Wynn Resorts touted its planned acquisition of a London casino, new opportunities, and what it would take to develop another resort in Las Vegas.
In January, Wynn announced an agreement to purchase Crown London (Aspinalls), a small members-only casino in the heart of London’s upscale Mayfair district. The acquisition is anticipated in the second half of 2025.
The property has 20 gaming tables, a restaurant, and lounge.
The move was made to help build a database and brand awareness for Wynn Al Marjan Island resort that’s under construction in the United Arab Emirates, slated to open in 2027.
“This small but strategic asset provides a presence in Central London, where many of our future Wynn Al Marjan customers spend a meaningful amount of time,” Billings told Wall Street analysts during a Thursday earnings call.
“This acquisition was really about establishing a presence in a key global gateway city in a part of the world where, taken together with Wynn Al Marjan Island, we’re building a meaningful business. When you put the two properties together, they’re going to serve an area that’s home to 2.5 million people and 40% of the world’s millionaires.
“Don’t expect the London acquisition to be the last for Wynn. We’re actively exploring and well positioned to capitalize on additional new market opportunities in attractive gateway cities. And we have strategic land banks in each of our markets that provide an embedded long-term growth pipeline.”
In discussing other opportunities, if Wynn doesn’t obtain a casino license in New York City, Billings told analysts that the operator builds “battleship-style assets” and doesn’t do small developments. He said the U.S. regional gaming market is “a tough market and the opportunities left there are primarily infill. You also have the potential cannibalization of online gaming.”
That leaves their UAE project and a land bank in Marjan Island, Billings said. Macau showed the power of having a land bank in new markets in the mid-2000s.
“We’re active in Thailand, but it’s early days,” Billings said. “We’re active in New York, but we won’t be subject to winter’s curse in New York. We’re being very disciplined in how we think about New York.”
Billings went out to cite Wynn’s Las Vegas land bank and that the company has years of growth ahead of it.
“I get asked why aren’t you moving on the land in Las Vegas,” Billings said. “The reality is that from a capital and bandwidth perspective, there are only so many things one can do at once. Of course, opportunities come along that are time bound. If Thailand does move ahead, you want to make sure you’re in a position to participate. We have a lot of opportunities and right now we’re very focused on Wynn Al Marjan. It’s a tremendous opportunity for us.”
When asked what it would take to start any future Las Vegas development, Billings said the timing has to be right from a global-business perspective. They have to take into account the entire portfolio and make sure it could be well executed.
“The market is just now absorbing capacity from new openings over the course of the past four years (Resorts World Las Vegas and Fontainebleau Las Vegas) and we have to make sure we’re in position to do something that addresses an adjacent customer base,” Billings said. “We obviously don’t want to cannibalize ourselves. We don’t want to create Wynn Las Vegas 2.0. We need to make sure we have our marketing position right. We have a very clear view of what that is. We’ve done early studies and early doodles of what we think that land could hold, so stay tuned. We would appreciate it if everyone focused on Wynn Al Marjan Island. We’ll see how we proceed from there.”
