Boosted by the seemingly endless growth in Macau’s overall casino market and a modest return to black ink in Vegas, Wynn Resorts saw its Q3 revenue rise 29% to $1b. While the company posted a loss of $33.5m, much of the blame goes to a $64.2m charge for early repayment of debt.
Wynn’s two Macau properties were the obvious engines of profitability, with overall revenue up 50% to $671.4m. VIP table games turnover was up 54% to $21.7b, while the mass market segment was up 21% to $605m, and slot machine handle was up 49% to $1.1b. CEO Steve Wynn was especially tickled by the fact that October was the company’s best ever month in Macau, telling analysts that “We made over $90 million.”
By comparison, Wynn’s two Vegas properties posted only a 3% revenue gain, but that’s still on the positive side of things, so no one’s complaining after all the red ink of the past two years. Interestingly, gaming revenue was actually off 4%, but non-gaming revenue gained 6.3%. (The same phenomenon was also recently observed in Atlantic City.) CEO Wynn told analysts that he believes Las Vegas has stabilized itself for the moment. “I don’t know when it’s going to get better, but I don’t think it’s going to get worse.”
Sticking in Vegas, Wynn dealers have voted to approve a new 10-year labor contract, a first for both the three-year old union and the casino. To their chagrin, Wynn’s 500+ full-time dealers failed to get rid of the detested tip-sharing policy, so the dealers’ immediate supervisors will still get their taste, at least until the dealers’ court challenge is heard. Hard to believe you have to share tips when Steve made $90m just last month, but hey, that’s show biz.
