MGM Resorts

IThe business

MGM Resorts makes most of its money in two places: the Las Vegas Strip and Macau. On the Strip it runs nine resorts with about 37,000 rooms, from Bellagio and Aria to Luxor and Excalibur. Elsewhere in the United States it runs six regional casinos, including Borgata in Atlantic City and MGM National Harbor outside Washington. Through its 56% of MGM China it runs MGM Macau and MGM Cotai under one of Macau’s six gaming concessions.³² It also owns half of BetMGM, an American online betting and casino business run with Entain, all of LeoVegas, a European online casino it bought in 2022, and about 40% of MGM Osaka, which is building Japan’s first casino resort.³²

In the twelve months to September 2026 MGM had revenue of $17.72BC (calculated) and profit before rent of $4.46BC (calculated). Profit before rent is MGM’s EBITDAR: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and rent. The Strip and Macau earned 80% of the segment total.³⁷²⁷¹

Segment profit is MGM’s Segment Adjusted EBITDAR, summed over the four quarters from Q4 2025 to Q3 2026. The consolidated line adds corporate costs and MGM’s share of BetMGM. MGM China’s figure is after the branding fee it pays MGM, which lands in corporate.³⁷¹

How the money is made

A Strip resort sells a weekend. Rooms, casino play, dinners, shows and conventions are bought together, and MGM Rewards ties them together across nine resorts and, in Nevada, the BetMGM app. In 2025 MGM filled 92% of its Strip rooms at an average of $249 a night.³ Macau is a different business. It is almost all gaming, mostly main-floor play rather than VIP, and the government takes 35% of gross gaming revenue plus a levy of up to 5%.³ MGM China also pays MGM a branding fee of 3.5% of its revenue, double the rate before 2026: $41M in Q3 2026. MGM keeps about two-thirds. Pansy Ho, who runs MGM China’s operating company, gets the rest through a minority stake in the company that collects it.^471111213

Owner of the brands, tenant of the buildings

MGM owns its brands and leases every building it operates in the United States. Between 2019 and 2022 it sold the real estate under Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Aria and Vdara, and the rest of its domestic property passed to VICI Properties when VICI bought MGM Growth Properties in April 2022.³¹²¹⁴ Five triple-net leases now cover the American resorts. MGM pays the rent, the property taxes, the insurance and the upkeep, and must spend a set share of revenue on capital projects at the leased buildings; the 10-K does not give the share.³

Rents are the annual cash rents in the 2025 10-K, except VICI’s, which is the $736M that began on 1 May 2026 after MGM Northfield Park left the lease.³² The total is about $1.8B, and the leases sit on the balance sheet as $23.9B of liabilities, more than three times MGM’s market value of $7.58B.⁷²⁸¹ Every escalator has a 2% floor.³

Of every dollar MGM earns outside Macau before rent, 59 cents goes to the landlords.E (estimate)

That is $1.8B of rent over $3.05B of profit before rent from the Strip, the regional casinos, LeoVegas and corporate costs, without BetMGM or the branding fee.³⁷²⁷¹ A small change in what the resorts earn is a large change in what the shareholders keep.

Revenue grew from $9.48B in 2016 to $17.54B in 2025, about 7.1% a year, but most of that growth was bought or recovered.⁸ Borgata joined in 2016, MGM Cotai opened in 2018, CityCenter and The Cosmopolitan came in 2021 and 2022, and MGM China’s revenue climbed from $674M in 2022 to $4.46B in 2025 as Macau reopened.^3151216

IIThe moat

I think MGM has a license moat with a scale moat on top, and they are moving in different directions.

The licenses are the hard part to copy. Macau allows six concessionaires; MGM’s concession runs from 1 January 2023 to December 2032, and the government may redeem it from the eighth year.³ Japan allows at most three integrated resorts. Osaka and Nagasaki applied in 2022; Osaka was certified in 2023 and Nagasaki was turned down that December.³¹⁷¹⁸ American states license casinos one market at a time.

The scale sits on the Strip. MGM’s 37,000 rooms are about a quarter of the 150,300 hotel rooms in the Las Vegas area, and its nine resorts share one loyalty program. Osaka’s official plan describes MGM as the largest meetings and conventions operator in Las Vegas.³⁶¹⁷

Sources: market shares from MGM China’s results; room figures from the 10-K and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority; BetMGM shares from Entain.^1319362017

Who keeps what the moat earns

The test of a moat is the return on the capital it needs. Excluding leases, MGM earned 15% to 16% on invested capital from 2023 to 2025 and 13% in the twelve months to September 2026.C (calculated) Count the leases as capital and the return falls to 7% to 8%.^8327235

Method: adjusted operating profit after a notional 21% tax, over average debt plus equity less cash; the second row adds 7% interest on average lease liabilities to profit and the liabilities to capital.⁸³ That row leans toward 5.5% by construction, because leases are 78% of the capital and are the rent discounted at 7%. A cost of capital built the same way, with leases at 7%, debt at 5.8% and equity at 11%, is about 6.4% after tax.C (calculated)³² The asset base earns less than one point more than it costs, a thin spread on $37B. The high first-row return belongs to a small slice of capital standing behind the landlords.

The moat is real at the front desk, and the landlords own most of what it earns.

Widening or narrowing

On the Strip it is narrowing. Visitors to Las Vegas fell 7.5% in 2025 and the city’s revenue per available room fell 8.8%; the LVCVA pointed to cautious, value-minded travelers and weaker international visitation.⁶ MGM’s Strip revenue per room fell less, 6.5%, but its Strip profit before rent fell 8%.³ Through August 2026 the city was flat, with visitors down 0.1% and Strip revenue per room up 1.8%.²¹ September was not: Strip revenue per available room fell 11.9% on a 10.6% lower room rate, and MGM’s own Strip profit before rent fell 12% in the third quarter, to $531M.⁸⁰⁷¹ In Macau the license is holding: MGM’s share rose in 2025, slipped in the first half of 2026 and reached a record 17.1% in the third quarter.¹³¹⁹⁷¹ In Japan the moat is new and earns nothing until about 2031.

IIIThe competitive advantage

MGM’s edge over its rivals is reach. Scale has not bought it a better margin on the Strip or in Macau.

Profit measures differ. MGM reports Segment Adjusted EBITDAR; Caesars reports Adjusted EBITDA before the leases it books as financing; Wynn reports Adjusted Property EBITDAR before the license fees its Macau resorts pay to the parent, which MGM China’s figure includes. Each sits before most rent and stock pay.³⁷²²²³

• The Strip. On each company’s measure, MGM’s Strip business is twice the size of Caesars’ Las Vegas segment and keeps 33.9% of revenue before rent against 42.7%.³⁷ Mix does not explain the gap: casino play is 23.9% of MGM’s Strip revenue and 26.5% of Caesars’.C (calculated) The filings do not show where the cost difference sits. Scale shows up as reach: rooms at every price point on one loyalty program, and revenue per available room of $229 against $147 for a city total that includes downtown and off-Strip hotels.³⁶ Caesars filled 94.1% of its Las Vegas rooms to MGM’s 92%.⁷³
• Macau. MGM China grew profit before rent 10.7% in 2025 while Wynn’s two Macau resorts fell 7.7%, and MGM’s share of the market rose to 16.1%.³¹⁹²² MGM’s share then slipped to 15.9% in the first half of 2026 and reached a record 17.1% in the third quarter.¹³⁷¹
• Online. Scale has not turned into profit. BetMGM had twice Caesars Digital’s revenue in 2025 and less EBITDA, and Entain, MGM’s partner, runs the technology.³²³⁷

IVManagement

MGM is run by operators who have spent their careers in casino resorts. Bill Hornbuckle, 68, has been president since 2012 and chief executive since 2020; he ran Mandalay Bay as president and chief operating officer from 2005 to 2009. Jonathan Halkyard, the finance chief since 2021, was chief financial officer of Caesars from 2006 to 2012. The chair, Paul Salem, spent 27 years at Providence Equity Partners.³²⁴

Shares as of 13 March 2026 from the proxy; contracts from the 8-Ks. Molino was not a named executive in the 2026 proxy, so its ownership table does not list her, and neither source gives a contract for her or the chair.²⁴²⁵²⁶ The board includes Barry Diller, chairman of People Inc., formerly IAC; Joey Levin, IAC’s chief executive from 2015 to 2025; and Keith Meister of Corvex, whose funds own 2.09%.²⁴

The record

MGM retired 55.3% of its shares since 2017, and its market value still fell from $18.9B to $7.58B.C (calculated)⁸⁷²⁸¹

Management’s big decision was to part with the buildings. From 2019 to 2022 MGM turned its real estate into cash and used the cash to repurchase stock and acquire operations.³¹²¹⁴

Today’s rent is 6.0% to 7.0% of what the buildings sold for: Bellagio’s $276M against $4.25B, Aria and Vdara’s $233M against $3.89B, MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay’s $322M against $4.6B.C (calculated) Those rents rise 2% a year for 10 to 15 years and with inflation after that.³¹²¹⁴

The cash went to buybacks. MGM spent $12.4B repurchasing stock from 2018 to September 2026, and its share count fell from 566.3M at the end of 2017 to 253.0M in October 2026.⁸³⁷² An owner who did nothing now holds more than twice as much of a company that pays $1.8B of rent it did not pay in 2018.

Put the two trades side by side. MGM sold its buildings at rent yields of 6% to 7% that rise every year, and repurchased stock at an average price on which today’s owner cash yields about 7.0%.C (calculated) Before the escalators the swap was about even. After them, the landlords hold a claim that grows by contract and is paid first. Counting 2017 as well, MGM spent $12.7B on about 348M shares, an average of $36.59; at $29.96 those shares are worth $10.4B, a loss of about $2.3B.C (calculated)^831214167281 Against peers the record looks better: $100 in MGM at the end of 2020 was worth $115.86 at the end of 2025, against $81.82 for the peer index in the proxy.²⁴

Two purchases went wrong. LeoVegas, bought for about $556M in 2022, lost $90M before rent in 2025 and took a $111M goodwill impairment in Q2 2026. MGM wrote off $256M of goodwill at Empire City in Yonkers after withdrawing its application for a New York casino license.³²

Pay and ownership

Hornbuckle was paid $25.3M in 2025, including an $8.0M signing bonus for his new contract, against $15.8M in 2024; the ratio to the median employee was 542 to 1.²⁴ Three quarters of the annual bonus rides on a version of EBITDAR that includes MGM’s share of MGM China and BetMGM. Half the long-term award vests on total return relative to the S&P 1500 Hotels, Restaurants and Leisure index, and half vests with time; the awards tied to absolute return were dropped in 2025.²⁴

Nothing in the pay plan measures free cash per share or return on capital, and EBITDAR does not fall when a building is sold and leased back.

So the plan pays Hornbuckle to grow profit before rent, and it pays him the same whether MGM owns a building or rents it. His 827,854 shares, $24.8M, are less than one year of his pay. Over a full cycle the cash went mostly to repurchases, and owners are not better off: the share count fell 55.3% while the market value fell from $18.9B to $7.58B.

Directors and officers own 3.38% of the shares, and most of that is Corvex’s 2.09%. Hornbuckle’s 827,854 shares are worth $24.8M at the close, less than one year of his 2025 pay.²⁴⁸¹ In February 2022 MGM bought 4.5M of its shares at $45.00, $202.5M, from funds managed by Corvex, whose founder Keith Meister sits on the board.¹² Gary Fritz, now president of MGM Digital, owned a consultancy that IAC retained from 2020 to 2022 to help lead and manage its gaming interests.³ The proxy also discloses that Hornbuckle’s son-in-law was hired in 2025 as a portfolio president at a $650,000 base salary and his son as a senior manager at $90,000.²⁴

People Inc., the holder that bid and walked away

Barry Diller’s People Inc., formerly IAC, bought its first 59.0M MGM shares in 2020 for $1.02B, about $17.25 a share, and has added 7.8M since. It now owns 66.8M shares, 26.4% of the company.²⁷²⁸ Under an April 2026 agreement, amended on 27 October, People may not buy above 29.9%. Its votes above 25.73% go the way most unaffiliated shares go, and on a change of control it votes all its shares with the board if listed conditions are met. MGM agreed not to adopt a rights plan aimed at People. The agreement ends if People falls below 17.5% or the board stops nominating two of its people; a People purchase of a majority counts as a change of control for that purpose only if the board approves it.²⁹⁷⁰

On 1 June 2026 People proposed $48.30 a share in cash for all the shares it did not own, 10.6% above the last close and 24.1% above the 30-day average price, with no financing condition. It planned to pay with its own and MGM’s cash and money from other equity investors, and expected to own just over half of the company afterwards.⁹ The board formed a special committee of independent directors. On 23 September People withdrew, said the deal had not come together, and kept its stake; MGM’s board said it would run the company on its own.¹⁰³⁰³¹

VFinancials

MGM’s reported figures need three corrections before they say much. The sale-leasebacks moved costs from depreciation and interest into rent, which sits above operating profit. Gains on those sales inflated operating profit from 2019 to 2022. And tax refunds flattered 2024 and 2025.⁸³

Profit before rent has been flat for three years and is now falling: $4.60B in 2023, $4.67B in 2024, $4.68B in 2025 and $4.46B in the twelve months to September 2026.C (calculated) That is 0.9% a year from 2023 to 2025, and 1.1% a year down once the latest twelve months are counted.³¹⁵⁷¹ The mix moved underneath. From 2023 to 2025 the Strip’s profit before rent fell 10%, from $3.19B to $2.86B, and MGM China’s rose 39% as Macau reopened.³

As a share of revenue, profit before rent fell from 28.5% to 25.2%. MGM reports no gross profit. Revenue less the direct costs of the casinos, rooms, restaurants and shows was 49.3% of revenue in 2022 and 44.4% in 2025. Most of that fall is mix: MGM China, where gaming taxes take about 40% of gross gaming revenue, grew from $0.67B to $4.46B of revenue.³¹⁵

Reported free cash flow, operating cash flow less capital spending, was $1.76B in 2023, $1.21B in 2024, $1.46B in 2025 and $1.40B in the twelve months to September 2026.⁸³⁷² These figures include all of MGM China’s cash, although MGM owns 56% of it, and 2024 and 2025 include refunds from an IRS examination of the 2015 to 2019 returns; the latest twelve months carry $10M of net refunds, down from $167M. The valuation section rebuilds the number from the bottom.

The balance sheet carries $5.70B of debt, of which $2.33B sits at MGM China and is not guaranteed by MGM, against $2.40B of cash, $1.80B of it outside MGM China.⁷²³² Add the $23.9B of lease liabilities and net debt is 6.1 times profit before rent.C (calculated) MGM expects to pay $315M to $335M of interest over the next twelve months.⁷² Profit before rent outside Macau covers the rent 1.69 times.C (calculated) MGM repurchased $253M of stock in the first nine months of 2026 ($262M paid in cash), none of it in the third quarter, and still owes about $2.1B to the Osaka venture through 2028.⁷²

One liability sits outside the valuation. MGM guarantees $6.0B of its landlords’ debt, and the guarantees hold off a tax bill: if they stopped, MGM would recognize gains on its stakes in the Bellagio landlord and VICI’s operating partnership, which the 10-K says may be significant.³ The deferred tax on those equity securities was $2.23B at the end of 2025, $8.81 a share.C (calculated) Tax protection agreements expire in 2029 and 2037, and the Bellagio landlord’s $3.01B of debt matures in 2029.³ I do not deduct it, because the trigger is the guarantees lapsing, not a bad year.

VIValuation

How this goes wrong

I start with what would most likely destroy the investment. Three ways stand out. First, the Macau license ends in 2032 and is not renewed, or is renewed on worse terms. Macau is 87% of the cash the owners keep, and without renewal my base value falls about $9, to about $29, a dollar under the price. Second, the Strip falls while the rent keeps rising. MGM owes $1.8B of rent a year, up 2% a year whatever the Strip earns, and a repeat of 2009 takes rent cover to 0.99 times. Third, the cash goes to the wrong places again. MGM spent $12.7B repurchasing shares at an average of $36.59, and they are worth about $2.3B less today.

What an owner can take out, and what I cannot know

Reported free cash flow for the twelve months to September 2026 is $1.25B. An owner cannot spend that. Stock pay costs $97M, normal taxes are $183M, and MGM China’s minority partners are owed $260M more than they were paid. What is left is about $644M, or $2.55 a share. That is about half of reported free cash flow and 14% of the $4.5B of profit before rent.

Some of this I cannot know. I cannot tell how much of the $1.0B capital plan is only standing still, or what a Macau renewal will cost. So I show a range: $5 to $64 around the $38 base, and about $29 to $37 on the renewal question alone.

Start from the cash the owners keep

I value MGM on the free cash flow left for its shareholders after rent, interest, taxes, capital spending, the minority’s share of MGM China and Pansy Ho’s share of the branding fee. The reported number for the twelve months to September 2026 is $1.25B, or $4.94 a share. The number I use is about half that.³⁷²

Sources: the 10-K, the Q3 10-Q, MGM’s quarterly releases and its December 2025 branding agreement.^372713311 Normal taxes are the $267M paid in 2024, scaled down to today’s lower profit. MGM China’s free cash is its profit before rent at the 2026 fee rate, less its capital plan of about $165M for 2026 ($119M spent in nine months, $35M to $55M to come) and about $135M of interest, which is MGM’s $315M to $335M of guided interest less the $180M to $200M outside MGM China.³⁷² The rent line compares the five leases month by month: about $1,804M of cash rent in the twelve months to September 2026, which carried MGM Northfield Park until April, against about $1,810M in the next twelve, with each 2% step. Ground leases and Macau land are in neither figure.³⁷²

That is $2.55 a shareE (estimate); the price is 11.8 times it, an 8.5% yield. Split it by where it comes from. MGM’s 56% of MGM China’s free cash is about $451M, and MGM keeps about $110M of the branding fee: $561M from Macau.E (estimate) The business outside Macau, after $1.8B of rent, about $840M of capital spending, interest and taxes, leaves about $83M, or 3 cents of each dollar it earns before rent.E (estimate)^3727111 I charge all of MGM’s normal taxes to the business outside Macau, because the filings do not split them.

Of the cash MGM’s owners keep, 87% comes from Macau, on a license that ends in December 2032.E (estimate)

What the market is paying for

Take the market’s own price for the Macau stake and see what is left. MGM’s 56% of MGM China is worth $2.47B in Hong Kong, 5.5 times MGM’s share of its free cash.^34137482 At my base growth and an 11% cost of equity, that price pays for almost eight years of that cash; the concession has six years and two months to run.C (calculated)

Sources: MGM China’s price and share count, the 10-Q and my base values below.^7234137482 That $2.34B is about 28 times the $83M of owner cash the business outside Macau produces. Add its $3.37B of debt, less the $1.0B reserve, and the market values that business at 3.8 times its $1.25B of profit after rent.C (calculated) The market prices Macau as a license with a short life, which is roughly fair. It prices the business outside Macau as a thin stub behind its landlords, and that is where the price and my base part ways. Section X prices the landlords’ side of that stub.

What the price implies

Solve the model for the price instead of for value. At $29.96, with an 11% cost of equity, BetMGM and Osaka at my base values and the excess cash counted, the price implies profit before rent growing about 0.7% a year for ten years and 2% after, while the rent rises 2% to 2.3%.C (calculated)³⁷²⁵ In owner cash that is a fall of about 5% a year. With inflation at the 2.34% the Treasury market implies, profit before rent shrinks about 1.6% a year in real terms.⁵ The record is 0.9% a year from 2023 to 2025, and 1.1% a year down counting the latest twelve months.³⁷¹ Hold MGM China to my base path, and the price implies the business outside Macau grows 0.5% a year before inflation.C (calculated)

Why 2%

My base case needs profit before rent to grow 2% a year for ten years, a little below the 2.34% inflation the Treasury market implies, so no real growth.⁵ Built up from the parts:

Sources: segment results, the LVCVA’s August and September 2026 summaries and DICJ’s monthly gaming revenue; the growth rates are my estimates.E (estimate)^{3713521803613} The Strip line carries the case. At 2% a year it takes eight years to regain its 2023 profit of $3.19B. Q3 2026 moved the wrong way, and Q2’s gain was hold. Strip profit before rent fell 12%, to $531M, even though tables kept 25.3% of the chips players bought, against 22.6% a year earlier. At last year’s hold, table win would have been about $39M lower. Revenue per available room fell 8%, the room rate fell 8% and occupancy held at 89%. Q3 lowered the starting point; I did not change the growth rates.C (calculated)⁷¹

Three cases

All three cases use an 11% cost of equity, rents that follow each lease’s escalator, capital spending that moves with revenue, and taxes at 25% of any change in profit.E (estimate) The ten-year Treasury yielded 5.00% in Q4 2026, and Aswath Damodaran’s implied equity risk premium on 1 October was 4.20%; MGM’s five-year beta of 1.35 gives 10.7%, its ten-year beta of 1.86 gives 12.8%.C (calculated) Damodaran states his 4.20% against a 5.29% Treasury yield.R (reported) On that pair the betas give 11.0% and 13.1%.C (calculated)⁵³⁷¹³⁴ I use 11% because the equity sits behind $23.9B of leases. Once their fixed periods end, rents follow inflation at 2.34%, the Treasury breakeven.³⁵ A fixed 2% escalator is a falling real rent when inflation runs above 2%; because of the floors, low inflation and a flat Strip hurt MGM most.

• Bear, $5. A recession. Profit before rent outside Macau falls 12% a year for two years, about half of MGM’s fall from 2007 to 2009, and Macau falls 30% in one year, close to the 28% drop in non-VIP baccarat revenue in 2015.³⁸³⁹ Both then grow 3% a year to year ten and 1% after, below the rent, so owner cash shrinks once the rebound ends. Osaka opens a year late, 10% over budget, with revenue 20% below plan. BetMGM is worth 6 times $300M of EBITDA.
• Base, $38. Profit before rent grows 2% a year, as built up above, and 2% after year ten. Osaka hits its plan. BetMGM is worth 10 times the $300M of EBITDA at the low end of its 2026 guidance.²⁰
• Bull, $64. Profit before rent grows 4% a year for five years, 3% for five more and 2.5% after, which takes the Strip back above its 2023 level in year four. Osaka beats its plan revenue by 25% at Marina Bay Sands’ margin, adjusted for Japan’s levy. BetMGM is worth 10 times its $500M EBITDA target.

All three assume the Macau concession is renewed in 2032 on similar terms. Without renewal the base value falls by about $9, to about $29, a dollar under the price; with an 80% chance of renewal, the base is worth about $37.E (estimate)³

Per-share figures use 253.0M shares, the count on 26 October 2026.⁷² Value after year ten is 42% of the base and 32% of the bear; in the bear, owner cash stops once it turns negative after year ten, because shareholders would not fund the leases forever.E (estimate) The bear sits far below the price because rent does not fall when profit does: outside Macau, profit before rent covers the rent 1.29 times in the bear’s second year, against 1.69 times today.E (estimate)

Osaka, valued on its own plan

The official plan, dated 31 July 2026, puts the first-phase cost at ¥1.513T, about $9.65B, funded with ¥983B of equity and ¥530B of project loans. It expects 20 million visitors and ¥520B of revenue a year, ¥420B of it from gaming, with opening around autumn 2030 and a possible delay of one to two years.¹⁷³⁴ The cost is 40% above the April 2022 plan’s ¥1.083T.⁴⁰¹⁷ MGM owned about 40% at the end of September and about 41% after funding ¥19.4B in October; it expects about 43.5% once funded. It still owes ¥333.0B, about $2.1B, through 2028, and has given an uncapped guarantee to fund completion.⁷²

The operator pays a levy of 15% of gross gaming revenue to the national government and 15% to the prefecture.⁴¹ The plan puts the local half at ¥74B a year, so the operator’s levy is about ¥148B, 28% of planned revenue.C (calculated)¹⁷ Entry fees of ¥32B are paid by Japanese visitors, ¥6,000 a visit, and do not touch MGM’s margin.¹⁷⁴¹ Two anchors set the margin. The plan’s own third-year net income of ¥67B implies a margin of about 28% to 35% once tax, interest and depreciation are added back.E (estimate)⁴² Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, a single resort under a lower gaming tax, kept 52.3% of its revenue in 2025 after gaming taxes of 18.9%; with Osaka’s levy instead, that is about 40% to 43%.C (calculated)⁴³⁴⁴ I use 33% in the base and 40% in the bull. In the bear, revenue 20% below plan with 60% of the non-levy costs fixed gives 27%.E (estimate)

MGM’s equity is 43.5% of EBITDA times the multiple, after the ¥530B of project debt, discounted to today at 11% and converted at ¥156.81 to the dollar; the ¥333.0B still owed comes off that.⁷²¹⁷³⁴ MGM has disclosed no Osaka management fee, and I value it at zero.³⁷² On its own plan Osaka is worth about what MGM still has to put in. It creates value only if it beats the plan.

How much each assumption matters

Value per share, rounded to the dollar, with 2% growth after year ten, BetMGM and Osaka at base and the excess cash counted.E (estimate) At 11%, each point of growth sustained for ten years is worth $6 to $7 a share.³⁷²

Private-market checks

Two informed buyers put prices on this kind of business in 2026, and both sit above my base.

Fertitta agreed in May to pay about $17.6B for Caesars, including $11.9B of debt, and Caesars holders approved on 22 September.⁴⁵⁴⁶ Caesars earned $3.62B of Adjusted EBITDA in 2025 and paid $1.38B of cash rent on the VICI and GLPI leases it books as financing, so the price is 7.8 times its profit after rent.C (calculated)⁷ MGM trades at 4.8 times on the same basis.C (calculated)^727181347482 Apply 7.8 times to MGM’s $1.25B of profit after rent outside Macau, subtract its $1.57B of net debt outside MGM China, and add the Macau stake and fee at market, BetMGM and Osaka at base: about $50 a share.C (calculated) People’s $48.30 equals my base operating case at an 8.6% cost of equity.C (calculated)⁹

My base sits below both because a buyer with debt behind it works at a lower cost of capital than the 11% I charge a minority holder, and a control buyer sets the buybacks and the leverage. Fertitta also owns Golden Nugget casinos in seven markets, and the deal release cites expected cost savings.⁴⁵ At 9% my base would be $47.C (calculated) The gap between $38 and $50 is the value of control and cheaper money.

The margin of safety

• Price$29.96Close, Q4 2026 [81]
• Base value$38My estimate E (estimate)
• Margin of safety below$2535% under my $38.4 base value C (calculated)

I use a 35% cushion, wider than the 25% I would use for a company without fixed rent. If profit before rent fell 10% and stayed there, the cash I value would fall 33% with capital spending cut in step and 41% without.E (estimate) The Strip’s profit fell more than 11% from 2024 to the twelve months to September 2026.³⁷¹ A cushion has to survive one bad year. At $29.96 the price sits above the margin-of-safety price of $25.

The next best use of the same dollar is another company on this site. The closest in kind is LVMH, a consumer business tied to travel and Asian spending, with a base return of 8.3% a year against 14.8% for MGM. The gap is what I am paid for the rent and the Macau license.

How good the business is and how good the price is are separate questions. The business is thin: outside Macau, about 3 cents of each dollar earned before rent reaches the owners. The price is the stronger part. It is 21% below my base, though $4.96 above my $25 cushion.

The base needs two things at once. I use an 80% chance of Macau renewal, and my guess for the Strip regaining its 2023 profit within eight years is 60%. Multiplied, that is 48%, close to a coin flip, and the two are not independent. The price needs far less, a shrinking business.

Can the equity survive a 2009?

The bear is a recession. A repeat of 2009 is worse. From 2007 to 2009 MGM’s net revenue fell 22%, its Strip revenue per room fell 35%, and its same-store property profit fell about 40% before one-off charges, while its regional casinos held up.³⁸ In 2015 Macau’s gaming revenue fell 34%.³⁹ Run those through today’s MGM:

Assumptions: Strip profit down 22.5% a year for two years, regional down 5% a year, MGM Digital and corporate costs unchanged, Macau down 34% in year one; capital spending falls half as fast as profit.E (estimate)³³⁸³⁹ On these numbers the business outside Macau earns about its rent, and owner cash runs about $440M a year negative, even with Macau’s cash paying part of the rent. MGM holds $1.80B of cash outside MGM China, and a breach of the lease covenants could call for up to $2.06B of collateral.C (calculated)³⁷² The equity would need its credit line or new terms from the landlords to get through, and on these numbers it is worth nothing. That is the permanent-loss case. In the milder bear, 83% of the price is at risk.C (calculated)

The price, and how it got here

MGM closed at $29.96 in Q4 2026, the NYSE close from Yahoo Finance at 4:00 pm ET. It rose 5.7% on the day after it reported third-quarter results and 3.9% on the day after that, when the S&P 500 fell 1.8%, Wynn rose 0.6% and Sands fell 0.2%. I found no company news for the second rise.⁷³⁸¹⁸²

On bid day the stock closed at $50.69, above the $48.30 offer. By 23 September, before People’s announcement, it had fallen to $37.85, 22% below the offer, and it closed at $33.69 the next day.¹⁹¹⁰ The market had stopped pricing the deal well before People walked away. From 24 September to the close before the results, on 28 October, MGM fell a further 19%, to $27.27, and I found no company news for that fall. The report lifted it 5.7% the next day, and it rose another 3.9% the day after. From 24 September to Q4 2026 MGM fell 11%, Wynn 7%, Las Vegas Sands 4% and MGM China 8%, against a 1.6% fall for the S&P 500; Sands reported a 17% fall in third-quarter property profit in Q4 2026, and Macau’s gaming revenue fell 3.8% in the third quarter.C (calculated)^{134443673818274757677} Since the end of 2025, Sands has fallen 43%, Wynn 38%, MGM China 31% and MGM 18%. Since the last close before the bid, MGM has fallen 31%, against 26% for Wynn and 27% for Sands: it gave back the bid premium, then fell with the sector.C (calculated)¹³⁴

Where this could be in 5 and 10 years

Value in a year is the present value then of the owner cash after it, at 11%, in that year’s dollars on today’s 253.0M shares. It includes BetMGM, Osaka and the excess cash, which pay nothing, so I grow them at 11%. The return counts the owner cash as it arrives. All three cases assume Macau is renewed in 2032. Values are estimates;E (estimate) returns are calculated.C (calculated)

For the base to stand at 5 years, profit before rent grows 2% a year while rent rises almost as fast. Owner cash goes from $643M to $694M. The Strip is still below its 2023 profit then; at 2% it takes eight years to get back. At 10 years the license has been renewed and owner cash is about $760M, or $3 a share. Most of the rise in value is the cash coming closer and BetMGM and Osaka compounding.

The bear is a recession in the first two years. Owner cash falls to about $110M while rent keeps rising, then shrinks until it turns negative, and I stop counting it there. The bull is 4% growth for five years, then 3%, with Osaka and BetMGM ahead of plan. Owner cash reaches about $1.15B in year ten.

The most likely way the base is wrong is the Strip. Its profit fell 12% in the third quarter and rent rises whatever it earns. Each point of growth held for ten years is worth $6 to $7 a share today, so flat profit takes the base to $26. The discount rate comes next: at 12%, today’s base is $35.

These are estimates of value, not forecasts of the share price. The price can sit above or below value for years.

VIIThe Suvretta pitch

What was argued

Aaron Cowen of Suvretta Capital Management, renamed Montanova Capital on SEC filings on 23 June 2026, pitched MGM at the All-In Liquidity Summit. The video went up on 11 June 2026; the MGM pitch runs from 2:31 to 13:07.⁴⁷⁴⁸⁴⁹ He said he had built the deck two weeks earlier with the stock near $37, and that Diller had bid $48 the day before, which dates the talk to about 2 June.⁵⁰⁹ His firm held 1.20M MGM shares at the end of 2025 and 2.33M at the end of June 2026. He was pitching a stock he owned.⁴⁹

The argument, as the video’s machine captions record it:⁵⁰

1. Vegas and China are worth about $60 a share, “little low 60s”.
2. Japan is worth about $50: about $2B of Osaka EBITDA, MGM’s 40%, and a management fee on top.
3. Dubai, if it legalizes gaming, adds $40 to $50, a free option.
4. Diller owns 26% and “has a firm bid”, and the stock “could be worth 150”.

So we think the stock is a triple.

The judges on stage ranked MGM first of the four pitches. The audience put it second, with 24% of 150 votes. One judge called it the best pure risk and reward of the four because the Diller bid capped the downside.⁵⁰

What holds up

Sources: the 10-K and 10-Q, People’s filings, Japan’s tourism agency, the Osaka plan, MGM’s quarterly releases, MGM China’s results, the LVCVA and the Caesars filings.^{372928101817711921804546}

Where I disagree

1. The floor was an option, and People kept it. He called Diller’s offer a firm bid that put a floor under the stock; People’s letter called it non-binding, and People used its right to walk away on 23 September.⁵⁰⁹¹⁰ MGM closed at $29.96 in Q4 2026, 38% below the bid and 19% below the $37 at which the pitch was built.⁸¹ The judges’ main reason to like the pitch no longer exists.
2. Japan at $50 a share needs numbers the plan does not show. That is about $12.7B at today’s share count. His $2B of EBITDA is ¥314B at today’s yen. At the 40% margin Marina Bay Sands implies for Osaka, that needs ¥784B of revenue, 51% above the plan. On the plan’s ¥520B it is a 60% margin, which after the ¥148B levy would leave ¥58B a year to run a 2,500-room resort for 20 million visitors.C (calculated)¹⁷⁴³³⁴ His case for more revenue is gamblers from Shanghai and Beijing, and the plan already counts 6 million foreign visitors a year.⁵⁰¹⁷ Grant the $2B anyway. MGM’s 43.5% is $870M a year; value it at 12 times, take off MGM’s share of the ¥530B of project debt, discount five years at 11% and subtract the ¥333.0B still owed, and Japan is worth about $13 a share, or $19 at 15 times.E (estimate) The $50 figure is about 16 times MGM’s 40% of his EBITDA, which works only with no project debt, no remaining funding and no discounting; his slides were not captured, so his method is unknown.⁷²⁵⁰ I give his management fee nothing because MGM has disclosed none, which leans against him.
3. Dubai is not an asset yet. MGM has a non-gaming agreement with Wasl Hospitality to manage hotels under its brands in Dubai and says it is encouraged by the UAE’s gaming regulator. It has disclosed no gaming license, and by Cowen’s own account someone else built the complex.³⁷²⁵⁰ $40 to $50 a share is $10.1B to $12.7B, more than MGM’s entire market value of $7.58B. I give Dubai zero in every case.
4. The existing business at $60 needs growth MGM has not shown. In my model, $60 a share for the businesses MGM already runs, with BetMGM at my base value, the excess cash counted and nothing for Osaka, needs profit before rent to grow 5.0% a year for ten years.E (estimate) It grew 0.9% a year from 2023 to 2025 and fell 4.8% from 2025 to the twelve months to September 2026.³⁷¹

What Suvretta saw that I take seriously: a well-informed holder with two board seats, which bought its first 59M shares at about $17 in 2020 and has added since, still owns 26.4% and says it remains open to a transaction.²⁴¹⁰²⁷ Osaka is the only certified casino resort in Japan, which allows at most three. If it beats its plan by a quarter at Marina Bay Sands’ margin, my bull case gives it $8 a share.

VIIIThe case for the price

What most people miss

MGM says the two sides agreed a price. Bill Hornbuckle, the CEO, said on the 28 October call that People and MGM’s special committee “came to terms on price”, and that People then could not assemble an investor group that met its aims.⁸³ He gave no number. Investors may still have balked at that price, and a price nobody funds is no floor. Diller said only that the mix was not coming together.¹⁰

BetMGM now sends cash the other way. MGM put in $75M across 2023 and 2024 and took out $135M in 2025. All of 2026’s $25M came in Q3, when BetMGM’s EBITDA rose 112%.^3728479

The Strip’s Q3 fall was mostly room price. The room rate fell 8%, while the chips players bought rose 5% and slot play rose 1%.⁷¹ Hornbuckle put airfares into Las Vegas about 45% above last summer. Jonathan Halkyard, the CFO, said October room rates look “a lot more like July”, when they were about flat.⁸³

The bull case

Barry Diller makes it from the inside. On 1 June his letter called MGM “a durable growth business not easily displaced by technology”.⁹ After withdrawing on 23 September he said, “What is undimmed is our belief in the future of MGM Resorts.”¹⁰

Halkyard made it with numbers on 28 October. At $28, take out MGM China at market and BetMGM at the analysts’ average, and the rest of MGM is valued at $4.1B, or 2.6 times profit after rent, with nothing for Osaka. He said Osaka alone “could easily exceed $4.1 billion”, which would make Las Vegas and the regional casinos free.⁸³⁸⁴ At $29.96 his sum gives about 3 times.C (calculated) Mine gives 3.8 times on $1.25B, partly because his $1.5B-plus leaves out MGM Digital and stock pay. Fertitta agreed to pay 7.8 times for Caesars.⁴⁵⁷

After the results, MarketBeat listed targets from Goldman’s $26 to Truist’s $40.⁸⁵ Aaron Cowen’s pitch, where this page began, said MGM could be worth $150.⁵⁰ Section VII tests it.

Against reality

The gap to my $38 is small. The price implies profit before rent growing 0.7% a year. My base needs 2%. On $4.32B that is $56M more in year one and about $630M more by year ten.C (calculated) If the Strip returns to 2% growth, MGM China does the same, BetMGM earns $300M and Osaka stays on plan, $38 is possible. All of it also needs Macau renewed in 2032. Without that my base is about $29.E (estimate)

Today’s numbers fall short. Profit before rent is down 1.1% a year since 2023. The Strip’s last four quarters averaged about $690M, close to the $700M my base needs over the next four.C (calculated) The trend is the problem: Q3 was $531M, down 12% and below my $650M warning line.⁷¹

$64 is further off. It needs 4% growth for five years, the Strip above its 2023 level of $3.19B by year four, BetMGM at $500M and Osaka 25% above plan. BetMGM and Osaka supply about $12 of the $26 between base and bull.E (estimate)

Repurchases help a little. MGM has $1.4B authorized, and Halkyard said it could take on some debt to use it.⁷²⁸³ At $29.96 that retires 18% of the shares and adds about $2 to my base.C (calculated) But two years of owner cash plus my spare cash, about $2.1B, is what Osaka still needs.E (estimate) So large repurchases mean more debt.

What they have to hit

Six published numbers decide it. The thresholds match the signposts in Section IX.

Where I come down

The agreed price moved me most, though I do not know the number. Halkyard’s Osaka figure did not: my bull reaches about $4.1B only before the $2.1B MGM still owes, and $1.95B after it.E (estimate) Two straight quarters of Strip profit up on the year at a normal table win rate, or an Osaka plan above ¥520B, would raise my values.

IXRisks, and what would change my view

Four risks matter most: fixed rent in a Las Vegas downturn, the 2032 Macau renewal, Osaka’s cost, and the tax tied to the sale-leasebacks. The table tracks each one with the rest.

Sources: MGM’s quarterly releases, the 10-K and 10-Q, the LVCVA, MGM China’s results, DICJ, the Osaka plan and Entain’s BetMGM updates.^{713537221807913361720}

MGM reported third-quarter results on 28 October 2026, as scheduled, and this page now carries them.⁵¹⁷¹ I graded them against the lines in the table above.

The Strip fell below my bear line. Strip profit before rent was $531M, down 12% from $601M, the quarter I had called an easy comparison, and below the $650M I set as a warning, even though tables kept 25.3% of the chips against 22.6% a year earlier.³⁵⁷¹ That is one quarter, and the Strip line carries my base case. Macau cleared my bull line. MGM China took a record 17.1% of the market, above my 16.5%, while its profit before rent fell 7% with the branding fee it pays MGM at $41M against $19M.⁷¹ Rent cover sat between my lines at 1.69 times outside Macau. BetMGM earned adjusted EBITDA of $86M in the quarter and $185M in nine months; it needs $115M in the fourth quarter to reach my $300M line. Buybacks: none in the quarter.⁷⁹⁷²

The thesis holds: a Las Vegas tenant whose value rests on Macau. Q3 moved the weight further toward Macau, from 84% to 87% of owner cash, and took my base value from $39 to $38. An 8-K filed the same day amended the voting agreement with People Inc. and Barry Diller: they agreed not to buy MGM shares that would take their stake above 29.9%.R (reported)⁷⁰

XThe ground under the signs

MGM’s Strip resorts stand on at least 518 acres. The only Strip land I can find that MGM owns is 1.62 acres, bought in 2023 for $54M.¹⁴⁵²

The rest belongs to MGM’s landlords. At the rates landlords have used for it, the real estate under the resorts is worth 3.3 to 4.7 times MGM’s market value, and almost none of it is MGM’s.C (calculated) A shareholder holds a tenant’s lease on that real estate. No hidden land bank sits on the balance sheet. This section shows the land, what it has sold for, what MGM kept and what the rest of the balance sheet leaves out, and it leaves my valuation where it was.

What is on the ground

Where the acres are

Acres are from the 2021 10-K and rooms from the 2025 10-K.

The south end of the Strip, May 2015Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur and MGM Grand are in this frame: 335 of the 518 acres MGM leases on the Strip.

Bellagio75 acres, 3,933 rooms. Landlord: Bellagio REIT Venture. MGM owns 5% of it.

Aria64 acres, 5,497 rooms with Vdara. Landlord: Blackstone funds.

MGM Grand102 acres, 6,488 rooms. Landlord: VICI.

Mandalay Bay124 acres, 4,750 rooms. Landlord: VICI. The least dense of the eight.

Luxor58 leased acres, 4,397 rooms. MGM sold 13 of the 15 acres it owned across the Strip in 2022 and donated the other 2 in 2026.⁵⁴⁶⁸

Park MGM21 acres, 2,898 rooms. Landlord: VICI. The densest of the eight.

The Cosmopolitan3,032 rooms. Landlord: Stonepeak, the Cherng Family Trust and BREIT. Acres not disclosed.

New York-New York23 acres including The Park, 2,024 rooms. Landlord: VICI.

Excalibur51 acres, 3,981 rooms. Landlord: VICI.

Borgata, Atlantic City46 acres, 2,727 rooms. Landlord: VICI, with part of the land on ground leases.

MGM National Harbor, Maryland23 acres, all ground-leased, 308 rooms. Landlord: VICI.

MGM runs 37,000 rooms on the Strip. Of those, 33,968 are in eight resorts with a disclosed acreage of 518, about 66 rooms an acre; the other 3,032 are The Cosmopolitan’s, whose acreage no filing gives.C (calculated)³¹⁴ The 518 acres exclude the Mirage, which MGM no longer runs, and the lot across from Luxor, which it sold or donated.

What MGM sold

At the end of 2011 MGM owned 673 acres on the Strip: nine resort sites and 81 acres of other land, among them 15 across from Luxor, 20 south of Mandalay Bay and 34 north of Circus Circus.⁵³ By 2018 six of its Strip resorts sat in its own REIT, MGM Growth Properties.¹⁶ By the end of 2021 it owned 15 acres on the Strip and held 230 more through the REIT and leased 226 from a venture the REIT half owned.¹⁴

The real estate went in pieces. MGM sold the land and buildings under Bellagio for $4.25B in 2019, under MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay for $4.6B in 2020 and under Aria and Vdara for $3.89B in 2021, and VICI bought the REIT in April 2022.¹⁴¹² The 15 acres across from Luxor followed in December 2022: 13 of them sold for $92.8M, $7.1M an acre.C (calculated)⁵⁴ MGM donated the other two acres to the Vegas Strong Fund for the 1 October memorial in 2026.⁶⁸ Five months later MGM paid $54M for 1.62 acres between Bellagio and The Cosmopolitan, $33M an acre.C (calculated)⁵² A 13-acre lot and a sliver that joins two resorts are different assets, and the prices say so: the sliver cost nearly five times as much an acre.C (calculated)

Who owns what

Four sets of landlords own the ground under the resorts. VICI owns Luxor, Excalibur, New York-New York, Park MGM, MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay. Funds managed by Blackstone bought Aria and Vdara in 2021. A venture of Blackstone’s BREIT, Realty Income and MGM owns Bellagio. A partnership of Stonepeak, the Cherng Family Trust and BREIT owns The Cosmopolitan.^314555657

MGM pays $3.6M to $3.7M a year for each acre at Bellagio and at Aria and Vdara, and $1.4M for each acre at MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay. Room density does not explain the gap: those two resorts hold 50 rooms an acre and Bellagio holds 52.C (calculated)³¹⁴

What an acre costs

Strip land has sold at three kinds of price. Vacant and lightly built tracts have sold or gone under contract for $4.0M to $12.5M an acre, which is $92 to $287 a square foot of land.C (calculated) Small corner and frontage parcels have gone for $33M to $40M an acre, $765 to $918 a square foot. Whole resorts, land and buildings together, have been priced at $24.5M to $68.0M an acre, $563 to $1,561 a square foot of land area.C (calculated)^{585554595260611462}

Apply the three vacant-tract prices to the 518 acres MGM leases. At the Echelon price the ground is worth $2.1B, at the price of the lot across from Luxor $3.7B and at the Riviera contract price $6.5B.C (calculated) The top of that range is 85% of MGM’s $7.58B market value.C (calculated)^8172585459

These prices give scale. I do not treat them as a valuation of the ground. A resort is worth more than its dirt because of the building and the casino license: Bellagio, Aria and the MGM Grand pair were priced at $24.5M to $68.0M an acre.^14625561 I do not apply corner-parcel prices to whole resorts, because a 100-acre site does not trade at the price of a two-acre corner.

What the landlords hold

MGM pays $1.8B a year of cash rent on all its leased real estate, which includes The Cosmopolitan and six regional casinos.³⁷² At the rates landlords have used for that real estate, the rent is worth $24.8B to $35.3B to a landlord.C (calculated)

The real estate under MGM’s signs is worth 3.3 to 4.7 times MGM, and MGM owns almost none of it.C (calculated)

The market already prices the obligation. MGM’s balance sheet carries $23.9B of lease liabilities, the discounted rent it has committed to pay, 3.2 times its market value.C (calculated)⁷² The landlords’ figures sit above that, which I read as the value of the years after the lease terms and of the land itself. Bellagio’s real estate was valued in 2023 at 20% above its 2019 sale price, and MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay’s at 20% above their 2020 price.C (calculated)^14625561 Those gains went to the landlords.

Could MGM own what it rents?

Take the two leases that have a 2023 price. Divide the reported rent by the rate each deal set, $276M by 5.1% for Bellagio and $322M by 5.6% for MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay, and the real estate costs $5.4B and $5.8B.C (calculated)^56625561 At MGM’s 5.8% cost of debt, interest on those prices is $648M a year against $598M of reported rent.C (calculated)³²

Owning would cost $50M a year more than renting in year one.C (calculated) Rent rises 2% a year and a fixed-rate loan does not, so after about four years the rent on the pair passes the interest.C (calculated) Getting there takes $11.2B of new debt, 1.5 times MGM’s market value, on top of the $5.7B MGM owes now.C (calculated)³⁷²

What MGM does own

MGM holds four pieces of real estate that I can find. The 2021 10-K shows a few acres at Detroit, Beau Rivage and Borgata that sit outside the VICI lease and does not say who holds them, so I leave them out.¹⁴

The first is the 1.62 acres between Bellagio and The Cosmopolitan, bought on 15 May 2023.⁵² Casino.org tied the purchase to Project Mojave, a plan for about 400,000 square feet of shops, restaurants and a club at Bellagio’s front door. The Review-Journal reported it at 397,180 square feet, filed with Clark County in June 2024.⁶³⁶⁴ In March 2025 Vital Vegas reported the project shelved, after Bellagio twice had it pulled from the Paradise town advisory board’s agenda.⁶⁵ I found no MGM statement on it, and the filings I read do not say whether MGM or Bellagio’s landlord would hold title to the addition.

The second is a 5% stake in the Bellagio landlord. In 2023 Realty Income paid $300M of common equity, with $650M of preferred equity beside it, for an indirect 21.9% interest in Bellagio’s real estate. That puts the property’s equity at about $2.05B after $3.01B of debt, which matches the $5.1B Realty Income put on it, and MGM’s 5% at about $103M.C (calculated)⁵⁶⁶²³

The third is about 1.1% of VICI’s operating partnership, as VICI reports it, roughly 11.8M units worth $289M at VICI’s close in Q4 2026.C (calculated)^55667882 At the end of 2025, when VICI closed at $28.12, 11.8M units were worth about $332M,C (calculated) and MGM’s own filing implies about $350M.³⁶⁶

The fourth is 56 acres next to Empire City in Yonkers. The 2021 10-K says MGM owns them and keeps them for development, and the 2025 10-K says VICI holds a right of first offer on gaming development there; MGM withdrew its New York casino license application in 2025.¹⁴³ I found no price for the land. Each $1M an acre is $0.22 a share.C (calculated)

What MGM owns comes to $1.76 a share in my base, before tax, 6% of the price.E (estimate)

I leave it out of my cases. The 10-K books $2.23B of deferred tax on equity securities, $8.81 a share, and says that if MGM stops guaranteeing its landlords’ debt it would recognize gains on the Bellagio and VICI stakes, which may be significant.³ My Financials section does not deduct that tax, because its trigger is the guarantees lapsing. Counting the stakes and leaving out the tax would be one-sided, so I count neither. Against $2.23B of deferred tax, stakes worth about $0.39B cannot be counted as free cash. The parcel alone, $0.21 a share, is too small to move a $38 base.

What is built and what is not

MGM does not report how many square feet its resorts cover, so I cannot show unused floor area directly. The 2025 10-K gives rooms and casino floor, and the 2021 10-K gives acres. Together they show where the land is lightly used.³¹⁴

Park MGM holds 138 rooms an acre and Mandalay Bay 38, a spread of 3.6 times.C (calculated)³¹⁴ The acres include parking, pools and convention space, so a low count is not a vacant lot, and I do not claim that any of it is idle.

The only unbuilt Strip land I can source is the 1.62 acres, and the only floor area proposed for it is the 397,180 square feet of Project Mojave, which Vital Vegas reports shelved.⁶⁴⁶⁵ Away from the Strip sit Empire City’s 56 acres. When a landlord pays for a building on its own land, it charges rent on the money: VICI put $400M into the Venetian in 2024 at a 7.25% yield.⁵⁵ That is the price of building on someone else’s ground, and it is above the 5.1% to 5.6% that landlords accepted on finished resorts in 2023.C (calculated)⁵⁶⁶¹

What is not real estate

The table separates what my cases already count from what they leave out.

The first five lines are the parts of MGM that the price and my cases both cover: Macau, the branding fee, BetMGM, Osaka and the cash. The valuation section sets each out. MGM Rewards crossed 50 million members in April 2025, but no filing and no deal puts a price on the database, so I give it nothing.⁶⁷ Dubai is an agreement to manage hotels under MGM’s brands, with no gaming license, and I give it zero in every case.³

What this changes

Nothing in my valuation. The cases stand at $5, $38 and $64. The real estate under MGM’s resorts, land and buildings together, is worth more than MGM at landlords’ rates and sits with the landlords, whose marks on two of the leases rose 20% within four years.C (calculated)^14625561 What MGM kept is worth about $1.76 a share before a tax bill larger than the stakes.E (estimate)

Four things would change this section: a filing that discloses Strip land MGM still owns beyond the 1.62 acres; a price for the Empire City land; a building at the Bellagio entrance that sits on MGM’s books; and a landlord that funds MGM’s development at a yield below 7.25%.⁵⁵