Wall Street Wager: Boyd-Bally’s deal, Las Vegas Strip, gaming trade second quarter – CDC Gaming

Jefferies’ David Katz on August 23 checked out a doable deal between Boyd Gaming and Bally’s:

“According to a story posted on Vital Vegas, Boyd is considering partnering with Bally’s on the former Tropicana Las Vegas site near the A’s stadium, which modestly pressured the shares (-2% since posting). The companies have not commented on the report. Although we expect Boyd to contemplate any reasonable opportunity, we believe this project is outside the usual scale and risk tolerance for Boyd, given the scale of Las Vegas Strip development ($3 billion+) and the challenges of ramping a single property on the Strip without an existing database. We take the modest pressure from the market as in line with our view, which is that the project is low likelihood for Boyd as a prominent player.”

Truist Securities’ Barry Jonas on August 19 appeared on the Las Vegas Strip:

“Our latest Las Strip survey is showing a choppy Q3 after Q2 finished positive. A strong July is followed by a softer August/September, which somewhat ties to Q2 earnings commentary and follows our thesis of an improving but not “hockey stick” restoration. Encouragingly, our early learn into October exhibits constructive momentum with robust tendencies throughout all cohorts (even at low-end). We stay constructive on the general Strip setting and suppose tendencies will proceed to enhance over time. While Caesars M&A and MGM’s potential M&A imply their inventory efficiency could maintain greater than uneven market fundamentals, Wynn charges look to be outperforming.”

Macquarie’s Chad Beynon on August 17 summarized the second quarter for gaming firms:

“Gaming companies generally delivered positive 2Q results with Regionals and Online averaging 1% and 3% beats, respectively. 2026E EBITDA consensus estimates were broadly unchanged for regionals/online, and -2% for Large Cap. But conversely, Large Cap stock performance outperformed the other sectors at -1% over the last month while regionals was close behind, but online stocks were -6%. The “EBITDA minus stock move” framework highlights a dispersion in inventory reactions relative to fundamentals. This was most pronounced on the on-line stage given a bunch common of seven%, suggesting shares underperformed relative to fundamentals and EBITDA estimates that have been comparatively unchanged post-print, which we consider may very well be as a result of positioning as public knowledge indicated low maintain throughout the quarter, or within the case of Rush Street probably reflecting some profit-taking following robust year-to-date good points. Genius Sports was the outlier within the group because the inventory transfer meaningfully outperformed fundamentals, pushed in our view by improved investor sentiment on the Legends acquisition.”