Singapore is materially outperforming expectations, while Macau recovery remains market-dependent and margin-constrained.
| Quarter | Q3 FY25 |
|---|---|
| Call date | 2025-09-30 |
| Results reported | 2025-10-22 |
| Length | 55 minutes |
| Speakers | Daniel Briggs, SVP Investor Relations; Patrick Dumont, Chairman & CEO; Goldstein Robert G, Chairman & CEO; Grant Chung, CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations |
Results, guidance and Q&A analysis for this call
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sam's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen only mode, but we will open the floor for your questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Sam's. Sir, the floor is yours. Thank you, Paul. Join the call Sarah. Rob Goldstein, Chairman and CEO, Patrick DuMont, Executive Vice Chairman of China and Grant Chung, CEO and President of China and EVP of our Asia Operation. Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the Safe Harbor provision of Federal securities law. The language on forward-looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call today. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those. In addition, we'll discuss non GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measure are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call. Finally, for the Q&A session, we ask.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Those with interest, please.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Post one question and one follow up question so we might allow everyone with interest and opportunity to present. Presentation is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
Bob, thank you. Dan, good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. Marina Bay Sands delivered EBITDA $743,000,000. We had forecasted MBS could do $2.5 billion annually. It turns out we were too conservative. We should easily exceed that figure in 2025. MBS is currently over $2.1 billion of EBITDA this year with a quarter still to go. Mass gaming and slot win was a record $905 million, reflecting 122% growth from Q3 of 2019 and 35% higher than last year. We are in the right place at the right time with the right product. Singapore is a highly desirable destination and our product is superb. It's difficult to find superlatives described in magnitude of this result. Operating performance and MBS is unprecedented in history of our industry. Macau delivered $601,000,000 to EBITDA for the quarter, which reflects improvement in our financial results with Typhoon negatively impacted our reported EBITDA by about $20 million. We have underperformed in the Macau market for the past few years. We believed our buildings would be enough to compete favorably. We were wrong. We've adapted to the market and changed our approach in the second quarter of 2025 to enable us to be more competitive. Our mass market revenue jumped 25.4% this quarter, up to 23.6% in the first quarter of 2025. We expect additional share gains and EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter. Our assets remain the strongest in the Macau market. The London is moving towards 1 plus billion dollars of EBITDA. We have meaningful opportunities for growth improvement throughout our Macau property portfolio. Importantly, the Macau markets GGR is growing. When you couple this back with our assets and our recent marketing changes, we believe will continue to improve in the fourth quarter and beyond. Let's hear from Patrick.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Thanks, Rob. Macau EBITDA was 601 million. We had held as expected in our rolling program. Our EBITDA would have been lower by 2 million when adjusted for a higher than expected hold in the rolling segment. Our EBITDA margin in the Macau portfolio of properties would have been 31.5%, down 160 basis points compared to the third quarter of 2024. We are focused on delivering revenue and cash flow growth at the Londoner and across the portfolio. Margin at the Venetia was 35%, while margin at the Londoner was 31.9%. We expect growth in EBITDA as revenues grow and as we use our scale and product advantages together with targeted incentives to better address every market segment, we see opportunity in every segment. Now turning to Singapore. MBSS EBITDA for the quarter was 743,000,000 at a margin of 51.7%. We had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by 43 million. With this quarter's results, we are putting in place a new methodology for the theoretical hold percentage on rolling bacc rod play for the quarter. This new approach has been enabled by the introduction of smart tables on our bacc rod games in Singapore. This technology has now been in place at our rolling bacc rod tables in Marina Bay Sands for over one year. Please, please, please see Slide 7 in the earnings materials for more detail. We have provided theoretical hold raise for rolling bacc rod play for the last five quarters at Marina Bay Sands. There will naturally be fluctuations in theoretical hold rate in any specific quarter driven by player betting preferences. The record financial results of Marina based Sans reflect the high the impact of high quality investment in market leading product and the growth in high value tourism. We believe we are still in the initial stages of realizing the benefits of our investments in Marina based SANS. Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders, we repurchased 500 million in obvious stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share. Our Board of Directors has approved an increase in our quarterly dividend of 20% for the 2026 calendar year or $1.20 per share per year or $0.30 per share per quarter. In addition, during the third quarter and in July, we purchased 337 million of SCL stock, increasing the company's ownership percentage of SCL to 74.76%. As of today, we believe for purchases of LVS equity for our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long term. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company's share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders. Thanks again for joining the call today and let's take some time.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to enter the queue to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone keypad. Now, if listening on speakerphone today, please pick up your handset to provide optimal sound quality. Also, we ask each participant to limit yourselves to one question and one follow up. Please hold a moment while we pull for questions.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
And the first question today is coming from Dan Pulitzer from JP Morgan. Dan, your line is live. Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. So first Singapore, I want to go back to the, the hold rate. You know it obviously you guys raised it to the 4.2% for VIP. Is there any impetus or desire or potential to raise the mass hole because that, that one's been going up too. So I guess 1, is that directionally similar in terms of the benefit that you're seeing from the smart?
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Tables and two. Is that something you would ever give, you know, a whole range for? Yeah, I think right now what you're seeing is a roll out onto the the floor where we can get accurate bowling table data. So we're not there yet to give you data on the mass floor because remember, it's a mix of games. So it's not just baccarat. So I think that's an important point to note. And the other thing is we don't really normalize mass hold because of the volume of play, the best size and getting to the, you know, let's call it the theoretical. So for us, it's much more meaningful to deal with the rolling program because the volatility of the hold in that segment.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
If that makes sense. Then just turning to Macau, this is more of a high level 1, you know London or does seem like it's turned the corner. You guys have been marketing broadly across the portfolio there. Can you kind of talk about that, that path back to 2.72 point 8 billion of EBITDA that you kind of laid out it is maybe a soft target last quarter. How are you pacing, you know, in terms of getting back there? You know, would you say that you need the market to kind of pick up from, from from here to get there or or can you kind of do this independent of of the market health?
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
I would say, Dan, you can't do it in the market. You need market growth which you're experiencing thankfully in Macau, the overall markets you know could be next year 30, three, $34 billion. We need everyone needs market growth to make Macau numbers work better. But we also had to make changes. We've been making those changes the last I don't know four or five months and adapt to the market which has we did not participate and we are now participating probably we're halfway there the other half to go. But I think when you marry the market growth to our assets, to our new marketing programs, yes, we can get to our target, but critical to the market growth that's essential for all of us. Otherwise we're just the same customers are circulating, but you're seeing with, you know, we're, we're come off the bottom here. We're growing, we're getting better. Probably 620 is the right number. If you take out the typhoon, it's a respectable quarter. It's not our goal. Our goal, as you know is to get to 2728. We're not there yet. I think we're making progress and we keep putting down the the the, the team has to stay In Sync with the market with those results. Grant.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Yeah. I, I think this quarter what we saw was I think some of our reinvestment programs coming to to fruition in terms of productivity across Londoner, yes, because this is the first quarter we've had the full deployment of the Londoner grant rooms and suites. And on the product side that definitely helped us. And then to Rob's point, in terms of our marketing strategies responding to the market dynamics, we've obviously adjusted our reinvestment rates across the portfolio, not uniformly. Obviously, some of our smaller properties have had a bigger boost in our reinvestment ratios as you can see. And we're seeing the results of that. You can see that both year on year and sequentially we are outgrowing the market for the first time in a long time when you look at the mass GTR.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
I think you know the weak links in our portfolio and Parisian in Sands especially, you know Parisian has come way off the highs and about 50% of it's what used to be because of EBITDA performance. I think we have a lot of value in that property under as you referenced is fine. Venetian is, is OK and I just think we've got to come off the bottom and say and get that back to being competitive. But you know it's underway, it's progressing. It just takes a lot of work and a lot of focus.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Got it. Thanks so much and Congrats on the nice quarter. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is coming from Sean Kelly from Bank of America. Sean, your line is live. Hi, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Trevor wants to take it. I want to go back to Singapore just because the smart table, you know, initiative is, is super interesting. Can we just unpack a little bit though about like what's the underlying betting behavior or or change that would sort of be driving such a material increase? I mean, obviously on on your numerator, you know, this type of change at hold would suggest some sort of underlying behavioral change or mix change. So is it mix of betters it, you know, and, and maybe getting more casual better or is it a, you know, mix in again, what, you know, what games or in what bets they're making? Because I mean, historically we think of baccarat in particular as being extremely simple player banker. So how is the smart table piece evolving in a way that that we're seeing an actual underlying change of behavior? Thanks.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
So I'll just be clear, the SMART table is just the score key. It's the umpire, the referee. It doesn't make this stuff happen. What makes it happen is you, as you alluded to, historically, Bacra's been at 285. You know, when I began this industry, Bacra was a boring game. It's a sub three whole percentage game. There was no a lot of juice in it and it stayed that way for decades. What's changed in Bacra is not the SMART tables. That's the score key. What's changed is the game itself offers a lot more opportunities to gamble different ways. It's analogous to sports betting and the side bets and sportsman. The prop bets and side bets. The honestly the low percentage bets for the customer play your favorite. And that's this is simply mathematics. This isn't casual betters. This isn't ciske betters. This just make everybody gravitating towards side bets, their house advantage and that's what's happening here. I don't think we tell you it's 4.1 or 4.2. That's what the the smart tables tell us. The scorekeeper said, hey, these guys are making these bets and that results in this result. It it has. The game, as you alluded to has changed dramatically from the old days when it was kind of a stay game. It's a very interesting game now. Lots of opportunities to lose your money different ways and people are and especially in Singapore, we're seeing all levels, not just casual, but seasoned pros. You want to bet these side bets and it's become very powerful and and in a company like ours, which is baccarat dependent, it's a powerful driver of, of revenue and EBITDA flow through. So all you're seeing in Singapore is simply not the smart table helping us, but the game deviations have helped us and the customers willing to bet those deviations has driven this thing to four plus percent, which is astounding when you think back to what used to be a very boring 2.85 game for years. But that's a simple factor. This isn't, you know, anomaly. It's just the way the market's proceeding. I think you'll see it happen in Macau as well. And for this company, it's a massive, massive change in, in, in the opportunity to make more money.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
I think you have to give credit to our gaming innovation team for their willingness to really look at the customer experience and add the opportunity to enhance that experience through some higher volatility bets which the customers are actually using. And it's it's their preference, right? They could choose not to use them, but they seem to be very popular. They create a better gaming experience and better enjoyment in the game. And so we're very fortunate that, you know, our team continues to innovate and, and try these things and, you know, the market has received them quite well. And so I think the the smart table system has helped us measure these bets better. But it's a practical matter. It's just as Rob said, it's it's about having the bets on the table and having the customers enjoy using.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Very clear. Thanks. And and Rob, you kind of went where I was going to take it, which I think this is the next logical place which is the ability to expand these types of bets or these types, this type of table to you know other markets obviously Macau being a big opportunity. So can you just talk a little bit about either where you're at and rolling that out what segments? I mean, I would assume, you know, given that sort of the junket based VIP business, you know, it's no longer a thing there, but perhaps, you know, in house VIP or premium mass, you know, would have some real opportunities. So where are you at? What inning are you in? And then just maybe super high level is, is this technology? Are these bets? Are these proprietary to you all? I mean, I know there's kind of open secrets in, you know, in gaming, but I mean, are you, you are developing these in house. There's not like a third party that's kind of brought these to you from a sort of just pure optionality perspective.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
Yeah, we, we probably were the initiators as much a decade ago. We started this process with someone. We grew that team. The team is now expanded. So we were the initiate. We're not the, it's not proprietary. We can't, we don't have control. People can copy these bets. They are copying these bets, which by the way doesn't, it shouldn't be a problem. It's good for the industry to grow. Yes, we're moving towards this from Macau. Yes, the, the smart table system will be there as well as a scorekeeper. And so as the Macau market has more opportunity, you're seeing it happening already. I think you'll see the PERS go up there as well. It's been more advantageous thus far in Singapore, but we are moving into Macau as is the Macau market. If you go look at the, the layouts now they're, they're fraught with side bets all over the place. In fact, some of the times you can't, you can't find the the flatbed. So, so busy with alternatives. But yeah, it's moving in that direction to Macau. No, it's not proprietary. Yes, we did develop it. I think we've initiated this. But and again, the confusion is sometimes people think it's a smart table which is not true at all. The smart tables gives you a better measurement stick to know how, how many bets are making on the side and what that means. The mathematics. And I think what Patrick's alluding to the four one or 4/2 is we have good evidence that these are, this is not a, you know, I'd guess me more Gee, it should be this for years. Me Russellwood, what's the correct hold percentage? There is no correct hold. It depends on that quarter, but those two will bet. We could have 1/4 that comes in at 5-1 or come in 3-8 depends on what what the players at the table bet at that time and every bet is calculated. So yes, it's going to move towards Macau And I I think it's very helpful for not just this company, but others to make the gaming more interesting, more diversified. And I don't think it's tied to the high end by the way, mass customers love it too small betters, large betters. They invent the sports book, both the biggest prop betters the small guys. The guys are betting $100 a game. They love betting props and I think Bach Rod is similar to sports betting that report.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Completely get it. Thank you both. Thank you. The next question is coming from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley. Stephen, your line is live. Hey, thank you. So, so you've upped the the dividend for next year and you keep the pedal down on on buyback at the same time you, you have the disclosure around CapEx is coming down as well over the next year. So I'm, I'm one thing you, you didn't touch on, I guess that you talked about in the past is just maybe a willingness to, you know, buy back some of the, the shares in, in Hong Kong as well some of any thoughts you have there or other capital allocation opportunities?
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
So I think the best thing is we are a capital allocation story and a return to capital story. You know you look at the company's history, we've been very shareholder friendly. We allocate capital with growth in mind. So we invest for high returns, but when those high return investment opportunities are available, we return to capital and we try to do it through dividends in a prudent manner and through share repurchases. And so I think that's where you're seeing us today. We did buy back SCL last little while. If you kind of see where we're at, we're basically at getting close to the limit. We're at 74.76%. I think the number is and you know we can't really go past 75. So I think for us right now we're kind of where we are in SCL, but our goal is to continue to return capital both at SCL and in the parent code, a friendly way for shareholders. And so you'll see us to continue to do that.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Makes sense. And and maybe changing gears a little bit, just going back to Macau, would love any any further color you could, you know, provide on kind of characterizing the strength that we've seen in VIP and it's been quite a while since we've seen this, this level of growth. Is that really just more semantics around where customers are are referring to bet or is that a new customer who's coming in?
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Stephen, let me take that. Yes, I think the VIP has outgrown the the mass GR over the last in a few months and in some cases some months it's been it's been very high rates of growth. I think it is driven by some concentration of super high end VIP players as well as increased liquidity in the market. This quarter we haven't participated as much in that segment, but we are going to be getting more competitive in that segment as well. And of course we have introduced our reenter the junket market this quarter. Of course, the the growth of that segment in the past few months has also driven the rolling market. But at this point it still remains a low margin segment, which typically is is going to stay around 12 to 15% of the overall GGR. But we're also focused on growing that segment. But obviously the the bulk of the profit growth is going to come from the non rolling helpful.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thank you. Thank you. The next question will be from Brant Montour from Barclays. Brant your line is live. Hey everybody, thanks for taking my question. I just want to double click on that on that comment. I mean, you know, I think that you know, we all kind of see the the premium mass LED you know inflection since mid year, but it sounds like I mean even looking at your slides base base mass per table was up nicely. And so I guess Rob for you, the question is that you know for for the market to grow. You know what what you need the market to grow 3334, you know.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
When you think about.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
That that growth is that, does that require a broadening out of the depth and breadth of base mass and are you seeing early signs of that inflection for that particular cohort?
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
I think it's impossible to say where it comes from. I'll be honest, I don't you know, the junket, the rolling, the non rolling, the mass, it's very hard to define. I think what's important to see is happening. I mean, the market looks to me like it's we don't October comes in, let's say it comes in 79% year on year, but it feels like there's a stronger trend over there. Macau is recovering in different segments. Obviously, we like a base mass recovery, but there's nothing with premium mass. I don't have real insight to where it could come from. I hope it comes because I think the key thing for Old Macau, for all the operators for profitability and growth is to see this GGR acceleration grant. Maybe you see it differently.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
I think that's right and it is obviously helpful especially to us if the base mass grows faster because of our advantage in that segment, but also the margin structure in that segment is very favorable. I think if you look at this quarter, you're right, year on year, our base mass actually grew 18%. But part of that reflects the fact that a prior year we had the closure of the Pacific Casino, which is now the Grand Casino. If you look at sequentially premium mass, we still grew faster than base mass, 11% versus 7%. But yes, I think the summer was positive for base mass. But again, I'll characterize the bulk of the growth in this market. Even in a non rolling, it's still dominated by the upper tiers of the value segment.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
OK, thanks for that. Just a quick question on Singapore, obviously a really strong results in the third quarter in MBS and that was without the F1 race which you know usually falls in September. It fell in, it fell in October this year. So you didn't have that in the third quarter. What you know what order of magnitude or or or how should we think about how impactful that event is that that sort of has now moved into the fourth quarter for you now this year?
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
First off, it's, it's a great event and it's a the great event globally and it's one of the most important F1 events and it's phenomenally attended and it really helps Singapore and we're actually really supportive of it. It evolved in its its presentation. So we're very happy about that. As a practical matter, you can see the demand of Marina Bay Sands as a product and that even with F1 in a different part of the calendar year, we continue to perform through that. So I think F1 is helpful, something that we really enjoy having in Singapore. It's great for visitation. It it increases the prestige of Singapore by having such a prominent race there. It drives a lot of high value visitation that much of which ends up at Marina Bay Sands. So we're very happy about it. But where it falls in the calendar is is OK, We're fine.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
I got to say that in the last couple years we've had all these people pointing to F1 or Taylor Swift or I don't know, I don't think it matters all that much. I think Singapore has taken a whole new we didn't, we can't figure out just how high is up. This thing just keeps getting stronger and stronger. And the reason to me is very simple. It's the most favorable location. A lot of people hiding their worth to come to, whether F1's there or Taylor Swift's there or whoever's there that week. I think the place, the building is extraordinary. The place is extraordinary, and the events certainly move the customers around. But in the end, Singapore is the driver. That place is, you know, just well attended, well visited, very desirable. And it's become the, the, the place to go to in, in Asia where people want to gamble at a certain level. And I think that's really the real driver is the unique asset we built, unique room product and the gambling we provide there, the output of the gamble, what you want, how you want. So as much as I respect F1, I respect Taylor Swift, I respect all these drivers. I think Singapore has just gone to a whole new place and you see these numbers. I thought we were ambitious IN25. We probably this year get to, I don't know, 272829, I don't know. But the numbers are there and it just seems like it's getting more and more desirable for the high end of the market. So extraordinary results. I think no one could have seen these kinds of growth, and I don't think it's that tied to special events as much as tied to the place itself.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Great. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. The next question is coming from Robin Farley from UBS. Robin, your line is live. Great, thanks. Just going back to your comments about kind of what you hope to achieve in market share in premium mass. I know you talked about you know upgrading A Londoner would kind of give you the the assets to do that. You said something earlier in the call about how you're kind of only halfway there with what you hope to do or or plan to do there. Can you talk a little bit about what other steps and that you'll be taking and sort of what timing when you think about that? Thanks.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Hi, Robin, let me take that. Yes, I think when you look at the progression in market share, you know clearly we come off the bottom in Q1 when we're down at 23.523 point 6. Now we're two points above that which is which is great. But as Rob said, I think we're only halfway through if that we started our tweaking our programs and changing our marketing programs in the middle of second quarter and that ramped up through throughout each month in the third quarter. And you can see we were improving month on month within the quarter. But I think it's important that we're also considering how each segment has different requirements. So we are marrying the tactical incentives with the product advantage that we have. So in the London that you can see it very clearly what we're doing, not just London a Grand which is nearly open, but also leveraging the other side of London on the Super high end and we're seeing good results there. I think in the smaller properties, we have adjusted our marketing programs, but also reset our distribution team as well in terms of composition and the number of people. So we should be seeing better results from the distribution side over the next two to three quarters because so far, what we've benefited most from is I think the launch of London Grand Married with these customer reinvestment adjustments. But I think there's still a lot to be done, but we're confident that we're going to be progressing month by month, quarter by quarter.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Great, thanks. And maybe just as one follow up on a different topic, I, I don't know if I, if we've heard your thoughts too recently on, on any potential opportunity in the UAE where you know there may be other licenses to give out. Is that something that that LVS is interested in and kind of actively engage with? Thanks.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
I really appreciate the question. So, you know, we're always looking at opportunities to deploy capital and grow our business. And I think you've seen us be very disciplined and be very patient. The UAE is a tremendous tourism market. There's been billions of dollars and investment in the UAE to create tremendous tourism infrastructure. Some of the best hospitality and food and beverage products in the world are located there and it's a lot of fun to visit. That being said, it's not a market we're looking at at this time, but we're following it.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
OK, great. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is coming from Lizzie Dove from Goldman Sachs. Lizzie, your line is live. Hi, thanks for taking the question. So clearly, you know, incredible results in Singapore again, and you mentioned, you know, for this year 272829, who knows? You know, it feels like it's poor base, like you said, not tied to one event. But how should we think about the long term? Like is this sustainable? Can it on a whole just a basis grow next year? Like how are you thinking about the kind of longer tail to this sustainability of growth in Singapore?
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
Well, Liz, I'd say we've been wrong all along for starters and we've under forecasted this thing. We thought we were very ambitious at 2.5 and like I said, we're 2/1 plus currently with a quarter to go with a big quarter, you could do 282829. So is it sustainable? Hell yes, it's very sustainable. You're alone over there in a, you got 1 competitor, which is which, you know, just, it's a duopoly. It's a market that has, you know, tremendous support from the government. And it's, it's, if you've been in the building, it's incredibly well done. I think the team did a great job of building out a one-of-a-kind asset. So yeah, it's very sustainable. The question I can't answer is does it get to 3 next year? It's a 3, two down the road. Does it get to, I don't know. We've been wrong all along. Here we are in 2025, as you said, two years ago, we're delivering $700 million quarters back-to-back. I would have said that's very ambitious. Well, it turns out it was done easily. These last quarters came along pretty well. And so I don't think anyone should question the longevity and sustainability of of Singapore. If anything, what I can't figure out is how deep is the well. And I've been wrong and I'm pretty aggressive by nature and forecasting the demand over there. Slot wind is going to break a billion dollars. Looks like these table winds are extraordinary. It's coming at us from all all sides. I think they're shrinking the building. Having all suites versus, you know, mostly more rooms is a very good idea. So yeah, I think it's very sustainable. And and the question for me is not sustainability is how high is up. You know, could this thing hit $3 billion gets a three two? I don't know. But I didn't think you'd go from, you know, at least a $1.6 billion asset pre COVID to now it's like a $2.78 billion asset post COVID. So it's hard to forecast something that feels so powerful, and right now it feels to me like it's got more growth to go.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Definitely, definitely. I, I guess on that subject, you know, just one event, but making it bigger picture, I guess on Golden Week it looked like it was a lot of outbound visitation from China into Singapore. It was up a lot year on year. And so curious what you're seeing really be even just beyond Golden week of just any changes in visitation trends and whether you are, you know versus Macau seeing that kind of high end, higher end, you know Chinese customer visiting Singapore at the expense of Macau and what do you think that might continue?
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Yeah, we're not, we're not really getting into current quarter, but just overall Macau and Singapore are very separate markets and and typically the catchment area for Singapore is very focused on Southeast Asia and Macau is primarily a Hong Kong and China. So different businesses, different tourism base, different assets, but you know, we'll talk about this quarter.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
On the next earnings call. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is coming from Joe Staff from Susquehanna. Joe, your line is live. OK, thanks. Good afternoon. Ron. Patrick, just wanted to follow up Patrick on your comment about hey, the opportunity in Singapore in particular is still essentially in the early innings. Obviously, you know maybe an expansion of other questions. I wondered if you could just maybe talk about the the second and third quarter, you know, the strengths of the volumes, maybe the things that that you learn that surprised you. And then as we think about the opportunity set going forward, I understand it's hard to put a number to it, but maybe some of the bigger layers of opportunity. Is it, you know, is it a strategy such that you know, you'd expect to get a a higher level of average spend? Is it geographical reach, you know, Are there any puzzle pieces you can give us from that perspective?
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
There's there's a lot there in this question, so bear with me. I'm going to try to get through it all. I think the the first thing is the way we got to Singapore today in this performance was very deliberate and it started probably five years ago. We first started charting out where we wanted to go with the asset given where we thought the direction of growth and high value tourism would be. And we start off by building a great customer experience by focusing on the physical asset, which took time to both design and ultimately implement. We redesigned our service, our service teams that we could better service our customers in a more complete way and that was also a big lift. We focused a lot on how we sold, how we attracted customers by developing larger and more geographically spread out marketing teams and sales teams and all that come together with a very strong management group over time with lots of investment produced this result. So this was not something that happened overnight. It was planned. It was a strategic decision. It was investment over many years in both human capital and physical capital, along with the philosophy with a service focus and a customer experience focus. We focused on a lot of different amenities, how we enhance our entertainment, how we enhance our retail mall, how we enhance our food and beverage, and how we bring it all together so that gaming customers can come in and get a lifestyle experience that can't be replicated anyplace else. And so for us, that was really key. So the question is, how do we grow the business?
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
More.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Well, First off, I think people are just getting to know the new Marina based Sans. Remember the renovation has not been done for that long. So we have a lot of customers who maybe experienced Marina based Sans A decade ago and are now surprised by what's on offer today. I think the other thing is the quality of tourist and it's coming to Singapore, it's continuing to elevate. There are also a lot of people who are engaging in commerce out of Singapore and that's growing. So we have a lot of people on the leisure and on the business tourism side that are experiencing marine based sands and it's only growing. I think segments that we look to in the future continue to bring high value tourists in from different parts of the Cashman area and we're working on that. And to be fair, at some point we're going to run out of capacity and that's where IR 2 comes in. Someone asked us earlier about how we feel about the sustainability for us and I think the biggest statement is that we're investing $8 billion to continue to grow our presence there. And that to me is the biggest signal that we're very serious about long term investment and the success in Singapore. But I think for us, it's going to come from continuing to attract high value tourists, continue to bring in high value business and leisure tourism activities, great entertainment, great retail, continuing to lead in amenities, the investments that are necessary to stay at the forefront of tourism and attract high value tourists from from different markets. And we'll continue to grow. That was the strategy and we're executing it now.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thank you for that. Maybe just a quick clarification, you know, earlier in the response to a question on smart table deployment, you know, for the, the mass tables and games area of Singapore, are you 6 months, are you 9 months behind, you know kind of the process that you went through with the rolling tables?
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
It's not that we're behind, it's that.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
We have it on some games and not remember our casino floor as baccarat has sick Bo as a bunch of other different gaming products that are there actually including crafts. Like we've got different types of games out on the floor. And so not all those games are ready for this digital table system. So over time we'll get there. But remember we make most of our money from BlackRock and the area with the most volatility was the rolling programs. And so we started there. Understood.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thanks very much. Great quarter. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is coming from Chad Benham from Macquarie. Chad, your line is live. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to revisit the comments around reinvestment program. You guys have been very open and honest in terms of your strategy and and and your competitor strategy in the market. I guess here to date in your decision to to change that, have you seen any change with those competitors that maybe are now on a level playing field from a reinvestment strategy and maybe they don't have, you know the product or the?
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Service.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
That you guys have and they could potentially step outside of the the current zip code of of what's being provided to players or does it remain pretty rational. Thank you. Yeah, let me take that. I.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Think in general, the competition remains intense and we don't foresee that to, to, to, to slow down. I think what you see is basically constant, constant action and reaction. And we have to stay very alert to those changes, which we are. And like what Rob said, we're going to be laser focused on basically responding to the market with the right office. And I think you can see the benefit of of that change in our marketing strategy over over this quarter and that that will continue as to what other people are going to do and how they will respond. I think that that's just that's just an evolving picture that we have to monitor. And you would expect that the market to continue to be very competitive. But the positive aspect of the market is that we are seeing GGR growth and I think that helps all of us, but it will stay competitive and we're very committed to staying ultra competitive.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thank you. And then Patrick, I know the the digital gaming business, I guess the doors have been open or or slightly open for the past couple years. You haven't made many moves, but now you're officially closing that door, those windows. So what why now? And then any cost saves that we should think about for our models? Thank you. Yeah, I think we we looked at this for.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
A couple of years, I think we just didn't feel like it was something that we felt would be a good use to shareholder capital. So we shut it down. In terms of cost save, I think it's just things that all come out of development expense that you would have seen in the last year, but that's out now. It wasn't. It wasn't super material.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thank you very much. Thanks, Chad. Thank you. The next question will be from George Joy from Citigroup. George, your line is live. George, good morning. Hi, George. Please check your mute button. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, sorry, I was on the muse. So obviously the encouraging whole rate disclosure in Singapore very, very solid. But I'm just wondering when will you do the same thing in Macau? Is there any significant difference in terms of the player behavior on on how much they weigh you on the side that that make you make a difference between how you do it in Singapore versus Macau? One thing to note.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
That our rolling volumes are are much larger relative to our overall gaming win in Singapore. And so there was a real focus there to to begin with that also the number of tables are smaller in Singapore than they are in Macau. So I just want to highlight that. But I'll turn it over to Grant to respond to the rest of the question. Yeah, George, just to.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Reiterate the distinction Rob made that the smart technology, you know, helps us to understand what is happening at the table. Independent of that is the player propensity, you know, it's not one leading the other. So I, I think on, on the question of propensity to wager in the side wages in Macau, it is the mix is obviously smaller than than in Singapore, but it's also rising and it has contributed to enhance the house edge over over the past several years. And as you of all of the people here you, you are visiting all these casinos and you can see the layouts are are being reinvented every few months with additional side wages. So, so that that's, that's on the side wages. In terms of the smart tables, we in Macau have actually fully rolled out on the non rolling background tables all of all of the smart table technology and we are in the process of completing the roll out in the rolling segment. So within within the next few months we should to be able to gauge across the total background table.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thanks very much. As a follow up, now that we have been myriad of cyber at the background tables in both Singapore and Macau, I'm just wondering how do you strike a balance between improving the incremental excitement and experience for for players from you know, obviously these these new side bets versus any potential?
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Cannibalization.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Amongst the various side bets, but I think the great thing about.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
It is all the original bets are there. So if you all the bets that people are used to are still in the belt. So this is really just up to the player, just an option. It just gives them some additional volatility if they want to take it. So for us, it's really a player decision and in some cases they take it, in some cases they don't, which is the reason why Robin's remarks said in Singapore, you may see a quarter where we hold 5, where you see a quarter where we hold high threes. It just depends on propensity and the preference of the player to to want to make that wager. But as a practical matter, the game just has more options, but it doesn't foreclose the ability for them to bet in more traditional.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
You're on a flatbed. You can flatbed.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
All day long, you know, bang player, Thai pair. It's not it, it doesn't exclude those bets. It's just like it's no different for years than the Super Bowl. For years people thought there was something different about the Super Bowl. All it was was they offered 2000 side bets versus the usual, you know, bet the Packers and the Bears. All you've done here is expand the side bets and but the usual bets are still there. Traditional bets. People want to bet, so it's their decision whether to make that decision on what to bet. It's it's not ours. We don't dictate it. I think the important thing here to remember.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Is that we are iterative in the way that we apply new bets on itself. So what you see today is after attempts to improve the game experience for people, we're really focused on the experience. So if players like it, that's great and we keep it out there and they use it and if if it makes their trip more enjoyable, that's fantastic. If it's not something that's preferred by the players, eventually it evolves itself out of the game. And we've had a lot of different iterations of what's on the felt. So I would just view this as a as an enhancement to the gaming experience mechanism. And so they enjoy the volatility, they enjoy, enjoy the additional bets and so they use them. But you know, as to as to how those bets will progress over time, players preferences may change over time. You may you may see us have different side bets on the felt over time as players change what they want to do. That's a very important point, Say A.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
Supermarket, we, we keep putting things on the shelves that sell and don't sell. We're constantly coming up with new bets all the time. We have a very important committee called the Make More Money committee. That's job is to find all the bets and deviations this, this thing. And if things don't sell, we take it off the table and put somebody else to try it out. It's evolving all the time. It's kind of a static function.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thank you very much, George. Thanks, George. Thank you. The next question will be from David Katz from Jeffries. David, your line is live. Afternoon.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Everybody, thanks for taking my question. With respect to Macau, you know, one of the topics of conversation and one of the things that we're tracking very carefully is, you know, events, whether they're, you know, concerts or otherwise. Can you talk to us about your strategy around those? And more specifically, you know, the, the recent, you know, I know it's, it's sort of I maybe post the end of the quarter, but I, I'd love to hear any general comments, learnings, you know, opportunities, etcetera around the NBA games that were hosted and events in.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
General.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Thanks.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
So I I think First off.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
You know, going back to early days of the Venetian with with Rob, you know, entertainment has always been front and center. And I think it's something that's always helped us in the in the gaming business and the perception of the excitement around our properties. We've always been focused on providing high quality entertainment and actually building the assets to support it. You know, many years ago our SCL built the first arena in Macau for this very reason. And we've been very dedicated to programming it and creating entertainment that's been very successful over the years in creating opportunities for our patients to have a great experience. And I think I think you'll see that as well in Singapore, we broke ground in mid-july on, on what we're calling IR 2 right now. Eventually we'll have a name and we're building a 15,000 seat live performance venue there that will be the most technologically advanced arena in Asia and provide a great customer experience for live performance. And we're always very focused on it. And so for us, I think it's a very important benefit for a company to have that excitement that goes along with entertainment, but also gives our patrons somebody to experience in in the environment as part of the lifestyle that we provide to them. In terms of the NBA, you know, this was something we started working on many years ago. We're very fortunate. The NBA is a great partner. They really pulled out all the stops. They were very supportive. I have to give credit to both the the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns for the support that they gave to the the China Games. They really showed up in force and you know, their teams did a lot of charity events in the local community. They were great with the fans. Really just an unbelievable experience. And our, you know, our, our team was very excited because the reaction of Macau was very strong. I think just some of the goals we set out for this event was to create something that brought a unique form of entertainment to highlight Macau and to showcase the investment that we've made and how high quality Macau is as a global tourism destination. And I think that goal was achieved. I think the media coverage, the social media into China, the social media externally around the globe has been very positive. I think the, you know, the teams played very competitively. I think it was a great format for the league. And so I think that benefits Sands China because of that collaboration. I think it created a lot of excitement for our patients when they actually came to the games and there was this outstanding visitation and there was just a heightened sense of visitation around around the business. In terms of the impact, again, we'll talk about at the end of this quarter, we'll have better data. But I think overall it was a very strong success. We're very happy with the results. I think our fans and the NBA were very happy. I think we did a lot of things that helped the local community, which was also a benefit. And then lastly, we think it was very beneficial for for Sands China on a lot of different levels. I think the marketing value that's created for us was also very strong. So a lot of benefit to it. And I also think we accomplished some of the goals that we set out in our concessional renewal, which was to bring, let's call it high value sports, global sports to Macau, which I think we did very successfully. A lot of positive things all around. I don't know Grant, do you have any other comments or anything you'd like to add? No, I think, I think covers it very.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
Well, I think it did showcase Macau in a very, very faithful light. It was great for the city to have such AI would say a strong visitation from different countries. As you know, the government has been very keen on pushing us to have international events drawing visitors from different countries around around the region, but in the rest of the world. And I think this event really highlighted the attraction of Macau as an international tourism destination, like Patrick said. And I think we're proud of delivering this first set of China games for Macau. And I think we got a lot of positive praise, not just from the people who came from from from the different corners of the world, but also a very positive feedback from the local community.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
OK. Thank you for all that. Appreciate it. Thank you. The next question will be from.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
John Decree from CBRE. John, your line is live. Hey guys, thanks for all the color and commentary so far. Wanted to ask a follow up on kind of more of the strategic priorities outlined in your deck development. I know you get some comments about the UAE specifically, but you know, curious what you're seeing around the globe, if there's anything particularly interesting right now. And I guess I specifically asked about Japan. You just obviously looked at that in the past. Is new Prime Minister, I think historically supportive of IR. So curious if it's worth another look at Japan and anything else that might be out there right now that's garnering your attention? Look, I think our strategy.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
Priority is to deploy capital on high growth projects and we're always looking at those opportunities and always evaluating them to see if the returns are there with the appropriate factor of safety. And I think for us, you know, as I said before, we're we're looking at the UAE trying to trying to observe it and follow it. You know, obviously Japan was something we're very interested in the past, although that seems unlikely. There's been there's been talk about Thailand, which is something that we've expressed interest in the past. So we're very patient and we're constantly looking and we'll see what opportunities arise. But as of right now, there's nothing really to work for.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Thanks, Pat. That's awesome. I appreciate it, guys. Thank you. And the next question will be from Steve Wychenski from Stifel. Yeah, hey guys, good afternoon. So, Patrick, I apologize if I missed this in your prepared remarks. But if we think about the 150 basis point decrease in your Macau margins, you know, wondering if most of that was tied, you know, pretty much directly to your change in marketing strategy or if that was just something else? Yeah, I think it was.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
A combination of marketing strategy and a little bit higher cost, but I think the key thing for us is the way we get operating leverage and increased margin over time is by growing revenue. You know, you said it all along. I think there was a question earlier that Rob answered about the size of the Macau market. If you look at the Macau market today, it's growing, it's going both in the mass segment and the VIP segment, which is very beneficial. I think we're very positive on the Macau market overall and the way we're going to grow EBITDA and grow margin. It's good revenue growth. We have a.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Great team there.
Grant Chung (CEO and President of China; EVP Asia Operations)
But we have a fixed cost basis, so we need to leverage it. We need to get more volume.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
OK, gotcha. And then Rob, second question, if we go back to Singapore real quick, you know, I, I, I mean, you're at the point where you're pushing almost, you know, $1000 a night per room and you know, yes, look, I, I understand there's more room capacity coming on. Yeah, I know. I understand there's, there's more, there's more room capacity coming online in the next couple of years. But you know, this is probably a little bit of a higher level question. But wondering, you know, Rob, how you're thinking about room rates, not only, you know, maybe now and your ability to still take price there, but you know maybe how you're thinking about room rates once your additional capacity comes online.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
I think it's kind of relevant to be.
Goldstein Robert G (Chairman & CEO)
Honestly, our goal is to not sell rooms, just give away the people who gamble because very honest, that's the business we're in. You can't spend the kind of money we spend in Singapore and charge. If you charge $1000 or $2000 or last time I checked, you're not building $8 billion hotels anywhere. This is a gambling casino, the hotel attached to it. So our goal in Singapore every night, if it can, is to give these rooms away people high value gaming customers who drive 3, four, $5 billion of top line revenue. That's the business. We're over there. To be honest, I don't think we can squeeze the, the, the rates higher. I think we wanted to in the cash, but it's such a small offering. We're mostly at comphouse today, but the real goal is to not sell any rooms in IR one or two, but give them way to get high value gaming customers to drive that site. You don't make $3 billion annualized with, with hotels. It's just that simple. So it's a it's a very interesting dynamic over there. We shrunk the hotel. It's working very well. It's attracting the high value casino customers. That is the focus, not the ADR. To be blunt with you, I thought we fail. We sell room for $2000 and it's a failure. We're not in the rooms business, we're in the casino hotel business and those rooms simply are there to attract those patients that drive these ridiculously high EBIT does come visit we'll.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
Give you a free room.
Patrick Dumont (Chairman & CEO)
No free room.
Daniel Briggs (SVP Investor Relations)
OK. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time. And have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.
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