MGM Resorts International

Good afternoon, and welcome to the MGM Resorts International first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining the call from the company today are Bill Hornbuckle, Chief Executive Officer and President, Corey Sanders, Chief Operating Officer, Jonathan Halkyard, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Hubert Wang, President and Chief Operating Officer of MGM China, and Andrew Chapman, Director of Investor Relations. Participants are in a listen-only mode. After the company's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. In fairness to all participants, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please note, this conference is being recorded. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Andrew Chapman. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and welcome to the MGM Resorts International first quarter 2022 earnings call. This call is being broadcast live on the Internet at investors.mgmresorts.com. We've also furnished our press release on Form 8K to the SEC. On this call, we will make forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated in these statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements is contained in today's press release and in our periodic filings with the SEC. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or otherwise. During this call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures and talking about our performance. You can find the reconciliation of the GAAP financial measures in our press release and investor presentation, which are available on our website. Finally, this presentation is being recorded. I will now turn it over to Bill Hornbuckle.

Thank you, Andrew, and good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today. I'd like to begin today's call by once again thanking our employees at MGM Resorts for the determination, agility, perseverance, and commitment to excellence that helped fuel another strong quarter for our company. We were challenged in January by the Omicron variant, but pivoted quickly into recovery mode, leading to multiple all-time EBIT dollar records at several of our Las Vegas and regional properties in March. These results showcase the strength of our talented team across the country, our focus on operational efficiency, and the continued strong demand for the service and experience we provide at MGM Resorts. Today, I want to acknowledge and thank our employees again for all that they do every day to take care of our guests and each other. As a company, we remain laser-focused on our strategic plan and our long-term vision to be the world's premier gaming entertainment company, As a reminder, our strategic plan consists of the following four priorities. Investing in our people and our planet, providing unique experiences to our guests by leveraging data-driven customer insights and digital capabilities, delivering operational excellence at every level, and allocating our capital responsibly to yield the highest return for our shareholders. Over the last several quarters, we've discussed the meaningful steps we've taken to simplify our corporate structure, and monetize our real estate assets to meaningfully bolster our domestic cash transition. We reached another important milestone in this journey, Friday, April 29th, when we closed the strategic transaction with MGM Growth Properties in Vichy. I'd like to thank James Stewart, Andy Chen, and the board and employees of MGP for all the support and for the great relationship we have built over the years. Our transaction with Vichy allowed us to fully deconsolidate MGP from our financial reporting, and it also meant that it was approximately 4.4 billion cash, which we will use to invest in our core business, will also lead to meaningful growth opportunities. One such opportunity is our announcement today of the tender for Leo Vegas. Our success with BetMGM United States gives us more conviction than ever about the potential for digital gaming and our ability to grow share in the exciting new marketplace. And with this conviction, we're expanding internationally with the team at Leo Vegas. Its strong technology platform and pipeline for growth present a compelling opportunity for our business to grow online. We'd like to thank the management team at Leo Vegas for the professionalism and support throughout the process, and we look forward to working with that team when the deal closes in the second half of this year. Another opportunity that we're quite excited about is the pursuit of a commercial gaming license in New York. The recently enacted fiscal year 23 budget includes provisions that will allow the issuance of up to three new licenses in the state. We'd like to thank Governor Hochul and the New York legislature for getting this important issue across the finish line. We're eager to begin the RFA process and share our vision for the future of the property in Yonkers, where if we receive a license, we plan to replace the existing VLTs with slot machines and add table games to our existing casino floor and construct new amenities on portions of our 97-acre site. Again, we're excited by this opportunity and look forward to investing this discipline in New York to create new jobs and foster economic growth in the region. Turning to our Las Vegas growth strategy, we made solid progress towards our acquisition of the operations of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and are on track to close this quarter. The Cosmopolitan is an iconic brand of the loyal and complimentary customer base that will further enhance our Las Vegas Strip portfolio. We've met with key leaders at the Cosmopolitan over the last weeks and months and are impressed by the quality of their team as well as the culture and the brand that they have built. We look forward to welcoming all the co-stars of the Cosmopolitan to MGM Resorts and adding this existing property to our portfolio. We've also made progress on the sale of the operations of the Mirage to Hard Rock International, which we announced last year. We are working closely with regulators to ensure a smooth transition and expect this transaction to close in the second half of this year. Shifting to our international growth strategy, last week we submitted our area development plan to the government of Japan with our partners at Oryx and the city of Osaka. This is the final milestone before a license decision will be made hopefully in October of this year. We continue to work closely with the national government to obtain a license that will be hopefully awarded later this year. and bring a fully integrated resort into Japan. In the UAE, we continue to make progress in beginning the MGM brand family to Dubai, where we have a management agreement for an integrated resort being developed in partnership with WASL. The project has broken ground in the development process, and we remain diligent for opportunities to bring the MGM brand to other locales around the world. During the BED MGM, we are now live in 23 markets with New York, Illinois, Louisiana, in Puerto Rico coming online in the first quarter, and Ontario launching in early April. In February, BetMGM commended the 24% market share in active markets in both U.S. sports betting and iGaming, which put us in the number one position nationwide. BetMGM is the clear leader in iGaming, having reached 28% market share in February. The BetMGM management team will be able to provide more color on results and the strategy at their investor meeting on Thursday, May 12th. Finally, I'd like to spend a few minutes on our organic growth strategy. On February 1, we relaunched our loyalty program as MGM Rewards with the goal to, quote, target high-value non-gaming customers in addition to gaming customers, increase cross-property patronage and tier progression while motivating benefits, and further activate that MGM customers at our properties. We've seen solid results since the launch of MGM Rewards in Q1, particularly as it relates to our omni-channel growth strategy with BetMGM. In the first quarter, 57% of our MGM Rewards enrollments came via BetMGM, driven by the Super Bowl, compared to 39% for the full year in 21. We've committed to our strategy of building loyalty between our different channels and ultimately creating a seamless experience for our customers to play both online and in person. Before I turn this over to Jonathan, I'd like to hit a few highlights of our current trends and our future outlook. In Las Vegas, we maintained strong margins in the first quarter, a reflection of the sustainable operating learnings implemented from the pandemic. Strong weekend occupancies and ADR were driven by a robust event calendar, and we see that trend continuing into the second quarter. For the midweek, our occupancy is still behind 19, but an improving mix of business, and a growing group base will allow us to ramp in the remainder of the year. We continue to expect our convention room nights to reach 90% of 2019 levels in the back half of 2022. Importantly, we are seeing increased spend levels for our groups year to date, including catering and banquets. And to spotlight our international leisure trends, we're beginning to see positive indicators of the return of international flight capacity. In fact, by this summer, The LBCBA expects international flight capacity to return to 80% of pre-pandemic levels. Further highlight events in Las Vegas, we were honored to host the Grammys at MGM Grand Garden. We welcomed the BTS Army to our properties for four sold-out shows at Legion Stadium. This past weekend, we also hosted the NFL Draft, which activated the entire Las Vegas Strip. We also have big sporting events coming. the nc2a men's basketball regionals on tap for march of next year along with the first of a kind only one race in the las vegas strip in november of 23 and of course we'll host the super bowl in february of 24. all of these big events show the incredible progress the city has made as an entertainment and sports destination looking to our regional properties we had a very strong first quarter with competitive margins to 2021 and we are focused on driving strong rated gaming revenues by using our database with the highest value players. Finally, I want to touch briefly on our operations in Macau. We continue to see headwinds in the short term with public health policies impacting the ability for customers to enter Macau. Despite this, our 13% market share is higher than we have seen historically, and our properties are well positioned to capture premium mass business as volumes begin to return. Concession renewal process is underway, and we remain confident in the government's judicious and fair approach to this process. Macau is an important part of our future, and we will continue to work with the government to ultimately get our license renewed. We look forward to further promoting the long-term development of Macau's gaming industry and supporting the government's tourism and diversification goals for the region. With that, I'll turn it over to Jonathan to discuss the details of the quarter.

Thanks very much, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to echo Bill's words by thanking the entire MGM Resorts team for their professionalism and resiliency in the face of an ever-changing operating environment. I'd also like to thank the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas team for their support as we plan for closing, and I look forward to welcoming the co-stars into the MGM Resorts family this quarter. Now let's spend a few minutes on our first quarter results in some detail. Our consolidated first quarter net revenues were $2.9 billion and our net loss attributable to MGM Resorts was $18 million, a significant improvement when compared to net revenues of $1.6 billion and a net loss of $332 million in the first quarter of 2021. Our first quarter Las Vegas Strip net revenues were $1.7 billion and adjusted property EBITDA for the Strip was $594 million. Net revenues were down 1% on a same-store basis due to 343,000 fewer occupied rooms, nearly all in January. However, same-store adjusted property EBITDA of $472 million was up 21% versus the first quarter of 2019, demonstrating our broad-based margin improvement. First quarter occupancy was 78% but it was a different story each month of the quarter. The Omicron impact was significant in January, during which occupancy was 65%. We recovered to an occupancy of 78% in February and finished the quarter with occupancy of 90% in March. The strength continued into April, where we saw an occupancy of 92% on the stretch. Despite the pandemic impact, ADR in the first quarter was $197, or $184 on a same store basis, which was a dollar above the first quarter of 2019. And same store excludes ARIA and Vidaria in 2022. Again, a different story each month for ADR. ADR had a similar cadence as occupancy, down 11% versus the first quarter of 19 in January, then up 4% in February, and up 9% in March, driven by strong weekend demand. Simultaneous increases in volume and pricing improved our financial performance dramatically as we went through the quarter. Las Vegas Strip margins were 36% for the quarter and 35% on the same store basis, an improvement of over 600 basis points versus 2019 on the same store basis. We have the blueprint in place to sustain margins well above 2019 levels to our cost efficiency efforts and operating leverage. As Bill mentioned, together with robust group demand, there's exciting programming in the second quarter that will drive increased leisure business in Las Vegas and support occupancies in the low 90s. Our first quarter regional net revenues were $891 million an increase of 11% versus the first quarter of 2019. We delivered regional adjusted property EBITDA of $313 million, which was 48% above 2019. Our regional casino business was quite strong despite the typical seasonality in the business during the first quarter. Our casino revenues improved 23% versus the first quarter of 2019. Our first quarter regional margin of 35%, grew 882 basis points versus 2019. Promotional expenses in the regional markets are stable and a few points below 2019 levels. Room nights were down in the first quarter due in part to staffing challenges, but that situation is improving nicely this quarter. Moving to Macau, net revenues of $268 million in the first quarter represent a 9% decrease compared to the first quarter of 2021. Adjusted property EBITDA was a loss of $26 million in the first quarter versus a positive $5 million in the prior year quarter. Now, the current quarter also included a charge of $18 million related to litigation reserves. We're confident in Macau that our product offering, in our product offering, and we believe that once demand returns, we're very well positioned to grow, particularly in our premium mass and mass segments. Turning to BetMGM, our 50% of BetMGM's losses in the first quarter amounted to $92 million, which is reported as part of the unconsolidated affiliates line of our adjusted EBITDA calculation. This was driven largely by the initial investment in New York, but we expect these losses to narrow in the upcoming quarters. The growth story for BetMGM is a key pillar in our long-term strategic plans. connecting that MGM with MGM Rewards allows us to develop a strong omnichannel link with our customers that will optimize our guest experience both online and in person. Our first quarter corporate expense, including share-based compensation, was $111 million, which included $9 million of transaction costs. We're strategically investing our corporate expense in growth areas, including improvements to our IT infrastructure, enhancing our digital offerings and our IR efforts in Japan. And before we wrap up our prepared remarks, I would like once again to reiterate our approach to capital allocation. First, we'll maintain a strong balance sheet with adequate liquidity. Second, we'll invest where we have clear advantages, exercising prudence in measuring prospective returns for our shareholders. And finally, we'll return cash to shareholders. And I think our actions thus far this year amply demonstrate our priorities in allocating capital. We had the closure on Friday of our strategic transactions with Beachy and realized $4.4 billion in proceeds for MGM, bolstering our liquidity and strengthening our balance sheet. This quarter, we announced or will close two strategic growth investments to augment our digital and Las Vegas market position, Leo Vegas and the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Finally, during the first quarter, we repurchased 23.3 million shares for $1 billion. In April, we repurchased another 6.2 million shares. So since the beginning of 2021, we've repurchased 72.7 million shares for approximately $3 billion, or 19% of our market capitalization. This activity brings our share count down to about 425 million shares. With that, I'll turn it back to Bill for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Jonathan. We've made solid progress as a company coming out of the pandemic, and our operating model is the strongest that it's ever been. I'd like to again thank all of our team members for their commitment and dedication to MGM Resorts. We'd not be in the position we are today without all of their hard work. Obviously, we are looking forward to the rest of 22 and beyond with confidence and feel our best days are yet to come. With that, operator, I'll turn it over and take questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. As a reminder, in all fairness, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. The first question will come from Joe Gref with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're well. Bill, Jonathan, I want to ask you from where you sit how you view your typical consumer and how they're maybe behaving both in Las Vegas and regionals. Are you starting to see any slowdown given, you know, obviously what's out there? in terms of higher gas prices, higher interest rates, an equity market that hasn't really done well this year? And is that translating at all into any kind of pushback on hotel pricing, food and beverage pricing, particularly on the Strip? Any pushback on maybe out-year kind of group bookings? And then are you rethinking maybe how you're pricing hotel and S&B products?

Thanks, Joe. Look, I think generally the answer is we have not seen any of that yet. We've seen, obviously, a tremendous amount of strength in March. April has continued. I think maybe Corey is probably best suited to answer some of this, and maybe Jonathan can finish it up. But, Corey, if you want to.

Sure, Joe. We're not seeing anything, any change in customer behavior. Pricing power is still strong. Food and beverage revenues are breaking records. So we're not seeing it.

Great. And then I know it's relatively small or very small, Leo Vegas. Can you talk about how that fits with your joint venture? And then can you just talk about that company's exposure maybe to presently gray markets? And would you expect that business to maybe see a trend change in revenue trajectory as some of those gray markets tend to

uh transition into uh legitimate more developed markets sure joe let me let me take that one the first thing i want to start by just stressing um our partnership within kane as relates particularly to bed mgm and what we've accomplished has never been better i think you know we've finally really caught stride you can see that in some of our numbers and our market shares we're excited for the next launch that the guys will go through and define some of the product that's becoming our way. And you'll hear a whole lot more about that on Investor Day on May 12th. As it relates to Entain specifically, we tried a year ago, as you know, to buy them. And I don't think a whole lot has changed. You've probably watched the basis of their shares and our shares kind of go hand in hand. And we said then, and I'm going to repeat now, We need and want to diversify the revenues in this company. We absolutely thought the space was the right space, and we did the BetMGM deal. It's now been double validated by that, particularly the iGaming segment, which Leo Vegas is extremely strong in. And so we made our move. To your point, it's not the world's largest acquisition. It's bite-sized. It does, though, give us exposure to nine global markets that we don't currently have. We love that team. You know, what they've been able to accomplish over the last 11 years. They've had in the last five years 16% compounded growth year over year. And so the team has been great. Gustav and all he's been able to accomplish. The tech is great. The platform sits out on the cloud. So all the technology we looked at, I can assure you, we looked at a lot. It's first class. And we're going to get about 150 employees. There's several hundred of them who are technologists, something our company can desperately use and need, not only obviously for this effort, but potentially for other things long-term in the company. And so for us, all good things. As it relates to markets, about 75% of their current markets are in regulated markets. There are a few, and only but a few, that are single-digit that we will close down. because of our vet MGM, New Jersey being one of them. I think they, I don't think I know, they had 1% share in New Jersey market last month. So I don't see any of it as considered any kind of real hurdle to get through. And they have demonstrated, and we know, because we have growth potential within that organization, that there are other things to go out and capture. I think this last quarter would demonstrate when others potentially have struggled. They, again, had a great quarter. I think they just reported this morning 14 million euros EBITDA, which is about a 35% gain over the first quarter of last year. So couldn't be more excited by the transition, even more so by the team and the ultimate technology. And just the opportunity I think it provides this longer term is pretty exciting for us.

Great. Thank you.

The next question is from Carlos Santorelli from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Jonathan, maybe this one's best suited for you, but as you think about kind of the current kind of outlook for Las Vegas, and you guys provided some color on the group stuff, clearly Las Vegas has had seasonality over the years. But as you think about the balance of 2022 and obviously the challenging January with the variant spike and everything else that came with it, with group business coming back, Is it kind of – do you get the sense that maybe the market could just build quarter by quarter as we move through the year? And secondly, I did just want to revert back to something you guys said a couple quarters ago, is that when the group business returned, it would be a slight hindrance to margins but greater EBITDA dollars. As the cost structure sits today, I'm assuming you still feel pretty confident that that's what you'll see.

Yeah, thanks. Let me take those two questions in turn. First of all, as the year unfolds, we do see the group business continue to build. In particular, the second quarter will be very strong for our group business, and that's because our team was able to rebook many of the group customers that canceled back in January into the second quarter. So, all that being said, our business as we've grown it, we've diversified our revenue streams, it's not as seasonal as you might think. That through our event strategy and through our marketing strategy, we've been able to really, I think, drive levels of business across the year that really keep our properties running at an optimal level. But the group business, of course, was down in the early part of the year, but we've seen it continue to grow and it'll exit the year at about 90% of 2019 levels. As far as the margin dynamic you described, yes, clearly as we bring back that important segment of the business, it's going to drive additional EBITDA. And depending upon the types of groups that we get, it may have a slight diminishing effect on the margins. The margins this quarter are really interesting stories. You know, in Las Vegas, we reported about 36% EBITDA margins for the quarter. But those started out in the low 30s and ended in the low 40s as we drove that additional occupancy. So generally speaking, occupancy is really good for margins in our business.

Understood. Thank you very much.

The next question is from David Katz from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about Leo Vegas a little bit, just having sued on it through the day. It looks as though it has an inherent CAGR growth rate the way it is, but are you able to change the brand? Does MGM sort of wind up sort of on the shingle in some way. What do you need to accelerate that from? I think it's a 16% CAGR that's in some of the information out there. And where's the ceiling for this? What's the long-term vision for it?

David, I think we see it as a vehicle to continue to grow globally. And it's a great starting spot because we, again, fundamentally liked the foundation of the company, both in management and technology, particularly in iGaming. Leo Vegas in Sweden, they have a dominant share. They're over 35% in the Nordics. Well, 50% of the market's from the Nordics, and in Sweden in particular, they have a dominant share. So that's of interest to us. They will use our, well, they, we, ultimately, if we are able to get this through, will use our brands, MGM, Bellagio, and others, because obviously it will be our company. And one of the things that kept them restrained was capital. And obviously, given the balance sheet, given our desires and our aspirations in this space, they won't be capital restrained in the near term. And it's something that we hope to have them lean into, and we're happy to help with that. You know, we'll be cautious about it. We'll be, as always, wanting to understand growth and regulatory environments and all things that are out there. But again, we've seen them demonstrate their ability to grow both organically and with acquisition. And we have a couple targets in mind with them to continue to grow that we think makes us a bigger piece of the pie for us and ultimately puts us on the map.

David, if I could add one thing to that as well, is that while we're very proud of the progress we've made on our share repurchases over just over a year, We've repurchased 19% of the market cap of the company, and that was an important part of the asset-light strategy. But this allocation of capital to a company like Leo Vegas and perhaps follow-on investment into that platform with other M&A opportunities is exactly also the type of allocation of capital that we had in mind when we set about this strategy to put it towards digital gaming, higher growth, verticals and a platform where we could extend our brand internationally. So it really does complement our capital allocation strategy.

Understood. And if I can just follow up quickly regarding Vegas, and I think you touched on this from a few different perspectives, but as the mix rolls into April and the mix changes and we start getting more convention and midweek stuff back, what happens to ADR and you know, as we sort of roll through the year. Any thoughts about that would be helpful.

Yeah, David, it's Corey. What the convention business will do is it will help us in our midweek ADR, which we've had a little bit less pricing power. With that business, that will allow us to yield up those rates. Our casino base continues to be strong, and we don't see that business displacing that. To the contrary, we'll displace the lower-end package business before we do any of the casino business.

So up is the answer, more or less.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Sean Kelly from Bank of America.

Thank you very much. Jonathan, I just wanted to start with, Margins, you gave an interesting trajectory there, just how the quarter unfolded as related to the growth and improvement in occupancy. Any reason that we should be more cautious as we sort of move through the year relative to what you delivered in the March timeframe? I think one thing you've highlighted in the past is a little bit around mix shift, but as gaming remains pretty strong so far, just maybe help us think about puts and takes on Las Vegas margins.

Yeah, I mean, performance, it's almost impossible to overstate just how strong our performance was in March. This company was firing on all cylinders, and it was held certainly by a very strong event calendar in the month. So, revenue levels, two-way property, and margins in the Vegas market in that regions were very strong because of that. Going forward, there's no meaningful changes to the cost structure that we're going to see as we go through the year. The strength that we're seeing in group demand and what that means for rates, particularly in midweek, will be healthy for margins. The casino business has been particularly strong. As we've said on prior calls, we do in our business planning expect some of that spend to normalize. over the year, and to the extent that happens, that could be a take on our margin levels. But like I said in the call, we're certainly comfortable with margin levels being sustained in Las Vegas that are well above those that we delivered in 2019, and we certainly did that in the first quarter.

And, Sean, Bill, maybe just a little out of color because I can't help myself. So in January, in the midst of Omicron, we're in the low 60s. Las Vegas margin was still 31%. By the time March rolled around and we reacted to the business, that improved 1,000 basis points in March. Led by, and this is another thing I'll brag on them because I'm proud of this for the team and the company particularly, Bellagio did, and we don't normally give these, but I can't help myself, Bellagio did $8.4 million in EBITDA in March. Don't go times 12 now. Having said that, It just shows the strength and, you know, here's a property 22 years into its history at an all-time month. And a lot of it was helped by margin. When you're doing 41% margin, it just helps.

Thank you for the color. And then, you know, just as a follow-up, sort of a similar question, but on capital allocation this time. Obviously, I think the number given was 6.2 million shares repurchased in April. You kept a very strong pace as we looked through Q1. And of course, there was, I think, a little bit of a repurchase or a tender offer there by a single shareholder. So can you just help us think about programmatic versus opportunistic as we think about the buyback pace going forward, obviously a ton of cash on the door. So, you know, maybe just help investors think about, you know, the balance of the year and continuing some buyback in addition to all the other things you're able to invest in.

Yeah, we, you know, in just over a year, we've done just over $3 billion of share repurchases. I think it's fair to say that this is a bit ahead of the pace that we might have predicted last year. And it's because we've been opportunistic with opportunities the market presented in terms of the pricing of our shares, which we believe are undervalued. That being said, we now have largely come to the conclusion of the asset monetization strategy that we set out with the closure of the Vici MGP transaction last week, and we have before us a number of interesting M&A opportunities and other growth projects. Bill mentioned two of them, New York and, of course, Leo Vegas, in our prepared remarks. So, you know, we're going to keep powder dry to be able to jump on those opportunities as they present themselves. So I think it's fair to say that our pace of share repurchases might be lower as we go through the balance of the year. But again, a lot of it is driven by opportunities the market provides us.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Thomas Allen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So one of your comments earlier piqued my interest that this Leo Vegas acquisition was going to be essentially a platform for other deals. Can you just talk about that a little bit more? I mean, I think Leo Vegas has the reputation of being really an iGaming first platform. I know they use Canby for the sports betting part of their business. Are you interested in potentially buying a sports betting platform? What other opportunities do you think you see in the digital space? Thank you.

Clearly to us, I think as the industry continues to expand, whether you talk about Africa, South America, Brazil, other places, We will continue to look at that through that vehicle. There are other like-minded acquisitions of scale in Europe that still exist, particularly Eastern Europe that potentially exist. And so look, recognizing it's a bite-sized and mid-sized opportunity for us, the goal of buying it wasn't to keep it there. We've talked about diversifying revenue and ultimately cash flow. It's going to take some volume to do that. And so this is our start into that genre. And we like that team from an acquisition perspective. They've got the right mindset. And again, we like the way they think about the business. We like the way they market the business. Their margins have been good. Had it not been for reinvestment in the business, it would have been great. And so we'll use that. I don't know about tomorrow, but I can expect very soon, once we get through this transition and transaction, we'll be back and looking at how to grow that business both organically and through acquisition. All right.

And then on the bed MGM side, I think last quarter you talked about having about $450 million losses this year. Do you think that that's still a fair estimate? And then, um, how, like what are your latest thoughts on the competitive environment on, on the revenue environment for, for the us sports thing? And I give them this, like,

Look, first answer is yes. Second one is I don't want to take Adam's thunder. If you tune in May 12th, Investor Day, they've got several hours of it, but generally good from where we sit. We love what we see. We understand the noise around it all, but we're seeing through it, particularly with iGaming. And so I think Adam and that team, Matt and company, will dig into it in some great detail, Joe.

Thank you very much. Thanks.

The next question is from Robin Farley from UBS. Please go ahead.

Great. Yeah, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what kind of returns you may be targeting in New York?

Well, look, you know, arguably as we know to date, the opening bid, and this is obviously an RFP process, is $500 million for license. We know the tax is currently set at an opening minimum of $10 and $25, which is favorable. It's kind of interesting. We're talking about a half a billion dollar license fee is favorable. It's the highest in the history of industry by 5x. Having said that, we like where the governor went with it. We like the opportunity it creates. We had hoped to invest up to a couple of billion the first round, phase one. put us into the table games business to expand some of the amenities, to put a much-needed parking garage there, to put an entertainment facility there, and potentially some other things we think that will attract the kind of market that's available to us, both in the neighborhoods and the surrounding areas. Like all of our stuff, we target mid-teens and beyond, and this wouldn't be any different. And so I think that's a good way to think about it.

Okay, great. Thanks. Can you talk a little bit about LeoVegas, the tech capabilities, and how that compares to what you have in the U.S.?

Look, I would say the key differentiator there is it's cloud-based, and therefore when you talk about expansion and scalability, and you talk about the ability to bifurcate the front end from the back end, it presents that fairly easily. And so... We're not running around having to deal with a bunch of hardware. We're not running around having to deal with code base that goes back a decade or so. And so it enables us to be quick and scale quickly. It's probably the principal two differentiators. And then they've demonstrated an ability through in-house game studios and others to have a casino business that's meaningful. Obviously, we'd like to think, and we've seen this through BetMGM, when we put our brand on things, it works. It works exceptionally well. some of the best games at MGM or MGM branded games. And so we intend to do the same and grow that business from there. And then I think the last thing and the thing that's noteworthy both here and there is live dealer. It's a space and a place we want to continue to push into. This will give us one of the vehicles to do that. And if you think about it and you all understand some of the valuations in the industry when it relates to live dealer providers, at our core, It's our stores that represent what they do. If we can't do this in a fun and compelling and exciting way, then shame on us. So we think there's a great opportunity to do that as well. And, again, Vegas' backbone and background enables us to do exactly that kind of offering.

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

The next question is from Dan Pulitzer with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. So I just wanted to hit one more on Las Vegas. Can you talk maybe about the booking trends across the different properties in your portfolio in terms of luxury versus core? Is there any discernible differences in bookings just given the volatility in airfares and fuel prices?

Dan, this is Corey. We're not seeing anything different that we would have seen in the past. I mean, luxury properties obviously don't have any challenges. Midweek, when you don't have convention business in, the legacy properties have probably a little bit more of a pricing challenge, but that's very similar to what we saw pre-COVID.

Got it. And then just actually on the regionals, I think in the deck you mentioned that staffing is expected to continue to ramp, but the margins in this business have been, you know, pretty remarkable in that mid-30s range. I mean, as we think about, you know, you continue to ramp, bring back non-gaming amenities, maybe, you know, the labor and cost inflation that's out there, how should we think about the cadence of the margin structure for the regionals business over time? Is, you know, this current rate a good enough level, or should we, you know, moderate our expectations over time?

You know, I think we're getting to the finer strokes in terms of the opening of non-gaming amenities, ones that are important but are not financially material enough to meaningfully move the margins one way or another. So, you know, and what's happened also is in recent months we've been able, because of the labor availability has improved, hotel capacity open that we really need in order to meet the demand. And that, of course, helps margins when we can have more customers in the hotel. So I think the impact going forward in the regional markets of the amenities on margins is going to be very small.

Got it. Thanks so much. Okay.

The next question is from John Decree from CBRE Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, Bill. Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for taking my question. I know the international business and group business is really just starting to ramp up now, but I'm curious, or maybe, Corey, if you have any insights as to the spending patterns of those customers as they come back to Las Vegas. We saw that revenge spending of the U.S. domestic leisure traveler and trying to get a sense of how well some of the other customer segments are spending when they're actually getting back to Las Vegas.

Let me kick this off, John, quick and turn it over to Corey. One of the interesting things is, and I mentioned in my comments, the 80% return to international air. Despite the success we've seen so far, particularly in the last 90 days or last 75 days, Canada has not fully returned yet. And so that's good news and why. But the good news is we've only seen about half of that come back. And so we think there's a substantial uptick to come when that finally opens up. We think Mexico is there. Europe's been about half as well. And then obviously we have not seen much from the Far East, whether it's either leisure or at the higher end in business. All the international marketplace is holding up from a casino perspective. And so I think the genesis of all of that between Canada, Europe, and ultimately, whether it be six months, a year, or God knows from now, the balance of Asia returning It will all be accretive and additive to where we are today.

Thanks, Bill. That's helpful. Maybe one on Japan. I know you gave an update, you know, hopefully towards the end of the year, licensing process. And if you're successful, can you give us a ballpark sense of what a timeline might look like from there? You know, one of the probably most exciting projects you guys have on the horizon, you know, curious is rough, rough outline as to when you might, you know, be able to get a shovel and ground and, and, uh, potentially get moving if the licensing process kind of goes under the current timeline.

Thanks for the question. And we agree, um, to think we would have a crack at this market at scale and be one of the, uh, lone standing survivors, uh, I think will be pretty compelling for all of us. That said, um, I hope to be doing pylons by late 23, early 24. And then this is – given its scale, this is a four-and-a-half-year project to build. So this is a late 28 into 29 project is really the way to think about it, I think.

Got it. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Jonathan.

Take care.

The next question is from Chad Beynon with Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to dissect the casino segment. You noted in the slide deck that slot revenue on a two-year – or I guess on a three-year stack basis was up 20% to 30% in the regionals in Vegas, where tables was flat to up 10%. I understand that Vegas is probably – because of the higher-end Baccarat hasn't returned that you just touched on, Bill – But what's the disconnect in the regional markets, and is this something that could be a structural change to the business, just higher percentage of slots versus table revenue going forward? Thanks.

Hi, Chad. It's Corey. In the regionals in particular, and Jonathan touched on this a little bit with the room limitations, especially with properties like Borgata and Bow, that had an impact on tables. We are starting to see some of that play come back. In Las Vegas, the table game play is pretty solid, and you're doing that without any Asian play. So just to even be up there, I think, is a testament to the strength of that market.

And Chad, I think to your core question, fundamentally, is there a change? I mean, time to tell, there might be, but we don't see one. I mean, I think we're seeing some of the same activity case, whether it's the extreme amount of cash business we see in Maryland. We just had a very successful tournament this weekend in Borgata, which proved once again the marketplace is there for us on tables for blackjack. And so fundamentally, we don't see it. We understand the numbers you're dissecting. But you look at a place like here, Detroit. We're all in Detroit, by the way, for the day. If you look at Detroit, they still have some restrictions here that are hampering this business. And when they begin to ultimately and finally come off, we hope to see some lift as well.

Okay, great. And then regarding the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas acquisition, how quickly after the close can the asset be implemented into your, I guess, your portfolio in Vegas and just your loyalty system? Thank you.

It'll take, depending on the system and the environment, some stuff is pretty quickly, and some of it will take ultimately out to a year. When you think, because we want to do it properly, we want to integrate the property, we want to make sure for both employees and guests, particularly their rewards guests, that there are no takeaways. And so it just depends on what segment and what piece of that environment you're talking about. But again, it's anywhere from 90 days to a year, depending on how we're, you know, what the particular subject matter is. We're in no hurry, like I think we said earlier, to make a mistake. That place has done exceptionally well. I think it's like, If you look back, trailing 12 is like $450 million of cash flow or something around that number. And so we're going to go cautious and relatively slow.

Perfect. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

The next question comes from Barry Jonas from Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. I appreciate you're not seeing any impact to the consumer yet from inflation, but can you just talk about how long the booking window is in Vegas today? And then to what extent you have forward visibility across your markets, given all the macro uncertainty out there?

Yeah, Barry, the booking window is similar to what it's been in the past. It's past 90 to 120 days. We have plenty of visibility there, and we're pretty comfortable with that. We're not seeing any slowdown in those areas.

Great, that's great to hear. And then just as a follow-up question, you note in the deck, and I think in the remarks, how BetMGM will integrate seamlessly into MGM rewards. But how are you thinking about cashless gaming, maybe the ability to allow players to use their BetMGM wallet to fund purchases and play at your physical casinos? Thanks.

I don't want to take Adam's thunder, but you'll go over that product offering come May 12th? but a single wallet is literally in the making, and he'll talk more about that on Investor Day.

He'll talk about integrating that with your physical casinos.

Yes, yes. Obviously, given the environment, given the state, there's a lot of regulatory that goes along with that, but structurally and from a technology perspective, our ability to do that is coming soon.

Great. Looking forward to it. Thank you so much. Thanks, Barry.

And the next question is from Ben Chaiken from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hey, how's it going? In Vegas, you get some very helpful intra-quarter margin commentary. Could you give some color on where we stand on the same-store sales basis on some of the non-gaming, non-hotel spend? So I guess F&B, entertainment, et cetera, just ballpark versus 19? Sure.

Ben, it's Corey again. The food and beverage industry Numbers are at 19 levels now, even with less covers, a little bit less covers. As occupancy picks up, we've come pretty close to there. The entertainment spend's pretty close to where it is in 19 also. There's a lot more supply out there. We're seeing our average ticket prices up in many of our venues, with occupancy remaining fairly consistent. So all in all, we're pretty comfortable with what we're seeing in the spend in the other areas. And then as eventually the catering and banquet business comes back, and March was a great month for that. We had some properties that had actually record catering and banquet business. Once again, that is a higher margin business than just normal restaurant business, so we're pretty optimistic about that also.

That's really helpful. Thank you. And then on downstate New York, if you do receive one of the licenses, you mentioned slots, tables, some new amenities. Would it ever make sense to start on those new amenities now and then, I guess, you know, dial up or back the project based on the outcome? I guess the thought process being to get a head start. At one point, there was discussion of netting out any spend of the property against the license fee. I'm not sure what we stand there. That was just –

Yeah, I don't know that given the competitive nature of this, the netting out piece will sustain. I suspect it won't. Look, we don't want to be presumptuous. Obviously, we like where we stand. I think we've served that community well, and in turn, they're prepared to support us. We're going to go like hell to make sure that the day this happens that slot machines are ready to go into the building. And we're going to flip out roughly 1,000 machines, give or take, to bring in tables as soon as we possibly can within months. And we're going to make an assessment on a parking facility and when to go on that, what's the master plan. We have to ultimately get our head around a master plan, which we're working on diligently now. I wouldn't mind, under any circumstance, parking needs to be a real piece of this. But, you know, it's a couple of million dollars, and we're going to be thoughtful about how quickly we do go when it's all said and done.

Makes sense. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Bill Hornbuckle for any closing remarks.

Thank you. So thank you all for joining us today. You know, again, I just want to emphasize the resiliency of our team and the company, and frankly, even the industry. I mean, given how quickly We all came out of COVID and what we were able to do and particularly examples like the one I mentioned in Bellagio in March, kind of unprecedented. So I couldn't be more excited by it and thankful for everyone's effort on that. Our future has never been brighter. We're sitting on an expensive amount of liquidity. You saw us put it to work immediately with Leo Vegas in a space that we're highly interested in, highly motivated by. And our balance sheet is fortress. I mean, we have never been in this position. And so we're going to continue to look at proper ways to allocate capital, whether it's stock repurchase or more notably, I think, at this venture, ways to grow our cash flow. And we've continued to enjoy the growth of Las Vegas in the context and events capital of the world. Now in sports, with all the things I mentioned earlier, Formula One of note coming forward, every weekend that we had a game or an event, down at the south end was a, you know, teen's digit growth norm for those properties. And so that's all inherently built into our future now. And so we're very excited by that as well and what's happening in Las Vegas. We're excited by New York, of course. And then ultimately, I think John put a point on it, long-term, Japan has been a very exciting thing for the company. We'll help massively diversify our revenues more globally. And so with that, operator, I thank you, and I thank you all for joining us today.

And thank you, sir. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now