{"id":915246,"date":"2026-05-09T11:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/?p=915246"},"modified":"2026-05-09T11:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:48:12","slug":"war-wynn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/war-wynn\/","title":{"rendered":"War & Wynn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So far, Wynn Resorts<\/strong> has been unscathed by chaotic situation in the Persian Gulf<\/strong> and the Straits of Hormuz<\/strong>. Until now. Last week, Wynn bowed to the inevitable and postponed the opening of Wynn Al Marjan<\/strong> (pictured<\/em>), its Mideast pleasure palace. Building a casino megaresort in the middle of a war isn’t for the foolhardy. To try and open one during hostilities would reek of hubris or insanity. Meantime, Wynn is going to double down on Macao<\/strong>, which is rarely a bad idea. It has slated construction of The Enclave<\/strong>, a 432-room hotel adjunct to Wynn Palace<\/strong>. The $950 million project should be ready by the end of 2028, or at least in time for Chinese New Year soon afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In its 1Q26 results, Wynn handily beat Wall Street<\/strong>‘s expectations in key properties. For instance, Jefferies Equity Research<\/strong> expected $616 million in revenue and $211 million cash flow from Wynncore<\/strong>. The resort delivered $661 million and $232 million respectively. In Macao, Jefferies projected $551 million revenue and $168 million cash flow from Wynn Palace. It got $609 million and $180 million. Wynn Macau<\/strong>, however, was a big-ass miss, delivering $329 million in revenue and $75 million of cash flow where $373 million and $115 million had been anticipated. A narrower miss happened at Encore Boston Harbor<\/strong>. Jefferies thought it would do $209 million of revenue and $56 million in cash flow. $205 million and $50 million happened. Bad weather was blamed, as was newly aggressive competition from New Hampshire<\/strong>, next door.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Rendering of Wynn Al Marjan Island – Exterior view from beach<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Getting back to Al Marjan, Wynn has a veritable army on site, some 22,000 workers strong. Management allowed as there have some logisitical challenges (we bet!) but that it was coping. Mused Deutsche Bank<\/strong> analyst Steven Pizzella<\/strong>, Wynn “believes they will find ways to accelerate tourism … management believes the market will continue to be one of the most desirable destinations in the world for [high-net worth] individuals. Overall, we continue to remain\u00a0bullish\u00a0on the development longer term, though might just have to be a little more patient for the opening and for the property to reach maturity.<\/em>” In other words, Wynn’s not losing sleep and neither is The Street. It will, however, cost a bit more, as shipping in that world has\u2014no surprise\u2014gotten rather more expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the home front, CEO Craig Billings<\/strong> tap-danced elaborately<\/a> around the question of the 160 undeveloped acres Wynn holds on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>. \u201cThe reality is there\u2019s a time and a place to consider expansion here, and that is based on the market and other things we have going on<\/em>.” Which is a fancy of saying maybe but probably not. “The last two significant openings did not drive visitation to Las Vegas and happened to be share takers in order to drive their business. That\u2019s something to pay attention to<\/em>.\u201d Good points. Wynn doesn’t want another Fontainebleau<\/strong> on its hands. \u00a0\u201cWe will expand in Las Vegas<\/strong> eventually, but when that is we will see. We will get there when we get there<\/em>.\u201d In other words, don’t hold your breath.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

For shame.<\/strong> The disgrace of Atlantic City<\/strong> is its new assemblywoman, Maureen Rowan<\/strong> (D, above<\/em>). She wasted no time in pushing her constituents under the bus … or sacrificing them on the altar of Big Gaming. Rowan is backing a bullshit, bipartisan “compromise”<\/a> that would preserve smoking in casinos for time immemorial. Other legislative malefactors are state Sen. John Burzichelli<\/strong> (D) and state Sen. Michael Testa<\/strong> (R). It’s unclear what the casinos would be giving, as the new bill would enshrine smoking across 25% of all gambling floors. Meaning that customers will still have to breathe smoke and that working in a casino is slightly more dangerous to your health than playing Russian roulette would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The endgame, though, is clear. Big Gaming and its legislative errand boys are angling to keep the smoking clientele, which is the last tranche of players upon whom Atlantic City can count. Now that New York City<\/strong> is going Class III, smoking-enabled casinos are so last century. But there’s a high co-morbid correlation between tobacco addiction and gambling, two behaviors that reinforce one another, and the industry is cynically looking to milk it for everything it’s worth. Bally’s Corp.<\/strong> gave the game away a couple of years back when it said smokers (10% of the populace) accounted for 25% of gambling revenue. Think about that statistic. If smokers are that hooked on gambling (and vice versa), who’s going to want to let them go. As we’ve said before, dead employees are just “the cost of doing business.”<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Quote of the Day: <\/strong>\u201cThe head of the CFTC, quite frankly, is a joke. He believes somehow that what he\u2019s doing is Uber<\/strong> and the rest of the country is the taxicab industry. That\u2019s not the case. He\u2019s not facilitating something that\u2019s a public good. A federal regulator charged with regulating derivatives around agricultural contracts should not be engaged in it.\u201d\u2014American Gaming Association<\/strong> President Bill Miller<\/strong>, on the job performance<\/a> of Commodity Futures Trading Commission<\/strong> czar Michael Selig<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So far, Wynn Resorts has been unscathed by chaotic situation in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz. Until now. Last week, Wynn bowed to the inevitable and postponed the opening of Wynn Al Marjan (pictured), its Mideast pleasure palace. Building a casino megaresort in the middle of a war isn’t for the foolhardy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83928,"featured_media":853369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1728],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Wynn_Al_Marjan_Island_View_of_island-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1457&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83928"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":915251,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915246\/revisions\/915251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}