The Best Dividend Stock to Buy Now and Hold Forever

You don't need me to tell you that this market is incredibly volatile. Whole indexes are up one day and down just as much the next. Your entire portfolio can move violently based on a single social media post by the president.

It's no wonder at all that investors are looking for stability. It's obvious if you've taken a look at the price of gold lately. It's up 51% over the past 12 months and 148% over the past five years. Silver's move has been even wilder -- it's up 128% over the past year and 191% over the past five.

If you're looking for stability in this market, precious metals are certainly one option. But their prices are already extremely high relative to where they were just a year or two ago.

There's also the difficulty of trading in physical assets, and the fact that you need to eventually sell your gold and silver to get your return from them.

However, dividend stocks, like VICI Properties (NYSE: VICI), offer comparable stability to precious metals combined with the ease of holding stock. At just shy of $30 per share at the time of writing, VICI is much less expensive up front than an ounce of gold or silver.

If you use a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP), a dividend portfolio can snowball into a serious cash-generating machine, and you don't need to sell your shares to make a return on your investment.

Image source: Getty Images.

Render unto Caesar

The house always wins, so the old saying goes. It doesn't matter how lucky your streak is, the casino that owns the poker table or the slot machine you're sitting at is going to be the biggest winner of the night.

Well, to quote another old saying, if you can't beat them, join them.

VICI quite literally owns the house. It's a gambling-focused real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns many major casinos on the Vegas Strip, like Caesars Palace and The Venetian Resort, It also owns dozens of other casinos and experimental non-gambling properties, and a handful of golf courses in 26 states and one Canadian province.

It rents those properties to 13 entertainment companies, including Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR) and MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM), which are its two largest tenants and boast a 100% occupancy rate.

Based on the company's balance sheet, literally being the house that always wins seems to be working out pretty well for VICI.

Winner winner, chicken dinner

For 2025, VICI grew its revenue 4.1% to $4 billion, and its adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) per share grew 5.1%. The company also maintains a 70.3% net profit margin and has a healthy debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63 right now.

As a REIT, VICI must pay out at least 90% of its taxable income to shareholders as a dividend. At present, that dividend yields 6.19%, and the company has raised that dividend for eight years in a row. The latest increase was 4%, which came in third-quarter 2025.

Plus, VICI has a fairly low payout ratio for a REIT -- 67.62% -- so it has plenty of room to continue growing that dividend for many years to come.

VICI has a high yield, stable revenue and AFFO growth, high profit margins, low debt, and a commitment to growing its dividend. That sounds like a winner, and a stock to buy and hold in the long run, to me.

The house always wins, so why not let that house give you a bit of shelter in a turbulent market as well? With all the dramatic moves across the board, VICI is up just 1.46% this year, and it has oscillated between $26 and $30 since January. That's nice, stable, and profitable.

So, if you can't beat the house, consider joining it as a shareholder.

James Hires has positions in Vici Properties. The Motley Fool recommends Vici Properties. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.