MGM Resorts International (MGM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

December 3, 2025

NYSE US Consumer Discretionary Hotels, Restaurants and Leisure conference_presentation 40 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#1

Thanks, everyone, for sticking with us. This is the second day of the conference. And our next presenters sit at the crosshairs of both, I would say, secular tailwinds, but also some questions around the regulatory backdrop, competitive backdrop. Very excited to have Adam Greenblatt, the CEO of BetMGM as well as Gary Deutsch, the CFO.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#2

To kick things off, you came off of a very strong quarter. You've also talked about a march to over $500 million in EBITDA. Maybe if you can just level set for us where you're coming from and what that path looks like as we think about puts and takes to get to that $500 million plus.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#3

Great. Okay. So firstly, thanks for having us of course.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#4

Thank you.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#5

I'll start with Q3 results, what we put out into the market. We delivered in the third quarter 38% growth in our online sports business, 21% growth in our gaming business, online gaming business. We delivered year-to-date EBITDA of $150 million. We've guided full year guidance to approximately $200 million of EBITDA and $2.75 billion of revenue. So that's context. The really exciting part and why we're so excited about the business in 2025 and outlook is that this year represents -- that $200 million of EBITDA represents an almost $0.5 billion improvement in year-on-year EBITDA. Yesterday, we wrote big checks to our shareholders, which is another exciting moment for us.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#6

Fewer in this room.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#7

Somewhere in this room, yes. Hello. So yes, so we're feeling really good about where we are now. In terms of the mark to $500 million with -- for me, the real challenge is moderating expectations for 2026 because how do you come off a $0.5 billion EBITDA improvement and the next year not be like, really shouldn't you be doing better than that?

Gary Deutsch

executive
#8

Right.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#9

Well, I guess -- so maybe when we think about that longer term, I mean, is there any thought process right now? Or has it changed in terms of thinking about contributions from iGaming versus sports betting or other puts and takes to think about from a -- whether it's taxes or new regulated markets?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#10

So just again to level set, our iGaming business represents about 2/3 of our revenue. Currently, yes. Similarly, in terms of contribution. Our sports -- online sports business generated positive contribution this year in aggregate meaningfully for the first time, which, again, when you get to a certain scale in our business and the unit economics are really attractive. Flow-through is about 40% to 45% from revenue to EBITDA.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#11

Right. Now this past quarter, you talked about some very strong numbers. Some of your peers attributed some weakness to hold issues. What have you seen in hold? And how do you think about as you continue to grow, what might happen to hold over time? Is there room for that to continue to march higher? And is there anything to think through in terms of the volatility of that?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#12

Great. So I'll deal with the first part and maybe you can deal with the hold progression. So in terms of -- it's important to note that our business is somewhat different from the other leading competitors. Our business skews higher value and our higher-value players in the main skew more singles. So -- and the margin of singles bet is lower than the margin of parlay bets. And therefore, our aggregate margin reflects the weighted average of that observation. Also as a result of that, where some of our competitors saw significant softness in trading margin in September, the impact on us was less magnified, less accentuated because of our bet mix, because of our player mix. Do you want to talk about how it's evolving?

Gary Deutsch

executive
#13

Yes. And for the year, I just looked at the results, the combined 2 months of the fourth quarter so far, and we're above our year-to-date average on hold. So the NFL season has been good to our aggregate hold for the course of the year. Look, as we see it going forward, it's -- there's 2 pressures. One is the pressure -- upwards of margin expansion from the fact that we do have more players that are taking SGP bet single game parlay bets or different forms of parlay, which have a higher margin. And then there's the downward pressure that we are attracting more and more big staking players. So as we plan going forward, we see it moving up slightly, but we don't see a step change. And as Adam said, we don't see it going through a level that you'll see reported by the others. That said, the thing to focus as you look at the industry, of course, is on the NGR margin, which is the -- it's -- I call it the moneymaking zones. It's between the [indiscernible] on one side and then the bonus to handle on the other. And you will see some of the ones that have higher hold will also have the bonus to handle float up. So it's looking at the progression of the NGR margin. My last point on this is that there's many ways to get to a big revenue number. Our way is more handle driven with a lower hold, whereas some have a lower handle with a higher hold. And you can't expect that some player who's prepared over the course of time to lose $100 a month is their sort of limit that all of a sudden, just because they start playing single game parlays that have double the margin, they're going to start being willing to lose $200 a month. There's some law of the wallet or sort of limits there.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#14

Definitely the way that we think about, share of wallet over time and on the real revenue NGR basis. I know you're trying to keep expectations down, but we do have the World Cup next year. Anything that you can share there in terms of what you've seen in other markets or how to think about what that might look like?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#15

So it's worth noting that we were still here. We were here last World Cup. So we have something to refer to and understand the impact on. So we have a data foundation. We also have Euro subsequently. So this year, for the first time, we have 102 game format as opposed to 60-odd. So we have more content. We have all of those games in prime time, time zones. And we have a much more extensive footprint and a highly engaged betting active space. And so we think we'll -- the tens of millions of dollars of revenues that we took last World Cup, we think we're going to do significantly more than that. But really, it's -- the World Cup is also helpful because of its timing. We're in the sports frenzy of the year now, now is the busy season. Next year, it's going to be where, frankly, it's competing with baseball. So in terms of the ability to drive engagement and drive incremental NGR because really, if you're taking money from another sport, it's not really helpful. But the ability to drive incremental NGR is amplified by its timing. So we're excited about it. It will have a positive impact. And frankly, given our heritage, our sports product is excellent, really, really excellent.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#16

And so when you say incremental, that's incremental in terms of new customers, more so than incremental spend or is it both?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#17

Both. And look, this is a personal belief. I think the World Cup this coming year is going to be the thing that puts soccer more firmly on the map in the U.S. sports betting [landscape].

Gary Deutsch

executive
#18

I mean they said that in '94. I mean the most popular bet will -- just talking...

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#19

Here's the [naysay].

Gary Deutsch

executive
#20

The most popular bet is going to be, will somebody ever -- will anybody ever score that's going to be the popular bet for the...

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#21

You just find soccer boring. That's...

Gary Deutsch

executive
#22

It will be fun.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#23

So one of the big questions, I think, that we've been getting too for the entire group has been looking at handle, which is decelerating. I know that's not revenue, but you get to look at things a little bit more granular. What are you seeing in terms of looking at the market and trying to evaluate whether we're hitting maturity potentially earlier than people thought or where we are in that maturation in different markets in the U.S.?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#24

Well, we're still growing, we're still growing nicely. Of course, coming off the back of such incredible year-on-year growth that we've been seeing, we would naturally -- our comps get much, much harder. So we would naturally see growth rates moderating, but we are still growing. NFL season to date handle is up 10% in our business this year.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#25

But even with that, you cited some of the numbers around NGR being up over 30%. So even if we look at the older states versus newer states, is that mainly old states are all kind of in that same range?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#26

The performance of the old states is actually very surprising, like New Jersey, the depth of the New Jersey market, both in sports and iGaming is astounding. And what we saw in October is actually handle growth was accelerated again, where it moderated in September. October, we saw it pick up again. So I think these things come in waves and cycles.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#27

And we've got -- Missouri is about to launch. I mean, what other new states do you have on your kind of outlook or what do you think is possible? And how should we think about some of these new states versus the existing states in terms of the ramp?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#28

So well, actually, we launched in Missouri on Monday. So that represents our 30th state, which is a nice round number and an important milestone for our business. We now serve 50% of the U.S. population with sports and iGaming. In terms of the outlook, by definition, the further we get into state count, the more difficult and more complex unlocking those states become from a sports betting and iGaming perspective. Having said that, budget pressures are very real. I think the prevalence of the very visible prevalence of illegal markets in both sports betting and iGaming will put positive pressure on states to legalize because frankly, with the existence of -- I'll call out 2, with the existence, and I know we'll get there, of Sweeps casino and prediction markets, states are -- have no control, have no responsible gaming objectives and regulatory objectives satisfied and aren't making any money. That's not a great combination.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#29

Since you brought it up, on the prediction markets, I mean, does it put you at a disadvantage to not be involved? Or how do you think about the prediction markets? I know there's been a public comments about, look, Nevada is part of the heritage, but what are some of the other things that you're trying to think about both near term and long term as you look at this market evolving as well?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#30

Look, the real progress being made by prediction markets as we determine is, frankly, in markets where there isn't legal sports betting available. And why is that? As a consumer, I mean, for those that haven't, I'd invite you to try BetMGM's product, put it in your hand and try and do the same thing with a prediction market alternative, build a more exotic bet. With BetMGM, with our competitors, you get the best you want, at the size you want, when you want it available immediately. End of, right? It's just so much more intuitive, smoother and a better player experience. And I think as long as that can -- is maintained and the rules would indicate that they will be maintained, we feel pretty good about our ability to compete in legalized sports betting markets, which is why our focus, frankly, is ensuring that all states legalize sports betting.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#31

Right.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#32

When you talk to investors, do you call prediction market, sports betting?

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#33

I do not. I say prediction markets, but sometimes I'll say aspects of it look, sound. We wrote a note looks like a duck. It sounds like a duck, probably a duck.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#34

Probably a duck. It sounds like a duck. It's probably sports betting because the parlay product doesn't look like a prediction market.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#35

I mean the interesting thing to look at is what the IRS is going to do because we've been looking at that and -- so if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, should they be paying federal excise tax on sports betting handle and it's still to be...

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#36

I think right now is the future...

Gary Deutsch

executive
#37

Well, no, there's -- so we pay as a legal sports betting operator, we pay a federal excise tax to the IRS for all -- it's a fraction of all handle. Should that be paid. And we should see where the big 4 auditors and the tax advisers come out on what the platform says one thing, what the IRS says is another. So it's an interesting place to watch, too.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#38

Two things, just to pick up on that. It's the beauty of substance over form. It looks and quacks like a duck. The auditors, their role in life is to ensure that substance is clearly represented. So it will be interesting to see where they come out on this issue. And the last thing, it's been a fascinating learning journey for me, the nuances and machinations of the relationship between the federal government and state governments. And one of the things that really, really sits in my mind is that Congress did not intend to hide elephants in mouseholes.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#39

Right. And that's what's happening. I mean more directly put sports betting legislation to the states. Right. So I mean it's just interesting that the wheels seem to go so much in one direction when every sort of legal argument or even common sense argument says otherwise. No. We'll see how that plays out.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#40

And we've seen different changes every single year. It feels like every 2 years, there's some big new competitor who's coming into the space. Nothing has really made a huge impact. Even now, it sounds like it's not having a material impact on anything that you're seeing in the business. But I think one of the worries out there is that this money is being raised and maybe it gets put into the market in terms of a heavy promotion. How do you think about having to respond to that? And then maybe this is a good time to -- what are you doing maybe on the product side that will continue to evolve a product that maybe already is superior to make sure that it is staying superior?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#41

Since past the fill in 2018, we've had lots of contenders. The next bright light, the next heavyweight, today, we've got 5 competitors who are really challenging for a place in this thing that's -- in the biggest sports betting market in the world, right? And there's a reason for that because number one, it's hard. Number two, there are benefits of scale and efficiency. And number three, our offering and our value proposition is really good. And so in that context, just this season, we've improved our product dramatically. It is faster. It is more stable. We have enhanced discovery. We've added meta information, so information about teams and players, which allow our players to get as informed as possible about the bet that they are considering. We have other things. We added NFL player props. We can -- you can now cash out your live NFL SGP during the game. There's a whole raft of things. And also, one of the advantages of being part of the ecosystem that is Entain, MGM and BetMGM is that we benefit from the investments that both -- all 3 parties make. And so behind the scenes, back to the point you made or the question you asked about margin, behind the scenes, there is a big investment in trading and trading platform being made at Entain. We will be the beneficiaries of that. And we understand exactly where the impact points are and have scaled that, and that represents an opportunity depending on, obviously, when that lands. The other thing that is going to be a meaningful -- it's invisible now, but the thing that is going to have a meaningful and positive impact is the combination of the investment and effectively rearchitecture of our data platform, BetMGM's data platform, combined with some work that we're doing on AI-driven personalization. The idea is like why has our EBITDA this year improved so much? One of the reasons is the gains and improvements we've made in marketing efficiency. The combination of marketing personalization powered by our version 3 BI infrastructure and platform, we think that there's more to go for there.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#42

And you talked about your total generosity, marketing variable plus promotions, do you want to help size that?

Gary Deutsch

executive
#43

I'm not sure what we you said in the -- what we said publicly. I mean we've been fairly stable in the last 2 years. And we've made sort of a step down in our optimization of promotional work when we got into last year. But as I alluded to earlier, sometimes we'll float up. It depends. We have certain customers who like very high-margin bets. They get a different type of promotion often than our bigger stakers who play on a 4.6% margin. It's a different level.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#44

So you talked about going after effectively larger betters, bigger players effectively. Is that changing any other aspects of their demographic either by age? Or do you see differences in geography? And maybe split that between sports betting and iGaming? Or is that even a relevant way to think about it?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#45

It is a relevant way to think about it. Look, our strategies for gaming and for sports are somewhat different. In gaming, with the MGM brand that we proudly represent, we are an every person product. We are a leader in the market. We have 20-plus percent market share in the 5 states that we participate in. We are the #1 gaming operator in Canada, right? So in relation to gaming, that is our strategy. And of course, that skews more balanced men and women because of the gaming product, fastest growing of that gaming product ecosystem is slots biases for more female participation. Our sports business, as you'd expect, skews massively male. We're about 82%, 85% male depending on the period. And what surprises, I think what would surprise is that actually more than 60% of our players are under 39 -- under 40 years old. So while there is the -- Gary talked about the difference between volume and value. We have a big group of players who skew younger. But we have a meaningful -- I think relative to our competitive set, we certainly over-indexed at the top end and over-indexed at 40-plus.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#46

Right. You brought up Canada and being a leader in that market. Alberta has been opened up. How do you think about that market versus Ontario and how to think about the size and the cadence of that ramping up?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#47

Well, firstly, with the good news. The good news is we spoke to the authorities in Alberta yesterday, and they are indicating to us that they're on track for a late Q1 launch. I think that's ambitious. It will probably be late Q2. These things are hard when you get close to the finish line. But certainly, we're hoping for a first half launch. Now Alberta as a province, as a jurisdiction, by population is about 30% the size of Ontario. Our internal models anticipate from a value perspective, Alberta to represent about 40% of Ontario. We also think the ramp versus Ontario will be somewhat faster just because of the profile that the success of Ontario has generated as well as the fact that our marketing and frankly, all of the marketing in Canada is nationwide, the way the media market works. So Albertans have been exposed to the work we've done to build the BetMGM brand in Ontario. So we think we should ramp and the province should ramp more quickly.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#48

So there's a similar question for Missouri. I know it's only a couple of days in here, but any reason to believe that, that market will be similar or different to other new markets? I mean North Carolina was the last one. That was a super fast ramp. Missouri has a little bit of overlap with some other markets. So what are you seeing? Or what are you anticipating?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#49

So Eilers & Krejcik, one of the industry analysts has estimated that in 2028, the market will be worth about $600 million of GGR, gross gaming revenue. We think the ramp -- based on what we've already seen, we think the ramp is going to be quite fast, largely because a lot of the value we've seen since days. So this is really a snapshot. A lot of the value and the activity has come from players that actually signed up before the market launch. So based in Missouri, but signed up in Kansas or signed up in Illinois and now are playing again now, they can play at home. So we think as a result of that dynamic, number one, thank goodness, we have a single account, single wallet. You carry on playing and it's seamless. But number two, I think we -- we think the net incremental new player will be less, but we will see more activity from existing players.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#50

From -- and maybe changing back to some of the older states. In the beginning, it was all about customer acquisition costs, customer acquisition costs. As we get to a more, I want to say, steady state because obviously still growing fast, but what are you seeing in terms of retention? How has that changed versus your expectations? And are you changing the way that you try to dial into retaining customers or reengaging customers?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#51

Yes. Last season, we saw a dramatic improvement in retention, and that was a combination of the approach to player reinvestment and the work that we've done on product. This year, we had -- what we saw was the first few weeks of the season were extremely competitive. All of the bank players were throwing a lot of value at the market. And we saw, as a result of that, some softness in retention in those early week cohorts. That's gone. So from about week 7, we are now comping positively, meaningfully positively against the already improved retention rates from last year.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#52

And the new players that we're getting are bursting out of the gates faster. So we're getting more precise in getting players, identifying the real money betters who are going to be with us for the long time, nurturing them and getting them going without overinvesting in players that may never get to that category.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#53

And people always talk about these like LTVs, which is always tricky for a new market, right? So now you have a little bit longer time, you're seeing some of this retention. How would you characterize how LTVs in different states are compared to maybe your original underwriting or how you've been thinking about the size of the market?

Gary Deutsch

executive
#54

I mean some of the states have -- there's differences in LTV across the states. Some of that's due to tax rates in different places, some of its proximity to Nevada and where we had a good MGM base to begin with. But when we look at our LTVs, we -- I often say the metric is the model because within -- it's not like you're getting a SaaS customer, they all pay this license fee and they have this resubscription rate and blah, blah, blah. We have a pocket of really great players, middle players, and we have to blend that together. So we do an analysis of the cohort. We look at them on our models that predict to the 36-month point or around that area to say where we're going to be. We're always above that level, I mean, better than that level. And then we look at what we see as our prevailing either growth or potential degradation rate over time. And we look at those to form the LTV and like we're comfortable that where we are is a good IRR. And even if the acquisition period, the payback is 36 months, those are positive NPV cohorts. And so we look at that in aggregate. And certainly, each week's new hall, we run our models and we come to a view on that. But we always check it against the sort of long-term progression of the full set of cohorts.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#55

Just to double down, that's a really important point. This is not a static fix it once and let it run. We look at every cohort in every state, every week. And we are constantly dialing up, dialing down where we fish for players, what channels are performing, which cohorts are performing. And we go where the players are and where the value is.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#56

I want to ask a similar question that I asked on sports betting for iGaming, which is what are some of the big kind of product enhancements or things that you're changing in iGaming as you look at not only ending the year, but as we look at the year ahead?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#57

So in iGaming, we think we've got -- we know we have real competitive advantage. We have competitive advantage through our omnichannel strategy. So our games portfolio focusing on the combination of successful retail games and porting them into digital and vice versa. We've had some fabulous game launches, omnichannel game launches this year where we've taken BetMGM players onto the floor of MGM Resorts that they can have a real-life experience on a new game that we've launched online. It really works well. Our players love it. Alongside that, we have exclusive branded content, Wizard of Oz, The Price is Right, Family Feud, whole constellation of content around things which are only available at BetMGM. We've had a very, very successful launch recently.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#58

Can you give that mix, the mix proprietary, sorry? What percentage of your mix of iGaming games are kind of proprietary to you all?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#59

I don't know the answer to that right now.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#60

It's under 10% now.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#61

I think you're asking a different question. The way we think about proprietary is born and built and owned by ourselves or MGM or Entain.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#62

Right.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#63

There is another category which lives in the middle, which is where BetMGM owns the IP. We have built the game either with one of our -- one of Entain or MGM Studios or a third-party studio, and that becomes our own content. But the -- I think where your question was going is we still pay rev share on that middle portion, but they are particularly attractive.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#64

And that was to the -- when I said that under 10% is where we don't pay any royalty to anyone.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#65

Right. That's just, yes, purely yours. And then there's the -- what you pay maybe is some percentage above that.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#66

There's games that no one can get anywhere but us, but that we'll still pay a rev share because of the content we've incorporated into our game.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#67

Got it. And if you think about -- and I cut you off there. So there are other products or things that you're doing on the iGaming side that we should be thinking through next year as we think about integrating the business between iGaming and sports betting, iGaming and omnichannel or otherwise?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#68

So really, really important points. One of the things that has proven extremely successful for us is our engagement tool strategy. We have built proprietary games where -- which has led to the average, and this is -- I think I've shared this before, but the average number of days in a week of our iGaming population is over 4. So on average, our players enjoy BetMGM 4 out of 7 games in a week -- 4 out of 7 days in a week. That's a lot. And part of that recipe is the stickiness and success and attractiveness of our engagement games. Then the other success that we've seen this year, which you signed posted, so thank you. The other success we've seen is in the world of cross-sell. So our cross-sell, the percentage of players that start in sports and then move to -- and enjoy gaming something in our world of gaming has gone up by a full 10 percentage points year-on-year. So now we are cross-selling at a rate of north of -- in an average week, north of 60% cross-sell from sports to gaming in an average week. And that's partly because of our -- again, the gaming -- sports branded gaming content. So our Steelers games, our Lions games. This is how we use our relationships with our sports teams to create incentives and hooks for our gaming players to cross-sell back into sports. And so -- and that's been very successful as well.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#69

So as we work down the P&L, I mean, it sounds like there's also opportunity within margins. I mean, you're talking about this big inflection that's happening. As part of that, I think the technology could be a benefit. Maybe talk to how you think about opportunities to leverage AI? Is that more of a top line driver? Is it more of a margin driver? What are the biggest pockets that you're trying to implement?

Gary Deutsch

executive
#70

It has to be the AI question.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#71

We got pretty far before -- I think it can wait...

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#72

I think the AI is going to be helpful in a number of areas and very practical areas. I'm not anticipating not needing anyone in BetMGM and my agent runs the business. That's not what -- we're not there yet. Where we see there is value is, of course, in the areas of responsible gambling, so understanding player behaviors and patterning, which would then highlight where there might be an emerging issue, an emerging responsible gambling thing to look at. The other areas, of course, are in the areas of customer contact. So things like chatbot automation, AI-driven chatbot automation, intent recognition. There are also -- we think there are opportunities, and we're exploring opportunities in the world of trading. Creative design, we have zillion pieces of art that come together across ads and cannot be automated. We have zillion regulations by different states and document management tools and things like that. So there's lots of just G&A type administrative things that it provides opportunity for savings on it and expedited responses to different requests. And this is the last one I'll specifically refer to. The world of -- our business gets more efficient when the big numbers become even more precise, okay? Our big numbers are what we spend in marketing and how much we reinvest in players. And the world of AI in terms of personalization is really interesting. So I referred to the re-architecture of our business -- of our data platform. The combination of that with the CRM tool that we are connecting it with will allow us to drive a degree of hyper-personalization that we've not seen before and at the heart of that is our AI tool.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#73

And is that an LLM that you've built? Or are you leveraging kind of third parties?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#74

Third parties.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#75

Okay. And how do they structure those? And maybe I don't know if you can disclose that, but is that usually based on some sort of a fixed fee or use cases? Or is that a percentage of revenue? Or is that something we should be considering in your margins at some point?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#76

The deal doesn't scale up with revenues. So adds another element of why the operational gearing and the value of getting bigger.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#77

One of the other things that I've often thought about within this whole space is that you have all these people who are on your app, and you talked about 4 out of 7 days a week engagement. I'm sure there's a pretty lengthy period of time that they're on the app as well. Are there ways that you can use that to monetize eyeballs effectively in other ways? Or are we still a ways from actually monetizing and through advertising on your...

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#78

I'm a bit of a purist on this one, Steve. I feel like our players want a gaming experience, want a sports betting and gaming experience. I don't -- other than...

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#79

I tend to eat pizza when I'm watching football and betting on football.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#80

We could sell [995 prime rates].

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#81

While I understand the attraction, I feel like the elegance of a premium and dedicated experience is very BetMGM. And I'd rather make my money by being amazing at what we do than try to monetize in adjacent verticals and disrupt what really is our core transactional experience.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#82

Fair enough. Another question that we get from folks often is the age-old question about your parents who are in the room, parent companies. We've heard both of them describe their pitch for why MGM and Entain are kind of the -- I don't want to say rightful owners, but how has the relationship with each of them evolved? How do you think about what you get from each party?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#83

So the relationship has strengthened individually and together. And one of the -- success begets success actually. I remember in the early days, Jim Murren, the previous Chief Executive of MGM Resorts said, the sports betting and iGaming thing, it's kind of an amenity. It's not an amenity anymore for either company. And that's a great thing. It's a great thing for me. It's a great thing for BetMGM. Why? Because the attention that the biggest regulated market in the world deserves is being committed. We get the attention that the opportunity needs, the opportunity to compete at the very, very highest level requires. And so that is important for both Entain, I think, and for MGM Resorts. The Board dynamic is fantastic. The Board dynamic is about, well, how do we make this better? How can we support the business? And that's from everybody. And the dialogue between Entain and MGM Resorts, your should speak to them. What I observe is that it's regular, it's clear and it's positive. And so I couldn't ask for more.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#84

Look, operationally, we've been doing this for a long time. It's the only thing we've ever known. So we are one big company. It's not like we're some Frankenstein that was put -- look we BetMGM 7 years of doing this. We know each other. We know -- the lines between things are -- it's just one big circle around BetMGM.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#85

How soon are you writing checks back ?

Gary Deutsch

executive
#86

For sure. Yes. They pay our allowance. Now we're paying their allowance.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#87

So I guess on that point, how do you think through capital allocation as we do see EBITDA ramp, I mean, what are you going to do with some of that cash? What would you want to do? Is there things that you'd rather reinvest in a more material way?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#88

Gary, in terms of capital allocation, Gary says, well, the first 20% goes to Gary.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#89

Yes. I mean the plan is we're going to push money back to the parents every quarter. And certainly, if some investment opportunity that exceeds our in-quarter ability to generate cash is needed, we have access to $150 million revolver. And then obviously, we can go back to the parents and flow the cash back if we had to, if we wanted to.

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#90

But now we are consistently cash flow positive. So really, it's cash back to shareholders and then we see what the market requires.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#91

No, we're about out of time, but I want to ask one more question. Somebody outside right before this had said this to me, you know what, I'm going to throw this question out there, which I kind of have my own view, but it's a question of what is the competitive moat of your business? And they were talking about sports betting broadly. They just were having a tough time. I think it was in the context of prediction markets as we talked about. But maybe just thinking about sports betting and iGaming, how do you think about your competitive moat?

Adam Greenblatt

executive
#92

So we just launched with Jon Hamm at the center, Jon Hamm, our new brand ambassador, we launched our "Make it Legendary" campaign. And now for me, that is the essence of what BetMGM is about. At our core, we bear the name of MGM where, frankly, the heritage is amazing experiences and premium, entertainment-centric. And so what we want and what we aim to do is create those legendary moments but execute with precision, execute with personalized experiences all the way through the journey. So what you get as a player in terms of reward, what you get in terms of communication and how your product looks and feels in your hand. We've done this, as he said, for 7 years, and I think we are pretty good at it now. So I think as new entrants have tried to come and eat our lunch, we're happy to defend.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#93

And we also are advocates of enforcement of the law.

Stephen Grambling

analyst
#94

Well, that's a good place to stop. Thank you so much. Please join me in thanking both Adam and Gary for all the time today, BetMGM, thank you.

Gary Deutsch

executive
#95

Thank you.

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