THE REVEAL: White Lotus, April Fools, and What We Learned

What a Day It Was, Our Favorite Day

Our White Lotus pre-IPO offering was, of course, our 2025 April Fool's prank.

We received hundreds of thousands of visits to WhiteLotusIPO.com and thousands of messages to our email inbox.

This includes many, many people who forwarded the "opportunity" to friends and family with us cc'd. (Will you ever forgive us?)

Visitors encountered a bug-ridden site with a countdown timer that made it impossible to claim the promised "129 FREE shares." (The damn button doesn't work!)

Those who tried to invest faced wildly fluctuating prices ranging from $4.62 to $85 per share. And the system always locked them into the highest possible purchase price.

Despite these oddities and our guaranteed 12%-15% annualized returns over 8.5 years...

... investment requests poured in from around the world

If you fell for our joke, you were certainly not alone -- as you'll happily see in the notes below!

And we understand why.

Investing with the hope of 100X gains -- exciting!
Investing with guarantees -- wow!
And free offers -- well, come on now, yes to that, too!

And not only that, we wove it all together with an exciting brand: The White Lotus series.

(By the way, HBO, if you're out there, thanks for not suing! We love you.)

So what did we learn?

Lessons Learned

The crucial takeaway is to make sure you and your family are not lured into online scams. They are coming fast and furious these days.
Next up, expect to see a flood of IPOs hit the market in the next few years. Remember the great reflection from Peter Lynch, "IPO stands for It's Probably Overpriced."
If it seems too good to be true, pause. Of course, not all IPOs or exciting investment opportunities are bad ideas. But if they're truly great, they'll be great for years upon years.
If it seems too ridiculous to be true, wait. Any sales pitch for a resort property in Yakutsk with a dead wolf frozen in the swimming pool should give you pause.
If someone offers investment guarantees, walk away.
Ask a lot of questions. (And you did.)

Below is just a small sampling of the notes that flooded our system yesterday (edited lightly for readability).

If you have 10 minutes, this will be time well spent.

And that's a guarantee we can feel good about making.

Category No. 1: Eager to Invest

"I opted to buy 1000 shares at $18.50 this morning. Will I receive an acknowledgement of the purchase?"
"I put my name on the website to purchase the White Lotus Hawaii Cruise and was wondering how I would be notified. It never asked for my email or contact information. Thanks."
"I tried to reserve 800 shares but never received any confirmation. I also was unable to claim the free shares. Very confusing layout / process..."
"When I click 'secure my paradises,' nothing happens, and then it expires. What should I do?"
"I don't understand ... are we buying shares in a company as a whole or is it broken up into different places or boat rides?"
"I had requested interest in my original response for around $37,500 in shares. I went back to the site to read some more of the information. I was moving the share allocation tab around and went all the way to the right of the tab and was going to move it back to the far left. Unfortunately, when it got all the way to the right, the message read: 'Congratulations, we have you down for a $10 million dollar allocation/ reservation.' Please note, I wish to maintain my original response but I DO NOT WANT $10,000,000!!!!"(Foolish addendum: If you didn't get this far into the joke, click Invest Now, take a few seconds to go through the form, and you'll see what we did the slider.)

"Very dissappointed-there is NO physical way to claim the FREE shares! What a scam! I tried on both laptop and phone and in neither instance would the system allow me to claim them!"
"Curt, Hey, got this Pre-IPO offering from Motley Fool-seems like a decent mid-range potential investment. I've put in an interest for a reservation of a number of shares (Pre-IPO pricing) Andy B."
"I requested 60 shares of White Lotus Stock at $18.50 a share. I entered my name and that is all it requested. How do I get notified to submit my payment? How do I get notified that the purchase is complete? I tried several times to get the FREE SHARES, but it kept timing out on me."

"Hi, to whom it may concern I am keen to invest in White Lotus but your link won't open. Can you please resend to me and lock me in for $10,000 and the 25% discount? Thanks Russell"

"It did not have me create an account or send me an email so I assume I did something wrong. Can you check and see if I'm in the system before I do it again?"

"Hello, I tried clicking the complimentary shares and also the reserve shares but it is not clear that it went through as the buttons appear to not be working and I have not gotten any email to confirm that shares are reserved or not. Tyler"

"Hi Motley Fool, I received the email about the White Lotus stock pre-ipo purchase opportunity. A few questions.... 1. How is the guarantee of 12-15%+ annualized returns across the first 8 ½ years actually placed and where can the guarantee details be viewed in writing? 2. Am I still in the first 4000 buyers for the additional 25% discount on the stock price? 3. Are the discounts stackable.... 25% for first 4000 buyers and 15% for sharing = 40% discount? 4. What is the management team's depth of experience for the planned industries and ventures? 5. Can you please provide additional details on the 3x leveraged ETF that is planned? How is that 4x leverage accomplished? Thank in advance. You can reply via email, or my cellphone"
"I'm trying to invest in this ipo. It's not letting me do that. Not able to get 129 shares for free. And it's not letting me forward this email to other family members who are interested as well to get another 15%."
"This opportunity was also identified in the Breakfast News email.-Jim"
"Can I buy through my IRA?"

"I'm getting 129 shares of white lotus for free? No cost at all?"
"Hi Thanks for the mail and opportunity. I have a few questions. I tried to download the prospectus but there is only the frontside. Where can I find the full prospectus? What are the risks involved? (i.e. The price can drop significantly below $18.50?) What is the G in EBITDAG, and which guest incidents happened? It must be huge $$to go from 46% positive adjusted EBiTDA margin (which is claimed) to a $669 million loss in 2024. What is a 3x or 4x leveraged ETF and what does it mean to me as a stock owner? Please clarify this before I make an investment decision. Best regards Joachim"
"How many days do we need to Hold? Can I sell on the IPO day itself?"
"I'm actually security licensed and my firm has some restrictions on IPOs. Are the shares of the pre IPO purchased directly through Motley Fool or can they be purchased through Schwab?"
"Thank you for the email. I tried to claim my 129 free shares but when I got to the page, it showed only 57 shares. Can you please guide me as to what I need to do? Thank you.-Karen"
"ASAP try this tip. This is an IPO I got from one of my sources. You must use the link."
"I'd be totally skeptical if it weren't for the fact that this is coming from Motley Fool. I'm thinking of buying the 100 share minimum. Wanted you to see it as well."
"Hi Kyle, Let's discuss this pre-IPO opportunity below. Love, Dad"

Category No. 2: Getting Closer

"Is this legit? I reserved 300 shares at $18.50 and it came back saying I reserved 300 at $85??!!!"

"I tried to purchase the shares several times, but all failed. Is this an April 1st joke?"

"I don't know what you are trying to do but l registered 3 different times with 3 different names. The first and 3rd time l was told the price per share had dropped to $9.25 but my purchase had been locked in at $18.50 per share. The second time l was told the price in the last 30 seconds had gone to $37.50 and my purchase price would be adjusted. In other words, l wouldn't benefit from the price drop, l would still pay $18.50 but l wouldn't benefit from the price increase because now l would pay the higher price per share. Before l pass this information on to interested parties, please let me know what your opinion is of this unusual transaction."
"Hi Fools, is this legit? I can't find anything about this anywhere, least of all on the CEO named in the Prospectus... Please confirm that this is real and not from some bogus sender. Thanks! Jens"
"As a CPA, I never heard of the financial metric that is on my subject line. Could someone in your investor relations department tell me where to find more information or provide me a link to SEC's website? I am keen to invest in your IPO, but would feel more comfortable to know and understand EBITDAG."
"Hi Guys, I signed up to reserve 100+ shares in all 5 investment opportunities, but my 'free shares' button didn't work. I just revisited the website and saw that there was an issue with the button and that it had been fixed. When I went to revisit the website and reclicked on the button, it said my opportunity for the free shares had expired but I could obtain the free shares by buying more than $1,000,000 in shares? I've been a loyal Motley Fool member dating back to Stock Advisor 2006 (think: Netflix and Priceline.com, back in the day). But this really seems like a 'bait and switch' gimmick where I was enticed to reserve shares with an offer of 'free shares' and then told I could invest...well, an obscene amount of money for that same benefit because I was not fast enough. This deal really doesn't seem up to the Motley Fool par-excellence I have enjoyed. And I'm not really complaining much because you have helped make me a multi-millionaire many times over. Thank you for that. While I'm not pulling the plug yet on my reserved shares, I can tell you several hours into this that I am very, very close to. Just my 2 cents....or $1,000,000 and free shares! -D"
"Fool, It seems suspicious to me that this came out in Aprils "Fools" day. Can you confirm this is not a joke and actually is a valid investment?"
"Thank you for the offer, how do make the following commitment 'We guarantee 12-15%+ annualized returns across the first 8 ½ years' happen? Also, clicking on your link in the email, I land on the very pushy website The Motley Fool × White Lotus Partnership. Seems a little strange! Thanks for your feedback, Michael"
"I was at the point to purchase shares when a notice popped up stating shares were affected by a 'guest incident' and the price is now $4.62 per share but my price remained at $18.50 per share so upon my purchase I immediately lose about 75% of the investment. Can you please explain why this is a good investment?"
"What exactly does a guaranteed return of 12-15% mean? If the return falls short, will I be compensated? Will this be looked at yearly or at the end of 8 years?"
"Hello I tried investing but the site seems bugged and it wouldn't allow me. It just says show interest or there is an allocation expiring countdown and I can't press the allocate button under it until the time runs out and then it says allocation expired. This seems fishy. How do I actually invest?"
"Hello Motley Fool, Thank you for the opportunity to buy pre-ipo. However, I am not sure what I did. I went through the link. But it was disappointing that the free shares were gone. I refreshed the page and it had the same timer that expires in 11 seconds. Sounded like a scam.Anyway, because this opportunity ia coming to me through Motley Fool, I went ahead and reserved 100 shares. The message that appeared after the reservation said I for the highest price which was about $39 for some reason. Initially it showed the price to be $18 and change.It only took my name and had to acknowledge the risk. That was it. No contact details. No payment info. I had to provide none of that. Is this real? How do I confirm my price for 100 shares and what happened to the free shares that they initially showed on the page as 57 shares?-H"

"Good evening, I would like to inform you that this White Lotus share purchase programme is a huge scam and I am surprised that you have entered into a partnership with them. I wanted to buy shares at the price you offered of $18.50, but I am told that the purchase price is now $37. This is not how it is advertised and announced and I would ask you to check and correct this. Kind regards, Carsten"

"Everything about this looks like a scam. How is the Fool backing this?"
"Feels like bait and switch. I tried doing this promo more than an hour. On the web page it sends me to the push buttons won't work to get free stock and invest. More and more it feels to me like the Motley Fool is more like an infomercial company. Highly highly doubt I will be renewing any of my subscriptions with the. Unsatisfied Customer Daniel"
"What is the maritime incident! With insane price fluctuations??"
"The website for this Pre-IPO opportunity is a bit wonky. The link for the RESERVE YOUR 129 FREE SHARES doesn't work to claim the shares on the website. Then INVEST NOW -> SECURE MY SHARES -> RESERVE MY SHARES leads me to different pop ups such as 'Congratulations! Share price has temporarily dropped to $9.25, but we've locked in your original purchase at $18.50 per share as a show of good faith. Don't worry, this dip is temporary--the stock is headed much higher. Guar-an-teed!' Ummm why would I want to pay $18.50 for something that's $9.50 (or below at $4.62)? What is this? What is going on? Please explain."
"I was unable to view or download prospectus. Can you send? Are these real or virtual properties?"
"Guys There are some very suspicious cheap sales tricks being used in this White Lotus promotion which are a concern. Not something I would expect with your company's involvement. Also when I do try and reserve shares the system plays another cheap trick of stating that they have gone up in value, which is impossible since they haven't launched yet and runs me into a loop which I can't get out of. So please advise how I secure 1200 shares without the gimmicks? Kind Regards Mike"
"How does this 'reservation' guarantee me my shares? All I had to input was my name. That's not very official. Also when is this anticipated to IPO? Seems very sketchy."
"What is going on with this? One minute the price is $70+ per share and seconds later, $9.xx per share?"
"What are the mechanics of the purchase? Through your broker? Other broker? How do shares get transferred to my brokerage account. What's with the free shares? Why buy additional shares if I can get them free? This sounds like a 'too good to be true' proposal. Sorry, skeptical by nature."
"This looks too good to be true. Is this a scam? Regards, T.L."
"Dear Motley Fool Compliance Team, I recently received an email claiming to be from "The Motley Fool – Stock Advisor" promoting what appears to be a pre-IPO investment opportunity involving The White Lotus television series. The email includes aggressive claims such as: * Guaranteed 12–15%+ annualized returns * Expected 5–11X gains on the first day of trading * A 100X return potential * Early access to a pre-IPO round, allegedly secured by Motley Fool * A "PARADIZE™ memecoin" and a 4X leveraged ETF tied to a single stock. As a seasoned investor and compliance-aware professional, this communication raises multiple serious red flags under SEC Rule 10b-5, private placement regulations, and trademark laws. Given the nature and tone of the message, I am deeply concerned that this email may be fraudulent and improperly using your branding to mislead investors. Could you please confirm: 1. Whether this email was legitimately sent by The Motley Fool; and 2. If not, whether you are aware of an impersonation campaign currently targeting your subscribers. For your reference, I am happy to provide the full contents of the email, including headers, should your team need to investigate further. I take investment integrity seriously and will be reporting this email to the SEC and FTC for further review. Looking forward to your clarification. Best, Jacob"
"How can you use "guarantee" in your IPO email??"
"Hello, We have clicked on this offer twice. Once, we got a message that the rate is $9.25 (but that we would still pay $18.50) and the next time it was over $70.00. If you click, I understand -- what happens from there? Current MF Member, Laura"
"Dear Mr Somers & Fool team, I've been digging into this opportunity and noticed that there doesn't seem to be any background information on the team referenced on the website, I cannot find any of them online, making it seem a bit dodgy. Would you have any information on the people behind this undertaking?"
"Ms. Freymann: After filling out the pre-IPO information on the White Lotus IPO website, it dawned on me that only the user's first and last names were requested. No email address or telephone number were requested. How does the pre-IPO work if you do not have contact information from people filling out the online form?"
"Hi there, Could you outline a bit more in what exactly are we investing here? Also, there a few potential red flags in regards to the landing page and the Prospectus document. First issue, the number of so called "shares reserved" resets to 1,200,000 every time the page is reloaded. Am I missing something or this a old school marketing tactic? Secondly, in the downloaded prospectus document a few odd bits of information don't add up. The executive office of this bussiness in in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, but the name of the street is in English "1 Paradise Way"? I've searched for the name of the so called CEO Armond Belmont, but I couldn't find anything about this person online or on LinkedIn? On page 5 (though strangely they are not numbered) there is list of numbers separated by pipes, but it's not clear what this information stands for? (Screeshot attached) On the page with the table of contents at the top, there is strange list of names, which sounds fictious and poorly made-up Bank names like: "Goldman Sharks" and "Morgan Sharpe" (screenshot attached). What is this meant to represent? On the Company Overview it is specified that White Lotus Inc was founded in 2020 and have expanded to locations in Hawaii, Sicily, Thailand etc. I must say I couldn't find such information online. Under the Wellness Program section it mentioned: ", these therapeutic interventions have resulted in measurable life changes for 87.4% of participating guests.." How has this been measured? Also, under Risk Factors it is mentioned: "Our business is sensitive to fluctuations in guest survival rates, which may adversely affect our revenue and profitability" Which implies that some guests simply do not survive during their stay at These luxurious resorts? Also, on the main landing page you mentioned 12% annual rate growth guaranteed, while in the document an annual growth of 6.2% for luxury travel market and a growth of 8.7% for the ultra-luxury segment. The question is how much time will it take until people realise this is a big scam?"
"Assuming this is an April Fools Joke??? Please confirm! Jeff"
"I'm not exactly sure what is going on here but I've got alarms going off all over the place. Is this offer real and legitimate? It feels awfully like a scam. There are numerous reasons it feels like a scam, the worst of which is the disclaimer that the share price has fallen to $4.65 from $18.50 but 'not to worry' everything is still pointed up. I got that message when I tried to reserve shares out of curiosity. If anyone outside had sent me this, I would have automatically discounted it as a pump and dump scheme. I did not expect to get a pump and dump scheme email from the Fool. Now I feel like the fool."
"Is this for real? There are no free shares, when I tried to secure shares I was first told the price went up to $38, then a second time the price went down to $9, but they would secure the $18 price.WTF?"
"Saw the email on the Pre-IPO opportunity and it seemed like a great idea and investment opportunity. I then looked at the 4/1 date and thought to myself....this seems like an April Fools joke. Can you confirm? :)"
"What kind of scam is this? A guaranteed return over the next 5 years? Come on!"

Category No. 3: Sleuths

"My wife thinks this is an April Fool joke. She is probably right."
"Past guest survival rate not indicative of future results.' Y'all crack me up. Happy Fool Day!"
"Kindly disregard my last two emails. I simply had not read far enough. Maybe the best work on an April Fools bit ever created."
"Happy April Fool's Day!! I appreciate you folks for keeping me happier today!! Sincerely signed by longtime One Subscriber, Matt"
"Ha ha ha..... There were a lot of red flags, and I ignored them. Shame on me!"
"There were no free shares available. I got a count down for 57 shares and I clicked secure many times before the countdown hit zero, but it didn't matter. No free shares. What gives? Feels like a bamboozle job. Is this an April Fool's joke? Sincerely, Lori"
"For a minute, I almost bought into it, until I read about the 'beach burial resources' paragraph in the 'SEC' Filing."
"April Fool. Thx, Fools, that was fun! SC"
"Guessing this is an 'April Fools' Day offer? I can't find anything about a White Lotus IPO on-line... Thanks FH"
"Hi, I'm assuming this is a joke. The bit about 'beach burials' in the prospectus was pretty funny. Jeff"
"This is a seriously questionable April Fool's joke. Hi Ho"
"Haha. You almost had me. April Fools. Tony"
"Guest incident warning led me away. Greg"
"Really. This has got to be a joke on April Fools Day."
"This looks too much like an elaborate April Fools joke to not be: Morgan Sharpe, J.P. Oregano..... Really? Regards, Bob"
"This is hilarious, good one guys. L.E. Member since 2020"
"I especially like the palm trees around the pool for the Gary, IN, destination. Having grown up in the region and for a while a summer house in Miller Beach-Gary, IN I can assure you you can't grow palm trees outside. :)"
"April Fools joke right?"
"Fools Leadership, I would have gladly invested in the Pre-IPO offer for the White Lotus, however, I could not in good conscience invest in a plan that said absolutely NOTHING about creating a new White Lotus cryptocurrency as part of the plan!? How could the White Lotus NOT have their own crypto coin and pretend to want to keep up with the modern world of finance? You seem to be artificially intelligent. Also, with apologies to Groucho Marx, I wouldn't invest in any plan that would have me as an 'inner circle' member. Nicely Fooled, Incredible Work, Happy April 1st, DK"
"Best April 'Fools' EVER!!!"
"What a funny joke! Well done! I wanna know, who was ready to invest!! 😂😂😂"
"You got me! HA HA HA!"
"I will buy a Million Shares! Love it ;-)."
"Simply Brilliant! Kudos on a well done 4/1! That was a lot of work and a great idea. Much love to my fellow Fools. Carry on! Brooks"
"Great April Fools prank! The website is awesome!! Heh heh heh..."
"5-11X on the first day? 12-15% annualized? Wow! That's even better than I got with Bernie. Put me down for the $10M max. Fool On!"
"This is an April Fool's prank, right?"

What It All Means

Our April Fool's tradition is more than just a day of laughter. It's a reminder of the psychological forces that shape our investment decisions. Fear of missing out, blind trust, and the siren song of guaranteed returns can overpower our critical thinking skills.

And while our prank was harmless fun, real scams are on the rise.

Remember, if someone promises you guaranteed returns, they're either delusional or dishonest.

And the best investments do not come with countdown timers.

Our goal in this partnership is to make you smarter, happier, and richer for life.

We hope you enjoyed this comical journey as much as we enjoyed creating it.

WhiteLotusIPO.com remains open to enjoy and share.

Fool on!

P.S. Now, we have to wait an entire year to get back here again. Darn.