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Well Oli, someone appears to have lit the blue-touchpaper here on Guy Fawkes Day - up from $2.50 last Friday to a high of $2.95, so far today. Moving the NAV premium to 40-odd per cent. Plus, the big off-market buyers seem happy to follow, with yesterday's purchase of 100,000 shares at $2.74 from the block-listing, which is reassuring.

The only logical explanation, that I can imagine, is that one or two of MNTN's unlisted investments have IPO'd with spectacular success in the US. Unless MNTN announces this, I can see no way to check this out. Have you, or any other reader, got any bright ideas?

IMHO, Canchat, this signifies there are more buyers than sellers of RCP. Probably because it is a beautifully managed investment trust. More complicated than most to value because only 50% of its' investments are in publicly quoted companies, but, if you have faith in management's considerable abilities, then it has proved a very profitable investment in the medium to long term.

Proved by the fact that today it has hit a new all-time high - £27.40. I bought in years ago on the basis that if it's good enough for the Rothschilds, then it'll probably do alright by me. It has.

MGM were quite coy about the results for the Entain JV in their 3rd Q update last night. Their accounts merely revealed a $40 million loss for the quarter, but this, of course, is after the short-term extraordinary expenses needed to pay for setting up and marketing in new states where online betting is newly legalised, which they didn't disclose.

Later in the telephone chat with analysts (I can't find the full record yet) there are press reports (Skift.com) that the CEO said the JV has shown a, pre-extraordinary costs, trading profit rising from $200million YTD in 2020 to $800 million this year and that he expects that to rise over $1 billion in 2022. Good news for ENT.

They expect to be the 2nd largest online sports bookmaker in the US, with a target overall market share of 25%. Right now this varies enormously from state to state.

Another straw in the wind; the CEO confirmed that MGM is moving to "an asset-light model" by both selling surplus casinos and raising large amounts of cash from sale-and-leaseback deals on it's retained properties to institutional investors. Some months ago they sold a big chunk of their property company to produce over $4 billion, on closing in March. Last night they said they're selling down their shareholding again to just 1% to release another $4 billion, likely to close in 2Q '22. These properties are highly mortgaged, but there will be substantial equity left after debt repayments..

Which makes me wonder whether they might come back with a serious bid for ENT later next year, and then imitate Caesars by selling off the non-US assets? The more actual results we get from NFL betting turnover, the bigger the price they'll eventually have to pay.

Cukkas, If only you & I could go out for a beer. I agree with you that, due to the JV paperwork, MGM seems the only realistic bidder, but they're riddled with debt thanks to the Eldorado takeover. I'm not an accountant, but I do understand debt and property companies and MGM recently sold the freehold of several casinos. This deal closes next March and will then give them over $4 billion in net cash. Whether that gives them enough cash to mount an acceptable bid, via a highly leveraged cash & shares offer, who knows?. I'll get a copy of MGM's accounts and see if I can understand them.

Ah, Fan Duel - now that should be very interesting. The new CEO is in place and seems a competent, well-qualified, woman. Thus, we can reasonably expect a small float of, say, 5% of the equity in New York in 2022, unless, of course, the board change their mind. A small float should keep the issue price high, due to strong investor demand, but I very much doubt they'll be capitalised at 17 times "the handle" as Draft King currently is. Given that US bookies/casinos generally make a net profit of c.7% on turnover, the idea that any sane market will value $7 of net revenue at $1,700 is surely nuts?

DKNG, of course, is presently unprofitable, the market is new, somewhat unpredictable, and growing fast, so potty valuations are to be expected from over-ambitious PI's (Witness DWAC), but quite how potty DKNG's current price is, is difficult to say. Just this week I was looking at New Jersey's official numbers for last month; NJ has seen an 83% increase this September in the total amount wagered compared to Sept. 2020 and the annual total wagered to date is up 150% in 2021 at $557 million, compared to $223 million to the same date last year. You only have to factor in three or four more years of 100+% increases in turnover and suddenly $7 of net revenue on just $400 of SP becomes a lot more believable. That's the reason I'm a convinced optimist that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get in close to the ground floor, on a lift that is, I hope, going to the penthouse suite.

Maybe. Maybe not, but so far the ride is profitable and very enjoyable. You never know, some financial outfit, like Apollo, with the firepower to bid cash for FLTR, might well decide in 2 to 4 years time, once the mature size of the market is much more accurately defined, to take a run at the steady cash-flow. Likewise, they might very well not. It's a gamble, but one in which the odds favour us. I like that.

And Caesar's will be giving their 3rd Q results the same day at c.9.30 pm, Cukkas, so we should get a good picture of two of the four biggest US online bookies, covering the first month of the NFL season. A long day, hopefully very worthwhile and long-term profitable.

BTW, now that Draft Kings have done a runner today, I reckon that Entain is a good medium-term buying opportunity, if the SP goes under £20. MGM are saying they now have only 12% of the online market. So, with the Big 3 having between 19 -27% each, I see MGM's online operations as a surefire takeover target for one of them, looking to consolidate, which means a buyer needs ENT onside as well.

Great question, OliG. This trust has been at a 20+% premium since inception, but over time it has consistently increased the NAV to catch up with the purchase price, so to speak.

A 42% gain in the first almost-fully-invested FY ended 31.01.21. Then another 11% for the 1/2 year to 31.07. Now another 15% gain between 31.07 and last week. That's over 70% in less than 2 years. Quite phenomenal numbers.

I bought on 20th May, when the premium was about 25% and now the NAV is greater than my May PP. Clearly common sense dictates that one day the NAV has to catch up with the SP, either through a lack of NAV growth, or through PI's moving off to buy another better-perceived winner. The question, though, is, when will this happen?

I have a high appetite for risk and running profits and for periodically recycling paper profits. In May, I sold half a 3-year-old holding in FUTR that had risen from £3.50 to £25 (definitely the best purchase of my life in speed terms) and ploughed the profits into MNTN, which has since risen from $1.89 to $2.52, so I am "playing with profits" which greatly lessens the stress level.

Can BG continue to generate enormous profits across their stable of funds & IT's? Well, Anthony Bolton managed it for more than 20 years, but it seems to take a rare and particular discipline, lacking in 99% of fund managers, to succeed for so long. As we saw recently with Woodford, once he lost his watchdogs at Investco. Somebody famous described the market as "climbing a wall of worry". We all research, then dive in and worry until there's a paper profit margin of, say 25%, when the worrying goes away - at least I do.

Going on the principle of "Faint heart never won fair lady", my answer to your question is "Yes, it is a steep premium", but based on management's track record, both here and elsewhere (SMT), a new shareholder today would have a far better than average chance of making a good profit. Please remember though that I am regularly wrong!

Let's check back with each other next March?

Well M22 & S81, with the SP at £21 and the DK offer maybe at £28, Mr. Market is definitely either saying there won't be a formal offer on Friday, or, if there is, it won't get over the line.

Frankly, I really don't give a monkeys. It's the SP in 2023 and after that's important to us PI's. Why? Because the news out of the US continues to be gold-plated and full of great promise for future profits;

Two items I picked up this w/e from official monthly reports; Gross turnover ('the handle') across the US in calendar 2020 was $21.5 billion for all bookmakers. The handle this year through 31st August nationally was a fraction under $30 billion for just 8 months. Strongly suggesting a year-end total of $45 to $50 billion, or an increase of over 100% in turnover and gross profitability.

In New Jersey, an already well-established market, the profitability for August increased from $40 million to $52m (+31%), from a handle of $664m. Giving an 8-month total handle so far of $6.08 billion. This compares with a total 2019 YTD handle of $2.5 billion (Ignoring 2020, although it was bigger than '19, because of sports shut-downs due to Covid). Like the national market, this state is up over 100%.

So the growth of the US sports-betting market is still on steroids and I reckon the only reason DK, or MGM, is sniffing is in the hope of stealing a real bargain for Entain's 50% share of the JV.

And I'll join you, Falkland Investor! I fear their fund performances are slipping and the market is wising up to this. But, just in case Schroder's has a rush of blood to the head, please advise your chosen date and I'll bring a paparazzo along too.

Many thanks for posting this, Marcel. I make no pretence to know how all this will shake out, except for knowing that US owners of casinos, who teamed up with UK bookies, are astonished by the growth in their SportsBook market. Legitimising the previously mafia-led nationwide market, plus the ubiquity of smartphone technology to facilitate betting, has led to an industry that is growing like Jack's beanstalk.

Past experience of very fast-growing new industries in open markets strongly suggests that battles over market-share will lead to rapid consolidation, which means the take-over of the smaller competitors. Apparently, in the early 1920's, there were some 3,000 manufacturers of cars and trucks in the US and by 1960 there were effectively just three. GM being the best example of a consolidator of competitors.

This means lots of takeovers, which hopefully means lots of profits for us PI's. Might we even see Entain make a bid for MGM and sell off the casinos !?!

You know, Amica, there are lots of strong, long-term, holders of FUTR regularly checking the price here and keeping an eye on the news, so there is actually a very large interest imo. Many years ago, my Ma told me that "empty vessels make the most sound" and since I began reading stock-comment websites, I noticed that worthless stocks, quoted at 1p, or less, attract dozens, sometimes hundreds, of comments daily.

They're usually in companies that are hoping to mine for minerals, or drill for oil, in some godforsaken part of the planet, where there's little, or zero, infrastructure to get the product out, in any worthwhile quantity, anytime before the Second Coming of JC. But the commentators there dream about "ten-baggers", presumably because they can get a holding of half-a-million shares for <£5,000 and imagine that when 1p goes to £5, they'll be rich. At least this is the only theory I can advance to explain why those sites are so popular. Walter Mitty is alive and well and living in the obscurer corners of LSE.

Whereas in the more realistic sites, we invest in management that has proven their ability to make profits and move the Sp upwards. We don't need to tell each other how clever we are, or otherwise shout from the rooftops. We simply run our profits, cut our losses and keep looking for the next opportunity. Right now, we're patiently waiting here for the results, which should be announced in early November.

I only checked in today to see if there's a public reason why the SP jumped a quid at the opening, but there's no obvious explanation. It's a lovely share and there seems no reason for it to stop growing until Zillah controls every magazine on the planet . Fingers crossed!

Hello Cukkas. Well, what a fun afternoon and morning we're having! The ENT bid is now £28 and presumably rising as competitors (Leon Black's Apollo?) arrive. The reason yesterday that I suggested a Caesar's buyer might want to sell the US Casinos & Hotels is because the corporate debt level is high and these bricks & mortar casinos require a shed-load of cash to build and maintain. The MGM hotel in Macau alone costing over $1 billion to build. But you make a good argument for holding onto them.

Don't worry about missing out on ENT. Caesars & FLTR have a long way to go yet. I backed all three UK bookies in 2018 in the hope that one would do me proud by cleaning up in the US. So far all of them are doing well. Hills was a real disappointment when the board caved in to the first bidder, but a quick transfer into CZR at $69 has proved equally profitable. I reckon it will be c.2025 before we see the real size of the US SportsBet market and by then today's SP's will look laughably historic. Possibly sooner.

Whats the betting that Apollo "will let it be known" that they're slide-ruling an increased offer, only to disappoint us for the umpty-third time and go home early, still a virgin in the UK takeover market.

I've been ruminating on your questions for weeks, Cukkas, and can't come up with any potential bidders who wouldn't immediately run into problems with the UK Competition & Markets Authority.

However, I've come up with a wacky idea: FLTR is capitalised at £25 billion and has the #1 position in the US market at roughly 25%. Caesars has the #2 position at roughly 18% and is capped at £16 billion, but that includes a raft of bricks & mortar casinos. What if FLTR successfully bid for CZR and then sold off the casinos? Leaving it with over 40% of the US sports betting and online casino gambling market?

The US competition authorities are notoriously slower to act than the UK. Just an idle thought on a damp Tuesday.

The good results RNS from last week makes for sobering reading in small part. Two of MNTN's US investments IPO'd this year. My eyes were caught by the notes that both were locked-in;

Research reveals that Oscar Health debuted on 3rd April at $39, opening at $36. Itself not a good sign. On May 13th when it had already sunk down to $23.14, it reported a quarterly loss of $87 million - almost twice the estimate forecast 6 weeks earlier. The downhill slide has continued to Friday's close of $18.21.

Zymergen floated on 22nd April at $31 and topped out at $52 at month-end. All quiet in the $25 to $45 range until 4th August when disaster struck in the form of a profits warning, which saw it bottom at $7.85. Currently $14.04c. The company now expects no revenue this year and "immaterial revenue" in 2022. The CEO took a powder. MNTN is locked-in until 19th October. How many of the original investors will bail-out soon thereafter?

I'm a keen follower of BG, who have made me enormous profits over the past few years in several trusts, but these two 2021 disasters show just how difficult it is to completely avoid ever getting egg all over your face, even with all the resources of a major fund manager. From a trading perspective, I'll be interested to see how BG react. We PI's are famous for running our losses and cutting our profits. Will BG toss the pair out 100% and move on? I know I would. Slapped wrists all round, then look for something better.

The good news, of course, is that these purchases are the rare exception and the NAV continues to rise gracefully, but it made for a sobering weekend to realise how easily even the experts can get hit for 25% and 50% losses, within 4 months, compared to the opening day price. It's impossible to know that MNTN' purchase prices were - hopefully much less than the issue prices.

MNTC was already almost 17% invested at July 31st.

Mr. BB, this appears to be a well run company and, as a holder of several other bookmaker/gambling plc's in the UK & US, I've been watching it for some time.

I agree with your opinion that we can expect consolidation in the sector during this decade, but I don't believe ENT, or FLTR, will bid, for the same reason that I've not bought any shares; The accounts disclose that 25% of turnover is earned in unregulated markets. Those two words are an anathema to directors of UK plc's for two principal reasons;

1. If the country concerned ever decides to regulate, you could get regulated out of existence and lose up to 100% of your asset.

2. Unregulated markets are wide-open to the suspicion of money-laundering and no institutional investor wants to be exposed to an investment that just might be guilty, in some associated, accidental and distant way, of helping the money launderers. ENT had this problem in Turkey, and has hopefully got rid of it.

It might be that one of the few, very large, non-public UK bookmakers is less concerned with these amber flags and would pay cash, but I doubt that either of the two plc's you mention are interested. For the future, I think is would be a sign of the Israelis wanting to sell-out, if they ever take serious steps to sell their unregulated subsidiaries, or otherwise substantially reduce the unregulated revenue percentage.

It was good to see the company starting to charge the institutions over two bucks each for their daily 100,000 new shares last week, and even better, today they were charged $2.15 for 100,000.

The open market trades may be quite small in total, but total trading is now over 100k per day and the pros are willing to pay top dollar to support the price. I wonder what deals are being cooked up and when we will get to hear about them?

Incidentally, thank you to "LSE" for cleaning up the Share Price Page. Not perfect yet, but much, more more accurate.

Thank you, Arsenal (That's the first time I've ever said that!). I didn't watch the investor presentation, but knowing now that I own a share with a possible near-future value of £25 to £100 gladdens my avaricious heart. If you prove to be more accurate that I am, and the SP goes over £62.50, then I shall (maybe) even murmur "Good Luck" to the Gunners at the start of the following Prem season!

Incidentally, I did watch a little of the IP this am, and the lady CEO looks a smart, tough cookie. I get the feeling she's far more interested in building a world-wide major business than selling out to the boys from Lost Wages for a pile of cash. Isn't it fun to back a winner?

I was initially disappointed with ENT's very coy revelations about the half-year in the US, until the very last sentence which is, imho, a real Full Monty. The CEO says she expects the online betting and gaming market in the US will be worth $32 billion once the set-up expenses are paid for. ENT currently has 21% of the betting and 30% of the iGaming market for 25% overall.

25% of $32b = $8b or £5.8 billion. That compares with the current market cap for ENT of £11.5b. She forecasts a minimum EBITDA of £850 million for the full year, which will include minimal profits from the US. Using a factor of 10 to value those non-US earnings = £8.5 billion. Add in the future value of the US, £5.8b = £14.3 billion or £24.40 per share.

Now this is a very rough and ready calculation, but it does suggest there's plenty to play for here. And it leaves me wondering whether this market value forecast is setting out a marker for MGM, or anybody else, who's thinking of a T/O bid, that you better open your offer at £24.50 and we'll see who wants to better it, or else forget it.

The FT sets out five reasons why the SP is currently undervalued and makes it a takeover target:

https://www.ft.com/content/4583e2bb-e215-4ce4-a711-abe346f8285b

Small wonder the SP is up over 7% this morning. Fan Duel is now 50% bigger than Draft Kings in the US.

Last Friday, FD upped it's forecast year end revenue to between $1.21 to $1.29 billion. FLTR today forecasts $1.8 to $2.0 billion. Says it has 45% of the online sports betting market and 31% of the overall online gambling market.

The level of detail in this report is far greater than normally revealed and, imho, most useful to all of us who are anticipating a medium-term 'multi-bagger' from the UK bookies foray into the deregulating US. Fingers crossed!

They anticipate being cash-flow positive in sports by the end of 2023 based on the current market size, but warn that if any of California, Florida or Texas legalise before 2024, then that will require a further massive investment out of profits elsewhere, delaying cash for the PI's. Do I care? Not likely. The bigger the market gets, the greater the eventual profits for us.

Onward to Thursday and Entain's half-year results.