During Wednesday’s earnings conference call, MGM Resorts CEO and President Bill Hornbuckle expressed optimism for 2025.
“We are seeing positive indicators with revenues up in our domestic operations in January,” Hornbuckle said, “as well as ADR (average daily rate) is on pace to grow the rest of the year. All of this great momentum is backed by a solid balance sheet characterized by low net debt and significant liquidity. Our globally recognized brands, prime locations, development opportunities and growing digital platforms enable us to reach more customers and more markets than any other company in our sector.”
But there is a concern in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the first quarter of 2024: this year, Las Vegas did not host the Super Bowl. That event brought in an estimated $65 million for MGM Resorts.
“It is our goal to be able to overcome that,” said Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer Jonathan Halkyard, “and also to remind you that we do some have obstacles in terms of the impact of the renovation of the MGM Grand (on the Las Vegas Strip). That’s really important capital project for us.
“We’ve actually already got 600 rooms back online, with great response from our customers, so that project is moving well. But it does impact us over the course of the year, to the tune of about the same amount as the Super Bowl did year-over year.”
MGM Resorts reported record full year revenue of $17.2 billion, up 7 percent year-over-year. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2024 was $4.3 billion, a slight decrease of 1 percent.
MGM Digital, which includes the company’s LeoVegas, Push Gaming, Tipico and online gaming interests (and does not include BetMGM) is considered to be a growth opportunity in 2025.
“The past couple of years we’ve been assembling a distribution network and a product platform that we believe gives us a great opportunity to compete digitally,” said Gary Fritz, president of MGM Resorts Interactive. “We’ve principally completed our capital deployment program … “We’ve spent about a billion dollars in the LeoVegas business, building out the proprietary content development capabilities of Push (Gaming) and more recently the acquisition of the sports book platform via Tipico’s U.S. assets. And we’re happy where we’ve ended up with all that.
“We’re hard at work integrating all of those assets together to create a platform and set of player experiences that allow us to compete, really, anywhere in the world. We think market conditions are favorable.”
MGM Resorts also thinks it has a good handle on the increase of taxes on sport revenue. Hornbuckle said it’s something that company has “dealt with for a very long time.” He pointed out that when MGM Resorts met with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, progress was made.
“When we sat down with the governor in his office and went through the gives and takes and what that meant in terms of employment and jobs and some of the other commitments we mentioned, the commitments we gave to the community, there was a pretty quick and good understanding of that,” Hornbuckle said. “… I think there are markets that get it, there are markets that want to see true growth and want to keep it onshore versus offshore, out of black holes. And I think there’s a couple of states I think we’ll continue to battle.
“It will be interesting to see what states come up next for igaming and how they think about tax. I do believe it’s manageable. I think we, as an industry, have done a good job so far, communicating what’s at stake. Never say never, but of all the things that keep me up at night, it’s not one of them.”
