Singapore drives Las Vegas Sands’s third-quarter showing

Wednesday, October 22, 2025 8:27 PM
Photo:  Shutterstock
  • Buck Wargo, CDC Gaming

Paced by the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore delivering $743 million in adjusted earnings, CEO Rob Goldstein said Las Vegas Sands has been “too conservative” in its forecast for that country’s market.

Goldstein told Wall Street analysts Wednesday that its forecast of $2.5 billion for Singapore will miss easily, since it’s already surpassed $2.1 billion for 2025 with a quarter to go. The $743 million is 83% higher than the $406 million a year ago. The margin was 51.8%, up from 44.2% a year ago.

In Singapore, mass gaming and slot win hit a record $905 million, 122% growth from the third quarter of 2019 and up 35% from the third quarter of 2024.

“We’re in the right place at the right time with the right product,” Goldstein said. “Singapore is a highly desirable destination and it’s difficult to find the superlatives to describe the magnitude of this result. Operating performance at MBS is unprecedented in our history.”

LVS stock, which closed at $50.62 on Wednesday, up $16 in the last six months, rose nearly $3 in afterhours trading following the earnings release.

Goldstein said Macau delivered $601 million in adjusted earnings for the quarter, a 2.7% increase over the $585 million in the third quarter of 2025.

“We have underperformed in the Macau market for the past few years, but we believed our buildings would be enough,” Goldstein said. “We were wrong. We adapted to the market and changed our approach in the second quarter of 2025 and that made us more competitive.”

Goldstein said their mass-market revenue jumped 25.4% during the third quarter, up 23.6% from the first quarter of 2025. He said they expected additional EBITDA gains and revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

Goldstein said their assets remain strong, as The Londoner is moving toward a $1 billion-plus EBITDA, and there are opportunities for growth in Macau.

“The Macau market’s gross gaming revenue is growing,” Goldstein said. “With our assets and recent market changes, we believe will continue to improve in the fourth quarter and beyond.”

Patrick Dumont, president and chief operating officer, said when adjusted for hold, the EBITDA margins in Macau would have been 31.5%, down 150 basis points, compared to the third quarter of 2024. The margin at The Venetian was 35%, while it was 31.9% at The Londoner. “We see opportunity in every segment,” Dumont said.

Goldstein said Sands can’t grow in Macau independent of the market as a whole and needs gaming-revenue growth, which he said next year could be $33 billion to $34 billion. He called the third quarter respectable and making progress, but short of their goal.

“But we also had to make changes and have been making them for the last four to five months,” Goldstein said. “We’re halfway there. When you marry the market growth to our assets and programs, yes, we can get to our target. It’s critical the market grows. That’s the same for all of us or it’s just the same customers circulating.”

Grant Chum, CEO of Sands China, said the third quarter showed their reinvestment programs “coming to fruition” and cited marketing strategies in responding to the market dynamics.

“We readjusted our reinvestment rates across the portfolio, not uniformly. Obviously ,some of our smaller properties have had a bigger boost in reinvestment,” Chum said. “And we’ve seen the results of that. You can see that both year-over-year and sequentially that we’re outgrowing the market for the first time in a long time when you look at the mass gaming revenue.”

Goldstein said their weak links are the Sands and the Parisian, the latter of which is off 50% from its high in EBITDA performance. The Londoner is “fine” and the Venetian is “OK,” but Goldstein said they have to climb up from the bottom with the Sands and come back to being competitive. “It’s underway and progressing, but it takes a lot of work.”

In Macau, Chum said VIP has outgrown the mass gaming revenue over the last couple of months and in some months, it has seen a high rate of growth.

“It’s driven by a concentration of super high-end VIP players, as well as increased liquidity in the market,” Chum said. “This quarter, we haven’t concentrated that much in that segment, but we’re going to get more competitive in that segment as well.”