The fourth-quarter earnings season is beginning. The Wall Street analysts made weak-to-dismal forecasts for the gaming industry. One analyst saw only Las Vegas Sands and DraftKings/FanDuel as bright spots for gaming in the fourth quarter. The past few months of declining visitation to Las Vegas weigh heavily on the Street’s mind.
For the gaming industry, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) was the first to report. LVS reported net revenue of $3.6 billion, net income of $448 million, and EBITDA of $1.4 billion. For 2025, total revenue was $13.0 billion, operating income was $2.82 billion, and net income was $1.63 billion or $2.35 per diluted share. Big bucks by any measure.
Las Vegas Sands is not really a Las Vegas anything; it should properly be called Asian Sands, Singapore Sands, or Macau and Singapore Sands. LVS abandoned Las Vegas in 2022, selling out completely. Its Las Vegas holdings fetched $6.2 billion, a tidy sum. It was an empire of sorts and the vision of one man, Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson founded Las Vegas Sands. In 1989, Adelson and partners bought a Las Vegas legend, the famous Sands Hotel-Casino, home of the Rat Pack. But Adelson was not an A-lister or a gambler. He was a businessman, a master of mass transportation and trade shows. He had a different business model than other casino operators. It took time to build out, but eventually, the former Sands was transformed into the Venetian, Palazzo, and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. The facility was at one time the largest privately owned convention center in the world. The entire property was an extensive and expensive complex.
In the modern world, few, if any, individuals or private companies can finance a megaresort on the Las Vegas Strip. The public equity market is a necessary piece to the puzzle. Steve Wynn hated the scrutiny of a public company, but when he came back to the Strip to build Wynn Las Vegas, Steve had to swallow his pride and go back to the public for funding. In 2004, Adelson took that same path, creating a public company, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. It was also the year his first casino in Macau opened.
Macau was a game changer for LVS; revenues were enormous and seemingly endless. Adelson started with one property, but expanded to five, creating a new casino-resort strip in the process. In 2010, the company opened a $6.8 billion resort in Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands. Every expansion demonstrated the tremendous potential of Asia. The tax rates are high, but there is less competition and the market – China – is huge. That was the rationale cited when the corporation sold its Las Vegas operation. Although still headquartered in Las Vegas, LVS was exclusively an Asian company.
Since its entry into Macau, LVS has wanted to expand into other Asian jurisdictions. It flirted with Japan, but the process was too convoluted, expensive, and lengthy. LVS was also on the top of the list of those interested in Thailand, but that opportunity has faded from the scene. That leaves the Sands with Singapore and Macau and nothing else on the horizon. But Macau and Singapore should be enough; as the earnings release demonstrates, there is plenty of money to be made. And Sands is the best player in the game.
LVS has an estimated 70 percent market share in Singapore. Resorts World gets the leftovers. In Macau, there are six operators and LVS has a 25 percent market share. It is difficult to imagine a more successful gaming corporation than Sands is at the end of 2025. Still, it was not enough for the market. LVS stock fell 14 percent after the earnings announcement. What does it take to please the market? The Sands grew and beat expectations, yet the value fell.
Jim Cramer, the CNBS stock analyst, may have the answer. Cramer said he has not pay much attention to Sands since it left Vegas. Besides, it trades on the strength of Chinese customers and that is “way too hard to game. Plus, you never know when the Chinese Communist Party will do another crackdown.” Then he turned over his hole card. “But I’m not sure I like anything gambling these days. I know you ask me a lot about DraftKings. Boy, that’s struggling. They’re all struggling.”
Cramer is often a bellwether and sometimes a trendsetter, so his opinion is worth considering. He is giving us some insight into gaming-stock prices: Gaming is not terribly popular with investors. They don’t really understand or trust it. The season has just begun and not many companies outperform LVS, but we can hope the other stocks receive better treatment on the Street.
