VICI Properties Inc.

VICI Properties Inc.

21.45
EUR
+0.05
(+0.23%)
2.29EPS
10.67P/E
26.48BMarket Cap
Oct 28Next Earn

Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptApril 30, 2026

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the VICI Properties first quarter 2026 earnings conference call.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, April 30th, 2026.

I will now turn the call over to Samantha Gallagher, General Counsel with VICI Properties.

Samantha Gallagher

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Everyone should have access to the company's first quarter 2026 earnings release and supplemental information.

The release and supplemental information can be found in the Investors section of the VICI Properties website at www.viciproperties.com. Some of our comments today will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.

Forward-looking statements, which are usually identified by the use of words such as will, believe, expect, should, guidance, intends, outlook, projects, or other similar phrases, are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Therefore, you should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them.

I refer you to the company's SEC filings for more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact future operating results and financial condition. During the call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance.

These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available on our website, in our first quarter 2026 earnings release, our supplemental information, and our filings with the SEC.

For additional information with respect to non-GAAP measures of certain tenants and/or counterparties discussed on this call, please refer to the respective company's public filings with the SEC. Hosting the call today, we have Ed Pitoniak, Chief Executive Officer; John Payne, President and Chief Operating Officer; David Kieske, Chief Financial Officer; Gabe Wasserman, Managing Director of Business Development and VECS; Jeremy Waxman, Chief Accounting Officer; and Moira McCloskey, Senior Vice President of Capital Markets.

Ed and team will provide some opening remarks, and then we'll open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ed.

Ed Pitoniak

Thanks, Samantha, and good morning, everyone. This morning, you'll hear from John Payne on our recent investment and growth activities, and you'll hear from David Kieske on our financial results and updated 2026 earnings guidance.

To start, I'd like to thank the members of the VICI team for their continued hard work. Their contributions to the business, including their efforts around the deal activity we announced this quarter, are essential to our success and ability to deliver value to our owners.

Today, I'd like to share with you, in abbreviated form, the thoughts I shared in my recent annual report letter. I'll begin with this: The leaders of any business should always have a clear and cogent answer to the question, what business are you in?

At VICI, the high-level answer to that question is we are in the business of sourcing, allocating, and stewarding capital invested accretively in experiential real estate of enduring value. That could be the answer offered by any REIT or real estate investment management firm in America save for one word: experiential.

The 28 other REITs currently in the S&P 500 all have their own distinct adjectives in front of real estate, whether those modifiers be logistics, data center, office, residential, lodging, retail, self-storage, etc. Our property types may differ, but we all wrestle with the key real estate investment attribute of relevance and, on the opposite end of the investment spectrum, obsolescence.

The more relevant the real estate is to its intended end users, the greater the likelihood that the income and value of that real estate will be sustained and potentially grow. The relevance of a property is ultimately determined by the people who use the real estate for its intended purpose.

For that reason, I believe that real estate investment insights are ultimately cultural insights. To evaluate the current and moreover future relevance and value of real estate requires the development of insights and forecasts into how people will live, work, play, heal, gather, create, and otherwise manifest the experience of living their lives now and over the lifespan of the investment.

As I noted a moment ago, at VICI, we are strategically and organizationally committed to investing in experiential real estate, and that commitment is anchored in the insights and forecasts we've developed around the experience economy during our first eight years as a company. Spending trends support our thesis.

According to Mastercard, during the period of 2019 to 2023, when the COVID pandemic led to a spike in goods purchases, global spending on experiences nonetheless rose 65%, while spending on things only increased 12% over the same period, a more than 5:1 growth ratio favoring experiences. This momentum has persisted after the post-COVID boom.

TD Cowen's January 2026 report on the experience economy showed that experience-related services like gaming, accommodations, sports, air travel, and other leisure-related spend have seen an average annual growth rate of 5.2% from 2023 to 2025 compared to average annual total personal consumption expenditure, or PCE, growth of 2.9% during the same period. The durability and persistence of this trend across multiple economic cycles, demographic shifts, and technological innovations supports the thesis the preference for experiences is not transient and instead signifies a deeper and enduring secular change.

At VICI, we balance our secular focus with sharp attention to what's going on in the here and now. At any given time, we at VICI believe we are responsible for managing our relationship and exposure to three key dimensions of impact: secular trend impact, cyclical trend impact, idiosyncratic impact unique to VICI.

Let me take each one of these dimensions of impact in reverse order. By idiosyncratic impact, I mean developments unique to VICI rising out of our specific business conditions.

These can be issues or situations that generally don't have secular or cyclical causes beyond our management control. These are issues that we can and must address through our own management actions.

By cyclical trend impact, I mean cyclical developments and trends in our economy and our society. These are fluctuations that are likely beyond our or any management team's control.

In VICI's business model, our revenue and income streams as a net lease REIT are generally not highly subject to material cyclical fluctuation. We also strive to invest in businesses and sectors that have lower-than-average cyclicality to mitigate cyclical risk.

By secular trend impact, as I noted above, I mean material and impactful changes in the ways in which people are living, working, playing, healing, gathering, creating, and otherwise manifesting the experience of living their lives. As with cyclical trends, secular change is beyond our management control.

What is within our control is identifying, understanding, and preparing for those changes and consequently developing and executing responses that enable us to capitalize on positive developments and manage our risk exposure to potential negative developments in and around the experiential economy. As investors in large-scale, long-duration real estate, we work hard to be right about the secular.

If you get secular trends wrong as a real estate investor, it's hard to overcome the value-eroding impact of negative secular impact. If you get secular trends right, you have more management capacity to seize opportunity and manage cyclical and idiosyncratic developments.

The VICI executive team was in Las Vegas two weeks ago, and around every corner, we witnessed the secular power of experiences. Secular is long-term.

Getting secular right represents long-term competitive advantage. With that, I'll turn it over to John.

John Payne

Thanks, Ed, and good morning to everyone. VICI had an active first quarter with approximately $1.2 billion in new capital commitments.

The last two quarters, quarter four 2025 and quarter one 2026, represent the first consecutive quarters during which VICI has announced more than $1 billion in new capital commitments sequentially in the company's history. This quarter, we announced an expansion of our long-term strategic relationship with Cain and Eldridge Industries by providing a $1.05 billion mezzanine loan as part of the construction financing for the One Beverly Hills development project.

The mezzanine loan represents a $1.05 billion incremental commitment beyond our previously announced $450 million investment. Construction on the development commenced in 2024 with vertical works beginning in fall 2025, and phased delivery is scheduled to commence in 2028.

VICI also had international gaming real estate activity during the quarter. VICI announced the pending $144 million acquisition of four real estate assets located in Alberta, Canada at an 8% cap rate in connection with Pure Casino Entertainment's pending take-private acquisition of Gamehost.

This transaction is emblematic of VICI's ability to help our existing tenants execute on their growth strategies through the monetization of their real estate. Having worked alongside with IGP and Pure for the last few years, we've appreciated their ability to operate and grow a very effective gaming platform.

Subsequent to quarter end, we entered into a new lease agreement with Clairvest in connection with the closing of Clairvest's acquisition of Northfield Park in Ohio from MGM. This transaction added VICI's 14th tenant, further diversifying our tenant roster, which has always been a core portfolio management objective since VICI's inception, and there was no change to total rent collected by VICI.

Last week, we also announced that all gaming regulatory and shareholder approvals had been met for the previously announced $1.16 billion Golden transaction. We expect this acquisition to close today.

This transaction reflects VICI's strategic entry into real estate ownership in the Las Vegas locals market, which has deeply rooted, loyal customer bases and attractive demographic tailwinds, and it highlights our ability to transform relationship-building efforts into constructive growth for our shareholders. To continue on the thread of Las Vegas, operator reports this week have demonstrated improvements in quarter one.

There was strong convention-related activity during the quarter with about 140,000 CONEXPO-CON/AGG attendees in March, and operators are continuing to address the value perception issue with MGM and Caesars offering promotional deals catering to value-oriented consumers. There are plenty of demand drivers, particularly around professional sports and entertainment, that continue to make Las Vegas a draw for a wide range of consumers for the foreseeable future.

Construction on the A's stadium has started. The NBA has voted to pursue a Las Vegas franchise, and the annual spring WWE event brought over 100,000 attendees to the city a few weeks ago.

Furthermore, our tenants continue to invest heavily in the assets we own on the Strip, from MGM Grand's $300 million room remodel, to the Omnia dayclub development out front of Caesars Palace, to the renovation of The Mirage and the building of the absolutely incredible Hard Rock Guitar Tower. We acknowledge the emerging changes that exist in the gaming space, from iGaming's expanding presence, to the growing, though largely unregulated, prediction markets, to the stabilization of online sports betting.

We do believe that brick-and-mortar gaming assets in the right markets operated by the right operators will retain sticky consumer bases and continue to perform well. At the same time, we will continue our broader long-term strategy that includes diversifying our tenant base, continuing to invest in other experiential real estate, and managing a portfolio set to benefit from the secular trends Ed mentioned in his opening remarks.

Now I will turn the call over to David, who will discuss our financial results and guidance. David?

David Kieske

Thanks, John. I want to start with a few numbers that I believe best capture what VICI's business has been designed to do.

In the first quarter, on a year-over-year basis, we grew AFFO per share by 4.5% while only increasing our share count by roughly 1%. This sustainable, efficient growth is made possible by the fact that our business generates about $650 million of free cash flow annually, and we have been able to deploy that free cash flow into incremental investments without having to dilute our shareholders.

Furthermore, VICI has an AFFO payout ratio of approximately 75%. We are focused on maintaining our ability to continue to grow our dividend, which we have done every single year since we went public in 2018, hosting a peer-leading eight-year dividend growth CAGR of 7%, and intend to continue to protect the sanctity of the dividend as we strive to continue to grow the business both organically and externally.

VICI's growth is supported by a strong balance sheet. Our total debt is $17.1 billion, and our net debt to annualized first quarter adjusted EBITDA is approximately five times at the low end of our target leverage range of 5 to 5.5 times.

We have a weighted average interest rate of 4.46% as adjusted to account for our hedge activity and a weighted average 5.7 years to maturity. As of March 31, 2026, we have approximately $3.1 billion in total liquidity comprised of approximately $480 million in cash and cash equivalents, $242 million in estimated proceeds available under our outstanding forwards, and $2.4 billion of availability under our revolving credit facility.

I would note that subsequent to quarter end, we settled all remaining outstanding forward equity to partially fund the Golden transaction, which again, as John mentions, is closing today. Turning to guidance, we are raising AFFO guidance for 2026 in both absolute dollars as well as on a per share basis.

AFFO for the year ending December 31, 2026 is expected to be between $2.665 billion and $2.695 billion, or between $2.44 and $2.47 per diluted common share. As a reminder, our guidance does not include the impact on operating results from any pending acquisitions without announced expected closing dates, possible future acquisitions or dispositions and related capital markets activity, or other non-recurring transactions or items.

With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.

To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Barry Jonas with Truist.

You may proceed.

Barry Jonas

Hey guys, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

Your loan book is expanding again. Curious how you think about the right mix there versus traditional sale-leaseback.

Thank you.

David Kieske

Barry, it's a strategic tool that we have in our toolkit to develop long-term relationships. As some of the loans have direct pathways to real estate ownership, and others have the ability to learn about sectors that we would like to own the real estate in over time.

We feel pretty good about where the size is right now. We're at high single digits in terms of the percentage of total assets.

We're very mindful of the fact that these loans will get repaid over time, but we've developed very good relationships with the sponsors and the operators and the owners of these businesses that there may be future opportunities to deploy these proceeds either into real estate or incremental credit opportunities going forward.

Barry Jonas

Thanks, David. That's really helpful.

Then just for a follow-up, I just broadly ask what the pipeline's looking like right now, and if you could maybe talk about how the mix between gaming and non-gaming is looking, that would be helpful.

John Payne

Hey, Barry, good morning. Not much different than the past couple quarters.

We continue to spend quite a bit of time on the casino side. We obviously have announced over the past couple quarters some deals with some new tenants that we're very excited about not only the deals we have with them, but could we potentially grow in the future.

We continue to look at opportunities on the casino space. We also are spending time in the same categories that we've talked to you about, whether that's unique attractions, university and professional sports with surrounding developments, golf and pilgrimage resorts, and unique opportunities.

The other thing we are spending some time with our current tenants, are there new amenities at our existing properties that we can continue to build out with them on a larger scale. I guess all three pillars are active at this time.

I couldn't give you a percentage of where I'm spending my time, but I'd say all three we're spending time on.

Barry Jonas

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Caitlin Burrows with Goldman Sachs.

You may proceed.

Caitlin Burrows

Hi, everyone. David, just to follow up on that last point you mentioned that new amenities at existing properties is one of your opportunities.

I know when you guys initially announced the Partner Property Growth Fund opportunity with The Venetian two years ago now, there was a potential incremental $300 million of funding, which I feel like they haven't talked about in a while. Is that not happening, potentially happening, or what can we expect there?

David Kieske

Hey, Caitlin, I'll start and others chime in. Good to hear from you today.

It's still potentially happening. If anybody has walked The Venetian over the last couple years, you can see the transformation that the team has done, run by Patrick Nichols and Rob Brimmer and all the folks that go to work very hard every day within the proverbial four walls of that asset, where they've put in new assets, room remodels, updated convention space, and that's initially used $400 million of our capital, and we're in constant dialogue about their future capital plans and what they might continue to add to that asset to continue to grow the revenue base there.

John Payne

There are probably some other opportunities with tenants as well that we continue to speak about. We're just not prepared to talk about that today.

Caitlin Burrows

Okay. As it relates to The Venetian one, sounds like just wait and see over the next six months or so to see if that materializes or not?

David Kieske

I think that's right, Caitlin. Look, our capital's flexible, and there is a outside date on it, but if they want to go longer, we'd be willing to go longer with that.

Caitlin Burrows

Makes sense. Okay.

Then in the earnings release, it mentioned that you guys entered into forward interest rate swaps, which I guess was a little surprise since you don't have that much floating rate debt. I was wondering if you could just go through the thinking there and under what circumstance you expect to use that?

David Kieske

No, you're right, Caitlin. We do not have any floating rate debt other than our revolver.

These are forward-starting interest rate swaps to start to leg our way into a interest rate hedge portfolio ahead of our upcoming refis, which we have maturities in September, December this year, and then turning the corner into February 2027. In the interest rate market, you can either do forward-starting swaps or treasury locks, and we've started to build up a portfolio of forward-starting swaps to lock in the base rate.

Caitlin Burrows

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Smedes Rose with Citi.

You may proceed.

Nick Joseph

Thanks. It's Nick Joseph here with Smedes.

Curious what feedback you're getting from tenants just on underlying demand trends given the relatively fluid macro outlook?

John Payne

We've watched as you have many of our tenants who are in the public markets announcing about the consumer and their results, and you can see that in their results. Obviously the regional market has performed steady is the best way I would describe it.

Las Vegas is going through a transition. You can see that they turned the corner from some of the slowness that they had.

They're making adjustments to their business models, which you've heard from us for over eight years. These are the best operators in the world.

They know how to adjust their businesses accordingly, and they're doing it right now. They'll also get the bumps over the coming years of new attractions coming to Las Vegas, which always has benefited that market.

As new assets open up, as new product open up, trial will open up. They're going to continue to work with it.

They can price their business accordingly a little bit faster in the regional markets than they can in the Las Vegas markets, but you can see from the results that are quite good.

Nick Joseph

Thanks. Then just hoping you could give an update on the Caesars regional leases, how those assets are performing right now.

Then obviously there's been some press reports about Caesars and any potential impact if there's a privatization there?

Ed Pitoniak

Maybe to take those questions in reverse order. Caesars has not confirmed anything, and thus everything that is being talked about is rumors.

As a fundamental practice, we do not comment on rumors. As concerns Caesars regional trends, you obviously saw their results, which they released on Tuesday.

What we are certainly seeing is the benefits of the CapEx that Caesars has very smartly invested in a number of regional assets over the last couple of years, notably places like New Orleans and now Lake Tahoe. I think what we're clearly seeing, as I believe the market is seeing as well, is the benefits of that CapEx.

I think it's also notable to see the, if you will, narrative re-emphasis Caesars is putting on its database, and it spoke about the importance of its database in relation to its digital strategy during their earnings call on Tuesday. I think it's key to remember that so much of the database, as John knows way better than I do, so much of that database is generated by the regional spokes in the Caesars hub-and-spoke system.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Darling with Green Street.

You may proceed.

Chris Darling

Thank you. Good morning.

Regarding the Cain Eldridge relationship, can you speak to your vision for that partnership over time? I find the notion of partnering with a private capital source interesting in terms of furthering your own growth plans, particularly if you may not feel comfortable issuing equity capital at various points in time.

Yeah.

Ed Pitoniak

Good to talk to you, Chris. What we have learned about Cain and Eldridge over now, I guess, is what is it, a year and a half or so that we've been partnering with them, almost two, that they have a vision of the world and the experience economy that's very, very synchronous and aligned with ours.

What we really value in Cain and Eldridge is, frankly, the energy of their animal spirits in terms of identifying and seizing opportunities globally. They are obviously an example, Chris, of the power of insurance capital pools at this particular moment in time and at this particular phase of global capital formation.

Very much to your point, we believe that as responsible stewards of VICI's capital, we need to constantly be monitoring the landscape of global capital formation and identifying pools of capital that may be very valuable to our business, the growth of our business, the durability of our business, wherever that capital may come from. We're certainly not the first to do that.

You've certainly seen over the decades very great REITs like Prologis pursue such a strategy. I wouldn't say that we're necessarily going to mirror that strategy, but we're certainly going to look to grow with great partners, and Cain and Eldridge are certainly an example of that.

Got it.

Chris Darling

That's helpful thoughts. Then maybe just switching gears for a follow-up, with the Golden deal closing today, can you speak to how that team is thinking about growing their business?

Specifically, I wonder if there's anything related to new acquisitions, reinvestment into the existing portfolio, anything like that where you can play a role in the near term?

John Payne

It's a great question, and one of the things that we're excited about and have been excited about since we started meeting with the Golden team, and obviously, as we announced, that transaction will close today. We'll begin that work on areas where we can grow together.

I do know the team there is anxious to continue to look at unique opportunities to see their portfolio be diversified, and our capital can help them in many ways, to your point, on not only we're looking together at acquiring new assets, but how can our capital help them at their existing assets, adding amenities that can attract new consumers and grow their EBITDA. We've had initial talks on those, and we'll continue now that the deal is closed to really refine those over the coming months and years.

Great question. I

Chris Darling

appreciate the time. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from John DeCree with CBRE Capital Advisors.

You may proceed.

John DeCree

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my questions.

Ed, you just kind of talked about attractive pools of capital, I guess kind of in the equity sense. Maybe Ed or David, curious if you've thought about other pools of capital or sourcing debt capital, international financing sources.

I noticed the financing in Canada for the Pure Gaming deal, obviously base rates are a bit lower there. One of your tenants went for the yen carry trade.

They obviously have a project, MGM in Japan. Curious if there's opportunities for more creative debt capital uses to kind of tick down your overall cost of capital?

David Kieske

John, always good to hear from you. Hope you're well.

It's David. It's a great question and one that we've talked about since our inception.

You go back to the beginning of VICI, and we kind of had a very unnatural balance sheet for a REIT, and we worked hard to to transition that balance sheet into a more standard, obviously investment-grade balance sheet. We've always been trying to be forward-looking around where can we source alternate forms of both debt capital as well as potentially equity capital at some point in the future.

You're you're spot on with our recent acquisitions in Canada. There's could be an opportunity to issue debt up there.

We've, on and off looked at things overseas and looked at the various financing markets, and other triple net lease REITs and even other REITs take advantage of, whether it be euro or sterling denominated. Then we watch what other net lease REITs have recently done, some of the larger REITs in terms of accessing, private capital.

It's, I think, as as Ed said, being a good steward of of capital and finding the most attractive pools, partners, and opportunities for us is something we work hard at every day.

John DeCree

Thanks, David. John, in your prepared remarks, you've obviously highlighted the increased investment activity last couple of quarters.

Not sure if you want to take this one or Ed, but is there anything you'd attribute that kind of success and increased activity? Is it just the kind of stars aligned?

I know these transactions, investments take quite a while to bake, but is there anything changed, or what would you attribute the kind of ability to get some capital to work kind of the last couple of quarters, if anything?

John Payne

John, good to hear from you. I don't think anything has changed.

I think you described it very well at the beginning of the question, which was some of these larger deals take time. When we're doing billion-dollar deals or acquisitions or credit deals, they take time.

I'm not saying that a $50 million deal does not take time, but we need to be diligent about our evaluation of the deal and it simply works out. The timing just works out when we're ready to execute.

Ed Pitoniak

John, I just want to add that I had a little bit of a bet with my colleagues that despite all the activity in Q1, and thank you for recognizing all that activity, that somebody would use the term quiet to describe the quarter. Indeed, a couple did.

I've been very proud of myself for not blowing a gasket, right? Yes.

John DeCree

Great. I appreciate it, guys.

Always good to talk to you. Thanks for the commentary.

John Payne

Thank you, John.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Vaddeo with Mizuho.

You may proceed.

Robert Yawger

Hi there. Good morning.

Hope you guys are doing well. I wanted to ask a little bit more about the Caesars regional lease here.

Are there active negotiations or discussions regarding the lease, or are we seeing if the recent CapEx improvements in a number of these assets, it seems like they're off to a good start and producing improvements in property-level NOI? Are we kind of in more of a wait-and-see mode regarding how those initiatives kind of flow through and subsequently improve the coverage there?

Ed Pitoniak

To the first part of your question, Robert, we're not going to and never will comment on those kinds of discussions with any tenant. Then I'll just reiterate what I said earlier about, yes, the positive evidence in terms of the CapEx paying off, and the renewed focus on the part of Caesars to the power of the hub-and-spoke system as powered by the database, so much of which is developed at the regional level, brick-and-mortar location by brick-and-mortar location.

John Payne

Can I add one thing to that? Because I do think at times people judge where you put in capital, that's the only way you grow the business.

This is a business that ebbs and flows. It is controlled at times by the database, as Ed described, and the way the incentives can be done and understanding the consumer segments and targeting them in different ways often can move the business up and down.

Capital is absolutely an important part of the business, but it's not everything about what drives revenues. There's loyalty, there's service, there's execution, there's offers, and that's important to understand when you look at a complex business like the casino business.

Robert Yawger

Got it. That's really helpful color.

Just one more here. Can you offer any comments on what's going on with Century Casinos?

It seems they've been under a strategic review for a little while, but I think the coverage is pretty healthy on those assets. Can you discuss maybe the disconnect between corporate credit and strong four-wall credit on that lease?

Thank you.

David Kieske

Robert, you summed it up well. They've hired a bank and has announced a strategic review.

The asset-level coverage is very strong. They've got very good execution at the asset level.

We don't have any inside baseball or anything that we can share about what's going on with the process. I think if you look at their leverage, it may be a little bit higher than some of the others, but they've got a couple years to deal with that term loan that sits on their balance sheet.

You'd have to ask that question directly to them on an update what's happening there, but we feel good about the operations and the folks on the ground that go to work every day in our assets.

John Payne

We've liked the results of the incremental capital in our Property Growth Fund that we put in with them a few years ago at our Missouri assets, we spend a lot of time understanding that capital and what it's led to at those businesses.

Robert Yawger

Thank you.

John Payne

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniel Guglielmo with Capital One Securities.

You may proceed.

Daniel Guglielmo

Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions.

Y'all have a lot of leases linked to US CPI in one way or another. Are there any particular months where you're really looking at the 8:30 AM report because it will have an outsized impact following year?

Ed Pitoniak

Hi, Dan. It's Ed.

The Caesars lease, the measurement period is July, August, September for a lease that resets every year at November 1. Beyond that, I believe The Venetian resets at March, so that measurement period would be January.

Okay. We follow it obviously, but it's nothing we have any control over, we just wait till the score gets posted, and then we know what's going to happen from there.

Daniel Guglielmo

Appreciate it. Thank you.

David Kieske

Dan, the only thing I'd add and saw that in your note this morning, there's nothing assumed in guidance other than the base rates in our escalators. Right.

Ed Pitoniak

Good point.

Daniel Guglielmo

Great. Thank you.

Then you all own a few properties in New York and Atlantic City. One of the full commercial casinos opened in New York City recently.

Are there any competitive pressures that you all or your gaming operator partners are thinking through there? Any color would be helpful.

John Payne

It's a great question, most likely should go to our tenants right now. Obviously the Resorts World that opened in New York with table games happened two days ago.

I'm sure the secret shoppers have started from our tenants. It's something we'll continue to monitor, and our tenants will continue to monitor and we'll have conversations about that.

Where are those customers coming from? Is it a radius of 20 miles, 15 miles, 50 miles?

They'll learn over time. Clearly, something as any new market opens up, whether that's been New York starting to open up, Virginia's opened up in the past, Nebraska's opened up over the previous years, it's something that one, our tenants are aware of and they continue to track and adjust their plans accordingly, and their offers.

Daniel Guglielmo

Great. Thank you.

John Payne

You're welcome.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ronald Kamdem with Morgan Stanley.

You may proceed.

Ronald Kamdem

Hey, great. Just my first one, on the commentary of experiential real estate in the opening comments, just thinking about the supplement and some of the sectors that you haven't quite made it in yet, whether it's professional sports or theme parks or anything like that, just any sort of updated commentary on how you're thinking about that opportunity and for getting closer, or is it sort of still wait and see?

John Payne

It's hard to tell you exactly the timing of when a deal can be announced. What I would tell you is, if you asked me that question a year ago compared to what I know today, it's very different.

Our knowledge base, the players in whether it's university and professional sports infrastructure, whether it's the understanding of how surrounding developments around these arenas and new stadiums or universities, how they get done, how they take place, where our capital can be effective, we sure do know a lot more today than we did a year ago. When I can tell you we get put our capital to work, or if we put our capital to work, I can't answer on that.

What I can tell you is we continue to see a large opportunity in professional and collegiate athletics, particularly in sports infrastructure.

Ronald Kamdem

Great. That's really helpful.

Then if I could just go back to the Cain Eldridge, just the non-binding sort of agreement, you don't often see sort of these non-binding agreements and so forth. I guess just a little bit more color around there.

Is it sort of just the messaging that there's a partnership happening, why not do something a little bit more binding?

Ed Pitoniak

It'd be hard to do anything binding without a very clear sense of what the future will bring. To bind each other to what we might do together three or four years from now would seem very unnecessary and very unwise.

I think rather than focusing on whether an agreement is binding or non-binding, for us, the most important thing is alignment of views, alignment of values probably most importantly, and establishing a relationship, as we have done through One Beverly Hills, that's founded on trust and a real desire to understand each other's needs and how we can best serve each other's needs.

Ronald Kamdem

Great. That's it for me.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Hightower with Barclays.

You may proceed.

Richard Hightower

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Thanks for squeezing me in here. I think, David, since you brought it up in one of your earlier answers, I'll assume it's fair game.

Just to go back on the idea of VICI sourcing private capital in some form going forward. I'm assuming that you might have been referring to the Realty Income, I guess multiple announcements recently.

If I think about those particular announcements, in each case, it sort of solves a very unique problem for both counterparties, whether it's in terms of obviously cost of capital to the REIT, but also a particular group of assets, a cadence of deal flow, a particular risk profile that's sort of well-suited for the other counterparty. If I think of that as a template, what does that look like with VICI?

What form does that take? How does that compare to just an institutional partner coming in and buying the stock at what's obviously a very attractive level here?

David Kieske

Look, Rich, I think your intro to the question hit on a lot of the things that we think about. Taking a half step back, the biggest thing we think about is where are alternative pockets of capital.

Obviously, Prologis started it many, many years ago with their fund business. Others have emulated that.

I'm not saying we're going into the fund business, but we watch and learn what others do. There's a whole lot of focus on this high-grade capital solutions or these insurance pockets of capital.

It's something we're studying and learning and seeing if there might be a use for it, whether it be with existing assets or potentially future acquisitions. It's the way to just continue to diversify, right?

We want to diversify the portfolio real estate, and it's important to have a diversified pool of capital sources to continue to execute on our growth ambitions over time.

Richard Hightower

That does make sense. I guess maybe to follow up, if I think about your, I guess, regular-way deal flow capacity given that we've sort of exhausted the forwards, you've obviously got liquidity in other forms, but just help us put pencil to paper on what maybe your current total acquisition capacity is as the balance sheet stands today.

Thanks.

David Kieske

Look, we sit at the low end of our leverage range, we got incremental debt capacity. As I mentioned in my comments, we have $650 million of true free cash flow, that's after dividends, on an annual basis.

Look, the stock is at a level that isn't all that attractive to us right now, but we're not sitting on our hands. John and team, the business development team, are hard at work every day sourcing opportunities.

The uniqueness about our business is that things take time. As you've seen, they're lumpy and chunky, but we're confident that we can continue to execute our external growth plans with the sources of capital that we have available today.

Richard Hightower

Got it. Thank you.

David Kieske

Thanks, Rich.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Ed Pitoniak for any closing remarks.

Ed Pitoniak

I will just close out by thanking everybody who is on the call today. I recognize it is a very busy day in a very busy earnings season.

We appreciate your time and your support, and we'll look forward to talking with you again in late July.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes the conference.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.