitely talk more about poker later as that's been such a big part of your life. But I want to touch on the blockchain center of Lithuania. I understand that you were the man who brought that into reality. And that has really created waves in the space and has really done well for the Lithuanian ecosystem and the Lithuanian economy. Can you tell me a little bit more about the blockchain center of Lithuania?

Tony G:

 3:38

Yeah, so the website is bcgateway.eu and it's a non for profit organization. It's a whole floor of a very prestigious building in Lithuania, that's quite famous, beautiful views, beautiful modern office and office space for people. We provide advice. We've had a lot of very successful projects out of there like Lympo, which is an NFT project now and it's been a very nice return for investors, the $LYM token and now the new $LMT token that's part of the ecosystem. So yeah, Cryptonews was even started over there.

Matt Zahab:

 4:24

You mentioned Lympo and NFTs I know lympo is currently creating NFTs they just released a new coin the LMT coin. Lympo is creating a world class NFT sport ecosystem. Let's bring it back to when you first got into NFTs. I spoke to one of your best mates, Mr. Warren Lush, and he mentioned that it was a Vikings game that actually started this trend and created your love for the NFT space. What can you tell me about that?

Tony G:

 4:54

Well, the NFT is like... in gaming NFTs didn't even exist then and yeah, I was playing the Vikings game. When crypto started really taking off in 2016 especially, I was starting to play this game a lot and started trading crypto hands on. I was still in European Parliament but shit, so bored there, so I needed to do something, so I kind of told all the other guys, all the blokes I call them in Australia, to buy some Bitcoin to get into crypto. I was a proponent of it always and that probably helped me get through the five year sentence there. But I'm glad I got through and I even had some nice accolades and rewards, and awards, so it was fun. But yeah, I was playing poker, playing Vikings in the European Parliament, that's true. I thought that yeah, having the NFTs of these things will be cool and then I got to know Yat Sui, the founder of Animoca Brands, who's probably now one of the king of NFTs and a very early adopter. I was an investor in Animoca early. I'm a big investor right now, I'm close to Yat, and Yat's powering Lympo, and his team. He's just a wonderful innovator and a pure genius in the industry so I'm blessed to work with people like him, and have the honor of being able to invest into his ideas and I guess one of the biggest NFT projects in the whole world that's active and real is the $REVV token, F1 Delta time, right? The deal with Formula One, you can buy stuff, you can buy tracks, and I've been a buyer as well of tracks and races and parts and things like that so that's been amazing that NFTs can also like participate in game and do stuff. So that's been amazing and I can see that potential of e-gaming and NFTs is going to be amazing.

Matt Zahab:

 7:07

You brought up Yat Sui and Animoca brands. And Yat, if you're listening to this, we'd love to have you on the pod, you are the NFT goat, you are the official OG, the original gangster of the NFT ecosystem. We'd love to have you on and we look forward to that. Tony, you mentioned $REVV token and F1 Delta time, I saw a crazy stat that in the game, you can buy a piece of the track and every time a race car goes over that piece of a track, you collect a dividend. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? And is that actually true?

Tony G:

 7:41

It is true, yeah, it is true. Yeah, so you can buy a piece of the track you can buy the cars, the parts, you can buy all kinds of stuff. But yeah, only the track and I do own some of them, it does return a dividend, it returns a return, however you want to call it, it's farming. So that's quite amazing what Yat thought of and it's working, It's booming. The $REVV token launched at 0.06, it is now 50 cents. So that's up nine times and I'm a very happy contributor to that project and I think it's going to go on and on. And I have a racing team there, it's called Super fast. Everyone can still join us, it's on telegram, the super fast racing team. We get newbies in for free, you can race cars, you can participate, you can start earning some $REVV tokens and make a living. Yeah, I think we have the best driver as well that we've managed to secure, so it's you know, it's a whole new virtual world on a blockchain using NFTs and racing Formula One cars so I do recommend for everyone to check out F1 Delta and join the $REVV revolution.

Matt Zahab:

 9:02

That's so cool. I also saw that you and Luca purchased a limited edition F1 Delta time racing car for, I believe it was $250,000 Australian dollars. That is absolute bananas. Why did you purchase such an expensive car in a virtual racing game?

Tony G:

 9:23

Just fun. I mean if you have crypto... Yeah look, I'm not looking at the money side of it. If you have something in your wallet, why not spend it you know? Why not share the love and kind of pass it on? So that's what we did you know? Probably now the money in dollars is quite crazy but it doesn't matter. If you have it, if you're an early kind of investor. That guy Metakovin that bought that amazing $70 million piece is also my competitor in F1 Delta.

Matt Zahab:

 9:59

And the car itself, correct me if I'm wrong, but that is a one of one car that will only rise in value, right?

Tony G:

 10:07

Yeah. So the team has the F1.... two cars, we have the Bahrain that we bought OTC and I think, well that was 1200 $REVVs that's actually $600,000 now, because $REVV, R-E-V-V, Now that $REVV token is actually 50 cents, so that's a pretty crazy amount of money. We just bought that recently and we have the Bahrain car. We have the Australian car and the Bahrain car. So we have two racing cars that are out there, probably both worth over half a million dollars each right now.

Matt Zahab:

 10:41

That is absolutely insane. I want to bring it back to Lympo. I think this is such a cool project, getting paid and being able to make money in different facets. Lympo itself is a health platform where you own your health data and you can essentially get paid for it. And Lympo just released a new token called $LMT, and with $LMT, you will be able to stake and receive limited edition NFTs for this world class, one of a kind, NFT sport ecosystem. Personally, I'm very bullish on this. I think it's absolutely brilliant, combining real world athletes, teams, sports organizations, Olympians, to create this virtual NFT sport ecosystem. People love sports, and there's so many sports fans in the world. Let's start right back from the beginning of Lympo. I saw an interview with you a couple years ago, with Mark Cuban. I believe it was at American Airlines Center, and you have a pretty cool story of shooting hoops with Mark Cuban. I'd love if you could tell me about that.

Tony G:

 11:44

Actually, yeah, we actually shot hoops with Mark Cuban. I flew, I was in the Bahamas and I took a jet. I was actually there at the Bahamas and then visiting Richard Branson on Necker Island. And then it was hard to travel so I had to go and see Mark Cuban and I took a jet and we kind of had a few shots and we bet a million Lympos per shot. And by the way, he still hasn't paid me so he owes me 2 million $LYM because I beat him at three point shootout. You know, he lost a net of 2 million $LYM and I haven't been paid, so Mark Cuban, send me the 2 million $LYM. Buy it on the market, don't be shy. You remember that you lost it and it's time to pay. But yeah, the Lympo company then did sponsor the Dallas Mavericks and we had the training arena. So it was fun. It cost us a lot of money. But it was nice meeting Mark Cuban and beating him for that 2 million $LYM. That $LYM might keep going up so he might end up owing me $20 million.

Matt Zahab:

 12:45

Not too shabby. Mark, if you're listening to this, you better pay up. You know where to find Tony G, it's 2 million $LYM on the open market. I'd do it sooner rather than later as $LYM continues to skyrocket. Very cool story there.

Tony G:

 12:59

And it was recorded as well, it's unbelievable. I'm actually a very good three point shooter. You know, I was once an owner of a Lithuanian team in Vilnius, and I beat the whole team in three point shootouts. It was outside which would probably get our standard deviations higher, but I did beat the whole team, so I'm a decent three point shooter. And I definitely beat Mark Cuban, recorded on video even in the NBA. And my boy Sabonis who's there, he's a good shout as well in the NBA, right? Even Jonas Valaninas now is starting to shoot threes.

Matt Zahab:

 13:33

He's one of our boys. I'm born and raised in Toronto, and he was a beloved Raptor, standing at, what is he, seven feet tall? Absolute specimen of a human being.

Tony G:

 13:42

He was playing in my team. I knew him as a kid as he played for the Wall Streeters when he was drafted. I've known him a long time so it's, you know, I love basketball. I mean, I know all the players.

Matt Zahab:

 13:54

Another funny story involving basketball. I know you were the manager of the Lithuanian national basketball team, I believe. And there was a funny clip on the Internet of Tony G leading the national Lithuanian team out of the tunnel in the London 2012 Olympics. Tell me more about

Tony G:

 14:13

I was fine. Yeah, I was the Olympic attache for Lithuania, living in the Olympic Village. And I was also the general manager with Lithuanian basketball for three years. In fact, started in 2010, Turkey. We didn't get the draw, or whatever, and we had to buy a wildcard and FIBA does sell wildcards. I paid half a million Euro in 2010. We got the wildcard and I bought myself into the team, you know, no one kind of invited me but they said well, we need the money so they got me in and I helped them a little bit with strategy. And we were absolute outsiders as you know, arnas Jasikeviius didn't play and our stars didn't play, our NBA guys. So I said, okay, we'll just put the you know, we'll just put the amateurs on. We'll play and we've ended up winning the bronze medal. And we played Team USA in the semi final, it was a great game and it was fa tastic to be part of it and th n to be the general manager of that, and to come from zero to hero, you know, spending just a ittle bit of gasoline on th that. t, but getting the result was fa tastic. And then there was th same story for the Olympics. We didn't qualify. So I had to go to Venezuela and take the te m to Venezuela to qualify, an we qualified for the Ol mpics. Unfortunately, we di n't win. But we qualified. We pl yed in the Olympics and I th nk Lithuanian basketball has wo three Olympic bronze medals, wh ch is amazing for a country of 2.5 million people. So

Matt Zahab:

 15:40

Tony on the basketball topic, why didn't you suit up? Throw a pair of shorts on, throw the sleeve monster o and start puking threes fro from the three point line? Wh didn't you join the team

Tony G:

 15:53

That would not, no, that would not be fair to everyone else, but I did join the team I mean, I was part of that. And I enjoyed it. But I'm not, I'm in no way a professional player. I had a good time with it, but I'm not, you know.

Matt Zahab:

 16:07

I understand. Let's move over to one of the coolest companies on the Canadian Securities Exchange. I'm talking about Cypherpunk Holdings where you are the CEO Cypherpunk Holdings is a company that specializes in crypto and privacy tech investments. I actually checked this out a couple of months ago, back when Bitcoin was really booming. And I was curious, in regards to getting exposure of Bitcoin without having to directly invest in Bitcoin. Now, you can pop over to Bitcointreasuries.org, and you'll find a list of companies that carry Bitcoin on their balance sheet, on their treasury, Cypherpunk Holdings was one of them. I believe Cypherpunk carries 292 Bitcoin, which is incredibly impressive, and also dabbles in other crypto investments and privacy tech investments. I'd love if you could give a high level overview of Cypherpunk Holdings and future plans of that company.

Tony G:

 17:10

Yeah, so I came into Cypherpunk as an investor. I liked the brand and I liked the future. I felt, you know, I could realize myself, so I joined the company. I'm taking zero salary. So I had a million options at 10 cents when when I joined, which I also exercised. So yeah, and I've been buying all my stock on the market. So I've built up to 21 million shares now and I started buying at three cents. We went out in 30 cents and hopefully we'll have a good future that there's no recommendations to invest in. I would recommend everyone to watch us we have a great ticker on a Canadian stock exchange in $HODL. I love that. In America, $KHRIF, OTC. So it's a company, I'm the CEO. Well, I'm building a great team. And we're looking forward to a very interesting future there and in that industry. So people wanting exposure to Bitcoin and crypto, it's one of the companies they can put a little bit of money to work if they want exposure without any recommendations to buy or ramp the stock in any way.

Matt Zahab:

 18:30

I absolutely love the ticker $HODL, that is just world class. I'm sure every company on Bitcointreasury.org would love to have that ticker. Walk me through the story of getting that ticker, was that difficult?

Tony G:

 18:43

It was not me, it was the previous, you know, people who got that ticker, and we have very nice people on a board in Mo Adam and Jon Matonis. We have experts, and we're looking to diversify the board, even get more people on. So I'm looking for females in Canada, who have some expertise to get some women on the board. So reach out if you can.

Matt Zahab:

 19:07

Very good call there. One of the really cool things that the company recently did, and this baffled me until I've read the press release, and then I sort of went down a rabbit hole and I was like, wow, this is so smart. And I feel like no one really knows about this, It's not quite mainstream. Cypherpunk recently purchased 16,384 IP addresses. What is the purpose of investing in IP addresses?

Tony G:

 19:35

Yeah, so we're dabbling in IP addresses. And we have already rented them out but it's... you can buy them for capital growth plus return, and IP addresses are limited. So we are running out of them. So it's a little bit like Bitcoin, right? But there's a definite use case, people need them, companies need them. So we will enter the market. We are positioned, analyzing, we brought on people who will analyze this market and we will continue to invest in this area, if it makes sense.

Matt Zahab:

 20:07

And lastly, before we move on, tell me about the future plans of Cypherpunk Holdings and the goals and vision moving forward.

Tony G:

 20:17

So we're exploring NFTs where if we invest in infrastructure and equity in that area. We're open, we're looking at a number of opportunities at the moment. And we're also looking at DeFi to make sure that the bitcoins we have harvesting other bitcoins, so we have invested some to get a return. And looking at opportunities, generally in the market and privacy sector, we're invest in wallets, we have the wasabi wallet, which is profitable, and return 2.7 bitcoins for us. So we're pretty racked with that. That's pretty exciting, And as far as I know, they're growing very strongly, so we're looking forward to the future.

Matt Zahab:

 21:01

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Tony G:

 22:46

I'm not sure about the good part. But I I grew up in Australia, right? I mean, as a kid I abandoned Soviet Union managed to escape with the help of the Red Cross and I grew up in Australia. As a small kid, I was playing poker with my family. We used to play on this island, Phillip Island off Melbourne, and we would play at nights and started winning and it developed into a bit of a passion. And then the Crown Casino in Melbourne opened. I was 18, just went open and we started having poker games so five card, night game or whatever the games, I could play all the games and be decent. I don't know if I was that good, but I was decent and I played a lot, and then internet poker started and I was playing a lot on these sites and paradise poker. And I kind of probably had just a little bit of an edge on the rest and I could make a little bit of money. And with that money I invested in the poker news. For when I want to want someone in poker, and in the early 2000s, I managed to build the biggest poker news information site in the world. And that was PokerNews, it was built from money from winning in poker. So that's pretty cool.

Matt Zahab:

 24:05

That is cool. A couple of rapid fire poker questions, if you don't mind. And I'm very curious to hear the answers to these questions. What's the biggest poker hand you've ever won? And what did the stomach feel like after you won, or during that last hand of that tournament?

Tony G:

 24:22

The biggest poker... I guess I won so many tournaments, but I think cash games, playing cash games in Russia was back 10, 12, 13 years ago, that was a lot of fun. And I had a hand of like $5 million that I won. And that was fun. That was kind of you know, memorable.

Matt Zahab:

 24:44

Were you not nervous? Like did your stomach not drop? Did you not feel like you were on a roller coaster when you're on that last draw with that $5 million hand?

Tony G:

 24:55

Yeah, I did feel like it was a roller coaster. But we had, you know, I have aces with three diamonds in my hand and went kind of all in on a flop. And straight away there was a diamond. I mean, a couple of blokes, flopped the flush and I flopped the straight and kind of turned off the flush and was, you know, safe on the turn, and then another diamond came on the river as well. It was pretty fun, pretty relaxing to win the pot. And then we kind of moved on from there. But that was important. Yeah, it was a very big part.

Matt Zahab:

 25:34

And I hate to be this guy, but I know our guests will love this. What about the most you've ever lost in a hand? And and the quick follow up same as last question, how did that feel as well?

Tony G:

 25:43

So even recently, I'm losing, you know, million dollar plus pots all the time. So it's too many to even know, but I'm losing a lot of million dollar pots, a lot. I'm probably losing one every day. So somehow, somewhere without going into details, I'm used to it. I'm immune from that.

Matt Zahab:

 26:07

How do you grow such a thick skin from losing so much money?

Tony G:

 26:11

You just smile. Everyone says in the game, I just smile, I'm just happy, I'm just you know, I don't I don't want to stress about that. I just I'm just enjoying it. So you just have to laugh. It's just the process, right? It's not a big deal to lose, It's not a big deal to win. You have to be stable.

Matt Zahab:

 26:28

One of the more interesting and unique Tony G poker stories. I forget what event it was at but you brought a big dog, I want to say a German Shepherd or something of the like, you brought a German Shepherd into a poker tournament with you and quote unquote, you wanted to smell weakness at a high stakes poker tournament.

Tony G:

 26:52

Yeah, I brought my dog to poker event at Crown Casino. And yeah, and the dog only drinks Fiji water as well and likes Nobu. I'd like knowing who wouldn't serve him. So we had a lot of controversy there at Crown, but we'll move past that. But yeah, he only likes Fiji water. That's fine. I mean, I don't mind it's normal.

Matt Zahab:

 27:21

Wow, I'm just catching my breath from that, excuse me. And then one last one last question on the poker, rapid fire questions here. You did win the Asian Poker Tour and gave all your money to charity. I believe it was an event on the Asian poker Poker Tour. Why did you do that?

Tony G:

 27:38

Yeah, it was back a long time. It was 2007 and poker... It was in Singapore and I don't think they've ever had a poker tournament in Singapore since then. And it was like a big massive trophy, it was sponsored by Betfair ,was a great event. Big, big field, close to 500 players back then. And I managed to win, PokerNews was booming. I didn't really need the money, it was still a lot of money, it was half a million that I gave it to like the Cancer Foundation in Singapore and other little Australian charities. So I just felt it was was nice to do something to show that you know, you're not playing just for the money you're playing for entertainment and that it's not important that you just chasing the glory of money. So it was important to me personally, I think, and I think that made me as a person to say that I'm happy to share the joys of winning, you know? The joys of winning are enough and if you can share the money, because you can't just chase the money because the money is never enough. You can never win all the money in the world and you can never be happy with money, right? And a rich person is a person that feels he is happy with the money that he has. And he's not someone that's chasing all the money in the world.

Matt Zahab:

 28:52

Just to bridge the gap and to bring things back to the crypto world. Have you ever thought about intertwining poker and crypto?

Tony G:

 29:01

Yeah, well, I mean, we've kind of kind of played on CoinPoker. And CoinPoker is you know, you can deposit crypto and play poker. So yeah, I'm on there. Every now and again and I liked that project. So yeah, I mean, I definitely know better and I think now you can deposit Bitcoin and Ethereum on it and play coin poker, it's fine. So if you want to play, I'll probably jump on there and have a bit of fun in the future.

Matt Zahab:

 29:27

Moving forward to Bitcoin. I know that's a incredibly popular topic. Bitcoin has been on just an obscene run recently. Well, I guess it's been a little stagnant recent, but where do you see Bitcoin going at the end of this year and what's going to happen once all the big institutions start coming on board? We've already seen Tesla come on board. What happens when all the other big boys join the party?

Tony G:

 29:52

I'm hoping Bitcoin can get to 100k you know, and then like a 100k Bitcoin, that's quite stable. It's like the gold. It'll just become a bit like gold where it's not going to be so exciting, you know, the higher it gets, it's not going to have the volatility. So people are going to look for alt coins and a new blockchain so on to invest into. I think 100k is pretty much certain. I'm not recommending to buy, I'm saying everyone should be very, very careful with their money and then make a decision that suits them. But it's in our best probabilities with the velocity and momentum, we have that 100k bitcoins, very, very likely. And then from there, I think can just hang around there and be like, you know, become a very sort of kind of stable coin. I can't see it going to much higher than that. And that can be a very nice level for people to work with and I think around Bitcoin, there'll be a lot of other cryptocurrencies that will be very interesting. And then people will develop and new teams will come up and find solutions for the gas issues that Ethereum has, which a massive. There's transfers lower, there's still so much development and evolution. This is the new internet as Mark Cuban, my friend has said, right? This is the new internet, this is the blockchain area. So it's great to be... everyone should have a little bit of exposure.

Matt Zahab:

 31:16

Tony, what sectors are you most bullish on for the next 10 years?

Tony G:

 31:20

Well, I think blockchain is going to be still exciting for quite a while, probably space is going to be exciting as well. People are gonna want to reach space, and they're gonna keep investing in that. Obviously, transportation is going to be exciting. How we evolved with that, probably flying cars. So it'll be very interesting sector right? To be involved with, but yeah, I could sound pretty crazy to people too.

Matt Zahab:

 31:49

That's very true. I want to bring up a really good question, back from an article, the European Parliament Politico top 28 story. This is back in your time in European Parliament, and you were ranked as one of the top 28 politicians shaking up the European sector. And you were asked the following question, which historical figure do you admire the most? And your answer was Confucius. I love that answer. Tell me why you said that.

Tony G:

 32:21

Because it just goes back so long and I guess its mythical. It's about everything and it's about all of the history of the world, you know. When Confucius say, give me a country between two neighbors, who are very aggressive and I'll make the country great, you know, so the more enemies you have around, the more you work and survive and flourish. I guess that's about Israel, and about Lithuania, my country, right? Having a very aggressive neighbour that's been aggressive to us for a long time and not yielding, you know? Surviving for centuries and flourishing, and that's important. So I think, well, there's so many different things you can learn but it's one of the things is having that desire to survive and desire to flourish and desire to succeed. And desire to win, right? For people.

Matt Zahab:

 33:21

I know you're a big sports guy and I'd love to ask what's been your biggest sports bet ever?

Tony G:

 33:29

Probably on cricket. People wouldn't even know what cricket is, most people listening. But I also love cricket and I know that probably the most famous cricket player in the world, Shane Warne's a friend of mine. He actually plays poker too and he's a bowler, a spinner. So I think I bet huge amounts on cricket, bet huge amounts, too much. But I enjoy I enjoy the game. I've had million dollar bets, of course, a lot of times.

Matt Zahab:

 34:00

And some winners, I assume?

Tony G:

 34:02

I've had winner, I've had very nice winners and I've had losers. So you know, gambling is up and down. It's not, It's never perfect.

Matt Zahab:

 34:13

Peaks and troughs. Speaking of peaks and troughs, I was told this story that you had an absolute bananas bet on the US election, the most recent one. Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. I also believe that that bet had something to do with crypto. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Tony G:

 34:31

Well, yeah I did have an investment, a very large investment on Joe Biden. And by No way, am I endorsing the policies or Democratic Party in America. But we did you know, my sort of analysts and people in an audit did feel that the the advantage was to bet Biden although the odds were not as good for Trump and it's not about who you love or hate or whatever, it's just an economic bet on investment right? So our position was very much for Biden and we actually predicted the college count. It came in exactly as we predicted it on a computer. So that was pretty cool, pretty crazy. Although we actually lost Florida, we did predict that Biden should also win Florida and it didn't work out. But the college camp anyway came in, because of the other results, as we predicted. So that was pretty crazy. Anyway, it's over the elections over, Biden's the President, good luck to him. Hopefully, he does something good for the United States of America and the country progresses, but there's been a lot of kind of controversy, hate, violence and racism and so on. But the world keeps going.

Matt Zahab:

 35:45

Certainly does. Just a couple questions before we finish, I'm very grateful of your time, and we appreciate you jumping on. In life, people open doors for you and I'd love to know, I'm very curious to know, who's opened the biggest door for you in life.

Tony G:

 36:02

I guess the biggest door, and I dropped out of school, I was in year nine and I was in a private school in Australia, and I was not a good kid. And I had some issues and you know, they expelled me from school and I was just a young kid, just turned 16. I was on the streets washing car windows when the red lights come on. And a South African guy came and said, you know, Tony, well he didn't say Tony but he said 'what are you doing here?' you know, so I said I dropped out, I haven't got much of a choice. And this was like, you know, in the late... in the early 90s, you know, not 91 or something. So, long, long time ago, 30 years ago. And the guy said, well, you shouldn't be like on the streets, you should just come work in the office and there was like Australian mortgage brokers, he was like a mortgage broker. So you can come to the office, like send faxes, learn about finance, and doing like an apprenticeship, go to college, and then that's what I did. I trusted that guy. And it was just like an old guy from South Africa that was also an immigrant in Australia that gave me a shot, and I kind of, that probably changed my life a lot. And then off the streets, I went into the office putting on a suit and doing faxes and going to the bank taking the money and so on. It was good for kid to do that and it kind of progressed me pretty fast and then I would say I wasn't that bad at finance, money, and I had a shot. So yeah, I wish everyone in life and in the world gives every kid an opportunity to have a good job. And this gentleman did that, you know, so I guess that's something I can't forget. So thank you, Bill.

Matt Zahab:

 37:50

Thank you for sharing that. That was really good. Present day what really gets you going?

Tony G:

 37:55

I don't know, I mean, it's all the evolution of stuff. And I watch CNBC all the time, all the investments, all the startups, all the new people coming on a block, all the evolution in things, and it's quite interesting. It gives me a lot of stimulation. So I like that, I enjoy that. I enjoy inve tment. I enjoy speculation I en oy, sort of progress, so I'll continue doing that and enjo ing life. A lot of things I've tried haven't succeeded, and lot of things I've tried have succeeded. So I'll focus on succ ss and keep going.

Matt Zahab:

 38:31

Tony, this has been an absolute pleasure. I used to watch you as a kid on TV, terrorizing your opponents on the felt while playing poker and now to have the pleasure to interview you is absolutely incredible. So I thank you for that. Before you go. Please tell the guests where they can find you on social.

Tony G:

 38:54

Yes, so you can follow me on twitter @TonyGuoga. Instagram as well. But it's not hard to find me I guess if you search, I'm also on Facebook as Tony Guoga, Antanas Guoga in Lithuanian. Come and join and I'll be there.

Matt Zahab:

 39:15

Tony, really appreciate your time. Wish you all the best and we'd love to have you on again.

Tony G:

 39:19

Thank you for having me.

Matt Zahab:

 39:20

Folks, that is the end of the show. Hope you had a blast listening. It would mean the world if you could subscribe and give us a five star rating on Apple Music or Spotify podcasts. Until next episode. We wish you all the best and have a wonderful day.