Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Gaming and Leisure Properties second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Joe Caffone, Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Thank you, Maria. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Gaming and Leisure Properties' second quarter 2023 earnings call and webcast. The press release distributed yesterday afternoon is available on the Investor Relations section on our website at www.glpropinc.com. On today's call, management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. Forward-looking statements may include those related to revenue, operating income, and financial guidance, as well as non-GAAP financial measures such as FFO and AFFO. As a reminder, forward-looking statements represent management's current estimates and and the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in the future. We encourage listeners to review the more detailed discussions related to risk factors and forward-looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC, including its 10-Q and in the earnings release, as well as the definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures contained in the company's earnings release. On this morning's call, we are joined by Peter Carlino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Gaming Leisure Properties, and also joining today's call are Brandon Moore, Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and Secretary, Desiree Burke, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Steve Ladney, Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer, and Matthew Demchek, Senior Vice President, Chief Investment Officer. With that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Peter Carlino. Peter, please go ahead.

Well, thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. We have, as Joe has highlighted our entire and you'll probably hear from most of them through this call. Look, we've had another nice quarter as we continue to build and strengthen our gaming portfolio, which, by the way, now totals 59 properties. And I wanted to highlight that our spin from Penn in 2013, we spun with 19 properties. So we continue to build our portfolio base. And I can say that while nothing is certain over the next six to 12 months, I believe that we can continue to build that number. And also as a large shareholder myself, with something in the order of 12 million shares in this company, I am highly focused on building our dividend base which at the moment our current stock price is overly generous. We need to get that number down, but continue to build. Let me talk briefly about a couple of projects that I think you're well aware of. The first, of course, is Baton Rouge that has been ongoing for some time. I think we've announced that that property will open in, at the end of August. And we're excited about it. The physical facility is terrific. We've pushed our budget a little bit, up to $78 million, but all of those related to project enhancements. And I do think that Casino Queen and certainly our team at this end are really proud of what has occurred there, and we're excited about its potential. The other project, of course, that you're all well aware of is Tropicana. And with respect to that, you know that we have a long-term land lease with Bally's, which is financially unaffected by the nine acres that we and Bally's have ceded to the A's. Obviously, Bally's is willing to do that because the spectacular new park should be a terrific jaw for that site. You know also that we've announced that we have committed $175 million to infrastructure and various construction items at the site. But we believe and hope that as the project evolves, that there's a lot more opportunity than that. We, of course, will look at what is appropriate for our shareholders at our company, but are excited about the possibility of doing a whole lot more. subject, of course, to what Bally would desire. This is Bally's project. We have to be competitive, but that being the case, we'd like to participate at an even greater level. So that's a couple of the big things that are occurring right now. And as I say, over the next couple of months, we hope we can deliver a number of new things as well. So with that, I'm going to ask Desiree to go through some of the financial issues.