An analyst with Truist Securities reported their latest room rate survey for the Las Vegas Strip shows a soft third quarter. The summer doldrums are spilling into October, followed by a more promising November, but Las Vegas promotions pushed by tourism officials so far have had a modest impact.
In another report based on visitation at U.S. regional casinos in September, a second analyst is predicting the nation’s gaming revenue will grow 2% year over year.
As for Las Vegas, Barry Jonas with Truist said his firm still sees negative third-quarter estimate revisions priced into stocks, with investors more focused on the fourth quarter. “We expect to hear more this week at G2E, but if November inflection continues into December, we could see the Vegas stocks of Caesars (Entertainment) and MGM (Resorts International) working better for the first quarter of 2026.”
In late September, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority held a five-day destination-wide sales event involving resort partners with discounted room rates and other price cuts as the city grapples with a downturn of visitation. The sale offered deals on resorts, restaurants, entertainment, and experiences.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last week that the LVCVA said the five-day sale “was a huge success,” based on statistical metrics it tracked.
Strip proxy room rates for the third quarter fell 5%, while they declined 7% for MGM and 17% for Caesars, Jonas said. Weekends are tracking down 3%, 6%, and 18%, while weekdays are down 8%, 7% and 13%.
Jonas said October is looking worse than its last survey and expects that to continue. They’re down 5% for proxy, 15% for MGM, and 12% for Caesars. Weekends are down 13%, 20%, and 25%, with weekdays doing much better at plus 2%, down 11%, and plus 6%, respectively.
“This is slightly worse than our last published survey, which had total Strip Proxy/MGM/Caesars -4%/-14%/-11%,” Jonas said. “We think the Strip was modestly impacted by some increased promo activity to help fight the ‘Vegas is expensive’ narrative
Jonas said their early November read is looking better for MGM, showing proxy rates up 2% year-over-year, while MGM is up 3% and Caesars is up 1% versus prior survey results of flat, -1%, and +4%.
“This aligns with management commentary pointing to November as a possible inflection point and potentially driving any fourth-quarter improvements, with MGM seeing the bulk of improvements from our last published survey,” Jonas said. “Heading into our G2E meetings, operators sounded positive for the fourth quarter and 2026, given the stronger event/convention calendar.”
Daniel Politzer, an analyst with J.P. Morgan, said they analyzed visitation data for regional casinos, a helpful tool in forecasting monthly regional gaming revenue trends.
“Based on September visitation -11% month-over-month, we extrapolate a September gaming revenue estimate, which implies total U.S. regional gaming revenue was +2% year-over-year in September,” Politzer said. “While a step-down from July/August’s 5% to 6% growth, we still view September’s +2% as decent.”
There was no meaningful calendar impact, as both September 2025 and 2024 had eight weekend days, Politzer said. For the third quarter, the firm estimates U.S. regional gaming revenue was up “a solid 4% year-over-year, though the lift from promotions is unclear.”
The 4.2% regional casino growth in the third quarter is the highest level of growth since the first quarter of 2023, Politzer said.
“While this level of gaming revenue growth would typically present a fairly positive setup for regional operators into third quarter earnings, we note second quarter revenue also grew at a similar 4% level, and this was buoyed by promotions with operator net revenue and EBITDA growth trailing gaming revenue growth. Consequently, we prefer a more detailed/nuanced approach given the varying promotional/competitive landscape among operators.”
