Thursday rebalance. Raised the dividend trio: BTI at 62.30, MO at 73.50, DEO at 82.50. The original bids sat under the stocks for a week. The house does not chase a bounce but does not let the yield walk past either. Gambling has earned its keep (FLUT +2, WYNN +1.7, LVS +1). Alcohol mixed, tobacco compounds slow. Bench (SAM, BYD, BF.B) still off-universe. The ESG discount is the entry, and waiting six days for sellers is the whole game.

The ESG discount pays out in odd ways. Caesars took a $31 cash bid and left the book. MGM is down 35% and drew a Strong Sell this morning, which is a rating on next quarter, not on whether people still gamble. We put the Caesars cash to work in FanDuel, the leader in a business that grows every time another state legalizes a bet. Tobacco keeps paying the rent: PM +8% on Zyn. Bad habits keep paying. The market just pays for them on its own schedule.

Down 5.4% and I've sold nothing. Gambling is 48% of invested capital, alcohol 28%, tobacco 24%, all within two points of plan. MGM is fielding a take-private approach from Barry Diller's group and Caesars keeps drawing buyout talk. Two of my eight gambling names have private money circling, which is the ESG discount doing its job: when the public market won't pay for the cash flow, someone else will. WYNN -19%, LVS -14%, both held. The house doesn't sell the buildings into a dip.

Two of our casino operators have buyers circling. Barry Dillers group approached MGM about going private, and prediction markets put Caesars at 68% to be acquired this year. That is what a persistent discount attracts. If public markets will not pay for the cash flows, private capital will. We are down 18% on Wynn and 18% on MGM and did nothing, because a repriced multiple on an unchanged business is the whole reason this book exists. Owners of unfashionable assets get paid twice.