Golden Entertainment, Inc.

financial measures, and talking about our performance. You can find the reconciliation of GAAP financial measures in our press release, which is available on our website. We'll start the call with Charles reviewing details of recent results and a business update. Following that, Blake and Charles will take your questions. Thank you for your patience, and with that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Charles Pertel. Charles, please go ahead.

Thanks, Jim. Our strong performance continued in the second quarter with record revenue of $292 million and record EBITDA of $91 million. Second quarter EBITDA was over 50% higher than our previous record EBITDA achieved in the first quarter and over 80% higher than Q1 of 2019. These results were driven by significant growth across the entire portfolio, from our Las Vegas script asset to our local taverns, and we still see room for improvement. Given the shutdowns during last April and May, performance comparisons to the second quarter of 2020 are not really relevant. So I will provide comparisons to our second quarter of 2019 results as indicators of the momentum in our business. In Q2, the Strat generated its highest ever quarterly EBITDA, over double what we did in Q1 and up 45% in Q2 of 2019. The Strat generated by 1,100 basis points, over Q2 and 19, this was achieved at occupancy levels of just 70% for the quarter, compared to the property's historical occupancy of about 90%. Weekend occupancy and rate are equally incomparable periods in 2019, and midweek business is improving. Our $110 million investment, completed in January of 2020, is helping us capture more of our guest's wallet and we are earning a significantly higher ROI than we expected. We also anticipate the property's performance will improve as midweek business increases with the return of citywide conventions and international visitors. Our two Las Vegas locals casinos also continue to outperform historical results, with Q2 EBITDA increasing 124% compared to Q2 of 2019. Our locals EBITDA margin improved to over 1%. 2,300 basis points to 55% for the quarter, continuing our margin expansion since reopening. Even with the strength of our two locals' properties, we are still missing some of our rated players, who we expect to return this year. We are also seeing continued increases in out-of-state enrollments for our Players Club, which reinforces long-term Las Vegas population growth as an ongoing driver of the locals' market. In Laughlin, EBITDA improved by 47 percent compared to Q2 of 2019, with margins over 50 percent. Our 12,000-seat outdoor Laughlin Event Center is a major driver of visitation, but it wasn't even open in Q2 given the restrictions on large events. However, we have six concerts currently scheduled in the fall that are expected to drive additional traffic to our Laughlin properties. For our Pahrump casinos, EBITDA improved more than 100 base 100% compared to Q2 of 2019, while margin expanded by 1,900 basis points. Overall, we operate with an EBITDA margin of over 50% in Pahrump. And in Maryland, our Rocky Gap Casino improved EBITDA by 55% from Q2 of 2019, while expanding margin by over 1,000 basis points to 39%. Looking at our casinos in total, EBITDA was up 64% compared to Q2 of 2019, and EBITDA margin improved by almost 1,600 basis points to 46%. Given that we have yet to see full occupancy return to the Strat or Laughlin, and we are still missing some of our rated players, we see sustainable and potential improved performance to our casino operations in the future. Turning to our distributed gaming operations, in Nevada, EBITDA improved over 86% from Q2 of 19, and margins were up 650 basis points. All of our distributed locations, from gas stations to supermarkets, demonstrated strong performance in line with our casino operations, but our 66 wholly-owned taverns really outperformed, reflecting the benefit of our streamlined cost structure combined with meaningful revenue increases. Now, that only went to 100% capacity on June 1st, so we haven't yet seen the full potential for our taverns. In addition, we are currently seeing out-of-town enrollment for our player's guard in some taverns up 10x over historical levels. Our Montana distributed operations showed the same strength as the rest of our businesses, growing EBITDA by 61% from Q2 2019. So this was really a quarter with absolutely no weakness in any of our operations, and that strength continued in July. Moving to our balance sheet. In Q2, we repaid over 50 million in debt, including 47 million of our outstanding term loan borrowings. We ended the quarter with plenty of liquidity, with 153 million of cash on hand, and no outstandings on our $200 million revolver. In July, our liquidity improved further after receiving a $60 million cash payment from Caesars Entertainment related to their purchase of our sports wagering partner, William Hill. We appreciate our longstanding relationship with William Hill and look forward to their continued operation of the sportsbooks in our Nevada casinos. Currently, our total debt outstanding consists primarily of $725 million of term loans and $375 million of unsecured notes. including the cash received from Caesars, our pro forma cash balance is $213 million, which puts our LPM net leverage at approximately 3.8 times. So our balance sheet is in very good place to start evaluating options to return capital to our shareholders. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. Blake and I are now available for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from David Bain with B. Riley. Your line is open.