All right, let's kick this off. Greetings, and welcome to RCI Hospitality Holdings fourth quarter and year-end fiscal 2023 earnings call. You can find the company's presentation on RCI's website. Click Company and Investor Information under the RCI logo. That will take you to the Company and Investor info page. Scroll down, and you'll find all the necessary links. Please turn to slide two of our presentation. I'm Mark Moran, CEO of Equity Animal. I'll be the host of our call today. I'm here in New York with Eric Langan, President and CEO of RCI Hospitality. CFO Bradley Chhay is coming to us from Houston. Please turn to slide three. If you aren't doing so already, it is easy to participate in the call on Twitter Spaces. Go to @RicksCEO and select a space titled RCI Hospitality Holdings, Inc. for Q 2023 earnings call. To ask a question, you will need to join the Twitter Space with a mobile device. To listen only, you can join the Twitter Space on a personal computer. RCI is also making this call available for listen only through traditional landline and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow. This conference call is being recorded. Please turn to slide four. I want to remind everybody of our Safe Harbor statement. You may hear or see forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated. We disclaim any obligation to update information disclosed in this call as a result of developments that occur afterwards. Please turn to slide five. I also direct you to the explanation of RICK's non-GAAP financial measures. Finally, I'd like to invite everyone listening in the New York City area to join Eric and me tonight at 7:00 P.M. to meet management at Rick's Cabaret New York, one of RCI's top generating clubs. Rick's is located at 50 West 33rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, a little in from Herald Square. If you have an RSVP, ask for us at the door. Now, I'm pleased to introduce Eric Langan, President and CEO of RCI Hospitality. Eric, take it away. Thank you for joining us today. Please turn to slide six I think our fourth quarter results are generally in line with what everyone was expecting. We generated revenue of $75.3 million, 5.4% higher than a year ago quarter, mainly because of acquisitions. This has increased more than offset the decline in same-store sales of 10.5%. However, margins were negatively impacted as a percentage of sales. Because of the same-store sales decline, results were also affected by higher non-cash impairments. As a result, we earned $0.23 per share, but on a non-GAAP basis, we were solidly profitable, earning $1.11 per share. We are operating in a unique and complex macroeconomic environment. In addition, last year's second half saw the highest operating leverage we've had in the past 5 years. Fiscal 2022 free cash flow also benefited from a $2.2 million tax refund in the third quarter. I am proud of our efforts. I'm proud of the efforts of our talented and dedicated teams, as well as the strength and resiliency of our business model. In Fiscal 2023, our performance same-store sales were up 9% compared to pre-COVID Fiscal 2019, with nightclubs up 8.3% and Bombshells up 12.6%. We also saw the second highest levels of free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA in the company's history, eclipsed only by the unique dynamics of Fiscal 2022. Please turn to Slide seven. We are pleased to report that during and subsequent to the quarter, we have made significant progress towards our key growth initiatives. These should begin to produce results in this fiscal year and next. We also implemented some changes to improve operations. Our capital allocation strategy continued to provide strong long-term results. Since its adoption beginning year-end fiscal 2015, free cash flow has increased on a compound annual basis of 17.2%. Subsequent to the fourth quarter, we continued to buy back more shares. We believe we have significant cash resources available to implement our strategies and plans. Please turn to slide eight. I'd like to take a moment to go into more detail on the progress of our three major initiative, growth initiatives. First, we continue to be excited about our two Central City, Colorado casinos, Rick's Cabaret Steakhouse and Casino, and our Bombshells Sports Casino. We are awaiting the conclusion of the state's gaming licensing process. At the very beginning of this effort, we estimated it would take 12-18 months based on past Colorado history. We are still in line with that timetable. All indications indicate the process is proceeding. No other applicant has received a gaming license ahead of us. We are also awaiting liquor licenses for both of the casinos and a building permit for the Bombshells Casino. We have begun to form our organization. We have retained a director of casino operations. He has a deep and long-term experience in the Colorado market. During the first quarter, we received a building permit for our Rick's Cabaret Steakhouse and Casino. Interior demolition has been completed, and construction has begun. Based on all this, we continue to anticipate opening both casinos in fiscal 2024. Using simple math, we believe this represents a significant free cash flow opportunity. Our plans for a total of 400 slot machines and nine to 12 table games, as well as sports betting. Looking at the slots, they have been averaging $133 adjusted gross proceeds per day in Central City and $307 per day in nearby Black Hawk. Black Hawk is higher, mainly because they run on a 24/7 basis, which we plan to do also. We have assembled additional properties on Main Street for further casino development as well. Excuse me, sorry about that. Please turn to Slide eight. Sorry, I'm sorry, slide nine. There we go. Got a little confused here. The Baby Dolls/Chicas Locas acquisition continues to perform well. Sales have improved every quarter since the March acquisition, and we finished remodeling the fifth location in June, which is contributing to that growth. Labor and direct operating expenses as a percentage of revenue have come down, and we are analyzing more ways to improve those margins. We are planning to open three more clubs in fiscal 2024. Two use existing club assets that we own. They will both be branded Baby Dolls, helping us turn that into a major Texas chain. The third is the replacement club that we told you about in Lubbock, Texas. Construction is underway. As we previously reported, we named Dean Reardon and Shaun Kevlin as Director and Assistant Director of Nightclub Operations for RCI Management Services. This should enable Ed Anakar, President and Director of RCI Management Services, to focus more time on acquisitions and development of new clubs. We are moving full steam ahead with regard to acquisitions, but we will not overpay for the sake of buying more clubs. We continue to be actively engaged in ongoing discussions with numerous club owners. Off script a little bit here. 2023 was a very challenging year for us, but I've talked to many smaller operators, and they didn't have the reserves that we've had. They've had additional slowdowns compared to what we are experiencing, and I'm expecting that many acquisitions over the next 12-18 months are gonna come to our-- in front of us and be on very favorable terms. So I'm very excited about that. If you'll please turn to slide 10 to review our Bombshells development program. In September, we announced a major expansion of the food offerings at our food hall in Greenwood Village, a suburb of Denver, to add to our existing successful Bombshells kitchen there. We have later relaunched that location as Cherry Creek Food Hall. In November, we opened the first Bombshells post-COVID. This is located in Stafford, Texas, a suburb of Houston. It is off to a great start. Regarding other new Bombshells, construction is continuing on Rowlett and the Lubbock locations, and remodeling should begin soon for our downtown Denver site. All three are expected to open in fiscal 2024. In other developments, we hired a new Assistant Director of Operations with more than 20 years of multi-unit restaurant experience. For Bombshells, I'm currently exploring with private equity groups sale, partial sales of the concept, partnerships or mergers, basically all strategic operating or all strategic opportunities out there that we can use to maximize the value of this asset and basically accelerate our growth. I think that the concept to be highly successful, we need to get into that 80-100 units that we believe we can do. And I'd like to see us do that with capital outside of the company's capital, because I think we just have too many acquisition opportunities coming up, the expansion of the casinos, and I'd like to keep our capital more focused on those operations rather than expanding Bombshells. So if you'll turn to slide 11. Acting upon our confidence in our capital allocation strategy, our strong free cash flow profile and our valuation, we continue to take advantage of our low stock price in the first quarter of fiscal 2024 to buy back more shares. As of December 8th, we had repurchased 37,954 common shares for approximately $2.1 million, or an average price of about $54.59 per share in Q1 2024. We currently have $14.6 million in remaining stock purchase authorization, and while we continue to prioritize high cash on cash returns in developing our new casinos, clubs, and restaurants, we also continue to opportunistically and aggressively buy back shares when they trade materially below our value, our view of fair value. Now, here's Bradley to detail more of our results, and I'll be happy to take Q&A at the end of this session. Thanks, Eric. Please turn to slide 12 to review our nightclub segment. Fourth quarter revenues increased $4.3 million year-over-year. This was primarily due to $9.2 million from the new acquisitions, more than offsetting the $5.1 million in same-store sales decline. By revenue type, alcoholic beverages increased 17.2%, food 15.9%, and other 8.1%. Service revenue declined 2%. The differing growth rates reflected higher alcohol and food in the sales mix from the newly acquired Heartbreakers, Baby Dolls, and Chicas Locas clubs this year. They also reflected lower same-store sales and the summer slump in service revenues. Service revenue was 42% of nightclub sales this quarter, versus 46% a year ago.... If the sales mix had been the same, we would have had $2.4 million in the service revenue, most of which have been benefited free cash flow. Post-acquisition of Heartbreakers, Baby Dolls, and Chicas Locas, our quarterly sales have shown a steady improvement, coinciding with a notable decrease in labor costs and a corresponding decline in direct operating expenses as a percentage of revenue. Fourth quarter results included an $8.4 million more in items typically excluded from non-GAAP calculations, mainly non-cash impairments. As a result, GAAP operating income was $12.1 million, or 19.8% of revenues, but non-GAAP operating income and margin was significantly higher at $21.6 million and 35.4% of revenues. Even with the macroeconomic challenges we've been facing, our strategies have enabled Nightclub's non-GAAP operating income to remain at the $22 million-$24 million range per quarter since the second quarter of 2022. Please turn to slide 13 to review our Bombshells segment. Fourth quarter revenues declined $452,000. Lower same-store sales were partially offset by the $1.6 million in newly acquired locations, namely Bombshells San Antonio and the renamed Cherry Creek Food Hall, with its Bombshells Kitchen. GAAP operating income was a profit of $1.2 million, or 8.2% of revenues, and non-GAAP was a profit of $1.4 million, or 10.4%. Please turn to slide 14. In our segment, revenues were approximately level at $727,000. Operating income was a loss of $793,000 compared to a year-ago profit of $216,000. This delta was largely a result of $908,000 increase in items typically excluded from non-GAAP calculations, again, mainly impairments. Corporate expenses were $6.8 million, nearly level with last year. On a non-GAAP basis, they were $1.7 million higher. This reflected about $500,000 more in salaries and wages in the fiscal 2023 fourth quarter, and the benefit of a $1 million legal insurance payment in the year-ago fourth quarter. I also want to note our effective tax rate for the year was 19%, compared to 23.4%. This fiscal 2023 effective tax rate reflected higher federal tax credits that more than offset the higher portion of income subject to state income taxes. Please turn to slide 15. Here, you can see three big spikes in the operating margin we had in the third quarter of fiscal 2021 and the third and fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, as we came out of the COVID era. Please turn to slide 16. We have a couple slides coming up that will discuss free cash flow and adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP. In advance of that, we wanted to present you with the closest GAAP equivalents on this slide, which are operating and net income. Please turn to slide 17 to look at some of our other key metrics. We ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $21 million. During the fourth quarter, we used $2.1 million to buy back shares. We also ended the year with $9.8 million in accounts receivable. This increased 16% from a year-ago quarter because September 30 fell on a Saturday. This resulted in our carrying credit cards in our accounts receivable from Thursday to Saturday sales at the end of the quarter. Fourth quarter Free Cash Flow was $11.1 million or 15% of revenues. Adjusted EBITDA was $20.2 million or 27% of revenues. Our more recent Free Cash Flow and Adjusted EBITDA conversion rates reflect a lower percentage of service revenues. Please turn to slide 18 to review some of our debt metrics. Our debt at September 30 declined $4 million from June 30 due to scheduled paydowns. Weighted average interest rate was 6.64%, in line with what we have been paying. Total occupancy costs inched up a little bit on a sequential quarter basis at 8.1%, but still in our comfort range of 6%-9%. The increase since the third quarter of fiscal 2022 primarily relates to new club acquisition debt. Debt to the trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA stayed relatively flat at 2.8x, September thirtieth versus June thirtieth. This metric continues to be in line in our comfort level of less than 3x. We adjusted our September thirtieth debt maturity tables to reflect the previously announced October modification of our debt, the 12% unsecured debt, to be specific. As you can see, our maturities continue to remain reasonable and manageable. In addition to our cash position and our October rescheduling of our 12% unsecured debt, we have an estimated $30 million of unencumbered real estate that we believe we can leverage if we like. Please turn to slide 19 for our debt pie chart. Our debt composition is similar to the third quarter, and that's it. So let me turn the presentation over back to Eric. Thanks, Bradley. Please turn to slide 20. Everything we do is centered around our capital allocation strategy. We employ three different approaches, subject to whether there's compelling rationale to do otherwise: mergers and acquisitions, organic growth, and buying back shares when our yield on free cash flow per share is more than 10%. All of this is done with the ultimate goal of driving shareholder value by increasing free cash flow per share at least 10%-15% on a compounded annual basis. We turn to slide 21. We have stuck to our capital allocation strategy since the end of fiscal 2015. It has worked very well. We have generated compound annual growth rates of 10.2% for total revenues, 12.1% for Adjusted EBITDA, and 17.2% for Free Cash Flow. At the same time, we have reduced our fully diluted share count by 1.3% on a compounded annual basis, and that includes shares used for acquisitions. I'd also like to mention we ended fiscal 2023 with more than $200 million in retained earnings for the first time. The first Rick's Cabaret opened 40 years ago. I believe we will be here for the next 40 years. The future is bright for RCI. There continues to be a very strong demand for what we do. We believe the actions we are taking are setting us up for many years of financial success to come. Every piece of the puzzle has its place. We just need to stick to our plan. I'd like to have special thanks to our loyal and dedicated teams for all their hard work and effort, and all the shareholders who believe and make our success possible. We can't do this without you. Now, here's Mark. Thank you, Eric and Bradley. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand in the Twitter space. When you finish, please mute your microphone to eliminate any background noise. We have a limited number of speaker spaces. After your question, we may move you to the back of the audience to free up space. To start things off, we'd like to take questions from Rick's analysts and then some of its larger shareholders. Our three analysts are Scott Buck of H.C. Wainwright, Anthony of Sidoti, and Rob of Granite Research. Scott, you're up first. Take it away. Yeah, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Eric, could you give us a little bit more color on what kind of traffic and spending trends you're seeing in the clubs today? Curious if some of that, some of the softer trends in the fourth quarter have kind of dragged here into the first quarter? Well, I mean, we've seen some of the drag, especially in the blue collar, still, into this first quarter. The comps are becoming easier, not perfect for us yet, but easier. It's tough to say. I'm a trend finder, you know, it's what I do. I look at numbers, I see the trends, I watch the financials, and it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. I'd call this a psychological recession. And as you know, we all know, that means people are a little crazy about spending. I think the consumer, especially in the last 60-90 days, is loosening up a little bit, but I think it's still a little... There's cautious spending. People are unsure. You know, we're seeing a lot of tech layoffs now, so I think some of the higher-end spend, you know, higher-end spend is they're still spending, but they're a little more cautious. They want to guarantee that they're getting a good time for it. Our top clubs are doing better in clubs where, in markets where we're number two or number three in the market, or where we own all the clubs. The number one clubs are doing very, very well, but the other clubs are still off a little bit. I think that's kind of indicative of that. But, you know, as far as trends, I don't see trends. I think the longest trend up or down I've seen in the last seven months is about a three week trend. And then it's, you know, crazy again for a few weeks, and then it's, you know, we may trend for two weeks up, two weeks down, a week up, a week down. It's really unusual compared to what I've seen in the past. However, overall, we're seeing enough strength that I'm very optimistic going forward. I think that I think the lows are kind of past. The low sales weeks are kind of past us, and holiday parties seem to be picking up a little bit this week, so seeing some good numbers this week. I was in Miami Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, because we got stuck down there because of the storm. We couldn't get into New York Sunday. I mean, the clubs were incredible. Especially Tootsie's in Miami was packed. We were setting up by the VIP booth area to the counter, to the rooms in the back, and I mean, there was a line all night long, Friday and Saturday night. So that was very promising. Tootsie's is having a really big week this week. Then, of course, we had the home game with Miami Monday night, which was good for business. Football's really picking up for us. Right now, basketball is starting to heat up a little bit. So very excited about how we're going forward with everything we have on our plate, with, you know, casinos, the new three, the three new clubs, the three new Bombshells. I think 2024 is gonna be a fantastic year for us, even if things stay a little sluggish, so. Great. I appreciate that color. Then I'm, I'm curious on Bombshells, how far along are you with some of these strategic conversations, and can you give us any kind of a sense of timing on, on when something could potentially be announced? No. Just being honest, I mean, we're talking with several, several people right now. We floated it out there about 60 days ago to a couple of groups. We've got some requests for data that we're putting together, you know, with different groups for different ideas, whether it's a strategic partnership, whether it's a partial buy that would give us, you know, capital to do the expansions with or, you know, a straight-out sale of the assets. We're basically exploring all those things. We're gonna weigh it all out and see what we think fits best for our long-term goals for RCI. You know, as far as timing, you know, some of the requests, I mean, we've been working on the case, so Bradley's had a little bit. I would say we'll probably January, we'll start getting that data put together and out to some of the groups that we're talking with. I'm sure after this, we're gonna have more groups that talk to us, and we're gonna have more ideas and more opportunities to explore. And we're just gonna find what we believe is the best for the company to use those assets to build, you know, additional cash flow for the company. And at the same time, make it so that we can grow the concept without using too much of our own capital. Because, like I said, I think that the acquisition side of the business is starting to heat up a little bit. There's some opportunities with groups we're talking with right now, and I really think we wanna keep our cash to finish building these casinos out and make these acquisitions. Great, great. I appreciate that. And then one last one from me. I'm curious how should we think about OpEx for next year as you start to layer in some of the new revenue from some of these growth initiatives? Do you have, you know, significant spend you need to add, or should we really start to see some significant operating leverage in the business? Are you talking about CapEx spends, or are you talking about maintenance CapEx? I'm sorry. I'm talking about adding, you know, back office heads, support heads, that sort of thing. Oh, I don't think we're gonna add much of anything. We're kind of, our payroll is kind of... You see it was kind of flat. I mean, we had some additional payroll, but mainly that was from the acquisition. As far as adding additional staffing in the office, I don't see a lot of expense growth in that part of the business. All right. I think the overall growth will be much faster than the growth in that department. Super! Appreciate the added color, guys. Thank you for the time. Thanks. Thank you very much for your questions, Scott. Next up, we have Anthony of Sidoti. Anthony, take it away. Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking the questions. So first, just a follow-up on the previous question in regards to the weakness, I guess, in the blue-collar clubs. This is not the first time that we've heard this before. I think, Eric, you had mentioned this probably about a year ago. So just curious, is it the same group of blue-collar clubs that you're seeing kind of weakness as you saw previously? And kind of maybe get as a frame of reference, so like, what percentage of your clubs would you consider blue collar? I'd have to actually. I mean, with 70 locations, I'd have to actually look through it. I call it the pickup truck crowd, the working, you know, the working crowd. I think, you know, gas prices are coming down for them, but, you know, bills are still expensive, energy is still expensive, so they're dealing with some of those things still. As far as their costs, I think there's just a little uncertainty here and there in the marketplace right now that's causing some of the hesitation of spend. But, you know, I, as I see the Bombshells and we watch the overall sales for the company increasing a little bit from November to December and so forth, I think that... Even in some of the other quarters from September to October, you know, we're—I'm very optimistic that we've seen the bottom of it. It's just I don't know when, you know, people are gonna get. I don't think they'll ever be 2022 loose with their money again, but I think we're gonna see a little bit of an increase. I think we'll go back to our standard, you know, 3%-5% growth rates for existing clubs over the long period, and definitely normalizing labor overtime costs. So we're gonna be able to bring some of our costs, hopefully more in line, and get our margins back to where they need to be. Understood. Okay. And then just curious, are you seeing any notable geographic differences in your same store sales for both the quarter that you just reported and the current quarter? Anything to call out, or is it just consistent across the board? It's inconsistent everywhere. It's the real problem. I mean, one month, you know, New York runs huge numbers, and the next month they're off a bit. Miami's been pretty consistent. We're down in the Miami market with our, you know, our 4 clubs there. But I mean, if you look at what we did in that market, you know, the previous year in 2022 was just, you know, numbers we couldn't even dream that, like, you know, take Tootsie's, for example, at $39+ million for the year, in 2026, I think we did $26 and change. So, even if we drop down to $33 million, we're still up a considerable amount from 2019, but not doing those numbers from 2022. But I tell you, you know, this week is an incredible week at Tootsie's. You know, crypto is up, Bitcoin is, is killing it. We actually processed, I think $170,000 in Bitcoin in two days, on a Wednesday and Thursday, which really boosted the numbers for the Wednesday and Thursday of this week. We're getting other requests on, you know, whether we're taking Bitcoin in New York, which we're working on doing, probably in Chicago. So if Bitcoin stays as strong as it is, I think that's gonna be a nice little boost for us. You know, I think I'm optimistic that this summer's gonna be much better for us than this past one, because I think everybody went on vacation in June last year, especially Europe, you know, Caribbean, you know, South America, Mexico type deal. I mean, everyone was out of the country. Our VIPs and our spend suffered from that. I think this year that people are gonna spread their vacations out over the entire summer. Everybody's not gonna go, you know, the first couple weeks of June and stay gone for three or four weeks.... You know, I talked to a lot of people as they've come back, and they're like, "Oh, it was horrible." They complained about the expenses, the crowdedness, the lines when they wanted to go see exhibits or museums or, you know, tourist spots, price gouging, because there were just so many people there. And so I think this year, this summer's gonna be a much more realistic and a kind of a normal summer. I think we're kind of returning back to that 2019 pre-COVID stuff. You know, and now 2023 was—if 2021 and 2022 was like the rush of it and the party of it, 2023's been the hangover. And now the hangover is ending, and I think people are gonna return to more normalized behavior going forward. At least I'm certainly hoping that's the case. It's I think what we're seeing right now in this quarter. I think it's kind of starting in this quarter, and I expect that to continue through the next seven to eight months. And then I'll have an idea of a trend. It's just very hard with trends right now, because like I said, it just has not been consistent. We'll have a few really big weeks, really off weeks, mediocre weeks, and there's just no real consistency to it in the last seven months. So, you know, kind of like a hangover, right? You know? Right. Do I get up and get sick right now, or am I gonna go out and party again tonight? Am I, you know... I think that's what we're seeing. Got it. Okay. And then, you also talked about implementing changes to improve operations. Can you give us some examples as to what you've done so far, and what more should we expect going forward? Sure. Well, we promoted Dean Reardon and Shaun Kevlin, opened up Ed's time a little bit more, put in a little more oversight management, basically, through our regional management system, bringing up some you know, up-and-coming guys. With the Bombshells, we hired an assistant director of operations with a lot, you know, 20+ years of multi-restaurant experience. We're starting to see some of those results in certain markets, I'm noticing, and I'm very optimistic that they're gonna find the secret sauce again, and basically as things normalize, and we've made some management changes. You know, I think during the exuberance of 2021 and 2022, some of our staff members got used to making easy money and not having to work as hard. And now that we're having to really step the game up, some of them had gotten lazy. I think we've had to make some changes there, kind of wake some people up and say, you know, kind of like a remote worker who has to go back to the office. Our guys have been in the office every day because the restaurant or the club are their office, but they've had it pretty easy because, you know, there's lines, there's people spending lots of money. And now, you know, we've got to return back to basics, get back to customer service, shaking hands and touching tables. I mean, that's the name of our game. I mean, there's a reason we're called RCI Hospitality Holdings, because we are a hospitality company. A lot of our team is getting that. It's really stepping up. There's some great people in our company, and you know, I think we've had to just kind of rebuild that, I don't know, bottom 10%, right? You know, what, 90, 80% of your problems are from 10% of your people. So we're fixing those and correcting that, and I think you're gonna see that in our numbers and in our, you know, in our culture, and our ability to continue to attract top talent as we move forward through the next seven to eight months. Gotcha. And I think you also mentioned that labor costs have come down as well, so- It's getting easier, yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Kitchen staff is getting easier. Overtime is down. I mean, that's another problem. We're working some of our best people the hardest, because they've had to, you know, fill in for people. So they, you know, their work-life balance got a little out of whack, so we've got to get that back, you know, get that back synced up. And, like I said, just get everything, just get everything on a more normalized, playing field. You know, the party's over, the hangover's over, and now we're just, normalizing and getting back to our, to our standard growth cycle and, you know, getting back to the basics of our business. Okay. So would you say that as things kind of normalize, do you think you can get back to the historical types of operating margins? Maybe not the peak levels that you had, like, last year, but do you think that as things kind of normalize, you can bounce back to that, you know, high twenties, I guess, operating margins? I think we can definitely get into the 20s on free cash flow conversion. I think our EBITDA will be closer to 30%. And we may be a point or two low for a little bit, but yes, I definitely think that we will get back to that more normalized, you know, 20% free cash flow, 30% adjusted EBITDA margins. That's definitely the plan. Got it. Okay. Well, sounds like a good plan. Well, thank you very much. Best of luck and happy holidays to all. Yep. Thank you. Thank you very much, Anthony. Next up, we have Rob McGuire of Granite Research. Rob, the floor is yours. Well, thank you for taking my questions today. You're welcome. Just starting on the nightclubs, can you elaborate on the Baby Dolls locations? You talked about two new locations already using the assets you own. Are these the club expansions, and can you give us more color? Yeah. Basically, we're going to convert. We now have worked with the city of Tye, near Abilene, Texas, to get our liquor license approved up there. So we're going to be converting the old Jaguars into a Baby Dolls. And then, of course, the original Baby Dolls West has been on our plans. We've got the building permits working right now, and that's the property that we purchased off of Mark IV in Northwest Fort Worth. So that one's kind of been on the plate for a while. And of course, the Lubbock location, where we had lost our club to a taking by the Texas Department of Transportation to expand the freeway there, and bought, you know, five acres to build a location in another spot. That location is getting pretty close to being completed. I think we're waiting for the well permit and a couple of other things to put the well water in and whatnot, and we'll get that location open here in 2024. So those are the three clubs that we've been working on. I appreciate that, Eric. And maybe I missed this or I'm curious, you had plans to expand your Chicas Locas locations. Is that still in effect, or is that a 2024 thing, or? It could possibly be 2024. Right now, we're—I said we, we, we promoted some people to kind of free up more time for Ed, so he could focus on these things a little bit more. We've got the three projects going. We're not sure in the Dallas market right now, what we're going to do with that Chicas, with the extra property there at Chicas there. In Houston, originally we were talking about maybe doing a second type location there, but I think now we're actually talking about whether or not we're going to expand the existing club. It's just doing so well. I was there Wednesday night. It was incredible. Probably about 120 entertainers there on a Wednesday night. And so the VIP room's a little small there, so we're talking about maybe expanding that VIP room, or maybe putting in additional, building a whole new VIP room and expanding the existing VIP room into more club space. So we're in discussions there. I know when Ed has some free time after the first of the year, we're gonna get together and visit that site and kind of hopefully make some decisions on exactly what we need to do there. We're also... You know, there's also talk of, well, it's going so well, do we really want to mess with it? So, you know, what do we want to do there? So I think we'll figure that out, you know, shortly, in the next probably 30-45 days. Maybe by the February call, we'll have a better idea of what we're gonna do with those properties. Thank you. Then shifting to Central City, theoretically, if you were to get a license tomorrow, how long would it take you to ramp and staff those facilities to the point where you could open them? six weeks. It's not just the staff. We also have to do testing. Everything has to be signed off. So once you get your license, then you put in all your machines, everything gets done, then everything has to be tested. Like, it's a pretty in-depth process, but it takes approximately six weeks, is what we're told. And our guy that we've hired, as our director of casino operations, and casino management, is definitely very experienced in that. He's opened up several in the Colorado market, so he's very familiar with it. He knows exactly what we need to do. We have our full plan, our standard operating procedure stuff all put together, and we'll be ready to go. However, if we got the license today, we still would not be open probably till April, because the construction will take at least until the end of March, early April. Okay, got it. And then with regards to your third property in Central City, I realize you've got a lot on your plate with the two casinos. Have you applied for a license for that third property, though, or can you kind of give us a timeline on that one? Sure. We have applied for the gaming license to have it, to have it licensed as gaming, you know, as a licensed casino. We have purchased an additional property that's contingent, or I mean, continuous with that property. So I think we now have somewhere. I don't know the exact square footage off the top of my head, somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 sq ft, depending on where we put the holes in the walls to connect the buildings and whatnot. So, it's actually become a very large property. There are existing tenants there right now. We're gonna keep those tenants in place, keep those storefronts open, so that Main Street continues to stay busy. We're gonna get the existing casinos open first, and then decide what we want to do with that property. But we also, it allows us, because that's the last vacant, those are basically the last vacant spaces on Main Street, to basically control that entire corridor there, between our other two casinos and anyone else coming in and competing. So we know all of our existing competition that we could possibly have, and we would be able to control if we've gone with a third party. Unless somebody else built a casino there, we would remain the landlord, and we could put some clauses in the lease that would protect our existing operations. Interesting. And then my last question is, just with regards to Central City, are there other operators? I mean, as you just mentioned, that's sort of it for Main Street, but are there other plans by third parties to develop their own casinos or increase foot traffic to Central City? We certainly hope so. There's three properties you could build mega casinos on, or resort-type casinos, as we call it, with hotels. Four hundred, six hundred room hotels, 1,200, 1,800, you know, parking spots in their garages, with anywhere from 60-100,000 sq ft casino space, which we would definitely welcome because it would bring a lot of, a lot of new traffic to Central City. I know there's several casino operators and developers that have been looking at those sites, and I'm certainly hopeful that at some point those properties will be sold and we'll get some of those properties built, as I think it'll be fantastic for that area. I think right now, Black Hawk, Central City is 13th in gaming in the country, and I would love to see that area move up into the top 10. I think those type of casinos are what will bring it to that point. You know, Denver is the number one feeder market to Las Vegas, so there's a lot of people that fly into Denver and then fly to Las Vegas. If we could just get them to drive the 45 minutes, stay in Denver and drive the 45 minutes up, and make it a mountain vacation where they can go in the summer, go whitewater rafting, fishing, hiking. In the winter, go skiing. There's, you know, six major ski resorts within an hour and 10 minutes. Five of them are within one hour. I just think it's a fantastic opportunity for future development and for us with the main presence on Main Street there. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you, Rob. Thank you very much, Rob. Before we open this up to Q&A from our audience, I'd like to encourage everyone to share and retweet this space and to please raise your hand with any questions. First up, we have Adam Wyden. Adam, take it away. Hey, can you guys all hear me? Yes. Okay. So just sort of going back on sort of your, your hangover analogy and margins, you know, generally speaking, after a crazy night out, you know, you're spending all this money, and then, you know, you, you got to, you got to figure out what you're doing, and you're on your hangover. I mean, for me, I like coconut water, but like, you know, if you think about that as an analogy, you know, labor is super tight, you got a lot of overtime. Now, inflation's coming down, labor is weaker. I mean, can you talk through sort of some of the initiatives you're doing to sort of tighten up margins? While comps are down, you expect them to come up, you know, modestly over time, but like, there's sort of some belt-tightening and recalibration. I mean, can you talk about that and talk about margin? Because at least the way we think about it, like, you know, Bombshells has sort of been the source of revenue decline, but it's the lower margin product, and now you've got more nightclubs and the casinos coming online. I mean, I would think that if your casinos do what you think you're gonna do, you know, margins should actually increase over time relative to the average. So I'm just trying to think about how you're thinking about rationalization of costs and sort of margin trajectory in the context of adding high-margin casino revenue, fixing what you've already had. I mean, I would think that we would sort of seen the low point in the margin and then, you know, perhaps even see margins go back, you know, higher than historical average, just based on the aggregate mix. I mean, can you talk a little bit about that? I have a second question. Yeah, I mean, obviously, the margin is going to depend on what changes, you know, with future acquisitions, with when and as we open up these concepts. When I refer to margins returning back to 20, I think we're 15% free cash flow margin for this quarter. I think for the year, we were 18%. So, you know, not horrible, and a single quarter isn't a barometer for the twelve-month period because of seasonality. And this is kind of a strange. I mean, this. I think I'm hoping 2024 is the last year that we have this strange seasonality. And I'm hoping that, like I said, I think by June, by the June quarter, we should return to a much more normalized seasonality of mix, I think. But it's really gonna got to figure out the rest of this month here, get this quarter out, talk to you guys in February. We'll be partially through the second quarter, so we'll have a pretty good idea of how January and February are going. I suspect that, you know, January and February are gonna be pretty decent based on what I'm seeing right now and what I'm hearing out there, talking with customers and guests. I've been on a, I guess today's day 13, 13-day run now, from Houston to Colorado to Miami, now in New York. And so I've spent a lot of times in the clubs. I've spent a lot of time talking to our teams. I've spent a lot of time talking to guests. I've spent a lot of time talking with entertainers. The consensus is that, you know, they've seen the worst of it. Customers seem to be getting more optimistic, and our staff is definitely more optimistic on what they're seeing right now versus what they were seeing in the late part of the summer. So, that's very promising. Like I said, we've made some changes of personnel. We've made changes in, you know, certain things. We've raised some prices here and there. We've adjusted some things. We've changed our specials. Our specials are starting to become more of a day-of-the-week type deal, which is typical what we see and have to do in a recession to keep our Mondays and Wednesdays solid. So those things are happening right now. I think we'll just keep, you know, keep pushing through and do what we do. But as far as, you know, depending on the mix of what we buy going future, yes, we could change our projection on what we think the margins would be, whether they're gonna be 18%, 20%, 22% or higher. ... Right, and also this year, I don't know if you mentioned this on the call, but my sense is at least, you know, when I look at—this was a big year. You acquired a lot of land, you know, and I mean, and you know, when you use your cash to basically plant seeds, you can't use that cash to sort of deleverage, right, or buy back or what have you. And so it sounds like you're carrying probably more debt, or at least this year you've carried more debt than you would otherwise carry because you bought all this land, you know, you're developing. You've sort of got, you know, both from an OpEx and at least from a leverage perspective, sort of higher OpEx and higher, you know, interest expense running through the P&L without that corresponding revenue. And so, you know, I would think that, like, from a free cash flow margin perspective, as you add that revenue, you know, on from an income perspective, you know, I would think that, you know, your free cash flow margin would go up, right? Because both on an OpEx and interest expense line, you're basically carrying non-income producing assets without the corresponding revenue or EBITDA or whatever. So I would think that, you know, that would also help your free cash flow, you know, relative to you know, in 2024 relative to 2023, right? Because you, you know, basically, I mean, like Bombshells Stafford, for example, like, that just opened, right? But you've been carrying it. There's been OpEx against that, right? And that's a Bombshells that, you know, could do, you know, $8 million-$10 million, at least for the first year. You know, there's been money against that, that, you know, sort of wasn't sort of income producing. So you sort of have this sort of income versus expense, you know, sort of mismatch. I mean, that, that should be, you know, sort of reversing in 2024, right? Well, I can cut it quick and simple for you. I would estimate 2023, that those carrying costs are somewhere between $4 million-$6 million. In 2024, hopefully, as we open things up, we can cut that down to less than half of that and add additional revenue. So yes, at that point, those margins will. That's why I said I'm pretty comfortable overall saying, you know, we'll get those margins back to that 18%. You know, 18% is very similar to 2023, maybe back to 20% in 2024. And just depending on when we open the. You know, the biggest problem with the casinos, we just don't know when we're going to open. We could open April, we could open June, we could open in September. We just don't have any way to judge when the state of Colorado- Could you open- is processing the applications. They haven't issued a license in three years, so- Right. Surely they want to get those licenses issued. I would think, but. Could you- Um. If you, if you have the things, the locations open in April, both the Bombshells, you know, sort of sports bar, could you open them up as sort of restaurant liquor venues while you're waiting for the casino and basically get those things going? I mean, I don't know how the strip club licenses work, but I mean, if for whatever reason, you know, it was sort of taking longer, I mean, you'll have the buildings built. I mean, you could use them as entertainment venues ahead of the casino. Is that even a possibility, to just open them in April and then wait until the gaming stuff? Or is that sort of not, that wouldn't be, like, the appropriate wording? I would guess I'd wait till June to do that. April, May, we'll make those decisions, like to open and operate without gaming or not. And I guess that'll just depend on what kind of feedback we're getting from gaming, whether we're on the gaming agenda, whether our licenses are approved. But yeah, at some point, I'm gonna open up and start generating revenue, and stop the bleed, right? I mean, at some point it becomes senseless to just sit there with a built-out, you know, property, with our liquor licenses in place, with all of our other, you know, operations ready to go, and just wait for the gaming. Especially because I think the club side of it will do very, very well in that market. So, that's definitely an option for us. Just, it's just too early to gauge if that's gonna make sense or not. But, definitely want to get something going in the summer, because, you know, it's very difficult if we open after the season ends, the prime season ends, and we get into the skiing season with the winter and the unpredictable weather and the roads and, you know, a drive through the mountains in the wintertime. It's harder to get people to move up there in the winter. So I would rather definitely open in the summer. So that's something we'll take into place, but probably by the May call, we'll have something most definite on that regards- But, but- To answer that question. But the construction should be done, God willing, through April. So, like, you know, there is a shot that if the Gaming Commission moves quickly, that you could have these things open by April or May, right? Because your construction is moving, right? I mean, you're, you know, that part you can control. I think April, May is optimistic. I think June, July is more realistic, and I think, you know, August, September is probably being pessimistic. Right. You know, that's kind of my thought process. I do think we get open in 2024. I mean, you got to remember, we applied for the first license November of 2022. So it's been over, going on, what, 13.5 months, or 13 months? About 13 months right now. So, you know, when you get to May, I mean, you're talking 18 months. I would hope that we have a definite idea of where we are and when we're gonna get those licenses approved by May at the latest. Right. And the city's behind you because they're-- they, they've got revenue, bonds, and all the rest. I mean, they want you there. They want the money. So- Yes ... it's not like, you know, it's not like anyone's working against you, that, that everybody's on board. If there's anybody working against us, we don't know who they are, and we haven't heard anything like that. It's been very positive. We're-- You know, I go to every city council meeting. I've missed three. Travis hasn't missed any. Travis was the only one in the room the other day at the end of the year when everyone was giving their speech, he was the only one in the room, other than I think the city clerk, that had perfect attendance, for- Good ... you know, for the year. So we've had somebody at every meeting. We are there. We're very active in that town. We're making other investments in that town. I've made some personal investments in that town. My son has moved up there. He's made some investments in that town. We're very committed to Central City and the success of not just our venues, but the city itself. And yes, the city needs the tax revenue. The meetings are online. You can watch them. The last meeting was a budget meeting. You can see the city's budget's about -$850,000 for 2024. So us getting open early is gonna be a very, very important to the city, as well as the three other casinos that have applied for licenses in that city. We need the Department of Gaming for the State of Colorado to process these licenses, get these licenses issued, and get Central City up and operating, so that, you know, 60% of the storefronts aren't vacant. Good. Last question. You know, at Noble, I mean, I'm just going back and looking at my notes. At Noble last summer, I guess, I'd say this is not last summer. It was almost, I guess, it'd be two summers ago. I think it was July of 2022. You talked about sort of your, your RCI capital allocation plan for the next three years. And, you know, the joke is, you know, "Man plans, God laughs," right? You know, so obviously, we have not allocated $200 million this year. And the goal, I think, was to allocate $200 million a year and add sort of 30 of EBITDA, 30, 35, 40, sort of over three years. You know, I guess the question is, you know, your, your, your, your, your competitors are sort of wounded. You know, there's, you know, the three-- I guess it's the two Ds or the three Ds, you know, death, divorce, and I forget what the other one is. But, you know, owners of small businesses have to sell regardless of what's going on, you know. Can you talk about sort of... You know, it's been 12 months since you announced an acquisition. You know, can you talk about sort of getting the, you know, how that M&A pipeline looks and, you know, how you can get back to sort of a normal cadence of, you know, even if it's not 30 of EBITDA, you know, 20 a year, because we haven't really added any in a year, and I would think that now- Well, we added in March, to be fair. We closed our major acquisition, $66.5 million acquisition in March. We always say when we close a big one, we're going to wait six months before we do anything else. We've only been back on the market looking for about 60 days. We had a long list of people that had called us. We're calling those people back. Some people have an unrealistic valuation in their head right now because they think they're going to sell us at 5x 2022 numbers, when we all know that 2022 was, you know, excuse me, an incredible year. You know, we bought the Burch clubs at about 4.2x-4.3x their numbers. We've increased those numbers, so it's gonna be coming in at around 4x for us, and we're looking at 4x right now. If you wanna come in and you want us to look at your 2022 numbers, we'll look at them, but we're gonna pay you about 4x on those. Because the reality of it is, no matter how good we are, there's gonna be about a 20% decline from those numbers. That's what we're seeing overall. I mean, I've talked to operators who are down 35% and 40% in certain markets. And we're talking to them, and they're like: Well, you know, I want 5x. You know, so I'll pay you 5x your current numbers. Well, I don't want—I want 5x my 2022 numbers. And I said: Well, that's not gonna happen. You know, you're right, you're down 35% right now. How am I supposed to buy you based on those numbers? Even if I... You know, I can probably bring, you know, get you down less than 20 or around, around 20, but I, you know, I'll pay you 4x if you want to do that, or I'll pay you 5x current. And so that's kind of where we're at right now. We're getting some, some positive feedback right now with, with a couple of different opportunities that we're looking at. And, you know, obviously Christmas is coming up, so I wouldn't expect anything in the next few weeks, but, but I wouldn't be surprised if we have some, some stuff announced in the next, you know, couple of months. I think once it starts, it's gonna be pretty consistent, because, you know, once the next guy sells to us and we've reestablished the purchase multiple, then I think other guys are just gonna fall in line, and we're gonna end up with a few more locations. Like I said, we're looking at several things right now, and what we're gonna pick, I mean, we're... Yes, I could go close acquisitions all day long if I want to overpay for them, but I don't want to overpay. It's not in the best interest of the company. The fifth-grade math has to work. If the capital allocation strategy, when we do the math, if it doesn't work, then we don't move forward. We just wait. Unfortunately, sometimes that means we wait a little longer than we'd like to, but at the end of the day, I don't know who they're gonna sell to if they don't sell to us. And if that changes, then, then we may have to get more aggressive, or if the market changes, get more aggressive. Can we- We just have to continue to do what we do. Can we double-click on that last thing that you had there? So like, you know, I mean, you have all these unrealistic sellers, right? But like, if you think about it, and, you know, we've talked about this, but like, you know, I think it's important for other people to hear this, which is that, like, you own a building, right? Or you own, you own a building, you have a strip club, and it does $10 million in sales and, you know, I don't know, $4 million in EBITDA or something like that. And let's say you can, you can pass through a rent of $600,000 or something, and, you know, you can even sell it at a, at a 6 cap or something. You know, that building, you know, that building could be sold for $10 million, but then you lose the cash flow of the strip club, right? And so, you know, you can, you know, the idea is like you can sell, you can sell your building for $10 million bucks, but that's the equivalent of 2.5x EBITDA for the strip club, right? It's like, okay, like, you know, you can sell your strip club for 2.5x because that's what the building's worth. It's like, I don't really know what the alternative is, right? Because you're the only person that's willing to, A, buy the real estate and also operate the club. And so, like, when I think about the options, right, for a seller, right, you know, yeah, you can try and sell it to your manager, but is your manager-- are you going to take the seller finance from the manager? You know, is he going to go and be able to raise the equity? Like, who's buying, you know, strip clubs at $5 million-$6 million? I mean, look, you know, interest rates are coming down, but they're still something, right? I mean, it's like, you know, I don't really see a scenario where someone else is buying, you know, a strip club for $5 million-$6 million and paying-- and saying, "Hey, here, here's a strip club. I'm gonna pay you $25 million," you know, 5x EBITDA, right? You know, that's $15 million more than you would if you were just selling the real estate. So like, I don't... For me, it's like- And that's why we keep landing the deals. You know, that's why we're buying these clubs. We're picking up some incredible real estate in the transactions. You know, future development of that real estate has value. I mean, we just got appraisals. So we're in the process right now of putting together a cash-out loan. We want to see how much cash we can get. So we had all the properties that we purchased, that we paid cash for, we're getting them all appraised right now. So we figure we can pull $20+ million in cash out. Since we're looking at some pretty serious acquisitions, we want to have everything ready to go in early January, so we can make moves fast. And like, you know, the Playmates property, I think we paid $4 million for it. The appraisal just came back at $7 million and change. We paid $7 million for the Scarlett's building, just came back at $7.8 million. We're waiting for the casino deals to come in. But basically, all the appraisals so far that we've gotten in are much higher than what we paid for the properties, as we bought those properties in 2020 and 2021 and even in early 2022. So, I'm very optimistic that we need a $41.8 million total appraised value to pull the cash we want to pull out and move the New York property out of an existing loan and pull it back in because its appraisal was so bad in 2020 when we had COVID. There's a 15-18 million dollar property, and the appraisal came back at $6.9, I think. So we only owe about $5 million, and we're only able to pull $5 million cash out of the building. I think when the new appraisal comes in, we're gonna be able to pull about $11, excuse me, about $11 out of it. So we'll pick up an extra $6 million by refinancing that New York property, and pulling it into the new loan. So we're, we're weighing all these things right now, so we'll have options available to us, right? Everything's about options for us right now. There's so much out there. We're sorting through it. We're gonna kinda, you know, look at different things and find the right price, the right pieces. Like I said, it's a puzzle. All we have to do is keep doing what we're doing, keep on our capital allocation strategy, put our capital to work, get the cash on cash returns, and continue to just, you know, wash, rinse, repeat. It's actually really simple. You know, I've listened to shareholders, and everybody said, you know, I'm hearing, you know, "You guys need to do more club acquisitions and build less Bombshells." And so I said, "Okay," but I believe in the Bombshells concept, and I don't want to give it away, and I won't give it away just to get rid of it, but I will explore strategic opportunities to grow it at a much faster pace than we as ourselves can grow it. I've been talking with some pretty smart people out there. The beauty of the restaurant business is there's some really smart people out there in that space, and they understand. We've talked to them about the value. They've seen—they've looked through our stuff, they've looked through our margins, what we've done, how we've done it, and you know, we're getting some pretty positive feedback on it. And I really think that we're going to figure it out. It may take six months, it may take three, I don't know, but we're gonna figure out how to accelerate the growth of Bombshells with capital from other people. Sure, we'll have to share a part of it, but we will reap a big part of it for our shareholders and very little risk to ourselves. And if that, you know, if that's like infinite cash on cash returns, if it's other people's cash and we're making money off of it. So those are, you know... I know you think I don't listen sometimes, Adam, but I do listen. It just takes me time to digest. It takes me time to figure out, you know, what the best method to do these things are, and but we're getting there. I'm always learning, and I'm always listening, so there you go. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your questions, Adam. I'd like to encourage anyone with questions in the audience to please raise your hand, and we'll bring you to the front. Next up, we have Orchid Wealth. Please take it away. Hey, Orchid Wealth, I think you're on mute. Are you muted still, Jason? I got it. How about now? You got me now?\ There you go. Yes, sir, I got you. Perfect. Perfect. Hey, how much more money you guys think it will take to get Colorado up and going? Well, once again- What's your number? -it depends on when we open. Yeah, but I mean, just, you know, what are you, what are you saying to yourself right now? I got this much in, how much more do I need to- I'm gonna put about... I think we're gonna put between now and April, we're gonna put another $6 million or so in. Could be $8 million, depending on what we do on machines and a few other things. All in all, we're gonna spend, probably $14 million... I think we're up to about $22 million, I think, is our budget. But that's including buying all the machines. Because of our new manager or ops guy that we brought in, he's got some great relationships with some of these vendors and companies, and so we're starting to get some pretty good deals or maybe, you know, twelve months same as cash, and we only have to pay monthly for twelve months after, you know, and it doesn't start till we open the casino. So the machines are already making money for us before we have to start paying for them. We've got some pretty neat, you know, terms and deals that we didn't have available to us before we hired him. As a new operator, you know, they don't trust new operators as much, so these casino companies are much stronger about it. But, they do, they do know him. He's a very good operator in that market. He's very well known in that market, and so we're getting some nice offers from some of these companies. And, I'm very optimistic that, you know... Like I said, to answer your question quick, $6 million-$8 million between now and April, May, is my guess. Okay. And then, just to clarify, when you guys get your license, it applies to all three properties. You don't have to resubmit for each one? We've already submitted for all three. But- The investigation has a- Mm-hmm. So all three licenses have the same operators, have the same company, all the capital's coming from the same source. I believe that if they approve one, they approve all three, but I'm not the Colorado Department of Gaming, so I can't be 100% sure of that. Right. But that is my understanding, that once we're approved, there may be some formalities. The license will be approved, but the actual, what's called the go-live- Mm-hmm ... is individual. So each casino has to do all their setup, all their testing, all their operating procedures. They have to walk through and do all the inspections. They have to pass all that, then you get to go live. Those will all be independent, for sure. But I think the actual approval for the three to actually start those processes should be all at the same time. Okay, and then- If I'm understanding it correctly. Okay. And then when you get your license, you already have people that are looking for the online partnership agreements that you guys were talking about? We do. We have been talking with different groups. I think we'll, you know, obviously, everything's going to be contingent on the license being issued because we have to have the license issued, then they have to do their application, which takes another 30 days for that, so. Okay, but it's not like they get their application, it's going to be another, you know, six months? It should not be. Okay. But just say it, it's up to the Department of Gaming. It's not up to me. Right. Okay. The gaming people haven't come back to you and wanted anything else? They've completed all their interviews and stuff, and you haven't heard anything from them, right? So it's just sitting on a desk somewhere. I'm sorry? I said- Somebody- I said- Somebody hired me for a second. Oh, I said, is the... They haven't come back to you for anything else. They've done your interviews. You've given them all your- Oh, they've come back with us- Yeah. They've come back with us multiple times. Right. We've given them multiple data dumps, which is good. That means we know the process is moving forward. From what I understand, early January starts what they call on-site inspections. So they will be going and visiting some of our current locations. We have no clue which ones. We have no clue when they'll go, but we believe that will start in early January. And I, I know what the budget is, so, I know how much money they have to spend because we had to provide it. They can ask- Because you pay- Additional funds. Got it. You pay them to investigate you. Yes. Welcome to the game. Okay. No, that's fine. Don't worry. They can ask for additional funds, which I do expect them to do, but there's limits on that. I don't know what the whole rules are. I have to go back and look at them. Okay. But basically, I think that once they do the site inspections, I think it'll be relatively quickly, because before they get to that point, I think everything else in the investigation is done. So unless they find something they want to look into while doing the site inspections, I don't suspect that there'll be any other real issues. Okay. Then my last question for now is just, when you do an online partnership, these guys give you cash up front or some, some agreement of revenue share? How does that typically work? Both. They give us cash upfront, they give us guaranteed minimums, and they give us a percentage. And if the guaranteed minimum is more than the percentage, then we take the guaranteed minimum, and if it's, if the percentage is more, we're going to take the percentage. So in a weird way, like, this online partnership that you may or, whoever you pair with for these places, could theoretically almost pay for the entire investment over a 10-year period from the revenue share? Typically, yes. Okay. So for all intents and purposes, this is just like, the question is, how quickly are you going to get your money back? You're going to get it back in 10 years with an online partner or from the revenue from the machines and everything else you can get it back in 2. Okay. Could be, yeah. I mean, that's... It depends on how much cash we actually use, too, and how much we're able to pull out, because once the casino is up and operating, we can then borrow against it, right? I mean, that's, there's a lot- Right ... of lenders out there that loan to casino companies. Unlike strip, unlike strip clubs, you can borrow against the actual business model and the business cash flow. I mean, you can borrow against- Right ... your machines, you can borrow... I mean- Okay ... it's a totally different- Everybody wants to give you money when you're in the casino business. Well, you know, they don't build all those- All right ... big buildings because everybody's winning. Yeah. All right, good. All right. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, Jason. If anybody else would like to ask a question, please raise your hand, and they'll get you in the queue here. Thank you. Adam, you're back up. If there's anyone else out there in the audience with questions, please raise your hand, and we will bring you to the front. Adam, take it away. Hey, Adam, you're on mute. Mr. Wyden, you are on mute. If you'd like to unmute yourself. We are going to bring up Payments Advisor now. Payments Advisor, please take it away with your payments question. Payments, you can unmute and feel free to- Hello? -chat. Hello. Hello. Okay. Hey, thanks, guys. Thanks for taking, you know, thanks for letting me on. Appreciate, appreciate the earnings call and, you know, the whole breakdown. I just wanted to essentially, I think I posted on there hoping that I could have a chance to essentially just offer my services to RCI. I really love what you guys do. I've been watching you guys from a distance for the last couple of months, everything you're building out. I just kinda wanna find a way to pay you guys. Essentially, you know, we're a wholesale payments processor. We can basically eliminate all your processing costs, and just reduce it to essentially 0% over interchange and pay you $0.01 per transaction. You guys can apply it towards debt paydown, expansion, share buyback. Just wondering. Yeah, I mean, I'm not the person that handles that. I would tell you to email travis@rcihh.com. Perfect. We basically run our competitive bidding process once a year. I don't know when he does credit cards, but I know he does it at least once a year. So we send this out, and he'd be happy to take a look at it and see if it makes sense. Okay. Thanks, Eric. So it's Travis@rcihh.com? Yes. So if you can't find it, you can just go to our website, rcihh.com, and click on the board members and his, I think his contact email stuff's all on there. Perfect. Thank you, Eric. Yep, thank you. Thank you so much to Eric and Bradley, as well as everyone who asked a question this afternoon. For those who joined late, you can meet me as well as management tonight at 7:00 P.M. at Rick's Cabaret New York, one of RCI's top revenue-generating clubs. Rick's is located at 50 West 33rd Street between 5th Avenue and Broadway, a little in from Herald Square. If you haven't RSVP'd, ask for Eric or me at the door. On behalf of Eric, Bradley, the company, and our subsidiaries, thank you and have a good night. As always, please visit one of our clubs or restaurants and have a phenomenal time.