Wynn Resorts - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 operating revenue rose to $1.83B (+$140M YoY), with consolidated Adjusted Property EBITDAR up 8% YoY to $570.1M; GAAP diluted EPS was $0.85 and adjusted diluted EPS $0.86.
• Versus Wall Street, revenue beat consensus, but EPS and EBITDA missed: revenue $1.83B vs $1.77B*, EPS $0.86 (adjusted) vs $1.15*, EBITDA $463M vs $540M* (SPGI) — driven by interest expense and non‑operating items, while segment margins mixed (Las Vegas hold headwind; Macau VIP hold tailwind).
• Macau strength (mass volumes + VIP hold) and continued Las Vegas share gains offset softer Boston; Board declared a $0.25 dividend (consistent with Q1 and Q2).
• Near-term catalysts: continued Macau premium mass lead, strong Q4 Las Vegas group/RevPAR trajectory, and visible progress at Wynn Al Marjan Island as management underscores potential first-mover advantage in a greenfield UAE market.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Macau delivered Adjusted Property EBITDAR of $308.3M on ~$1.00B operating revenue (30.8% margin), aided by higher-than-normal VIP holds and strong mass volumes; Wynn Palace revenue +22% YoY and EBITDAR +23% YoY.
• Las Vegas continued to take gaming market share, with casino revenues up ~10% YoY; August set an all‑time monthly EBITDA record; strategy to protect ADR by accepting lower occupancy preserved profitability.
• Management tone confident on UAE: “With no competing operations announced to date, Wynn Al Marjan Island will be the only integrated resort in what many analysts are predicting will be a $5 billion-plus GGR market”.

What Went Wrong

• EPS and EBITDA missed consensus despite top-line beat; GAAP other income/expense and interest burden weighed on EPS; Las Vegas EBITDA impacted by unfavorable hold (~$8M headwind).
• Encore Boston Harbor saw revenue -1% YoY and EBITDAR -7% YoY with table drop -6.7% and win % below prior year; margins compressed to 27.6%.
• ADR/RevPAR pressure in Macau (ADR down 11–25% YoY; RevPAR down ~11–25% YoY), with one day of closure from Typhoon Ragasa and lower VIP win at Wynn Macau.

Transcript

Speaker 0

Welcome to the Wynn Resorts third quarter 2025 earnings call. All participants are in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of today's conference. To ask a question, please press star one on your touch-tone phone, record your name, and I will introduce you. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. This call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I will now turn the line over to Julie Cameron-Doe, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. On the call with me today are Craig Billings and Brian Gullbrant in Las Vegas. Also on the line are Jenny Holaday, Linda Chen, and Frederic Luvisutto. Please note that we've published a presentation to provide more color on the company and recent performance ahead of this call. You can find the presentation on our investor relations website. I want to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements under safe harbor federal securities laws, and those statements may or may not come true. I will now turn the call over to Craig Billings.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Julie. Good afternoon, and as always, thank you for joining us. I'll jump right into the quarter, and I'll kick off here in Vegas. Wynn Las Vegas continued to see notable gaming market share gains in the quarter, driven by our incredible team and market-leading product and service, resulting in EBITDA growth on a hold-adjusted basis of 3% to $211 million. Against a difficult comp, demand in the casino was healthy throughout the quarter, with solid increases in both drop and handle, leading to casino revenues that were up 10%. Hotel revenue was flat at $187 million, demonstrating that our plan to accept slightly lower occupancy in order to preserve ADR and maximize EBITDA paid off during the quarter. In fact, in August, the property set an all-time monthly EBITDA record.

We also look forward to completing the renovation of the Fairway Villas by the end of this quarter and to the opening of Zero Bond. Oh, apologies. Sorry for that. Wynn Las Vegas continued to see notable gaming market share gains in the quarter, driven by our incredible team and market-leading product and service, as I mentioned. More recently, business in the fourth quarter has seen continued momentum with drop and handle both up versus the same prior period last year. We've also seen notable growth in RevPAR and strong retail sales. With the fourth quarter off to a strong start, we are now turning our attention to F1. You can look at our published room rates for the event and see that we are once again pricing at a significant premium to the market.

Looking further out, our group and convention business looks strong heading into 2026, on pace to grow both room nights and rate over 2025. I do want to note that as we begin the Encore Tower remodel in the spring, we will lose about 80,000 room nights in 2026. We will attempt to pick up some of that in rate, but the remodel will present a slight headwind for 2026. Importantly, we continue to invest in our market-leading assets here in Las Vegas. Ultimately, while macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty remain a consideration, we remain positive on the outlook for our business in Las Vegas. Turning to Boston, we generated $58 million in EBITDA. In terms of fundamentals, the business at Encore Boston Harbor remains solid, with slot revenues growing over 5% year-on-year and OPEX tightly controlled.

More recently, demand in Boston has remained healthy in October, with both drop and handle above last year. Macau also delivered very strong results in the quarter, which were further aided by higher-than-normal VIP holds. The business generated $308 million in EBITDA, including $23 million of VIP hold benefits. Mass volumes were particularly strong, up 15% year-on-year, despite the weather disruption near the end of the quarter. The cadence of Golden Week was a bit unusual this year in that we saw heavier volumes towards the tail end of the holiday and after the holiday period. Beyond Golden Week, volume metrics in the quarter have been strong, with turnover and mass drop both running well ahead of last year. With sustained double-digit market-wide growth in GGR, we continue to be optimistic about the future of Macau. The premium segment continues to lead the market in Macau.

Last quarter, we discussed two new projects: an expansion of the Chairman's Club gaming area at Wynn Palace and a refresh of our Wynn Tower rooms at Wynn Macau. To ensure we continue to take advantage of this ongoing demand. Both projects are moving along very quickly. The Chairman's Club expansion should be complete ahead of Chinese New Year, and we are already completing the initial floors of the Wynn Tower room renovation now. While we expect some minor disruption into year-end from these projects, once complete, they will further elevate our offerings at both properties. Wynn Al Marjan Island continues to progress rapidly, and we look forward to welcoming many of you to the site in less than a month. We're pouring the final two floors now and are on track to top out the tower ahead of our analyst event in December.

We are also pleased to announce our first development on the Marjan Land Bank, adjacent to Wynn Al Marjan: the Janui Al Marjan Island by Aman Group. The Aman team are world-class, and we're delighted to have them as a neighbor. From a structuring perspective, our JV, the same JV that owns Wynn Al Marjan, will own the property, and the Aman team will manage the asset. Given the recent success of condo sales in the UAE in general and Ras Al Khaimah in particular, we anticipate our portion of the equity check for the project will be quite small, about $25 million-$50 million. Beyond the standalone merits of the transaction, we also expect Janui's high-quality customers will be additive to Wynn Al Marjan Island. With the Marjan Land Bank, we have significant additional long-term development opportunities in the UAE. You can see more about this initial development in our quarterly earnings presentation.

We remain on track for our targeted opening date of Wynn Al Marjan Island and look forward to showcasing what we believe is the most compelling development opportunity in the industry. With no competing operations announced to date, Wynn Al Marjan Island will be the only integrated resort in what many analysts are predicting will be a $5 billion-plus GGR market. Our future continues to be bright. The opening of Wynn Al Marjan Island and the free cash flow inflection that it will bring gives us confidence that our best days lie ahead. I'll now hand it over to Julie to run through some additional details on the quarter.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Craig. At Wynn Las Vegas, we generated $203.4 million in adjusted property EBITDA on $621 million of operating revenue during the quarter, delivering an EBITDA margin of 32.8%. Unfavorable hold negatively impacted EBITDA in the quarter by just under $8 million. OPEX, excluding gaming tax per day, was $4.3 million in the quarter, up 3.1% compared to the prior year due to a bad debt swing and one-time expenses in repairs and maintenance. Otherwise, there were normal cause ebbs and flows in OPEX. Turning to Boston, we generated adjusted property EBITDA of $58.4 million on revenue of $211.8 million, with an EBITDA margin of 27.6%. Slot revenues were very strong, up 5%, and set a new record for Boston. We maintained our discipline on the cost side, with OPEX per day of $1.16 million, up 1.9% compared to Q3 2024, despite continued labor cost pressures in that market.

The Boston team has continued to do a great job of mitigating union-related payroll increases with cost efficiencies in areas of the business that do not impact the guest experience. Our Macau operations delivered adjusted property EBITDA of $308.3 million in the quarter on $1 billion of operating revenue, resulting in an EBITDA margin of 30.8%. Higher-than-normal VIP hold impacted EBITDA by a little under $23 million in the quarter. OPEX, excluding gaming tax, was approximately $2.75 million per day in Q3, up 7.6% year-on-year, with the increase driven primarily by the Gourmet Pavilion and normal cost of living expenses, as we called out last quarter. This quarter, we also saw the variable impact of higher business volumes and about $2.5 million of typhoon-related OPEX.

In terms of CAPEX in Macau, last quarter, we initiated two projects, as Craig mentioned, an expansion of the Chairman's Club gaming area at Wynn Palace and a refresh of our Wynn Tower rooms at Wynn Macau. Together with other ongoing CAPEX projects, we continue to expect to spend $200 million-$250 million in total for 2025. Moving on to the balance sheet, our liquidity position remains very strong, with global cash and revolver availability of $4.6 billion as of September 30. This was comprised of $2.8 billion of total cash and available liquidity in Macau and $1.7 billion in the US. The combination of strong performance in each of our markets globally, with our properties generating just under $2.3 billion of LTM adjusted property EBITDA, together with our robust cash position, creates a very healthy consolidated net leverage ratio of just over 4.3 times.

Our strong free cash flow and liquidity profile also allow us to continue returning capital to shareholders in both Macau and the U.S. To that end, Wynn Macau paid out approximately $125 million in dividends in Q3 after paying a similar amount in Q2. In addition, the Wynn Resorts Board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.25 per share, payable on November 26, 2025, to stockholders of record as of November 17th. Our recurring dividend highlights our focus on and continued commitment to prudently returning capital to shareholders. In terms of CAPEX, we spent approximately $164 million in the quarter, primarily related to the Fairway Villa renovations and food and beverage enhancements in Las Vegas, concession-related CAPEX in Macau, and normal cost maintenance across the business.

In addition to that figure, we contributed $93.9 million of equity to the Wynn Al Marjan Island project during the quarter, bringing our total equity contribution to date to $835 million. We also continued to draw on the Marjan Construction Loan, with a drawn amount to date of $583.7 million. We estimate our remaining share of the required equity, including the new Janui project, is approximately $525 million-$625 million. With that, we will now open up the call to Q&A.

Speaker 0

Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. Unmute your phone, record your name clearly after the prompt, and I will introduce you for your question. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. To withdraw your question, you may press star two. Our first question comes from Dan Politzer with JPMorgan. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 8

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. First, Las Vegas, another strong quarter. Can you talk about what you're seeing there versus a few months ago? You guys have been taking share. It sounds like the fourth quarter is trending well. Do you feel like the environment has improved as we've kind of moved out of the summer and you've filled in that group calendar? As you look out to 2026, what is your expectation there for growth, given that group is pacing higher?

Speaker 5

Sure. I'll start, and then I'll ask Brian to come in as well. I think the summer activity or the summer business environment has been well publicized, maybe to the extreme, here in Las Vegas. We saw our business as we were going into the summer, we saw components of the business that we felt like we needed to react to. We reacted to that, and we talked a little bit about this on the last call. We reacted to that by really focusing on rate and not on occupancy. Of course, we can kind of staff the building accordingly and really make sure that we're driving EBITDA, and we did that. On the last call, I believe we mentioned that we were seeing things start to improve more broadly in Vegas, and certainly that was the case.

We also knew that by the time we got to October, we'd be in pretty good shape for the reasons that you just described with respect to group. I don't think there's anything new there. I think it's kind of as we talked about and as is reflected in the results, inclusive of my commentary about how things look in October 2026. The primary indicator is group, and Brian will talk a little bit about that. Brian, what did I miss?

Speaker 4

I think it comes down to three groups that are really focused right now and really focused on Q3, and they're focusing forward: our revenue team, our sales team, and our casino marketing team. In Q3, we were squarely focused on casino marketing as well as yielding ADR, as Craig mentioned, over peaks and on weekends to really take advantage of the compression. The team did an amazing job, resulting in a record August, delivering really nice, great results for the quarter. I think Q3 was a lot better quarter than we initially saw at the beginning of the year. With respect to group, as stated, we're pacing ahead in 2026 in both rate and room nights. The team's now focused on really plugging the last available holes over the summer, which is typical and par for the course.

Really proud of what the team's done with their efforts. As we move forward, we continue to focus on peak periods and weekends where we can take rate wherever we can.

Speaker 8

Got it. And then just turning to the UAE. You guys laid out a little bit over a year ago a low-case, base case, and a high-case scenario for EBITDA there. And I think the high case was $460 million. So I guess, look, the property certainly still is a way away from opening, but can you lay out or remind us what are kind of the puts and takes between the base case and the low case and the high-end scenario? And obviously, given that it does not seem like there are competitors there, where does that maybe put you right now?

Speaker 5

Yeah. Look. There's a lot of puts and takes from the base case to the upside case, really across those cases. The number one, by an order of magnitude, is GGR. It comes down to how large the market will be and ultimately what our share of the market will be. As you rightly pointed out, our share of the market early on should be 100%. We're not yet ready to revisit the numbers that we put out in our investor day. You've seen sell-side estimates for the market as high as $8 billion. Even if the market is a fraction of that size, the absence of near-term competition probably introduces some conservatism into our base case. It's a greenfield market.

What we really are focused on right now is getting open with the absolute best product that we can.

Speaker 8

Got it. Makes sense. Thanks.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is John DeCree with CBRE. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 6

Hi, everyone. Craig, maybe to stick with Las Vegas a little bit, you talked about some of the stuff that happened over the summer. One of those things that came up was the social media backlash on pricing. You obviously cater to the highest end of the market. Curious your views on that impact in terms of visitation to Las Vegas as a whole. Specifically, although you're kind of the luxury end of the market, have you seen any pushback on pricing? You obviously had a great quarter in holding rate, but curious if you've seen any change.

Speaker 5

I'll take the second. Thank you for those questions. I'll take the second one first. We have not. On the first one, I've been getting this question a lot. Wynn Las Vegas is not necessarily built for those visiting Las Vegas on a tight budget. Our customer generally isn't the customer who focuses on cost alone, but they are the type of customer who is really unrelenting when it comes to value for their dollar, right? Their expectation of that perceived value could not be higher. A small example, by the way, I had a patron email me several weeks ago about the difficulty of peeling the complimentary oranges in our spa. We love that. We love feedback like that, no matter how small. While we're unapologetic about premium pricing, we don't ambush patrons with unexpected charges.

Contrary to what you might expect, our minibar prices are a fraction of some others in the market. We held out as long as we possibly could in charging for parking and really only began to do so when we were at risk of becoming the neighborhood parking lot. Even now, hotel guests park free, by the way. Yes, our customer pays a premium room rate, but we do not want them to feel nickeled and dimed. That is actually contrary to creating high perceived value. Because of that, we have not seen that pushback on pricing that others in the market might have, or at least we have seen on social media. Lastly, while the current narrative is, "When did Las Vegas get so expensive?" Las Vegas is actually chock-full of low-price options and values. It really is.

Historically, it has also been a town where one could escape one's worries for three days and experience world-class service in beautiful environments. In other words, a town of really high perceived value. Any erosion of that perceived value will manifest itself in a mantra against the cost of the experience itself. Read through the underlying messages, and you will see it much more as being about the value for dollar and not the dollar itself per se. That is just not us. No, we have not seen that pushback. If rates compressed 50% in Las Vegas tomorrow, would we see that? Would we feel that? Sure, we would. We will always be at a pricing premium, and the reason is because we deliver a whole lot of value.

Speaker 6

That's helpful, Craig. I appreciate those comments. I too struggled with those oranges, so I'm glad you guys are going to get that taken care of.

Speaker 5

They're easier to peel.

Speaker 6

Oh, good. Good. They're already pre-peeled, I'm sure. We'll look forward to that. If I could ask the question on kind of the inverse of that. We here expect visitation to pick back up in Las Vegas more broadly, especially with the convention calendar picking up. Your business is a bit uncorrelated, but should you also expect to see a little bit of uplift as visitation to the city comes back as a whole, or would you say you're kind of just marching to the beat of your own drum right now in terms of where you're positioned in the market? I guess, is there more upside as visitation recovers for you in Las Vegas?

Speaker 5

Yeah, of course. You really see it. Let's talk about three segments, right? High-end gaming, mass gaming, and ADR. Mass gaming and ADR are, of course, levered to visitation because they're both either demand-driven or correlate to the number of people that are coming through the doors every day. High-end gaming, very different, right? That's about, oh, about the equity markets. It's about host-to-customer relationships, one-to-one selling, the specific service in the building, that particular customer, and what they're doing. There are certainly aspects of our business that will benefit from incremental visitation to Las Vegas, most notably the rate that we charge for hotel rooms and the activity on our gaming floor outside of the high-limit rooms.

Speaker 6

Perfect. I'll leave it there. Thank you so much, Craig.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is Stephen Grambling with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 6

Hey, thank you. I do not know if you specifically quantify this, but we would love to hear any additional color you could give on how to think about the disruption impact in Las Vegas, but also how to think about perhaps the return on some of these projects as we look beyond 2026. Are some of these generally maintenance, or do you think that there will be incremental EBITDA from a lot of these?

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks. We have not quantified the impact. With respect to the Encore Tower remodel, primarily because what we will attempt to do is pick it up in rate. As we start to commence that renovation, we'll talk to you more about what we think the actual impact is. Some of the CapEx that we talk about is normal course maintenance. The Encore rooms haven't been redone in a number of years, and we need to do that in order to continue to drive rate, continue to be competitive, and continue to deliver on our brand promise. The other changes, particularly in food and beverage that we're making, are absolutely ROI-driven projects. Even when we redo a room like we just redid or we just did with Pisces, and not too long ago, we did with Mizumi, the incremental.

Check average that we drive, the incremental covers that we drive are absolutely EBITDA accretive. It really is a bit of a mixed bag. If you look at our ADRs in terms of maintenance versus growth, if you look at the ADRs that we've been delivering, I think you can see why it's important that we invest in the hotel.

Speaker 6

100%. Maybe turning to Macau very quickly, what are you seeing in terms of the competitive dynamics, particularly as the quarter progressed, given there's some chatter for some of your peers that there might be a little bit more promotions going on? How do you generally think about margins going forward as you think about either maintaining price integrity or having to competitively respond? Thanks.

Speaker 5

Sure. Thank you. We think about it day to day. As I've said on probably the last eight calls, it's hand-to-hand combat in Macau. That's just the reality of the market. We haven't seen a notable uptick in material, notable uptick in promotional activity. We have a really clear view, as I've said before, down to the basis point of how much incremental GGR market share we need in order to justify and fade an incremental percentage point of reinvestment. We're monitoring that closely in real time. In terms of the specific impact that you can see on margins, as I've also said before, we view margin as an outcome of aggressively driving revenues, profitably reinvesting customers, and diligently managing costs. We don't manage to a specific margin per se, but what we're constantly doing is looking at our reinvestment levels relative to revenue.

Not market share, revenue.

Speaker 6

That's helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is Robin Farley with UBS. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Thanks. Going back to the UAE for a moment, maybe I'm going to try and ask the question a different way. I don't know if I'll get any more of an answer. What were you factoring into your base case when you originally laid it out? I think you mentioned the potential for two other competitors to be in the market by 2029. How should we think about what you were kind of factoring in for that competition in terms of impact?

Speaker 5

Sure, Robin. You're right. We were factoring in two incremental competitors and a market that I believe, if I'm remembering from the presentation, was $3 billion-$5 billion of GGR. We always tend to operate at a fair share premium. So we did assume a share of that. In fact, you could probably show the GGR or you could probably take a look at the GGR that we showed and impute our fair share assumptions based on a market of $3 billion-$5 billion. As I mentioned before, with no announced competition that we're aware of in the market thus far, there probably is some conservatism in those estimates.

Speaker 7

Is the market size some of your assumption? Had assumed that some of the market would be driven by having those two other competitors, or do you think the market size would still be the same?

Speaker 5

Plus or minus, sure. We did not make an assumption with respect to the draw of any incremental competitors. What we really look at is a tremendous amount of airlift, a very robust locals market, a very, very high GDP per capita. Those are the things that we look at when assessing the size of the market. It is a very small market geographically. It is very tightly coupled. It is about 50 minutes from Dubai to the property. Those are all with great road infrastructure. Those are all the things that we look at when assessing market size.

Speaker 7

Thank you. If I could do one quick follow-up on Vegas, just for group for 2026, I wonder if you could give us a sense of group pace after Q1, just to get a sense of sort of underlying demand after the benefit, obviously, kind of rotating in just how that looks past Q1. Thanks.

Speaker 5

We don't break down our group forecasts on public calls by quarter, but it's safe to say that we feel good about it.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Sure.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is Grant Montour with Barclays. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 1

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. In Las Vegas, curious that up RevPAR or that RevPAR growth that you guys saw so far in the fourth quarter, is that all from mix and rate compression from group, or are you actually seeing some recovery in leisure occupancy?

Speaker 5

Sure. I'll start, and then I'll pass it to Brian. You mentioned the rate compression from group, and obviously, that helps in terms of pricing. Group rooms, obviously, are contracted multiple years out and thus tend to carry a lower ADR than the prevailing ADR. So it's really a function of health across the board, but absolutely, group compression does help. Brian, what would you add?

Speaker 4

I'd say the same. We've really seen a great start in October. Team's done a great job yielding rates over peak demands. We have a little softness before and after F1, which is typical, and the team's already reacted and put plans in place to prop that up. Pacing quite nicely in four, and we feel good about where we're headed.

Speaker 1

Great. Thanks for that. Quick question on UAE. You probably do not want to jump any guns here on what you want to say for the game plan there. For a property like this, when do you start to go out and build excitement and buzz with some of the bigger global players in your database now or in the database that you want to have? Is that sort of a later next year thing? Any insight on what you have learned so far from the acquisition in London to that extent?

Speaker 5

Sure. Great questions. The entire senior management team is already on board in the UAE. That includes key marketing leaders. You should assume, as is the case when you're opening a property in a new region like this, that one-to-one marketing and player engagement has been going on for actually quite some time. Mass marketing and mass communication, you obviously roll out much, much closer to the actual opening because to create awareness at this point, you're so far from consideration and conversion that it really doesn't do you much good. We are actively marketing to the folks that we will want in the building on a one-to-one basis, and you should expect to see a lot more on the mass marketing side as 2026 progresses. Mayfair has been very interesting.

Extremely high overlap between the Mayfair database and the database that we expect in that part of the world. We've learned a whole lot around game preference, reinvestment expectations, the competitive dynamics in other parts of that region, and it's really been very, very instructive to what we're going to do in Marjan.

Speaker 1

Excellent. Thanks, everyone.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is David Katz, Jefferies. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 2

Hi, afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to talk about Macau, where taking some share. Seems to be the high-level observation. The hold percentage was high. We've seen October GGR numbers come across. In the mid-teens growth percentage. I'd love just your kind of state of the state. What's going on in that market? What's driving that growth? Is it the mainland? Fundamental dynamics in some way? Whatever you can share would be helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, David. Yeah, you're right. The market has been pretty good, and it's great to see. You usually have a very thoughtful and very strategic question on these calls, so I'm going to answer you in a somewhat philosophical and strategic way. That may not satisfy you, by the way. There's a lot of cross currents in China right now. I think trying to pin recent growth on any one, two, or three, say, particular factors is kind of a fool's errand. I think what's important is to understand that a lot of folks haven't actually been to China since before COVID. The China of today is not the China of 2018. China is a giant, complex economy, and honestly, the country is the pace setter in a whole bunch of areas: advanced manufacturing, EVs, robotics.

It is really not all that different than the U.S., where you can have certain consumer segments performing really well while others are performing more modestly. It is a really dynamic place. The consumer is evolving too. Frankly, you can see it everywhere in Macau. Sometimes for the better, in their affinity for top-quality experiences, for example, and frankly, sometimes for the worse. GGR per visitor, for example, in Macau when you have these visitation surges. Chinese consumer tastes are advancing at a rapid clip. It will create changes in gaming, food and beverage, retail preferences. It is an exciting place to be, and we are very long-term bullish. I think trying to pin ebbs and flows in the market to one particular factor, it is like trying to pin ebbs and flows in Las Vegas to any one particular factor. It is just not the case.

We're delighted with how the market is doing, and we're very, very mid and long-term bullish on Macau.

Speaker 2

Appreciate all that. Just one follow-up to that end. One of the observations we're seeing here in the U.S. is a bit of a bifurcation where the high-end seems to be doing better than the low-end. Is that unrelated, but is that a similar dynamic to what you're seeing out of China?

Speaker 5

Sure. I think you see that. It's a premium-led market. It's a premium mass-led market, and I think that is absolutely the case. You also have a shifting set of a shifting industrial policy in China that is having certain effects on real estate, certain effects on other forms of industry and value creation, and that's creating new pockets of wealth. It's just a very, very dynamic place. Your general observation is, I think, true, and that's good for us because that's the end of the market that we focus on.

Speaker 2

Yep. Thank you, Craig.

Speaker 5

Sure.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is Chad Beynon with Macquarie. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 2

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to go back to Vegas. Occupancy, as we can see in the release, was down a couple hundred basis points, which was expected. Your slot drop up 7% and your table drop up 12% clearly shows that either the customers that were staying in your property were spending more per trip than what we had seen in prior periods, or maybe others are, I do not know, using other properties as dormitories and then coming over to your property. Can you add any additional color just in terms of the disconnect between the growth that you had in drop versus the number of people staying in your property for the quarter? Thanks.

Speaker 5

Sure. I'll start, and again, I'll ask Brian to weigh in. Look. There's a lot that goes into attracting premium play. And disproportionately, the growth that you're seeing is premium play, and disproportionately, it is lodgers. We set out several years ago to double down on what we do really well. Okay, that's the service in the building, the amenities we have in the building, and also to improve even further certain aspects of our casino marketing function. As part of that, or as a result of that, I should say, you have seen pretty significant growth in our gaming market share. I'm super proud of that. I'm super proud of the team for doing that. You're seeing the benefits of that in Q3. It really is that straightforward. It's not the mass floor that's driving that. It's the hosted high-end customer.

Brian, what would you add?

Speaker 4

Yeah. It's the premium customer that's really looking for a premium experience. It's us continuing to invest in our facilities, in our offerings, in the experiences, investing in our people. Leaning into who we are, focused on our culture of service, cleanliness, safety. At a premium level. People are willing to pay extra for that. We get more of our fair share for that and can steal share at that point. People want value.

Speaker 5

It goes back to the perceived value comment that I had in response to John's question. It is also technology. We're using technology very differently than we did before on the marketing side. Honestly, there is no one thing. It is all those things. The results that you're seeing, as I said, are disproportionately people that are staying in the building.

Speaker 4

Yeah. I mean, if I can add, on F1 right now, as we come into fourth quarter, and that's always been a popular topic, we're highly programmed for our premium crowd. We're seeing solid pickup right now. We've maintained our premium rates from last year, and we've maintained a three-night minimum for that F1 weekend that no one else in the market has done. Feeling really good about where we are. We've actually bought three additional tranches of tickets, so really seeing great increased demand. We have an outstanding relationship with Formula One. We're bullish on the future of the race, and I think it continues to pay dividends for not just us, but for the market.

Speaker 2

Great. Thanks. Yes, F1 rates are impressively priced right now. Just in terms of buybacks and how we should think about capital allocation, I know that was something that was becoming a little bit more recurring in the quarterly result. Julie, can you just give us an update in terms of how you're thinking about that from these levels? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. I mean, we operate. We're always diligent in looking at how to allocate our capital. We operate off the grid. You'll have seen we didn't do any buying in the quarter. Certainly, when we see value, we will be back into it. We refuse to be overly programmatic here. We like to retain the flexibility.

Speaker 5

Yeah. We've tried to be super explicit that we're not programmatic buyers of the stock. Sometimes, if you buy for several quarters in a row, people seem to forget that. We like to buy when people are unusually bearish, and it's excessively cheap. When we do buy, as Julie mentioned, we use a price-based grid. We had a grid in place in the third quarter, but with the movement in the stock, the grid wasn't in play. We have a significant free cash flow inflection point coming in 2027, driven in large part by Wynn on Marjan. We think there's continued room for the stock to run. If it retraces, we will be back at it.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Sure.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next caller is Steve Wieczynski with Stifel. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Craig, I want to start with Macau and go back to Golden Week, which I think you described as unusual. In the end, look, we understand there were some weather headwinds early in the week and all that stuff, but wondering what you think kind of drove that unusual pattern. Meaning folks, especially the higher-end folks, stayed away, then they came back, it seems like, in full force later in the month. I guess the question is more around, should we expect this type of behavior to kind of repeat itself going forward around this holiday? I know that's somewhat philosophical.

Speaker 5

Yeah, no problem. I mean, we're asking ourselves the same question. Don't know yet. I mean, I think to the causation, I think we all view it as kind of all of the above, all the things that you said. We were pleased to see the tail end and volumes after the holiday. It remains to be seen. We will certainly think about our hosting strategy and our room booking strategy a little bit more flexibly as we move into Chinese New Year and May Golden Week. We'll see. I mean, one event is not yet a trend.

Speaker 2

Yeah, makes sense. Then, can I ask a question on Boston? Because you never get a question on Boston.

Speaker 5

Yeah, bring it on.

Speaker 2

Okay. The property was obviously very stable. If I look at the drop on the margin side of things, wondering if that was more around promotions, just trying to figure out if you guys had to promote more to drive stability around volumes, and if that was part of the margin deceleration, or I'm just totally off base with that.

Speaker 5

Definitely not. Definitely not that. It is not a promotion-driven issue. You really have kind of, and generally, Boston is very, very stable. In fact, this quarter, it was stable too. In response to your specific point, you really have kind of two macro trends that are happening there. One is you're constantly trying to grow the database and trying to move out in concentric circles from the property and add incremental customers. The other is labor costs. They work against each other, and you're constantly playing those two things against each other and trying to drive the best result that you can. It really is that straightforward. The marginal bounce around based on hold, based on volumes in the period. The team and Jenny, in particular, are incredibly, incredibly adept at managing the intricacies of that business.

Speaker 2

Okay. Great. Thanks, Craig. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5

Sure.

Speaker 3

I'll operate to the next question. It will be our last. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our final question comes from Steve Pazella with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open, sir.

Speaker 5

Hey, good afternoon, and thanks for taking our questions. Starting off with a little bit of a longer-term question, you mentioned the free cash flow inflection as the CapEx cycle tapers off and UAE comes online. Can you talk about how we should think about the possible uses of the free cash flow in 2027?

Yeah, sure. We are always thinking about the best use of cash. Irrespective of a free cash flow inflection or not. But you've seen us over the course of the past couple of years return capital through recurring dividend and through buybacks. Certainly, capital returns are an important part of our strategy. Beyond that, we have an incremental land bank in the UAE. I think before we really put scaled capital into that, we will want to see. We will want to size the market and really satisfy ourselves that the market is what we expect and what I think others expect, or even better. It will really be a question of how much incremental CapEx to deploy and what we return to shareholders. Kind of the—I hate to give you a plain vanilla answer, but that's really how we think about things.

We have an exciting opportunity in the UAE, and we love to return capital. We'll see how those two things play out. I suspect if history is any guide, it'll probably be a combination of all of them.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Then real quick, it was reported that the UAE would potentially offer one online gaming license per emirate. Can you talk about if you would be potentially interested in one of the licenses?

Not really. I think we don't tend to comment on press speculation, and I think it's really up to the Emirates and the GCGRA, the regulator there, how and when they enact incremental forms of gaming.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Sure.

Speaker 3

Okay. With that, we'll bring the call to a close. Thank you for your continued interest in Wynn Resorts, and we look forward to updating you again early next year.

Speaker 5

Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 0

Thank you for participating on today's conference call. You may now disconnect and have a great rest of your day.