Caesars Entertainment, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Caesars Entertainment Inc. first quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1-1 again to remove yourself from the queue. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Brian Agnew, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance, Treasury, and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jonathan, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Welcome to our conference call to discuss our first quarter 2024 earnings. This afternoon, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the period ended March 31st, 2024. A copy of the press release is available in the investor relations section of our website at investor.caesars.com. As usual, joining me on the call today are Tom Riege, our CEO, Anthony Carano, our president and COO, Brett Yonker, our CFO, Eric Heschen, president of Caesar Sports and Online Gaming, and my colleague, Charisse Crumbly, in investor relations. Before I turn the call over to Anthony... I would like to remind you that during today's conference call, we may make certain forward-looking statements under safe harbor federal securities laws, and these statements may or may not come true. Also, during today's call, the company may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by SEC Regulation G. Please visit our press releases located on our investor relations website for a reconciliation of the differences between each non-GAAP financial measure and the comparable GAAP financial measure. I will now turn the call over to Anthony.

Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. During the first quarter, consolidated net revenues of $2.7 billion declined 1%, and total adjusted EBITDA of $853 million declined 10% year over year. We faced several transitory issues during the quarter, including low table holds in our Las Vegas segment and inclement winter weather in our regional segment, plus a loss on the launch of sports betting in North Carolina. Despite these transitory issues, there were several bright spots during the quarter, including record Q1 occupancy in Las Vegas driven by strong visitation, 23% OSB net gaming revenue growth, and 54% iCasino net gaming revenue growth in our digital segment, and sequential improvement in operating results in our regional segment each month during Q1. Despite the holes related headwinds in Las Vegas during the quarter, our Las Vegas segment delivered $440 million of adjusted EBITDA, which is the second best Q1 on record. Occupancy in Q1 reached 97.6%, a new Q1 record, which also drove a record for Q1 cash hotel and food and beverage revenues during the quarter. In our regional segment in Q1, we delivered $433 million of adjusted EBITDA, down 3% versus last year, driven by unfavorable winter weather during the first six weeks of the quarter. Regional trends improved each month throughout the quarter, with March delivering positive revenue and EBITDA growth. Similar to prior quarters, outside of the negative weather impacts, we continue to face new competition in a few markets and construction disruption in New Orleans, which was partially offset by our new temporary facilities in Danville, Virginia and Columbus, Nebraska. Turning to CapEx, in 2024, we will finish several construction projects that we expect to generate strong returns and will complete an elevated CapEx cycle for the company. The permanent facility in Columbus, Nebraska will open on May 13th. Construction in New Orleans should finish by Labor Day, and the permanent facility in Danville is expected to open by year end. All three of these projects will deliver strong returns on capital to drive growth in our regional segments. I want to thank all of our team members for their hard work so far in 2024. Our strong results are a reflection of their dedication to delivering exceptional guest service. With that, I will now turn the call over to Eric Hession for some insights on the first quarter performance in our digital segment.