Las Vegas Sands at Bernstein Conference: Strategic Shifts Amid Challenges

On Thursday, 29 May 2025, Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) participated in the Bernstein 41st Annual Strategic Decisions Conference 2025. CEO Rob Goldstein discussed the company’s mixed fortunes, highlighting robust growth in Singapore against challenges in Macau. The dialogue covered strategic shifts, including a focus on capital allocation and adapting to evolving market conditions.

Key Takeaways

• Singapore’s performance is strong, with EBITDA exceeding $600 million last quarter.
• Macau’s post-COVID recovery is slow, with Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) flattening.
• Sands plans to return capital to investors through dividends and share buybacks.
• Potential new market opportunities include Thailand, but with significant hurdles.
• Rob Goldstein will step down as CEO in March, transitioning to a consultant role.

Financial Results

• Singapore’s EBITDA surpassed $600 million last quarter, with potential to reach $700 million.
• The base mass slot business in Singapore is projected to generate $1 billion in revenue this year.
• Macau’s GGR has stalled, impacting overall performance.
• The nongaming sector in Macau contributes over $1 billion in EBITDA annually.
• A second property in Singapore is planned, with an estimated cost of $8 billion.
• Macau’s underperformance could lead to a $5.5 billion shortfall in cumulative EBITDA.

Operational Updates

• The Londoner in Macao is fully operational and expected to boost results.
• Continuous investments are being made in the Venetian and Parisian properties in Macau.
• Smart tables are being introduced in both Macau and Singapore.
• Sands will host NBA preseason games in Macau, enhancing its entertainment offerings.
• Singapore continues to attract affluent visitors, bolstering its market position.

Future Outlook

• Sands is prioritizing capital allocation and plans to return capital to shareholders.
• Thailand is seen as a potential new market, though challenges remain.
• Growth opportunities are limited in Europe, the US, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia.
• The company is exploring online gaming, facing significant entry barriers.
• Singapore’s second property is expected to open in the early 2030s.
• Side betting is anticipated to gain importance in Macau.

Q&A Highlights

• Spending in Macau is not aligned with visitation levels, affecting revenue.
• Tariffs are not a primary factor in the decline of Sands’ stock price.
• There is no significant anti-US sentiment impacting Sands’ operations in Macau or Singapore.
• Multiple factors, including consumer sentiment and global economics, affect Macau’s recovery.
• Sands acknowledges a need to improve its incentive offerings in Macau.
• Potential expansion into Mainland China is under consideration.

For a detailed understanding, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Bernstein 41st Annual Strategic Decisions Conference 2025:

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Right. Good afternoon. I’m Richard Clark.

I’m the, global hotels and leisure analyst here at Bernstein. Delighted to have Rob Goldstein, the, CEO of, of of Sands with us today. Thanks for joining us today. Always great to to talk to you. Let’s maybe just start with the, you know, on certain macro world we find ourselves with, and then we’ll get a little bit more onto your long term strategy.

Uncertain? What’s the matter? So, I mean, I guess if we look at your share price, much like most of the stocks I look at, you kinda, you know, round trip 42 down to 32 back up, you know, to 42 again. You know, is that is that is that reflected what you’ve seen internally? You know, did you see turmoil around the initial imposition of tariffs?

And has that begun to ease off, or is it sort of overstated the amount of volatility you were seeing within the business?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I’m not sure tariffs are that critical right now to our stock price. Think the market has been soft since COVID. It never made the rebound, the same way The US did. There’s no there’s a different mentality in China in terms of, post COVID. I’m not sure that tariffs doesn’t help us, obviously.

It’s negative, but, it doesn’t help the China market. But I think it’s, many other factors. Post COVID, we’ve been very different place in Macao than pre COVID. And, a different world over there, much more uncertain and much different in terms of incentives, and it’s been a market we’ve struggled with a bit. And we opened Londoner, in full a few months ago, so hopefully that’ll help our business.

But, no. I wouldn’t think tariffs have been on the reason our stock is going down. There’s obviously just lots of concern about The US China relationship, and China in general as a consumer market has been struggling. But, again, we have faith long term that China and Macao will do quite well. But it’s been a very challenging couple of years, not just, during the Trump, tariff era.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. No. It makes sense. And and maybe just sort of the the elements of deglobalization risk. Maybe if you can just talk to that.

You’re a US listed firm operating primarily in Asia. You know, do

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: you see any channel? % in Asia.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Hundred Percent. Yeah. Sorry. %.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: We are a Singapore and Singapore.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: A health driven business. And Is there any risks associated with that that relationship, or do you think that you’re seen as a local business?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: You mean from a China perspective or how the investors view us? No. I think it I mean, we love to be in The US at some point. We we would have tried and failed, but I don’t think there’s much risk associated with not being having a a business here. We had a obviously, we built and started in Las Vegas, thirty years ago with the, with the Venetian.

Sold that to Apollo and VICI a while back. But, no, I don’t think there’s any real risk not being in The US. It’d be nice to be here from a different from as a US citizen, it’d nice to be in The US again.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: What about the sort of side? Do you see any sense of kind of an anti US sentiment weighing on your business within Macau or Singapore?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I’ve not I’ve not. I think we have been very fortunate. We’ve always been treated well by the Macao government and by Beijing. I don’t sense that. Is there a US, anti US sentiment in Europe?

I was in Europe. I felt it very strongly. Number of people made comments, but I’ve never seen it in in Beijing or Macau affecting or Singapore.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I think more about just more uncertainty what where we’re going as a country and who we are in the world. I think there’s more uncertainty about The US than anything else. Hasn’t impacted our business at this point. No.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. Let’s let’s dial in on on Macao, and then we’ll we’ll swing swing back to, to Singapore. You know, you mentioned it early, you know, visitation level’s still down, you know, where we were on 2019. You know, is that is that macro? Is there anything structural going on there?

You know, what’s your sort of optimism that that things can get better in terms

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: of that? Visitation, Macao, actually is pretty good. In fact, it it has recovered. The problem is the spend is different than it used to be. Sorry.

The visitation used to be equivalent to the spend, but that’s they they decoupled now. And visitation can be pretty good, but the spend isn’t. So the market’s kind of it had nice rebound there, post COVID fifteen to ’18, then to ’22, and then it’s kinda peaked to ’27, ’20 ’8. And right now, it appears to be flat at that number. We’ll see how May comes out.

But there’s not we had I had a false belief couple years ago that Macao would just keep moving up into the thirties and beyond. I think it’s a couple of factors. There’s consumer sentiment. Obviously, there’s global economic issues. The tariffs don’t help.

But it’s also just, there’s other factors we can’t determine how much is tied to, online gambling in Asia. And, it’s it’s for whatever reason you wanna assign to it, Macao has definitely stalled out, and it’s not where it was. Obviously, pre COVID, the demise of the junket segment didn’t help. And the competition is fierce there. And I think long term, I still believe Macao will be in the 32 and actually 34, but it’s not happening imminently.

It’s not happening today or tomorrow. So we are kind of, struggling in Macao. In fact, visitation’s recovered, but spend has not.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And then just the you know, your thoughts around the recent holiday travel in in China with Golden Week and Yeah.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: It was a very powerful May is gonna be, I think I haven’t seen numbers, obviously, not out yet, but I assume May will be a very positive, outcome for the year. GGR in the couch looked very good, I think, up single digit, but up. And, clearly, we saw a strong golden week, the whole market. You saw the numbers come out. Visitation spend, it was a very power in in light of what’s happening in the world, I thought May is a pleasant surprise, and Golden Week was very strong for the whole industry.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: So that’s that’s a sign that things are are are getting better?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Yeah. I don’t know. It ebbs and flows. And what the Tuesday, it looks better, and Friday, it looks worse. And there’s no consistency.

Again, I plead guilty to believing the market would have be a steady ascent into the 32 and $34,000,000,000 GGR range. It hasn’t. I was wrong. I think it will. I think, inevitably, the power of the Chinese markets, it it just it’s the most powerful market land based in the world.

It will recover. I think it’s actually pretty impressive in light of the economic numbers coming out of China, retail and other businesses, how well Macau’s held up in this rather difficult time. Look at the retail numbers, luxury and other, they’re pretty soft. So I’m hoping for a better day, and we’ve gotta do better within the the parameters of the market today. We’ve not done as well as we could have done competitively, and our last quarter was disappointing.

So we’re hoping for improvement in our operating philosophy and our operating approach to accelerate our own EBITDA within the confines of today’s Macau market, which is not the frothy, you know, go go market was pre COVID.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And then in terms of sort of regional breakdown there, is it is is the weakness coming from all over China? Is the sort of the neighboring provinces stronger, you know, high end versus low end, the sort of VIP is is softer. I don’t

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: think you can break it out that that way. The market’s changed. The demise of the junket segment certainly drove more people into the non rolling premium mass segment, but I think the the weakness in the base mass is also impacted. But I I don’t think it’s regional as much as just China is just a different place than it was in 02/2019, and and the the business of Macao is a different place than it was. So it’s a myriad of factors, but the aggregate result is a more challenging market to operate in.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And then what about Macau as as as attracting visitors from outside of China? Like, is that a is that an opportunity? I guess it’s been primarily a a Chinese market for you, but is there is there a way to promote that to the wider world?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: You know, when you visit, I’ve been all over Asia. I’ve never seen a place as, I think, compelling for the Asian customers, Macao’s. You know, Sheldon once said, it should be Las Vegas. I think it’s morphed into that. It’s amazing place with great accommodations, great food, entertainment.

It has the whole package, but it has not been as attractive to non Chinese visitors as the government would like. I think that’s a cultural issue. I think it’s also just a China issue. But I think, inevitably, Macao is just too potent and too desirable not to increase and grow its audience in the years ahead. I think it will become more powerful for the international visitor.

I believe a % Macao will get stronger and stronger, You know, for Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malaysian, it should. It should be. Like Singapore, it should be much more attractive, but there’s been impediments. I think the airport now being accessible by the road makes a lot of sense. The old days, the ferry was difficult, but it hasn’t grown as fast as I think it could and it will.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. Wonderful. And then maybe let’s talk about it’s a it’s a softer market, but you’ve you’ve been investing. You know, you’re making considerable amounts of capital investments into Macao. Yeah.

What kind of returns are you expecting on those? Are those are those are completed now. Is that right? What London is fully open.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: We we never stop in I mean, Macao’s like the the old Brooklyn Bridge joke. It it means you’re painting all the time. You start and you stop. Yep. So we’re we’re constantly doing r and m on the Venetian now and the Parisian.

The Four Seasons is done. The Londoner is done, but we’re constantly investing. We we believe in Macao long term. We believe in asset based strategy, which has not performed as well as we hoped it would. But we do believe long term that in the end, great buildings drive returns and will be rewarded for the investments we made.

We’re the biggest investor in Macao. We’ve not been rewarded with the returns I’d like to see. I’d like to see us do a lot better. I think London will do very well. I think this quarter, you’ll see some good results at London.

But, we still remain believers in investing in quality and scale, and that will never change. Singapore the same way. We just had to wait for a better day in Macao and also help ourselves by performing better, by operating better. I’m going over, I think, ten days now in Macao, and the whole week is about how we increase our visibility, our positioning, our incentives to drive more EBITDA into our buildings in Macao because we’ve been outperformed by other people. Okay.

And then hotel capacity in in Macao still is Strong. Very strong. It’s not about filling rooms in Macao. There’s no trick to filling rooms capacity wise. It’s about quality of customer in the room.

You can sell every room in Macao. It’s not an issue. It’s getting the right people. And let’s face it, it’s still driven by gambling, not by ADR or by hotel, rates. It’s driven by the right gamblers in the market, and I think we’ve got we’ve gotta work harder to make sure that mix is more favorable to our to our results where we want them to get to.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And and and is there is there scope to add more properties in Macao? Is it over in, I might be pronouncing this wrong, but Heng Hengshui?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Yeah. The government’s made this I don’t think you’ll see gaming properties, Nensh. I think you might see more hotel, properties. There is obviously more room in Macao. There’s still the old, site adjacent to the Londoner, which is vacant.

There’s if the government wants to add, capacity, it could. But in this market, I don’t think they’ll opt for that. It it’s not the right time. They would like to opt for more nongaming, you know, hotel based facilities. That would make great sense.

But I don’t see gaming hotels opening in Macao anytime soon. Is is nongaming of any interest to you at all? Yeah. Yeah. No.

We we need more everybody needs, Well, it works in tandem, doesn’t it? Nongaming brings gaming. So when you have sleeping rooms, they bring gamblers, and they bring more people to retail and and to, food and beverage entertainment. So, absolutely, nongaming is essential to drive the the gaming business, and the demand from Macao is there. The supply is too small.

Las Vegas has about a 60,000 rooms or so, and so Macao is much 25, 30 percent of that. It could use more sleeping rooms because it’s got biggest market in the world. Got China at its doorstep with a billion plus billion three. No question in my mind that more if you had more sleeping rooms in Macau of every of every type. It can be base mask.

It can be high end, super high every type of room is valuable to driving more gaming revenue. Sure. And would you ever see an opportunity in Mainland China? We’ve looked in I it’s not a call if I came in here about something we’re looking at doing in Mainland China investment. Obviously, not a gaming investment.

It’d be more strategic, and we’ve always looked at China as maybe. Hard to find the right thing, that fits in with what we do and be and could

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: be helpful to our Macao properties. Hard to it’s it’s not easy. And then I just got a question here from the audience, but, obviously, kinda calling back to to Vegas, where profits have increasingly come from nongaming Yeah. Activity. Yeah.

Is is that something you you expect to take place in Macau as well?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Well, Macau always has been very strong on getting the retail revenue there is astounding. Our our mall business, not recently, but what’s happened in retail in general. But, typically, our nongaming business in Macao is extraordinary. It’s probably over a billion dollars of EBITDA between retail, restaurant, and hotel occupancy. It’s a huge business just like Las Vegas.

The difference is Las Vegas was gaming centric and then became a nongaming market, with the advent of higher room rates and the realization that we we started thirty years when Sheldon first prophesied that to be a convention based nongaming value. People fell down laughing at us. We opened The Venetian in ’90, ’9, and room rates skyrocketed. And I actually was accused once, you’re not really in the gaming business. You’re in the hotel business.

I almost went to jail for that in Las Vegas. But the truth is Macao and Las Vegas deserve high occupancy, high rate because they they offer a product which is, it it can’t be replicated. They’ll never be in Las Vegas. They’ll never be in Macao. You can’t the the $50.60, $70,000,000,000 that’s been invested in Macao in the last twenty years is unbelievable.

And Vegas has become, you know, a juggernaut of investment, and it’s a one of a kind place. Like or not, you may like Las Vegas, may not like it, but it’s one of a kind. It’s a unique property, unique place. And Macao, very similar. It’s just smaller in terms of scale, but newer.

And Macao is very impressive where it started from back in the nineties to where it’s at today. It’s amazing progression of quality and and quantity.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And then just another question from the audience here. What would need to happen for spend per visit to recover?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: The brightest lights you’ve seen. I think I’m

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: gonna No. It’s my second one in this gonna

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: ask you where I was on Friday night when the guy got killed. We wanna It’s so unbelievable.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: We’re trying to interrogate you. I know. It’s a I’ve never seen it.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Yeah. I always like one of those movies. Like, I’m sorry. The question was?

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: It’s probably helpful. I can look at you. You have to look at the audience. What would what would need to happen for spend per visit to recover? Is it purely just Macao?

In Macao. Yeah.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Oh, I I I think it’s a a better economy would help it, a better confidence level. I mean, the world’s in a awkward place, I think, right now. There’s confusion about the bilateral relationship, China and The US. There’s confusion about the tariffs. There’s confusion about China’s trajectory.

I mean, it’s not an easy place to navigate. I think a lot of consumers here in The US and in China are baffled or concerned. What what is the trajectory of these countries and what’s gonna happen? I believe if you don’t have a relationship with China and and The US working together, the world economy suffers. We all suffer.

This ridiculous idea that we we’re gonna make you know, we’re we’re gonna exist on our own is insane. I mean, we’ve got we’ve gotta have a trade. We’ve gotta have a relationship with China, and we have a relationship with the world. I mean, we’re not you know, it it can’t be America only or China only. So I think the world’s kind of watching, waiting, concerned.

You see it in the equity prices. You see it in people’s consumer confidence, see it in their spending habits. I was with a friend of mine who owns a lot of retail here in New York. It’s tough. So I think until people get a more of a certainty of what tomorrow’s gonna bring, and it was going pretty well until this whole, you know, it’s painful to watch The US China relationship not be stronger.

It needs to be stronger for all of our benefit, not just this country, not just China, but, the Europe and the rest of the world benefits when China and US work things out together. And, hopefully, there can be resolution. President Trump and president Xi can figure that out.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Very clear. Right. Now I’m ask you all the same questions again about Singapore. Singapore is very different. Yeah.

Well, maybe let maybe let’s set the scene then. So tell us where we are in Singapore.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Well, we’re in a better sense. But Life is cycles, and and those of us who live long enough know things change all the time. Singapore is in that wonderful place with it’s all going very well, and it’s going well for a lot of reasons. One, I think, it’s probably come that that magical city, place in Asia that attracts a very high spend, high frequent person from all over Asia, whether it’s whether it’s Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, you know, China. We’re getting all kinds of people in Singapore.

It’s very desirable. There’s a lot of private wealth gravitating to Singapore. I mean, the price per square foot in real estate there is astronomical. The market is hot as a pistol. And to be honest, we have a duopoly, but we have the best of it as you can see from the lopsided EBITDAs we’re making there versus our competitor.

Our competitors, they’re great people, and they’ve done some nice things, but they’ve not achieved the kind of EBITDAs we have. And I think our last quarter was in excess of 600. I expect to see more of that in the future, 600, maybe 700 in the future. Our business in Singapore is powerful, and it’s not based on a multisegment. It’s based on a very top tier luxury segment of customer.

It’s a small hotel. We’ve downsized room count to, focus on the super high end. And it’s the numbers there, even the retail numbers in light of a difficult retail environment, are very strong. The gaming is very strong. Our base mass, our slot business is probably a billion dollars top line this year, which is astounding.

Singapore is in a privileged place, and I don’t think it gets it goes nowhere but up at this point unless something terrible happens. It it seems like it’s the shining market in all of Asia attracting the wealthiest, and the country and the government have been exemplary. I mean, they’re great to deal with, and we break ground on there. I think in July, we break ground number two, which will be open probably in sometime in early part of the thirties. But look.

Singapore is I wish y’all were gonna see it. We built Singapore for $5,800,000,000, and the guessing was could it do 300,000,000, 5 hundred million, a billion dollars. The fact it probably will get the 2 and a half billion dollar run rate this this decade is astounding. And oh, the post COVID trajectory of GGR in that market is astounding. Our business is terrific, and we’re thrilled to be there.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And and, obviously, you know, 600,000,000 of EBITDA from one property Yeah. Pretty extraordinary in the whole Tail Worlds, and you’re adding a second property. Yeah. Obviously, you you mentioned it there. Maybe just give us some details there.

It’s not quite Marina No. No. It’s a little bit more modest. Cost more.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: It’s a very it was very extravagant. My friend’s hotel business always laugh at the cost per key. It’s only 550 keys. It’s costing the somewhere in the $8,000,000,000 range. I know it sounds, you know, very expensive because it is.

But, also, in the market there, we’ll pay for that kind of product. And, we’re again, you’re targeting an Uber upscale audience that that that gets to Singapore and wants to be in Singapore. It’s a very seductive place for a lot of reasons, and we have total confidence in it being a very successful project. But, again, it’s not gonna open for probably five, six years.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Maybe just a question again about, you know, the nongaming revenue Yeah. In in in in Singapore. Is there is there faster growth?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Is there more opportunities to drive that? There’s higher spend per room. There’s higher spend per square foot retail. Singapore is just the home of, you know, whether it’s retail, restaurants, entertainment, having prices higher. I just bought a room for somebody as a as a gift.

And when I got the bill, I was astounded in Singapore, it’s a cost, for our base room. But the fact is Singapore is is for affluent people that can afford it, whether it’s the gaming product, the hotel product, the retail, the food and beverage. Everything is expensive, but it’s I think it’s well received, people think it’s worth it. Because, again, we shrunk the key count to be more focused on a very specific customer. It’s paid off very, very well.

Our strategy in Singapore looks very good. Not as good as what we obviously, we’re not as happy as our our numbers in Macao, but Singapore has been a, unqualified success last couple years, and I think it just gets better.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: One of the trends we’ve seen in Singapore, is this, this side bets, prevalence of side bets. Yeah. You know, what what is the what is the sort of upside opportunity from that?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Maybe

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: you can sort of talk about where that came from. Yeah.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: What is gambling people are don’t understand side bets. They get very emotional about what it means. It’s very simple. They’re just higher risk to the customer and higher reward to the house, and we’ve always been a proponent in making side bets in the back or a baccarat company. Dan Briggs always calls us the ABC, the Asian baccarat company, which I love that because I think it’s mostly true.

We have a lot of hotel rooms and restaurants and retail and all that. But in the end, what drives our company’s success or failure is baccarat. So the baccarat game, as you may or may not know, has for years been a rather boring, you know, 2.7, two point eight, percent house advantage. If you’re flat betting house advantage is minuscule, if you’re flat betting banker player, the menu add derivatives, side bets. They’re bad bets to the customer.

Let’s call it what it is. They’re they’re high they’re high reward if you hit one, but they’re high risk. My father-in-law played the lottery every day for about two thousand years. I don’t know if he ever won, but I don’t think so. He never told me he did.

But I think these bets are akin to you know, they’re prop bets. They’re you watch the Super Bowl, and you can bet, you know, one team or the other. That’s fine. But if you bet the prop bets, sports betting today is a bad bet for the companies, for DraftKings, Flutter, etcetera, the flat bets when you bet the Cubs versus the Phillies. Not very exciting for the house.

The money’s in the side bets. That’s a that’s true of any industry, in gambling. And what we’re trying to do in in Macau and Singapore is create more prop bets, side bets that people may gravitate to. It’s higher house advantage. It’s very important to driving that.

And when you’re doing the billions of dollars of of of money we take in from revenue from baccarat, if we can drive the per from, let’s say, it was $2.07 $2.08 for years, now it’s at $3.05 $3.06. Prop bets are wonderful. I remember being a young guy in Atlantic City Thousand Years ago, and I worked for a guy who was a finance person who didn’t understand gambling at all. We had a customer who wanted to bet the tie in those days in Atlantic City. The tie was he wanted about a hundred thousand US, and the guy who worked for panicked.

He said, Rob, you can’t hundred of It’s crazy. You never I said, you should take all that you can get because it’s such a stupid bet. If he’s dumb enough to make it, take all you can take. And and he said, well, what’s the customer think? Said, that’s the customer.

He’s hearing me. I’m telling you it’s a dumb bet. If he wants to make the bet, it’s up to him, not you. Take the bet. The the prop bets are like that.

They’re very advantageous to the house, not for the customer, and we’re trying to find ways of and the whole industry is doing this. We’re trying to find people that we’ve got all kinds of different games, side bets, you know, different names. But in the end, it’s about giving the cost customers when they want and when they bet on, that adds more advantage to the house. So right now, the you saw last month, we announced Singapore is up to 3.7 hold. If that hold keeps going, the value to us is incalculable because nothing changes.

The CapEx doesn’t change. The dealers don’t change. The costs remain the same, but the house advantage drives your winnings and your and your flow through on the EBITDA is considerable. Also, is enhanced by the smart tables, which have taken over the industry and rightfully so. The smart tables give you multiple advantages.

They give you great security. They also give you the fact you’d know exactly what the customer’s betting. So imagine if you know your customer’s habits to the point where, you know, it’s it’s now done for you, not a pit boss or a foreman writing it down. If he has a bad debt, doesn’t pay attention. You lose the bet.

This way, you know exactly what the customer’s wagering. You can then calculate the value to based on his wagers. A flat bettor is not nearly as valuable as a side bettor. Same in sports betting, same in anything. So I think the smart tables have been hugely advantageous, but also enable us to offer more side wagers.

They can make the felt change, and and the side betting is enhanced by having smart tables. So the advantages, I think, for baccarat is over the time we’ve been experimenting with it, we’ve driven the power up, but the fact is it could get as high as four plus percent, which would be astronomical for a company like ours. And that’s a real hidden value of our company because, again, we are the ABC company.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Why is this an opportunity in Singapore that doesn’t seem to be as much of an opportunity in Macau?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: It’s equal. It’s it’s it’s Singapore, it started there a little earlier because the regulatory environment allows to do things there and try it. But it doesn’t matter to me. Singapore, Macao, even Las Vegas, the customer dictates what they wanna bet. You make the offer and let the customer tell you, you’re gonna see side betting in Macao become very important.

It’s already important in Singapore, but the markets to me are very similar. I know people think there’s different habits or I I don’t believe, but I think at the end, a gambler given the option to gamble will will pick, look at the table, make his own decision. But in the end, Macao and Singapore are very similar in terms of appetite for side wages.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And then what what what synergies do you see between being in the two locations? Like, how many cross guests do you have across the two locations?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: We have a lot, but we don’t really, because of the the way the laws are set in Macao, we don’t cross market as much as you think. We we we’re not able to share information data. We’re very careful to isolate Macao at the request of the government. So the cross marketing is important. I’ve also believed that’s overstated in terms of the customers are intelligent.

They they know where to go, where they wanna go, and they’ll they most mainlanders will prove will will will choose Macao over Singapore, but the Greater Asia region will choose Singapore over Macau.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. Okay. That makes sense. You you mentioned earlier, in Singapore, you’re doing better than competition. In Macau, maybe more recently, you’ve seen the competition do better than you.

What determines who’s winning there? What are they doing better, or what are you doing better? What’s the

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I know. I mean, I need to what what

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: are they actively.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Determines that. I look at the EBITDA numbers, and I get it bothers me. We’re not we’re not we’re not doing as well Macau as we could. But in the end, what drives it in Macao has always been a a market predicated on product, on rooms and quality and food and this the gamut is always just you know, it’s it the product drove the the revenue. What’s happened is it’s become much more incentive driven market and much more direct incentives to the customer, which we’ve not played that game as well as others have, and my hats off to them.

I’m not here to I’m here to say they’re right and we’re wrong. We need to be more aggressive. It may cost us some margin, but we don’t margin no one at at the bank asked for the margin. They asked how much money you have. So it’ll make more EBITDA.

We’ll be happier than making higher margins. We gotta rethink who we are and respect our assets, but also respect the customer is is being sought after by many different entities. You’ve gotta compete, and you gotta be market sensitive. And, frankly, we haven’t been. We haven’t been good enough.

And my Macau numbers are disappointing to me. And, as good as Singapore is Macau should be doing better. If Macao is doing what it should be doing, we’d be in a 5 and a half billion dollars of of cumulative EBITDA, which would put us where we wanna be.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: So maybe just to square those comments. So you’re saying that the quality of the product is massing a little bit less in Macao, but you’re you’re investing in upgrading your products.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Well, we’re always gonna upgrade, but I think we’ve not gotten the payoff that I expected. I was wrong. I thought people would the the product would drive it. What’s driving it is product’s important, but equally important today is incentives against the customer direct incentives cash and discounting and things like that, which are not margin positive, but they’re EBITDA positive if do them right. And look.

You can you can we’ve stepped back thinking this would change, and we were wrong. I was wrong. We we can we can pontificate it what people how they should run their business. But if they’re making more money than you, then shame on you. Then get in the game and stop complaining.

That’s what we need to do. We need to be more more aggressive in Macau, make more money, and that’s our that’s our driving force in our company, which has been. You know? No one pays you for margin. No one pays you for pretty buildings if they don’t produce EBITDA.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Fair enough. And then maybe just a comment on, you know, what your products are are are resonating at the moment. You’ve got a kind of range of branded products, very, very high end Yeah. Sort of exclusive products. You’ve got some themed products, I think it’d be fair to say.

Obviously, in Macau, you’ve kind of gone down the route of just high end luxury. What what is the product that kind of most resonates? Is that very different between the two?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I think you can do theming in a luxury. I mean, the the Londoner is the embodiment of both. It’s a theme heavily themed product. I mean, you can’t deny you call the Londoner, you’re kind the theme business, aren’t you? But I think we’ve also done a great job executing on multiple levels of hotel excellence, and it’s a it’s a bizarrely good product.

It’s it’s as good as it gets. And I think, whereas Singapore is much more of a nonthemed, architectural icon type product, which is also nonthemed but very luxurious. And the four seasons in Macao is same thing, non theme, uber luxurious. But our mainstay has always been the Venetian, which is heavily themed. And and some would say it’s you know, theming is a negative thing.

It it depends what markets you’re in. It worked very well. But we’ve invested, I think, 2.7 or 8,000,000,000 in Macao in 02/2007 to open the London. I mean, the, Venetian has made, I don’t know, tens of millions of dollars since that. Tens of billions.

So, clearly, theming works in some markets. And depends what your you know, in Vegas, the nineties theme was essential. Sheldon and once went to a dinner with a bunch of investors, and some guy said, what’s your theme gonna be in Las Vegas, mister Rousey? My theme is making money, he said. I’m in the money making theme.

And whatever goddamn thing it takes to make money, I’ll do that. And it was very funny. The guy got very offended. Said, well, he’s very coarse. Very I thought you haven’t seen coarse.

That’s not that’s a that’s an appetizer. He’s a tough guy, but he was right. He said the theme will work. And we landed on Venetian because we felt at that time that probably 99% of Americans didn’t have a passport or been to Venice. So we created this make believe fantasy where Venice was.

It was it was beautiful, and it was it was a great success. There were those who thought theming is antiquated. I I don’t subscribe to that. Londoner just opened, it’s themed, but it’s very well done. It’s not kitschy.

It’s very fun. I encourage you to go see it because I think it really executes well.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Maybe just moving on. We got a couple of questions, quite similar ones from the audience. Initiatives such as NBA’s preseason games in Macau. What are the hurdles left for Sands to move into sports? No.

No.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: We’re gonna we’re doing an NBA game this fall. No hurdles. We made a deal with the NBA. Patrick owns the team in Dallas, and we’re moving forward to doing NBA in Macau, which is very desirable there. People wanna see the NBA.

Years ago, we did a deal with Man U for a football English football game there, and our people thought no one wants to see, you know, English football. So we didn’t hold enough tickets for the casino, and we put them on sale next day, and all 20,000 tickets were gone in twenty minutes. And I said, yes. That tells us how much we know about our own customers. They do wanna see football.

They do wanna see NBA basketball, and we’re giving them that. We’re doing a lot of NBA games. I think we’re doing six or seven next couple years. They have a voracious appetite for sports over there. Yeah.

So we’ll keep doing all this thing, entertainment, NBA, etcetera. But what about particularly sports? Gambling. Oh, sports. Oh, I don’t think that’s in their cards right now.

Think that there’s a sports gambling group. I think it’s, been there for years, but it’s not material, and we’ve never offered to be in that business. Of course, we’d love to be. But I don’t think sports betting is gonna happen at Macao in the foreseeable future. Beyond the small there’s one outpost right now, I forget what it’s called, that does it in a very minor way.

But on a major scale like Las Vegas, no. I don’t see it.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. Okay. And then what about, companies’ long term thinking in online gaming? Is this an opportunity for you? It’s very difficult for

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: us online. We’ve tried. We’ve looked at many things. We’ve we’re experimenting with something right now. The problem is, you know, we’re we’re late to the game.

Online’s very complicated, very competitive, very hard to break through. So I I we really did try, but I don’t see at this point other than maybe a couple of things looking at a real path to an online presence. Plus, it’s painfully expensive to get into. And at this point, people lost a lot of money trying to be in the it’s not an easy business. Sports betting has turned out to be, you know, not profitable at this point.

And online is only in a couple sort of four states in The US. I don’t see us being able to compete easily in the online space. It’s very complicated, very big, and a lot lot of, first movers way ahead of us.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. What about you you talked about smart tables Yeah. Earlier. I mean, maybe you can just talk about maybe what is a smart table might be interesting for some people and, and and and really what is that enhancing for you. You talked about the side bets.

Is that

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: more than good for the industry for a couple of years. Smart table is nothing more than you’ve got the ability the table, smart maybe the long term, it’s really more of a techno technology approach where you can see all the hands. For for example, counterfeiting chips and cheating is has always been part of the landscape in the gaming world. It eliminates that. If you bet a counterfeit chip, the game will stop right away and the guy can be arrested or whatever, put in put it taken aside.

So counterfeiting eliminates that. It eliminates cheating because you can see everything’s being recorded. All the hands if it as long as playing games, the dealer internally or externally or working together, it eliminates all cheating in my it’s a fabulous tool for that. The most important thing it does, though, is you know your customer. The data acquisition is amazing.

You can know what a person bets on every hand and how much they bet, what they bet. Because what you bet you know, a person betting a lot of money on a flatbed is not nearly as important for person to make a lot of money on a non flatbed or a side bet. So how they bet propensity. The size of bankroll, how long they sit at the table. It gives you a perfect rating system to give complementaries back to them.

It also gives you a chance to, you know, to market to them on the game directly and offer all kinds of side wagering. It’s very complicated. The the layouts can be much more complicated. It takes the pressure off the dealer, the foreman, the pit boss to watch the game. The game basically watches itself.

And it also makes sure all the fills, everything is done properly in terms of the accounting on the game. I mean, they’re expensive machines, but they’re gonna revolutionize gaming. And I think you’ll see them, it’ll be in every place in in a short time. They’re too important not to be, especially in a high volume environment like Asia. And and what is what is the rollout at at the moment?

We’re basically done in this year in, in both jurisdictions. Okay. Macau and Singapore.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: So but in sense of they’re all fully Yeah. Or they’re where you wanna be. Yep.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Yep. No. They’re going great. And the reception customers like them. I think there’s a sense of comfort.

There’s a sense of awareness. They get the ratings done properly. Customers seem to gravitate to smart tables. Okay. Wonderful.

Yeah.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: What about is there any other innovations, technological innovations, you know, maybe on slots or any other side that you No.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Would call out? Basically, a smart table and table games emulates the slot experience. It gives you the up ability to process information about the it’s basically a slot machine. It’s table game. It gives you incredible debt.

In the old days, Atlantic City A Hundred Years ago, you know, people put coin machines. It was a very old school approach. That’s all gone now. Obviously, the the slot machine business, moved much quicker than table games. It’s only recent last ten years, table games have started to catch up from a technology perspective.

And I think the smart table is the epitome of that technology, which is both viable, from for security, counterfeiting, rating customers, new bets. It’s it’s amazing progress in the right direction and especially in Asia, which is table game predominant.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: So let’s move on to sort of new opportunities. I think I’m I think

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I’m right. Short meeting.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Well, maybe just start with maybe the framework then. I think you target, like, a a a target return on invested capital of 20% if you were to find new projects.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I mean We have in the past. That may be ambitious in this market today.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Yeah. I was gonna if I were I guess if I very quickly try and do the maths on what you said about, Marina Bay Sands Yeah. It’s a great property. It’s not making 20% on the 5,800,000,000.0.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: Oh, no. Make much more. It’s it’s it’s making more. Well, it’s making I can’t do the math, but 2,500,000,000.0, let’s say, 2,400,000,000.0 on 5,800,000,000.0. Okay.

So that was perfect. I think it’s been an amazing investment. Yeah. And so is Macao. The problem today is in the world, those opportunities are short.

There’s nothing else for you for us in Europe. The US, we just left New York, which may have been one of the great last opportunities. There’s nothing happening in Texas right now. The only thing in the world to interest us in Asia would be Thailand, which is we don’t know what’s gonna happen there. It’s early early days.

But Thailand would give you, I think, a chance to because the CapEx, OpEx in Thailand is hugely advantage to the operator. If you’ve been to Thailand, the numbers are spectacular. I saw a project there that looks like Hudson Yards here, except it cost $4,000,000,000 versus whoever Hudson Yards cost, which I assume is more like 14 or whatever it was. But you can build cheaper in Thailand. You can operate cheaper.

If they can get the legislation right, that’s gonna be a great market for somebody.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: And what and what about Singapore? Is is is two properties the right number then? Obviously, you’re building the second one. Could there be a room for a third, or is that that very hard to predict?

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: I wouldn’t talk about that today because I think we get do number two is enough. Yeah. I don’t think the government has any, interest in growing beyond that right now. We’ll we’ll obviously let the government dictate that, but I don’t see Singapore growing beyond our two properties and Genting’s Two properties for a long time.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. So with limited opportunities out there to grow Yep. Capital allocation, you obviously invest reinvest and upgrade the properties. Yeah. But you’re looking really just at capital returns as being the primary.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: If we don’t find other opportunities, we’re gonna making billions and billions of dollars with no place to spend it. So we’ll simply put it back, obviously, fix the houses, fix the properties, but then put the money back to, investors. And the dividends are buyback shares. We’ve been buying back shares aggressively. We keep buying back shares, and we’ll keep doing that until the price gets better or maybe beyond that.

But we have a the days of us thinking this endless opportunity grow are over. I don’t see any place other than Bangkok right now for our company to grow, put money to work anywhere near the kind of numbers you were talking about, 20%. I think Bangkok will be a a very, very solid return on capital, but I don’t think there’s any opportunity for us in Japan or Korea or Indonesia and The UK, in The EU, or in The US. I mean, we’re a company that’s mature. We were once viewed as a very aggressive growth company.

We now become more of a make billions of dollars, buy back our shares, and put it back to investors. I think that’s the future until something comes along unless Bangkok materializes, which Bangkok still has a lot of hurdles to get to the finish line. I wouldn’t I don’t think Bangkok’s a is a failure to complete. It may not happen. We don’t know.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: So what what what are the what are the hurdles in Bangkok? It’s just supplementing god.

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: How many hurdles you want? That’s it. You gotta approve the legislation. It’s gotta be local friendly so the 70,000,000 ties can get in. At one point, they were insisting on a 1 plus billion dollar net worth, which you actually showed the the casino you had a $1,000,000,000 net worth.

That’s a pretty rare thing to do in in Thailand. Would eliminate the local market. It will eliminate investment in Thailand. They’ve gotta pass it. They’ve gotta deal with the fact that I think the Chinese are waiting on should it there’s a number of hurdles.

What’s the tax rate? What’s the length of license? What’s the admission for locals? There’s a lot of hurdles. Taiwan never actually gets done.

It’s not done. It’s in it’s being considered. We’ve been there multiple times, but I wouldn’t call that a sure thing.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. Okay. Makes sense. Maybe just to to to finish off, you know, you’re sadly stepping away from from the CEO role. I think you said you’re gonna stay there for two years as

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: a I say till March, and then I

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: have a a little consulting contract. Consulting contract beyond that. I mean, what would you say are they gonna be the priorities for your successor at at at at LBS? What what

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: would There’s no different than hour we just talked about. There’s finding what do you do with a company that makes a lot of money but has limited growth potential and having to deploy capital. And if you can’t deploy capital, what do you do with it? How do you help investors get there? I think the truth is sitting here today in May of twenty five, it looks to me like the landscape is pretty predictable for anybody, whether it’s Patrick or anybody else in this job.

It’s gonna be very much a capital allocation story. You have a wonderful amount of money coming in, and the question is what do you do with it all? And I think the answer is, at this point, fairly predictable. And you buy back shares and you put money back to investors in the form of dividends or whatever. I I don’t see us yes.

Bangkok’s interesting, but after Bangkok, nothing’s really out there we can talk about with any kind of certainty. So and the way we put do our business, the size of these things, the scale, very hard to find opportunities for us. There was a time I thought we’d grow in The US, we grow in in Asia, but I don’t see that today. So the big question is what what do you do with the company that makes, let’s say, 5 plus billion dollars, has no real need for the money? You buy back shares and you and you do dividends, I guess.

Okay. Not very hard to figure out.

Richard Clark, Global Hotels and Leisure Analyst, Bernstein: Well, on that simple note, I think we’ll, we’ll wrap it up. Rob, thanks so much for

Rob Goldstein, CEO, Sands: your time today. Thank you.

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