{"id":23555,"date":"2019-02-18T11:27:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T19:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=23555"},"modified":"2022-08-24T07:35:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T15:35:47","slug":"mgm-beats-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/mgm-beats-the-street\/","title":{"rendered":"MGM beats The Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

MGM Resorts International<\/strong> says it is no longer going to give Wall Street<\/strong> forward guidance on earnings. Why not? It beat its own forecasts by 3% on the Las Vegas Strip<\/strong>, \"\"4% in its regional properties and 8% in all-important Macao<\/strong>. Analyst Cameron McKnight<\/strong> of Credit Suisse<\/strong> wrote that management “sounded cautious on the 1Q and 1H, given cost inflation, reduced Chinese visitation and a more uncertain leisure customer. That said, the outlook for convention attendance is strong, non-gaming revenue growth should remain solid, and MGM noted full year Vegas estimates ‘seem reasonable.'” JP Morgan<\/strong>‘s Joseph Greff<\/strong> stayed on positive on the stock, noting “reasonably good operating fundamentals in the U.S. (both LV Strip and regionals),” among other reasons.<\/p>\n

There’s an interesting detail lodged deep within the number-crunching of Greff’s price target: While he values most of MGM’s major assets at 10.5X-11X cash flow, MGM Springfield<\/strong> is only 8X, down there with Circus Circus. That’s pretty damning for a new trophy property. Thanks to an insurance recovery\u00a0at Mandalay Bay<\/strong> of $24 million, MGM reported $401 million in cash flow on the Strip, easily beating Wall Street’s $366 million consensus. Strip room revenues were up 1.5%, slot handle 7% and table wagering 11%. Troubled MGM Cotai<\/strong> had a much-improved, $52 million return on investment, more than double it projection. So why the long face, Mr. Murren?<\/p>\n

*\u00a0The fix is not in. International sports-integrity body ESSA<\/strong> had only report of suspicious wagering in the sweet science last year. By contrast, e-sports was put on \"\"report seven times and–dominating all other disciplines–tennis generated 178 reports, more than half the total. Who’da thought, especially in a sport that tolerates the tanking of matches? Europe<\/strong> is a hotbed of suspect activity, led by Spain<\/strong> and Italy<\/strong>. Americans shouldn’t gloat, though. ESSA is just getting around to monitoring us. Said its secretary general, Khalid Ali<\/strong>,\u00a0\u201cOne of the biggest concerns of the betting market opening up in the U.S. is integrity; as a result, we assisted the establishment of the Sports Wagering Integrity Monitoring Association<\/strong>, our American equivalent, with whom we will work closely to combat sports betting related corruption on a global basis.\u201d What’s the cleanest sport? Well, nobody filed a suspicious-betting report on cricket. We might have to retire the saying that “It’s just not cricket,” old boy.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Rhode Island<\/strong> got one step closer to mobile sports wagering as the enabling legislation passed out of the state Senate. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor<\/a> of the technology, with only four dissenting voices. The only “skins” would belong to the Twin River<\/strong>-branded casinos in Tiverton<\/strong> and Lincoln<\/strong>. The tiny state already offers bread-and-butter sports betting, so if the mobile-wagering bill passes out of the Lege it will only make Rhode Island that much more competitive. Barring a negative vote in the House, the bill is considered a cinch for Gov. Gina Raimondo<\/strong>‘s signature, given that she has already baked the projected revenue ($3 million) into her 2019\/20 budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MGM Resorts International says it is no longer going to give Wall Street forward guidance on earnings. Why not? It beat its own forecasts by 3% on the Las Vegas Strip, 4% in its regional properties and 8% in all-important … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,37,62,112,245,33,141,74,243,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31582,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23555\/revisions\/31582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}