Las Vegas Sands Corp. ($LVS)

Thanks very much for joining the 4:30 session here at the Strategic Decisions Conference, 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference. Anyone that doesn't know me, I'm Richard Clarke. I'm the GLL analyst, OTA cruise analyst here at Bernstein. and delighted to have Patrick Dumont here for, I guess, your first Strategic Decisions Conference, if that's.

That's right. Thanks so much for having me.

We're delighted to have you here representing Las Vegas Sands. So maybe for anyone in the room that doesn't know the business that well, maybe just a short description and then you've been in the job now for, I guess, 3 months? Is that about right? Not new to the industry, not new to the business. I appreciate that. But just any first impressions, early impressions of sitting in the hot seat.

I think the great thing is I've worked for the company for almost 16 years. And so our team is a group that's worked together for a long time. You asked for a description of our company. We are the premier developer and operator of integrated resorts in Asia. So our founder, Sheldon Adelson, had a vision for large-scale growth in tourism through scale investments for both leisure and business tourism, and he accomplished that. And so today, we're the scale operator in 2 of the most important markets in the world for our industry.

Great. Well, I mean, I think when we hosted the company before, we've always started in Macau, but now it feels like we should start in Singapore for the best news. So I think Singapore has now become pretty much your biggest or at least joint biggest part of the business, exceeded, I think, anyone's expectations of what they would have had for Marina Bay Sands. Maybe you could just talk us through what's driven that success? Is that structural? Have you had some cyclical upside from it? What's driving the strong performance you've seen in Singapore in the last year or so?

If you look at our company's history, we've always created success through investment. So the first investment that the company did was based on changing the status quo about developing something new that had both leisure and tourism components. And we -- our company brought that to Singapore. And I think there's always been a long-term vision about the growth of Singapore. I think our company has a very positive view about Singapore and its long-term potential, and we've been investing behind that thesis for more than 15 years. And so if you look at Marina Bay Sands, it's actually always exceeded industry expectations. When it was first opened, I think people didn't anticipate just how well it received it would be. It created massive tourism growth for Singapore, which was the goal, created a lot of follow-on foreign direct investment, which was the goal. And we've had a great partnership with Singapore in developing high-value tourism over time. We've invested a lot in the MICE industry there. We've invested a lot in entertainment and in hospitality. And I think the last round of investment that we did, which was a $1.75 billion reinvestment program, really created a much better experience for high-end patrons and high-end guests. And we really focused on a few things. We focused on the product. We focused on the design, the materiality of our rooms, how we would service our customers. And we created a whole new category of suite product that we didn't have before on top of renovating our food and beverage and some of the other experiences our guests would have, and that helped create the growth that we see today in Singapore. So for us, it's really in the most important market in our industry in terms of the high-end part of it. The structural tailwinds for Singapore are extraordinary, and we have a government that is investing in other sectors to help high-value tourism. So I think it's a great market. Southeast Asia is growing. There's a lot of wealth creation and a lot of people are looking for tremendous experiences, unique experiences, and they come to us. And so it's very fortunate that we're there.

So is Singapore now the destination for premium gaming tourism? Is that now overtaken Vegas, Macau, it's the top destination now to go to if you want a gaming vacation?

That's what it seems like. That's what we -- that's what our goal was. Our goal was to create the best hospitality experiences in the world, the best service experiences in the world, the best dining, the best entertainment in a way that these critical massive amenities would drive the highest value tourists. And I think we've achieved that, and we're going to continue to invest and continue to look to grow.

So talk to us about the extension. So I think $8 billion, correct me if I'm wrong.

Expansion.

Expansion. Sorry. Okay. Well, maybe you explain exactly what the expansion is then in the -- if I'm using the wrong term in Singapore. Fourth tower, am I again using the wrong term here? But...

All good. All good.

What are you looking to achieve by adding this extra capacity, what does that add to the product in Singapore?

I think we've learned a lot in the last 15 years about the market and about its potential. And we've been able to get the benefit of some of that knowledge and experience in the recent reinvestment that we did and the EBITDA growth that you've seen across through 2025. And I think now we're looking at our IR2, and it will have a name besides IR2 by the time we open it. We're looking at IR2 as a way to take all of that knowledge and experience and create a higher level of luxury, a higher level of unique hospitality experiences, a higher level of food and beverage, a higher level of gaming and most importantly, a higher level of entertainment with a new 15,000-seat live performance venue that really creates experiences that our customers can't get any place else to continue our leadership in Southeast Asia as the premier IR.

And talk to us about the sort of getting a return. I mean, sitting from a sort of hotel analyst, $8 billion sounds like a lot of money to spend on an expansion, or an extension, whatever it is. What -- is this -- are you hoping to get the same return on that investment as you put into the original Marina Bay Sands Hotel?

We think about it as a total investment. So we don't break it into its component parts. We think about it as we spent close to $6 billion building Marina Bay Sands. We spent several billion dollars recently renovating it. We spent almost a little bit more than $1 billion over the years in CapEx in certain areas. And then with the expansion of $8 billion, I do want to point out that $2 billion of that is actually land premium to the Singapore government, right? And so you could almost think about that as amortizing that over the life of the investment of the lease. But more importantly, even if you want to consider the $8 billion, I would say that when you look at all of that spending in aggregate and you look at the productivity of the asset in aggregate, we would exceed our return thresholds that we expect. So we're very excited about it. We have a very long-term view about Singapore. We consider this a tremendous opportunity for our company to invest in this scale with these type of assets in this market, given what the market has in terms of its productivity. And we're very excited about it, and we're optimistic about the returns. Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing it.

Absolutely. And is the current level of profitability you enjoy in Singapore, I think it's a 52% EBITDA margin. Is this a sustainable margin through the future of Singapore? Or does eventually get competed away in some way?

So I think what's interesting about Marina Bay Sands is if you look at it throughout its history, its margin structure has been the best in the industry at that scale, right? I think that's driven by the quality of investment and the type of patrons that are available in Singapore as a market, which is unique. It's a very high-end market. It is rarefied air. These are the best patrons in the world, and they're there in scale. And so for us, to be able to have an opportunity to expand and take advantage of this is very powerful.

And you mentioned it there that the expansion will take on a bit more of an entertainment focus. Is this to attract a different customer to the property? Or is this providing more experiences to your existing kind of core customer base, you're trying to expand the appeal of Marina Bay Sands with adding more of these entertainment type?

So it creates opportunities for a couple of different types of customer. I think it will drive more foreign tourism into Singapore. You saw that with Taylor Swift. You saw that with Lady Gaga. You see that with F1 that high-quality entertainment events drive visitation in Singapore. And so we think that will be a great benefit to not only Marina Bay Sands, but also Singapore tourism as a whole. We think it will be a very unique experience for our high-value patrons because the type of luxury entertainment experience that we're going to present in the new arena is going to be unique to Asia. We're going to have a lot of high-quality amenities within the arena and create experiences that our customers can't get any place else. And I think the third component is it will be great for Singaporeans because now they'll have a live performance venues that they don't have today in Singapore. And so I think it hits a couple of different components, and it will do them all very well.

Okay. And then talk to us about the MICE opportunity maybe there as well. That's also going to be accelerated by the expansion you're going to be there? And how important is that to the Singapore customer, the Singapore revenue pool?

So Singapore has a goal of actually growing MICE materially over the next couple of years. And so there's been a lot of focus on how to grow MICE. And so we have an additional MICE component in our expansion in IR2. And this MICE component will be very important because it allows us to host events that we can't accommodate today because of the capacity. We'll also add another large-scale ballroom that's column-free. And of course, the arena itself is very useful for MICE because of the types of sessions you can run now and the types of events that you can have in coordination with the exhibition space and the convention space. So for us, this just helps fill out and make our offering stronger. So it will be a good component of the MICE offering that Singapore has.

So beyond the current projects, is there more investment opportunities in Singapore? Is there more opportunities in Singapore? Like can you keep growing fifth tower, sixth tower, seventh tower, other sites...

Let's start with this one. Let's see how it goes. But I like how you think. Hopefully so.

And then maybe just to throw in one short-term question here. Obviously, we've seen a lot of in Asia about jet fuel shortages and flights, et cetera. And I guess with Singapore, in particular, it's very much a transportation hub. Are you seeing any impact from sort of flight turmoil in terms of the demand coming into Singapore?

Right now, we don't have anything to report. And the question remains how long does this go on? And so we'll wait and see. But as of right now, there doesn't seem to be anything that we can measure.

Okay. Perfect. Let's shift over to your other key markets, Macau. I guess it would be fair to say we're in a slightly different trajectory to Singapore. Is this simply a cyclical impact of a softer Chinese consumer? Is it getting more competitive than maybe Singapore has been? Or is there any sense that you've kind of underperformed in that market?

So Macau is very interesting because Singapore opened after the pandemic at a different time line. And when you think about when Macau opened in January of '23, there was a lot of uncertainty about what that would actually look like. And it took a little while for the visas to actually hit a normal run rate. And so the -- as Macau opened as a market, it didn't recover as a snapback. So in other markets when the pandemic finally receded, there was a snapback. Macau had more of a ramp. And so it was uncertain what the ultimate market stability would look like, the stabilization point. And the great news is Macau has actually kept growing. So if you look at the gross gaming revenue run rate in '23 when it first opened, it was more than $10 billion less than it is today. And over time, the patrons who have returned to Macau are actually new. There's a lot of new customers coming to Macau. A lot of them skew younger. They bring their families. And a lot of them have made a significant amount of wealth in the last 5 years because of the growth that has occurred across Southeast Asia and China in certain sectors. And so what we're seeing is it's really a more premium-led recovery as opposed to the unrated play, which represented a large portion of our business. And so we're the scale player in the market. We have the most assets, the most hotel rooms, the most gaming positions. And so for us, it represents an opportunity to invest and actually change the way we address the market for the segments that are now the most powerful and the deepest, which we have the capacity to do. And so what we intend to do is invest over time and actually make adjustments based on some of the ways we position ourselves post pandemic to ensure that for the long term, we invest for success. But we believe very strongly in the Macau market. We think there's a bright future there. Its feeder is China, Hong Kong and certain other countries and smaller amounts. And we feel like that the future is very bright given the level of investment there and the high-quality assets that exist in Macau today.

So is that a very different customer split than Singapore. Singapore is broader. It's not just Chinese and Hong Kong customers. that's coming from all around Southeast Asia. I mean, can you attract those customers to Macau as well? Can you broaden the appeal of it? Or is it about getting the Chinese customer right that's about winning in Macau?

So it is very different feeder markets for both of these properties or grouping of properties in Macau. So Singapore is really inbound tourists from all around Southeast Asia. So Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, a little bit of Laos, some South Korea, some Japan. But it's really more of a local Southeast Asia customer base. And when you look at Macau, it's what I described before. And the thing that's interesting about Macau is that we have a mandate to grow inbound tourism from other countries. And so all of us as a group of concessionaires are working on doing that. And it's much easier now because the Hong Kong Airport is readily accessible with the bridge that goes from the Hong Kong Airport to Macau. And so that is something that we're working on to help make a reality. But because of the attractiveness of the Macau assets and their relative competitiveness to other hospitality centers globally, we feel like that's a possibility for the long term, and we're working towards that.

And so talk to us about some of the investments you're doing into Macau. So if I understand correctly, the attractive customer now is a little bit more premium than it used to be. So what do you need to do in your properties to attract that customer? How much investment is maybe necessary to get to that to attract that customer?

So I think for us, we're really focusing on 3 things. We're focusing on our product, which is part of the innovation that we talked about. I mentioned on our earnings call about how we're looking to engage in a CapEx program over the next 3 years to help create higher opportunities for return on investment. We're really focused on our people to ensure that we have the right people in the right positions to maximize the value of the assets. And most importantly, for our customers, we're really improving our service. It's something that post pandemic, we've had a lot of work to do on, and we're doing it. And so when we combine all these things, we feel like we'll have a really good opportunity to address the market and attract these high-value patrons. But they're a very discerning group. They're very sophisticated. They're on social media. They travel internationally. They're aware of other markets. And so you have to be very competitive on a global basis to ensure that you retain these patrons. And so it really is about investment in those things.

So talk to us about the Londoner. So that's now -- is that fully open?

Is that your favorite property of ours?

I like to go to a theme properties based around where I was.

Because you can go from Venice to Paris to London, all in one day.

[indiscernible] Fish and chips and David Beckham suites in there. But I mean, how well has that product resonated? I guess it's a new theme, if you like, for casinos, I guess, Parisian and -- and Venice have been well tried and tested. Is Londoner a theme that resonates with?

London is a hit. I have to tell you, London is a hit. But I think the takeaway is theming is not easy in our industry. There was a time when, particularly in the history of Las Vegas, the theming had a certain amount of import to it. And I think for us, because our Macau properties are themed, we have to do it in a way that is both tasteful and remains current relevancy, right? I think we were able to do that with the Londoner. I think it's a lot of fun. It has some whimsy to it and people are happy with it. But I also think at the end of the day, it comes down to the performance of the asset. And if you look at what we were doing before and the results after, you can see that there is a real opportunity for growth there. I think the other thing to note is just as an operator, our properties that are most freshly renovated are the ones that perform the best. And that makes sense intuitively. Someone who understands hospitality very well, there's a need not only to invest to offset depreciation, which is real in our industry. You really have to invest to keep your properties fresh, but also to create experiences that are new that keep people talking about it. And I think we've done that well with the Londoner transformation.

And I guess when you talk about sort of Marina Bay Sands back in Singapore, I think they actually took rooms out to make the rooms bigger and more premium. Is that something that's an option in Macau? Is that something that's also going on, you can sort of premiumize the product, make it more exclusive?

We've done that. I think if you look at the transformation of Londoner, particularly most notably with the Londoner Grand product, that was a Sheraton hotel, and we basically went two-for-one. And we did that to create better experiences for people and go out of the room product into a suite product. And we were fortunate because of the way the floor plates worked that we're able to do it in a very efficient way. And so I think we've got an outcome that works very well, particularly with the direction of the market and where the deepest segments are to be able to create these suite products to attract these high-value tourists in Macau. But we still have hotel rooms in all of our hotels, but we are also overweighting certain types of suite products to ensure that we can grow with the market given where it's headed.

Okay. Makes sense. How -- I mean, if we sort of think about -- you kind of mentioned there you need to do theming right. Is -- you switched over Sheraton product to one of your own brands. Can we take that to mean that, that kind of branding product like having Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton or Sheraton above the door, that is resonating less for your customers, and it's more about the quality of the product that matters.

No. I think it depends on the brand, where the brand positions versus where the customers are headed because these are international brands. The Sheraton brand is a very strong brand globally. But when we made the decision, was it right for the type of customer that we wanted to attract into the building, given who's available to come to Macau and the type of investment we were making and does it fit with the theming of the property that we felt would be a marketing advantage. And so we have a great relationship with Marriott. We have a great relationship with the other hotel operators. We have a great relationship with Four Seasons. And there are some brands that work with what we're trying to do, and there are some brands that maybe are not aligned at this time. And so Four Seasons is a great brand. And they've done great work, and we really appreciate the partnership. And it's a brand that I think resonates really well with the customers that we have on that property. Same thing is true with the St. Regis. It's been a great brand to have, and it's done very well for us. So I think it really depends on the type of product. There are certain things that we do at the very high end that are necessary to brand with a proprietary brand, right? There are certain things that we offer that are a certain level of design, a certain level of aesthetic, a certain level of service that goes beyond the typical 5-star hotel. And so therefore, it makes sense to identify with the brand that we control.

That makes sense. Maybe just going for a bit more of a short-term question here on Macau as well. What is your sort of macro outlook for Macau? I mean are you seeing Chinese consumer spending? You positive on that trend? Is it a necessary positive trend for you? Do you have a sort of positive outlook that there will be macro tailwinds in Macau for your business?

So I have a very positive outlook for Macau for the next 3, 5 and 10 years. And that's the reason why we're so confident to continue to invest there. I think it's a very unique collection of assets. I think there's been a huge amount of infrastructure that takes people directly into Macau from China, the rail system, the bridge, the connection to the Hong Kong Airport. All of these things are very powerful and very helpful. But also more importantly, there's a broader initiative to create a more powerful economic engine in the Greater Bay Area, which we're the hospitality component of. So in the long term, we feel very strongly that this investment will be part of a much larger initiative that we'll follow along with. And we think that's positive just from a broader macro tailwind. I think the other thing is when you look at the size of the gaming market, given all the turbulence that you're seeing in sort of recent economic trends in the region, it's a $30 billion-plus gaming market. So imagine how well it's going to do when things stabilize and return to growth as you've seen prior to some of the turbulence. So we feel very confident in the long term. We're very thoughtful in the way that we invest. But we think overall, given the rising middle class in China, the wealth creation that's going on in Southeast Asia and demand for high-quality experiences today, we think we're positioned very well.

And just to repeat the question we asked in Singapore, like is this also a market where things like entertainment and MICE are also important to attracting that incremental consumer into the market?

I think there are different pillars of the operation. And I think entertainment is very interesting because we have a partnership with the NBA and we present NBA preseason games and the NBA China games in Macau. And that's been a very strong success because it helps create buzz and a halo effect around tourism for Macau. It allows us to attract customers to draw attention to us, be able to show us as a relevant and internationally interesting tourism destination and really highlights the high-quality assets that Macau has because people pay attention to what the NBA does, particularly in China. And I think other entertainment acts that come to Macau also bring that. There's K-pop acts that show up both with us and with some of our competitors' venues. And all of this is beneficial to Macau. So I think highlighting Macau as a tourism entertainment destination is very positive for the city, creates a buzz around the city and creates interest, which ultimately translates into visitation.

Great. I've got a couple of questions from the audience on Macau. Thanks for submitting those. Maybe this is wing into one of mine, but it kind of -- if I look at your stock price, it almost feels like Macau has driven your stock maybe more than the Singapore success. Is that fair? Maybe what is the misunderstood there? And would you ever consider spinning off or splitting the business between Macau and Singapore?

So I think I would encourage everyone to go to Macau and actually see it, anyone who wants to, we're happy to give you a tour and show you around just to see the high-quality tourism assets that are there. And I think the quality visitation there is also quite high as so evidenced by our growth in retail, some of the things we've experienced. I think we have some work to do on our end. And I think we're going to embark on that, and we're going to obviously invest to improve where we are. But we have no interest in spinning off Macau. We actually think that it's great for Las Vegas Sands to be a scale operator in both of these markets. We think there's synergies for management. We do have players that go back and forth. We think there's a branding component. And if you look out for the long term, we think this is a great asset base, and it's one of the foundational parts of our company. So I can't tell you why the market isn't viewing our cash flow with the same level of quality as we believe that it has. I will tell you that I think Singapore is the highest quality cash flow in our industry, just given the high barriers to entry, the quality of customer, the market that it's in and the EBITDA margins that it produces. But I think Macau is an unbelievable market for its potential. There's a limited number of operators there. And over the long term, we feel very strongly about it. There's a lot of people in this room that might be able to answer this question better than I can. But I will tell you is that we fundamentally believe in the long-term value of our company. So we've been buying back stock aggressively, and we'll continue to do that. And so we're -- we think the valuation is low, and we think it's an opportunity for us to buy as much as we possibly can. So we've been buying stock very aggressively. And we think that this enhances shareholder returns and increases our free cash flow per share, and we're very happy to do it.

Okay. So I'm going to just put in a couple of slightly more negative questions. We'll move back on the front foot after that. But I'm going to read this one. In a sharp Chinese premium mass slowdown, how much property EBITDA can realistically come from non-gaming by 2028? What levers do you have to defend margins?

So I think for us, the business in Macau is driven by visitation, driven by gaming. And so if there's a material decline in visitation or material decline in gaming play like you saw in '23, that will impact the business and the margins. So the downside case, we already went through. So you can actually see it in our results. 2019 was our best year on record. And then 2020 was one of our worst years of all time when the company had all its assets open, and we were forcibly closed and there was a global pandemic going on. And so I think there is variability within these downside cases and variability in the upside case. I think the great news is we continue to invest. The premium mass market is strong today, and there's more and more patrons that are new coming to Macau, and they're spending more money. And so I can't go through all the outcomes of a hypothetical because there will probably be many other things that would be true that aren't true today. But I will tell you, we feel very strongly about Macau and its future.

Okay. And you've talked, I think, and referenced the sort of ambition of EBITDA in Macau of $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion. What's the current pathway to get there? How much of that comes from revenue or margin expansion? And what kind of time frame could be looked at to get to that level?

So it's definitely going to come from revenue growth, right? It's going to come from us introducing products that are more able to address the demand of higher-value patrons because we're missing capacity in the premium -- in the most premium areas. And there's also some things we can do in the premium mass and actually in the base mass to optimize, and we're engaging and embarking on all those things. But the key is going to be, like I said before, investment in our product, which we're going to do now and over the next 3 years. The Venetian is going under renovation right now as we speak. And over the next 18 months, we'll be getting rooms back online. They are newly renovated and it will be hopefully completed by the end of '27. So that's a positive there. And then the rest of the things will happen along with that over the next 3 years. So that's the product side. The service side, we've been hiring people and training them, and we'll continue to do that. And I think the goal is to do this over the next few years. But it's going to require the market to continue to be the way that it is. And hopefully, we'll add to the market growth by adding capacity and adding hiring patrons showing up, which will help grow the market. And so that's really our plan. It's something that we've done previously. I always joke with people. I said before the Venetian was built, gross gaming revenue on Cotai was 0, right? So it's a product-driven market. And so you have to build things that enable customers to show up and feel like they get great experiences and therefore, spend.

And then talk about expectations for the renewal of Macau licenses or changes to the framework.

So I think for us, the vision that Sheldon had about creating a Las Vegas in Macau and creating all this nongaming amenity has been very powerful. So we operate this huge MICE facility there. We had the first arena in Cotai. We have thousands of hotel rooms more than our competitors, and we have the largest retail portfolio and the largest restaurant portfolio. And these things create a critical mass of amenities that drive visitation and drive demand. And so one of the things that happened is during the midterm review for concessionaires, we got very positive marks for achieving the goals that were set out for us, including diversification of the economy and investment in working with small and medium enterprise and promotion of Macanese. And we have a lot of training programs. We do a lot of things that are helpful. We're also a good corporate citizen. We're the largest employer in Macau that's private, and we do a lot of things in the community. We do a lot of CSR events. We do a lot of things that show that we're part of the community, part of the fabric of the community there. And so for us, the concession rule was something that we felt very strongly about because we wanted to continue to invest and follow the trajectory that we were doing. So we felt very good about it. We felt like we had a good thesis behind why we would get renewed, and we believe this will continue in the future, and that's why we continue to invest.

Does U.S.-Chinese relations matter at all to your business, right? If those -- if that sort of animosity between the 2 countries thaws, is that a positive? Or is it irrelevant?

So I think the good news is we've been in Macau for more than 20 years. And political things change over time. But hopefully, business and relationships and mutually beneficial exchange are durable. And so I think the way we think about it is we, in Macau, are a local tourism company, right? We have a subsidiary listed on the Hong Kong Exchange. Our senior leadership is local, and our customers come from that area. So -- and our largest trade partners are small and medium enterprise from that area. So for us, I think we sort of view it as, as long as we continue doing good things, we're in a good position. And then Singapore sits in a different environment. So it sits in Southeast Asia. So I think for us, as long as we continue doing the things that we've been doing, I think we're in a good position.

And just a final question on the topic. If you lifted Marina Bay Sands up and you put it in Macau, would it be the hotel that it is? Like is it the property that's spectacular? Or is it the Singapore market?

It's a combination of a lot of things that make it possible. The first being Singapore, the environment that is Singapore and the people who are in Singapore and the fact that it's a major financial center, it's a major trade center, and there's a lot of people who have been very successful who make Singapore their home or visit Singapore frequently. And I think that market is very unique in that regard globally. And so I think having that building with that level of luxury, that level of experience, that level of aspiration is the perfect combination for what's there. It'd be very hard to be that productive outside of Singapore, just given the concentration of visitation for very high-value tourists into that market.

Makes sense. Okay. Let's move on to some slightly more techy stuff, I guess. But I asked this question last year to the new CEO. So let's ask you again, how are you thinking about online gaming? I guess you have a strong brand in gaming. Does it translate into online gaming at some point?

That's not something that we intend to pursue. We're very focused on doing the things that we're market leaders in. We think we're the market leader in Singapore and what we do. We think we're the market leader in Macau for what we do. We believe that we have a very strong argument to be made where there's -- if there's a new jurisdiction that wants to bring integrated resorts that we're someone that should be on the call list because we have the ability to really drive both leisure and business tourism and a demonstrated track record of building ground-up resorts that can achieve the objectives of the host markets. So we feel like that's what we're really good at, and that's what we're going to stick to. And when we have excess capital, we're going to return it. And I don't think we're going to look to pursue things that are not in our core.

Would you ever license the brands to someone else to use for online gaming?

No. That would be.

No. Okay. Fair enough, easy one. What about -- so no online gaming, what about wider digital? Like is there -- smart tables or something you've been investing in? Is that product continuing to improve? Does AI have any role in gaming? Like is there further digital transformation even if it doesn't take the brands online?

So yes to both. We started investing in smart tables more than 8 years ago. Our solution that we run is a little bit different from some of the other solutions that other operators run. And the key for us is really a combination of RFID and optical. And that allows us to really be precise about the way that we understand what's happening at the table. I think the goal was really to get analytics to the point where it was almost as good as it was from a slot side, and it allows us to really understand what's happening in a much better way and actually better for the patron experience because we can rate them better and understand their behaviors better to make sure they have a better experience. So in that regard, I think the investment that we've made in our smart tables has been very successful. And it's early days yet. We're still continuing to invest. We're continuing to innovate on the smart table systems that we have, and we're rolling more of them out. Right now, they're in their early days in terms of how efficient they're making things, and we think there's a real opportunity to make our operations more secure, but also create a better patron experience in a more efficient way. So smart tables have been a great investment. And the question about AI, so AI is changing the way people think about a lot of things, and it's something that we look at a lot. And I think there's a couple of things where it could change our business and impact our industry. I think the easiest one is how you do information technology, right? That's sort of one of the fastest ones, right? How do you develop? How do you use it to create proprietary tools? How do you use it to think about the speed and really to be fair, the efficacy of what you create that's proprietary. And there's a lot of that in our industry, right? There's a lot of proprietary development that goes into what we do. So that's one. The other thing is how do you make your team more efficient, right? So there's a lot of efficiency tools that you get from some of the AI providers that you can get today that are actually quite useful, and they're early days yet. I mean these are things that you're starting to see, wow, if it does this, what can I do in a year. So that's very helpful. And it's making our team more efficient and allows us to work better. But I think the biggest opportunity for us is business intelligence. The way we compile data, the way we think about our customers, and we think about the behavior of our customers and the way we learn about how we should interact with our customers by looking at our database and other bits of data that we collect, this is a new frontier for our industry, and it actually connects with the smart tables. So for us, it's early days, but there's real potential there that we see in the future. It's not going to be right away because it's going to take a lot of work, but we're going. So we'll see. I think AI creates a real opportunity for businesses in a lot of different ways. But for me, the most important one is how we interact with our customer, how we attract new customers. I think a lot of things that you'll see is the way people actually book travel, right? Think about Expedia, think about some of the early days of online and how that revolutionized travel and sort of opened it up and made it easier to understand what your options were. Now imagine having to do that through an agent and how quick that can be and how efficient that can be and what that could look like. And so that's another opportunity not only for our company, but for the travel industry as a whole.

Makes sense. I guess we're in the U.S. talking about gaming. So it was inevitable we're probably going to get one question on this. Prediction markets, any impact on physical gaming? Are you seeing any kind of cannibalization? Is there an opportunity that you can use that to complement table gaming in any way by using prediction markets?

So it's an interesting thing. I think it's early days for prediction markets because I don't know the legality of how they work has been settled, right? I think there's a lot of opinions going on that may be conflicting that may get things up to the Supreme Court. So we'll have to see how that goes. But it's a very interesting idea. It's also a different concept than most people are used to. So when you typically would do sports wagering, you were facing the house, right? In this instance, you are facing somebody else. And so it's very interesting to see the pricing dynamics, the margins that are available to the operators and any competitive advantage you may have or may not have given the nature of the product. And these are all things that need to be discovered. So we're watching it. We're trying to understand it. We are not in the sports wagering business. This isn't something that we intend to pursue, but it's interesting to watch and observe because it's tangential to our industry. So we'll continue to observe it and try to understand what the outcome will be.

You couldn't imagine offering prediction markets on what's happening within your casino sort of overlaying another layer of gaming on top of what's happening at the tables.

I'm always open to innovation. I'm just not sure how we would do that today. I will tell you that we're very focused on providing the best experiences to our customers. So if that's something that ends up being useful, we'll look at it. But I think for us, it's -- we provide very high-end luxury experiences to our customers, and that's a little different from being online.

Yes. And so there's no sports gaming in your casinos.

No.

There's not. It's all tables.

Correct.

Okay. Let's move on to capital allocation. So very high-margin business in the hospitality world. How do you balance that against faster growth? What do you think the priorities should be given how successful Singapore has been? Do you get sort of pressure to continue to funnel just more and more CapEx into that and keep growing that business as quick as you can?

So I think for us, in terms of capital allocation, we're moving as quickly as we can in Singapore to build IR2. I would love to have it open tomorrow, but we have a timeline, we're executing on the timeline. In terms of investing in our existing assets, as I said before, the depreciation is real, and we continue to do that. You may note that in our last earnings call, we actually increased our forecast for maintenance CapEx in both of our portfolios over the long term to ensure that we continue to maintain the high level of finish that we have. I think our goal has always been to do ground-up development. So if you look at the highest level of returns that we've created for the company, it's when we build something from the ground up, right? Because we create properties that are very unique and drive a lot of visitation and create a lot of value. And if that's not available to us, so we have IR2, we have some renovations going on in Macau. But if that's not available to us, our goal is to return capital to shareholders. So we try to be a very shareholder-friendly company. We have a dividend that is at an appropriate payout ratio, and we have a share repurchase program that is active and is looking to shrink the share count to create better shareholder returns and create more free cash flow per share. So from my standpoint, capital allocation is very much based on can we do new ground-up development? Can we grow our business? Can we get organic growth through investments? How do we need to maintain our properties to ensure our leadership position? And then if we don't have an appropriate return project to pursue, we return it.

And so talk to us about where appropriate returning projects could manifest themselves. I think in prior years when we sat here, a little bit of talk about the U.S. Is that still an opportunity? Thailand has been talked about as an opportunity. Are there other markets you can imagine LVS going into over the years?

So I think Texas presents itself as the best opportunity in the U.S. currently that hasn't been open. I think the propensity to play is known. If you look at some of the surrounding markets and where Texans go, it's not in Texas. So I think the state of Texas has an opportunity there. And we would look to invest there if the framework was right. And I think it's very clear that the cities in Texas are some of the largest economies in the world on their own, right? And without destination resorts in Texas, there's a missed opportunity, particularly for tourism and for tax recapture, direct -- foreign direct investment, economic multiplier. Texas should be, in my mind, this is something they should be pursuing. And I think there's a lot of people who feel the same. But I also think that there's not an opportunity today. So it may be a few years. So if it's something that presents itself and the framework is right, it's something that we'd be very interested in. We've always been interested in Thailand. We feel like it's just a fantastic market. We have customers that come there. We're very familiar with it. It's a wonderful tourism destination. It has a great hospitality culture, has wonderful history, great cultural sites and just fantastic cuisine. There's a lot of great things happening in Thailand. So if that was a market that we would be able to pursue, we'd be very interested. But right now, it doesn't seem like anything is doing. So hopefully, in the future, we'll have that opportunity, but we're ever hopeful.

What's the barrier there, is just licenses? Just...

Legalization.

And in Texas, the barrier is the same?

Legalization.

Legalization. That's simply as it is it seems getting that. And -- the question here, does the growth in Middle East in gaming represent a step-up in competition for you? Have you ever looked at the Middle East as a potential market?

So I'm familiar with the Middle East. I've been to the Emirates numerous times. I'm a big fan of what they're doing from a hospitality standpoint. I think they have great investments there. The hospitality environment there is great. They have great food and beverage and nightlife. And so gaming is new there. And so I think we're watching and waiting. It's great for our industry if they're very successful because I think our industry needs to experience some growth and need to have new markets. And so I think it'd be a positive thing for all of us if they're very successful in that market. And so we'd like to see how it goes.

And in terms of sort of pursuing potential other opportunities, that would be purely on a returns basis, if that's the best opportunity. But is there a strategy we would like to see more diversification in the business as well? -- is it just to be in the right markets? Is diversification an aim in any respect?

I think it would be great if we could have more markets open. I think it would have a natural diversification. I think it would allow us to have more cash flow to return to shareholders, but I also think returns are really important. There's a lot of opportunities that have lower return profiles for Las Vegas Sands, but we'd rather stick to the assets that we have if those -- if higher returns are not available.

Yes. Okay. Makes sense. And then just -- I think my last question here is the balance of buying more Sands China versus buying LVS shares and paying dividends, how do you think about what's the best stock to buy back?

I think we're really interested in growing the dividend at Sands China. And I think we're really interested in having the balance of return of capital that we have that you see today at Las Vegas Sands. And some of that is structural. There's less liquidity in the market in Hong Kong. And so share repurchases are -- could be more structurally difficult from time to time, whereas we think the dividend also makes the stock much more attractive to Hong Kong-based investors. So we think there's a couple of reasons why the dividend is more interesting there than it is at ParentCo. We think ParentCo in the long run, will get rewarded by shrinking the share count.

Okay. That makes sense. All right. Patrick, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Appreciate it.