A day after addressing the crowd at G2E in Las Vegas, MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle told Nevada regulators negative headlines about the city’s tourism are “silly,” but operators need to pay attention to the value some customers are seeking.
Hornbuckle appeared before the Nevada Gaming Control Board as part of his licensing process and received a recommendation for approval that will go to the Nevada Gaming Commission later this month.
“We’ve all heard and seen the press about Las Vegas and what’s happened particularly this summer,” Hornbuckle said. “I spoke at G2E Tuesday and talked about this notion that Las Vegas has lost its value proposition and Las Vegas is dead. It’s silly. If you look at the last 30 years, gaming-revenue growth is like 4.5% to 5%. While we’ve seen ebbs and flows, 2023 and 2024 parallel 2006 and 2007. They were amazing years and may not be replicated for some time, but we’re in good stead.”
Hornbuckle said MGM is in a quiet period, with its earnings report scheduled for later in the month, and he couldn’t provide too many numbers.
“There’s a bifurcation of markets. The luxury marketplace is doing better than the value marketplace today, so we have to pay attention to that and understand value propositions.”
Hornbuckle talked about the promotion by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in which resorts over five days were making discounted offers to customers.
“We normally do 150,000 to 160,000 room nights a week in terms of reservations,” Hornbuckle said. “We did just under 300,000. The idea that Las Vegas as a marketplace that people find attractive is compromised – we’re not buying it. We look forward to investing here to continue to grow this market. There are domestic markets that attract us. We have a proposition in New York and we watch Texas closely to see what might happen there over time. There’re plenty of growth opportunities.”
Hornbuckle also talked about MGM’s $12.5 billion casino project under construction in Osaka, Japan, that will open in 2030. He cited their non-gaming hotel project in Dubai with an MGM, Bellagio, and Aria in it and hopefully some day a casino; a platform is being built to accommodate it if gaming is expanded to that Emirate.
Hornbuckle said their digital business is growing with their joint venture with Entain for BetMGM domestically. They’re in 11 other countries with a growing marketplace in Brazil. “Those are the two places I spend most of my time and energy.”
Board member George Assad praised MGM’s initiative in Japan and the UAE and called it a smart and impressive move for the shareholders.
“You’re doing a great service to the state of Nevada and these 55,000 employees here,” Assad said.
