Las Vegas Sands Corp. Aktie

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sands Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] We will open the floor for your questions and comments following the presentation.

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Sands. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Paul. Joining the call today are Patrick Dumont, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Wolford Wong, Executive Vice Chairman of Sands China; and Grant Chum, CEO and President of Sands China; and EVP of Asia Operations.

Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. The language on forward-looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call today. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those forward-looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call.

Finally, for the Q&A session. We ask those with interest to please post 1 question and 1 follow-up question so we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate. This presentation is being recorded.

I'll now turn the call over to Patrick.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. I just want to start off by saying our strategic priorities remain clear and consistent. We will continue to invest with discipline with the fundamental objective of creating meaningful shareholder returns over the long term.

Turning to our current quarter. We again delivered strong financial results of Mana-based Sands in Singapore, generating EBITDA of $689 million for the quarter. If we had as expected in a rolling play, our EBITDA would have been $37 million lower or $652 million. That performance was achieved despite the seasonally softer tourism demand that exists in both Singapore and Macau in the second quarter of each calendar year. There's another factor to note -- there was a decrease in the visitation to both Maria Base Sands and our Macau properties by our high-value patrons during the World Cup football tournament. It was very noticeable in June given the trajectory of the businesses in both markets earlier in the quarter. Despite these headwinds, mass gaming revenues of Marina Bay Sands grew 5% for the quarter compared to the second quarter of 2025, which highlights the resilience and the underlying strength of the business.

Singapore remains an ideal market for high-value tourism spending and our focus on creating unique and memorable entertainment and hospitality experiences for our guests continues to generate outstanding financial performance. Our results this quarter reinforce our view that Maria Bay Sands structural earnings power has been elevated following our significant product investments, suite renovations, service enhancements and the successful execution of our premium customer strategy. We remain confident that our market-leading product, service and focus on driving high-value tourism will enable us to create unrivaled hospitality experiences for the world's most ascertain customers and deliver additional growth at Marina Bay Sands in the years ahead.

As I shared last quarter, the company's fundamental operating strategy relies on 3 critical pillars: our people, our product and our service. When we get these 3 pillars optimized as we have in rebased sands, -- we are positioned to drive high-value tourism to the market and to create outstanding financial and operating performance. We remain excited about the growth opportunity presented by the Marine Base Sands expansion. The expansion will meaningfully increase our premium suite capacity, service and entertainment offerings, including the debut of a state-of-the-art arena and vision to be the finest in Asia. We remain on track with the development process and look forward to opening the expansion early in 2031, subject to the required government approvals.

Now let's turn to Macau. Our $430 million in EBITDA for the quarter was negatively impacted by the exceptionally low VIP rolling hold of 1.35% for the quarter. If we had held as expected in our rolling play, our EBITDA would have been $87 million higher or $517 million for the quarter. The actions that we have taken to improve our service levels and the customer experience are clearly achieving some early success. We are encouraged by our progress during the second quarter. Sanshain's growth in gaming volumes meaningfully exceeded the growth in gaming volumes in the Macau market overall. When compared to the second quarter of 2025, we delivered strong growth in gaming volumes in all segments. Our rolling volume was up 73% year-over-year.

Our non-rolling drop was up 15% year-over-year and our slot in EPG handle was up 30% year-over-year. Sands China's mass gross gaming revenue grew 8% for the quarter year-over-year, wise as fast as the overall market is 4% mass growth for the quarter. Sands China total GGR grew by 4% for the quarter compared to second quarter of 2025, while the Macau market's total gross gaming revenue was flat for the quarter. If we had held as expected in our rolling play, Sands China's total GGR growth would have been 14% year-over-year. Sands China's VIP rolling chip volume share reached a market-leading 26% in the quarter.

Turning to our reinvestment strategy. We have been optimizing reinvestment levels since the beginning of the year. I wanted to highlight our approach to reinvestment has remained consistent over the last several quarters. Our approach has not changed. If you look at the metrics, reinvestment as a percentage of revenue did increase during this quarter. The increase as a percentage of revenue was driven by changes in business mix and lower hold percentage on our non-rolling play. Our goal is to continue to remain consistent with our reinvestment strategy going forward and to achieve greater profitability as revenues grow in the future.

With respect to operating expenses, we have elected over the last year to invest in additional table operating hours, increased sales, marketing and customer service personnel and enhanced levels of customer service. The increased investment in operating expenses related to our efforts should begin to level off in the second half of 2026. These investments are critical to the achievement of our long-term objectives of being able to service our customers to the highest standards and to create unique and memorable hospitality experiences for our guests. We remain steadfast in our belief that the successful execution of our initiatives will support growth in both revenue and profitability over time.

The growth in the Macau market remains primarily driven by the premium segment. The competition in that segment remains intense, and luxurious suite product, coupled with outstanding service levels are critical to success. We remain singularly focused today on matching that suite and room product with the service levels that the most discerning and valuable customers in Macau increasingly demand. We retain our goal of reaching $700 million in quarterly EBITDA and beyond over time as we fully implement our investment and operating strategies and as the Macau market grows in the future.

I want to turn to the product pillar in Macau. As I highlighted last quarter, we are focused on investing in the highest return projects over the next 3 years, in order to create the best opportunities to increase cash flow. Renovation of the Venetian rooms and suites commenced in March and work is progressing. While we have some product coming back into inventory across the work period, -- our target is to have all 2,900 rooms and suites completely refurbished and reintroduced by Chinese New Year 2028. We will also introduce new premium focused gaming salons and related to amenities as a component of the Venetian investment program. The meaningful patron volume growth we have seen in the long 1 and grand suites at fuses provide support for these investments.

It's important to note that the work we division will not create significant disruption throughout the portfolio. The scale of our portfolio will allow us to serve customers in 100 properties and elsewhere in each resort, all workers in progress. Nothing we are doing as we invest in the portfolio over the next several years will hinder our ability to use our scale advantages to outperform in the nonpremium segment should spending in that segment accelerate in the future. We will use our scale advantage and product advantage together with service level improvements and targeted incentives to effectively compete in every market. We expect growth in EBITDA and EBITDA margins as revenues grow over time.

Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders. We repurchased $787 million of LVS stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.30 per share. We have now repurchased 16.3% of the company's outstanding shares over the last 11 quarters. Our Board of Directors recently increased our repurchase authorization to $6 billion. We believe additional repurchases of LVS equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long term. While we did not purchase any additional shares of SCL during this quarter, we do continue to see value in both the LVS and SCL names. The company's ownership of SCL remained at 74.8% as of June 30, 2026. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company's share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders.

Thanks again for joining the call today and for your interest in the company. Now let's take some questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question today is coming from Liz Doug from Goldman Sachs.

Just wanted to ask as it relates to performance, whether it be in Macao or Singapore, kind of, I guess, hard to kind of parse it out, but how much of it you think is kind of macro or consumer driven to the extent there was also maybe some World Cup impact versus just execution or kind of missteps or investment needed in the property. There's probably a lot to unpack there. But kind of details on that would be helpful.

Yes, sure. First off, I just want to start out by saying this quarter doesn't represent the true earnings power of our properties hold had an impact, World Cup had an impact. You mentioned investment for growth in the future. If you look at some of the things we've invested in recently, Longer brand, Lender when we've done the Grand Suites at Four Seasons, the customers are there and the productivity is there, if the product is right and the service is right. So we feel like our investment programs position us well for future growth. This quarter was not what we wanted to see. But when you think about the 517 given the whole normalization, we feel pretty good about where we're headed, given the growth in volumes across all segments.

To me, that's just a signal of the effect that the new service model is taking -- that we're now able to service the highest level of patrons at a higher level. And so while we didn't get the whole that we wanted this quarter, the volumes were there, the visitation was there. And even though world comp had an impact, we felt like we're heading in the right direction.

The market was tracking very well in Macau in April and May, and SCL, gaming volumes were very strong. In fact, May was an all-time high for us in SCL in terms of monthly mass GGR, June was clearly softer, and there was some impact from World Cup. But as we look overall for the quarter, we see very strong underlying trends across all of our different gaming segments. VIP rolling segment, we were gaining share significantly during the quarter, while up 73% year-over-year whilst the market was flattish.

In terms of our table games in non-rolling, we were impacted somewhat by the lower hold percentage, especially in June. And then in we have clearly outperformed the market with 21% revenue growth for the quarter. So overall, if you take account of the lower hold percentage and on rolling and the business mix, we're able to achieve gains in every segment in the market share year-over-year and remain consistent in terms of market share sequentially with a very similar reinvestment levels once you adjust for those whole percentage factors and business mix sequentially.

And I do want to come back to MBS as well. I just want to highlight that this was an incredibly powerful quarter in several of our segments. But the key is we were impacted by our World Cup there as well, given the high-value nature of our patrons. And I think as we look to that asset in the future, we see a very strong market, very strong visitation -- and for us, we're going to continue to invest there because we see the long-term potential of growth in Singapore given what we see today.

Got it. And just a follow-up on that and maybe just to stick with Macau for a second. Appreciate you said this is not what you want to be or could be. And I know in the past, you talked about $700 million in quarterly EBITDA last quarter, then $600 million came into the mix. And now, I guess, this is maybe a bit of a onetime quarter but close to that $500 million on a hold-adjusted basis. And so I know you don't give guidance, but is there anything you're seeing in the market or on a company-specific basis, changing how you think about what that run rate is for Macau, at least over the next kind of year or 2?

No. I think our target is still the $700 million. I think historically, what we've always seen is that 2Q has always been our softest quarter. And so we talked about that in our last earnings call that this quarter had some seasonality built into it. And so we saw that here. But I also think that if we held better, we'd be having a little bit of a different discussion in certain things. So I think for us, we look to the progress we're making in the market. If you sort of look at the growth that we've had year-over-year, if you look at the fact that we did this through the World Cup cycle, I think there are some positive things there that we look to -- and I think our goal is still to $700 million. And I think we have some work to get there, but we feel like the process in place for us to keep working to head in that direction. We know what we need to do.

The next question will be from Dan Politzer from JPMorgan.

First, I wanted to touch on Singapore. Obviously, you talked a bit about World Cup and seasonality there. Given where the property is, and I think we're kind of anniversarying that first big quarter there, do you feel like you're at a place where the property maybe reverts back to historical seasonality -- and broadly, just in terms of the seasonality discussion, can you just remind us of how you think about it from Cal as well while around the topic.

Yes, sure. I think what we said before is the big step function in growth in Singapore was the switch from service levels on the casino floor as well as some of the novel games as well as just the overall presentation. All those things came to bear that allowed us to have the growth that you saw. Now the growth is going to be based on yielding and more incremental growth as we continue to invest in the property that's there. So there are still things that we're doing that we think will create growth over time, particularly in patron types that are higher value. But I think for us, looking forward in Singapore, it's going to be about continuing to serve with these customers. We have a very strong base there.

And visitation matters for the highest end customers, particularly the highest energies concentrate. We've talked about that before. and whether it's World Cup or other things, some of those people weren't in the building this quarter. And when they show up, we do incredibly well. And when we play favorably, we -- our margins look like extraordinary. And when some of those people don't show up and scale and they don't play in high volume, and we don't hold very well, our margins can look less. So -- but we're heading in the right direction. I don't know that there's a gaming business that grows forward in a straight line. And I'd like to believe that this business is heading in the right direction. And to be fair, we're also seeing the benefit of a lot of wealth creation in Southeast Asia. So we feel very good about the long-term prospects of both our investment and the trajectory of the business there.

Got it. And then I suppose on Macau, just talking a little bit more about that $700 million quarterly EBITDA run rate and kind of the path to getting there. Can you maybe give a sense of the capital or the time frame, the capital that you have to still commit or the time frame that you think is reasonable to kind of -- to get to that level? Obviously, this quarter wasn't an ideal, but how should we think about kind of the path forward towards that $700 million?

So I think, first off, this quarter was impacted with seasonality. We talked about that. We see it there was the World Cup impact that we just mentioned. But I also think, for us, as we continue to invest and get higher value patron fulfilling inventory, we'll be able to grow our market share and grow our revenues. And so for us, this is what we talked about. We talked about a multiyear investment strategy as we updated our portfolio there and invested for the highest value premium mass segments that we do really well in. That's a very deep part of our database. And so nothing's changed from our strategy from our approach and for the time lines that we talked about before. Grant, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add.

I think in terms of capital projects, we have still a long way to go in terms of ramping up London. It's done very well so far. As you can see, both Londoner and Four Seasons we are -- even for this quarter, we are above where we were in 2019 on a normalized basis. So that's a very positive evidence of how these product upgrades can drive the revenue growth and market share gains.

Secondly, we are very focused on the upcoming completion of the Venetian renovation, which would take us all the way, as Patrick referenced, to early 2028 but we should start to see the benefits of those new suites as we progressively get more critical mass of these suites through throughout 2027. And certainly, by the end of that, we're going to have a completely new hotel in, I think, what is still an amazing property for people to visit, but with an entirely upgraded refreshed product, both in hotel and also in parts of the premium gaming sections.

The next question will be from Shaun Kelley from Bank of America.

Patrick or Grant, maybe just a comment on sort of the nature of the growth in the premium segment you're seeing in Macau. This is pretty significant hole volatility we're seeing at some of the properties. And just kind of curious if this is going to be the nature of the market a little bit moving forward, just given concentration in a smaller and smaller set of customers? Or if there's a little bit of an outlier and really chalk it up a little bit more to that, just in terms of activity and maybe the concentration of what you saw driving this kind of volatility because we tend to think for LVS in particular, sort of averages out across a much bigger base of business. Clearly, we didn't see that this quarter.

So I think what's really important is we have product at ServiceNow that allows us to attract the most important patrons in both markets. That's to be step. The good news is sometimes we get that play in Singapore. Sometimes we get that play in Macau. Sometimes we get it in both. Sometimes we have a lot of it. Sometimes, we have less of it. Sometimes when we have less of it, the volatility works against us given the number of decisions and the bet size of the volatility during the quarter of measurement. The good news is we take this business, and over time, it really works in our favor. This is the largest hold adjustment we've ever had in the history of Macau. And the good news is it happened after the pandemic at a time when a lot of people thought, high-level VIP play wouldn't show up in Macau. And now we're earning it.

So over time, we believe that things will -- there's an old expression, right? The gate of luck swings both ways. And we like to believe that over time by taking this play and for providing right service and keeping these patrons playing with us over time that will be more successful. And so the play is very concentrated. The other thing is for some of these patrons, we tend to think about it across both of our properties, right? Do we have the right amount of offsetting play across our entire portfolio of properties. So for us, I think the important thing is the most asserting patrons want to stay with us and play high volumes with us. That thing is we got to be really bad this quarter and we actually got beat on the mass side, too.

There's a belief in gaming that goes back a long time that when customers play lucky, they continue to strengthen their bonds and relationship with you because over time, they'll eventually lose. And so I think for us, customers winning is an investment in future marketing and gives us the ability to retain high-value customers over time. This quarter didn't work in our favor, hopefully in the future as well.

Just add to that I think the fact is shown, if you look at both VIP rolling and the premium mass segment, we have gained a significant amount of market share at that very top end given all of the strategies we've deployed since May of last year. So yes, there's no secret. We have done huge gains in VIP segment against a flat market this quarter. We've come from a position where we were #4 in the rolling segment a year ago, and now we're #1 with 26% volume share. And part of that share gain is coming from the Super VIP segment where we've also been very successful in the Marina Bay Sands property. So that's the VIP segment. And then in terms of the premium mass, We all keep saying that the Macau growth is driven by the premium segment in the current environment. And within that, yes, there is some very high-end premium mass play, which is available to capture.

And we've been capturing more than a fair share of that in the last 6 months. And unfortunately, this quarter, the lab just didn't play our way, but we are gaining the customers, we're gaining the volume, and they will be back, and we'll lock even now in the end.

Perfect. And then as my follow-up, maybe just a quick high-level 1 on sort of -- Patrick, I think you mentioned the run rate and the investments being made on the operating expense side in Macau. Just a quick thought on Singapore. Is this a general good run rate as we're expecting to see a little bit more of incremental gains on the top line? Will that be matched relatively closely with sort of investments on the bottom line? Or just how is the operating run rate operating expense looking there?

So first off, we're really happy with the 50% EBITDA margin rebased. And we have a fixed cost base there that's really focused on providing the highest levels of service. We can do really, really well with more visitation from high-value patrons and their play. We can also see higher margins when we have higher volumes from those patrons and things happen to go our way on the gaming tables. So in quarters past, we've seen higher margins because we had a lot of great play, and that play was favorable.

Look, in the long run, we're really happy to make these investments to attract and keep our highest levels of patrons. We're going to continue to invest in things necessary to support great experience for our patrons really at the highest levels. And look, sometimes from time to time, some of these customers require provisions. Sometimes they require some promo. But as a practical matter, we're -- this is a great business, and we believe in the margin structure over time. And just broadly, we believe that we have a significant opportunity to continue to invest and optimize and grow as we have given the strong customer interest that we have and just the growing amount of patrons that we see coming out of Southeast Asia that are high-value tourists that want to go to Singapore.

So we're going to continue investing behind the cases for the long term.

The next question will be from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley.

I just want to go back to that to make sure I understood it correctly. So I think that your promo was down sequentially, still up year-over-year. Is it down sequentially predominantly because of the World Cup and maybe those customers not showing up they tend to require higher reinvestments. So we haven't quite seen a change in the promotional environment yet? Or has it even potentially ratchet up? Just curious if there's any kind of way to dig into that and what you're seeing in the competitive environment?

Stephen, just to clarify, in Macau, our reinvestment level sequentially remained flat to second quarter versus first quarter. When we adjust for the whole percentage and the difference in business mix. Year-over-year, we see obviously a higher level of reinvestment because we only started to adopt a more aggressive reinvestment strategy to adjust to the market in the second half of last year.

Right. But you had the World Cup in there, which I imagine if you're not having some people that require higher reinvestment, maybe that would suggest that perhaps it's even picking up sequentially, just as we think about the underlying. So are you seeing any change in the competitive dynamic that you kind of pull back the onion a bit?

There's no change in either our approach or the reinvestment levels when you look at it sequentially -- and as we have been doing since the start of the year, we're looking to optimize the level of reinvestment into all of these customer ADT segments. And what we're finding is we were successful in first quarter, is that we're able to adjust some of those reinvestment levels and still achieve the market share gain. So as we look into the second half, we'll continue that process of optimization and we aim to achieve a higher level of gross margin from this high level of revenues.

The next question will be from Robin Farley from UBS. Rob,

I wanted to go back to a comment that you made during the call where you said that reinvestment would level off in the second half. And just wanted to make sure that I'm understanding that correctly, leveling off, meaning it will be flat year-over-year or that the rate of increase in the second half would be about the same rate of increase year-over-year we saw in the first half and not a higher rate of increase.

Just to clarify, Robin. There are 2 different public. One is the reinvestment and the other is the operating expenses. So for reinvestment, what we're looking to do is to continue to optimize the reinvestment percentage as a proportion of actual revenue, and that process has started since the beginning of the year. We've had some success in this, and we'll continue that into the second half. In terms of Patrick's comments on operating expenses, we have had some OpEx growth during the first half of 2026, but we do expect the rate of OpEx growth to moderate into the second half -- we've been investing in the table operating hours in the sales network distribution and also in the service elevation. But the big step change in those investments have largely happened and what we expect into the second half into 2027, it's a more moderate rate of OpEx growth, and we should, therefore, be able to achieve some operating leverage on the EBITDA margin as revenues grow.

And is that saying that the second half rate of increase in OpEx will be similar to the first half?

Lower.

I just wanted to clarify what leveling off, just to make sure I understood. And then can you talk a little bit about -- I mean, I don't want to get too focused on like the very immediate term, but obviously, the World Cup you've talked about that impacting visitation. Are you seeing bounce back pent-up demand? Or is it just back to normal levels? In other words, are you seeing a clear sign that, that was just during the World Cup and how things look now versus that period.

I do want to point out the final was on Sunday. And so I'm not really sure yet how we think about it. I will tell you that this was quite an unbelievable sporting event -- the level of success the World Cup in the U.S. is really, really remarkable. I think the earnings that they generated were a record, an the attendance might have been record. I think the involvement with the broader field really captured a global phenomenon. And it was something that I think a lot of people went to. And unfortunately, a lot of our high-value patrons our followers or a lot of the players and a lot of the teams who have representation in the World Cup or had -- are from countries that participated and it just drove a lot of tourism away from our 2 core markets to markets.

And so we're obviously very optimistic about the long term, but also we think our patrons want to come back to doing what they're doing. So we look forward to seeing them back in our properties. Looking forward to seeing them back in our markets, and we'll go from there. But it's a little early to tell you about any step back given that everything ended only a few days ago.

The next question will be from Brian Montour from Barclays.

Great. The mass drop staff that you guys gave at 15% in the quarter, would you be willing to break that out by month in the quarter?

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the question. Could you say that again, please?

Sorry about that. So mass table drop in the quarter was up 15%. You highlighted that, Patrick, in your prepared remarks. Would you be able to break that out by month, just so we can get a sense of how your performance was trending Sands, sorry, ex hold before World Cup start?

Yes. I would just say we typically don't do that, but just directionally, we were impacted in June.

Okay. And then in your slides, you have a slide about the Macau Airport passenger volume. It took a big step back in the second quarter more in line with last second quarter, right? This is -- we know that it's a seasonally weak quarter. But the first quarter this year had a big step up, unlike last prior years. And so it almost would seem like that capacity has taken a structurally higher step-up since Co. Just curious if -- when you talk to your partners or your contacts, in the Transportation division. Is that temporary? Is that seasonal? Do you expect it to sort of rebound? Is there something that you think drove that?

So I just wanted to clarify, you're referring to Slide 39. where we talk about Macal airport only passenger volume.

That's right.

Yes. Look, I think if you look at it and you look at it, it's not too much different from the second quarter in just sort of highlight the fact that there is seasonality in visitation to Macau. That's kind of what my takeaway from that would be. Grant, I don't know if you have anything else you'd like to add?

Yes, I think you can see clearly, second quarter is seasonally softer. And in the second half, we had much higher levels of passenger volume. But it's fair to say international visitation during the quarter, but especially June, did slow down for a number of reasons but also affected by the World Cup in June. So I think it wouldn't -- it's not a surprise to see that the airport passenger volume is not as strong as the second half of last year.

And this is just 1 airport, too. Obviously, there's the Hong Kong airport, which isn't reflected here. There's the Juha Airport, which isn't reflected here. These carriers are trying to make money, obviously. And there's a lot more money to be made when people are traveling then when you have this very soft period, April and June. So part of this is just supply and demand with respect to what those people are doing.

The next question will be from Chad Beynon from Macquarie.

First, on capital allocation, your buybacks were again at an elevated pace for the second quarter in a row. Can you talk about availability or appetite to stay at this pace versus reverting to maybe where you were in '25?

So first off, we see meaningful value in both LVS and SCL equity. And we're going to continue to act with this belief. And so you see that on display this quarter. I think for us, share repurchases are a great way to return capital. They shrink the share count. They are accretive for EPS, and we have a very strong view about repurchases, given where the equity is today. And if you look at the Board, and the Board has been very supportive, we're very appreciative. They just approved the $6 billion authorization, and our goal is to use it.

So I think for us, we see a lot of long-term value in the investments we're making. We feel very strongly about the markets that we're in. And so we're going to continue to be aggressive in the way that we think about the value of our equity and how we repurchase stock.

The next question will be from George Joy from Citigroup.

George -- if I mean correctly, you guys started optimizing your player investments in June of last year. Are you comfortable with the way it's going now versus your competitors? And I guess more importantly, do you believe you can get back to the EBITDA market share that you used to attain without changing your current plan with investment strategies?

Thanks, George, for the question. On reinvestment, yes, we started to make a step change in our reinvestment levels from the second half of last year. And as we have gone through the last 4 quarters, we've been able to be more efficient in the way we reinvest, especially at some of those higher end customer segments. And I think the first half of this year, you've seen that we've been able to continue to gain share, but whilst staying at a lower level of reinvestment versus fourth quarter of last year. So we're happy at how it's working out. but we will stay alert to how the market environment adjusts, and we'll stay close to the market.

But the goal is most definitely to continue to optimize into the second half and to earn a higher gross margin from this higher level of revenue.

And I appreciate the question. Our goal is to get back to our EBITDA market share. And that's why we're investing. But in order for us to do it, we need to see some market growth. We need to continue with our reinvestment program and the approach that we're taking today. And we need to see the high-value product come online and the way that we've seen with the Londoner brand, the Londoner court and the Grand Suites on the Four Seasons.

So as we continue to minister renovation, as we work through the rest of the property that we've -- the rest of the property that we're planning on investing in as we get that higher value product, and as Grant mentioned earlier, as we continue to have the highest level of service, we will have the opportunity to grow back to that level of EBITDA. That's what our goal is.

And as a follow-up, we noticed that you have a very strong lineup of events and concerts in Macao for the next several months, which is very encouraging. Just wondering how would you describe the current level of competition on getting top-tier atest to perform at our Venetian and London arenas for other than us in Macau?

Thanks, George, for that question. The competition in entertainment content is fairly intense across the region. So it will be acts that are stopping in Asia where Macau as the destination is competing for against the other cities in the region. That hasn't really changed versus the last 2 years. Within Macau, there is obviously more entertainment acts going on, and therefore, there is competition for similar ag. However, as you just highlighted, we have a very up into the second half and we feel very good about our event calendar able to drive more segments of the business.

And we've seen some positive impact from these events in the first 6 months of the year, but the second half looks very strong for us, especially as we build into August, September and then obviously culminated in the NBA games in October.

The next question will be from Trey Powers from Wells Fargo.

It's Zach Silverberg filling in for Trey. The first 1 on MBS. -- theoretical VIP hold on Slide 11 ticked up quarter-over-quarter despite a change in mix on visitation, as you called out in June. Can you kind of unpack that a little bit? What drove the theoretical hold to tick up quarter-over-quarter despite these changes?

Well, first off, Zach, welcome to the LVS earnings call. So in terms of the 4.2%, as we talked about last quarter, who shows up in the building and how they play really matters for our theoretical hold percentage. And we talked about last quarter with our $18 billion worth of rolling volume, which is, as you mentioned, is on Page 11 of our earnings slides. You can see that we held $3.6 million -- that was actually a barbell where we had many of our patrons who play to a higher level of hold theoretically. And then a few patrons were very concentrated who play to a high volume at a lower theoretical hold.

In this case, you can look at our volumes of $9.3 billion, which were exceptional in any consideration for 2Q, but note that the players who are in the building play more of the side bets, played more of the higher-value bets with more volatility, and that's what generated the 4.2% theoretical hold for the quarter.

And for my follow-up, just following up on Robin's question earlier on Macau OpEx. Have you guys know how to strike the right balance between OpEx and kind of the rolling volume share gains you've seen -- in other words, is there an opportunity to lean in more on the service levels if you're still taking this high-end share?

You have to divide between the different components of the additional headcount that we've invested in. First of all, the biggest headcount increases come from our investment in additional operating hours in table games, and that actually feeds all segments of the market. And that obviously leverages our scale advantage with our 1,680 tables -- so first off, that's a multi-segment investment.

In terms of the sales distribution and the service elevation -- those are more targeted at the premium segments, but not only to rolling segment also into the premium mass table games. And all 3 components have started to benefit our revenue capture, but certainly position us much, much better for the future as we bring on some of these product upgrades in the portfolio as they progressively complete over the next 2 years. So we are very happy that we've made the step changes in the investments in table hours, sales and service renovation.

The bulk of those additional investments have already been made but we'll continue to tweak and add as needed in accordance with the market growth opportunities.

The next question will be from Joe Star from SIG. Joe.

Patrick, I was wondering if you could -- sorry, 1 follow-up on World Cup. I was wondering if you could possibly size the World Cup impact in July relative to what you saw in June?

Sorry, I can't. We just had a lot of people who weren't there. Like it's really cultivated whole world. And as you sort of follow Southeast Asia and the Asian region, European football is the most popular sport the and basketball are the 2 most popular sports. And so I think just see anecdotally, we had a lot of people not around.

Ended on Sunday. So we -- let's talk again in 90 days, and we'll let you know what happens.

Fair enough. And then on at MBS, like Dan was asking earlier, we're a year into the launch of the new renovations. Is there any way or measure you can give us in terms of like the new customer development, where you are in that in terms of, again, kind of like the the highest end number of population set that you have? Where are you in that development? Are you early? Are you if there's any sense you can give us in terms of that. It's been a year. So you probably see some patterns, but just wondering how much is left?

So I think it's early days yet in the market for high-value tourism in Southeast Asia. If you look at the population size, if you look at the economies in the countries in our catchment area, where our tariffs come from and where is the tourist icon to Singapore come from. There is a huge amount of for direct investment. There's a huge amount of wealth creation, and there are a lot of young people who are becoming very successful as entrepreneurs. And many of those people want to come to Singapore.

And so we are the beneficiary of Singapore status in Southeast Asia and Asia in general as an incredibly desirable tourism destination for high-value tourists. The most successful people in Asia are coming to Singapore, and they keep growing. And their wealth keeps compounding. So you have the benefit of our patrons creating more wealth over time for themselves and growing within the MBS ecosystem. And then you have a lot of new patrons who we've never seen before. We're very successful in our catchment area, showing up because they want to experience the great things that MBS has on offer. Entertainment, hospitality, food and beverage, very importantly, retail. It's a huge component of our customer activity and, of course, gaming.

And all of these things come together and create a very unique high-level experience. We also have a lot of customers who are very successful. We're also with MICE customers. Where we're located and Singapore's focus on mice tourism and facilitating trade and business creates a lot of opportunities for very high net worth people to have nice interactions on our property and then return again and be leisure patrons or do both. So we think we're in very, very early innings of the Marina Bay Sands story. And to be fair, the story of Singapore success as a center of trade and business. So we're very excited about the long-term opportunity there as the investments we're making and about the profile that we have and how so many of them are young and how they're creating wealth and how the economies are developing in and around Singapore all throughout Southeast state.

The next question will be from David Katz from Jefferies.

Appreciate it. I wanted to just get a long-term perspective on capital spending in Macau. I'm looking at your Slide 21, and I see you have $600 million next year and the year after. What should we think about being included in there? And as we look out longer term, is that a rate that you expect you can continue to maintain and work your way across the portfolio in Cotai as you've been doing.

The reason why we show that CapEx on top of the maintenance is to invest for growth. So as we talked about before, and I said in the prepared remarks, we have looked for the highest return and highest cash flow generating projects that we can undertake in the near term to begin to grow the business and head towards, as George described as our previous levels of EBITDA and our previous EBITDA share, we're very focused on growing this business. And the way we have to grow this business is through investment in the 3 pillars we talked about.

And 1 of those pillars is a great product. And we've shown success and we've shown meaningful returns on the capital we've deployed in end product to address our high-value premium mass and super premium mass segments and on the rolling segment at the higher VIP level, which you see in our volumes in Macau. And so we intend to invest to create the opportunity to grow the business. And that's why you see that number there. So we'll continue for a bit. We'll keep going. But we're going to see returns from this CapEx or we wouldn't be doing it.

Okay. Fair enough. And just 1 detail. Apologies if you've already mentioned it, I can go back and look it up. Did you tell us how many rooms are out of the Venetian and we should expect out per quarter just so we can get our models set up the right way.

Yes, David, it's approximately 400 keys out of inventory on average for the second quarter. And you can assume that figure will fluctuate between 400 to 500 every quarter between now and into 2027.

The next question will be from Steve Watchinski from Stifel.

Just 1 question for me. So Patrick, you talked a lot about so far about the reinvestment rate in the Macau market for yourselves. But wondering if you could comment on your peer group as well in terms of maybe what you're seeing out there across the entire market? And how you guys are thinking about the reinvestment for the whole market? Or maybe a better way to ask that is, when could the entire market maybe start to slow that reinvestment rate down?

So I think, first off, I think our approach isn't changing. As we -- as I mentioned before in the prepared remarks, as Grant said earlier, we're going to continue to approach this the same way. And I think we're -- what we're seeing in the market now is some stability, some movement. But I think in the long run, as the market grows, there will be less pressure and people will have the opportunity to make more money. But Grant, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add.

I think that's exactly right. As revenues grow in the market, there will be some kind of decompression on the need to continuously elevate the reinvestment levels. The competition environment hasn't really changed for the past several quarters. And as we've continuously said on this call, our approach has been very consistent, especially since the start of the year, and we'll continue to look to optimize that reinvestment but we are cognizant of any changes in the market as well. So we will be adjusting in accordance with that. But at this stage, we don't see any significant change in the competitive landscape as far as reinvestment is concerned.

And the next question will be from Steve Pizzella from Deutsche Bank.

Just 1 from us following up on the World Cup 1 more time. As you look back at historical World Cups versus this one, is there any reason that this year would have had a higher impact versus pass loops. Could it be what's driving the market this year or the location in the U.S.? Or any thoughts on that?

Yes. Thank you. Really appreciate the question. A couple of thoughts. So first off, this World Cup had a larger number of teams participating. So that was maybe 1 factor being in the U.S. given the infrastructure and tourism infrastructure here, including airports, hotel rooms and the ability to attract tourists from all over the world was another benefit for the World Cup, maybe not for visitation to Macau and Singapore, but definitely for the World Cup.

I think just the increase in viewership of European football globally over the years. probably hasn't hurt in the star power of some of the players that we're participating. There are some players there that are really of node and generational talents. And this might be maybe their last world comp for their first World Cup. So there was a lot of interest and I think most importantly, the last World Cup was really during the pandemic. It was 22 visitation to both Macau and Singapore was very different transit around Asia was very different.

And so it's very hard for us to have a comp to look at and understand what the impact could be on a run rate basis. So I think you had 2 things here. You've had an extraordinary sporting event that captivated the world. And that was 1 part of it. And then the other part is we didn't really know what would happen because we haven't seen a World Cup in more than 80 years in a normal run rate environment.

And there's prediction markets that weren't there 4 years ago, too.

Thank you. And that does conclude our Q&A session for today. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It does also conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.

Thanks very much for joining the 4:30 session here at the Strategic Decisions Conference, 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference.

Anyone that doesn't know me, I'm Richard Clarke. I'm the GLL analyst, OTA cruise analyst here at Bernstein. and delighted to have Patrick Dumont here for, I guess, your first Strategic Decisions Conference, if that's.

That's right. Thanks so much for having me.

We're delighted to have you here representing Las Vegas Sands. So maybe for anyone in the room that doesn't know the business that well, maybe just a short description and then you've been in the job now for, I guess, 3 months? Is that about right? Not new to the industry, not new to the business. I appreciate that. But just any first impressions, early impressions of sitting in the hot seat.

I think the great thing is I've worked for the company for almost 16 years. And so our team is a group that's worked together for a long time. You asked for a description of our company. We are the premier developer and operator of integrated resorts in Asia. So our founder, Sheldon Adelson, had a vision for large-scale growth in tourism through scale investments for both leisure and business tourism, and he accomplished that. And so today, we're the scale operator in 2 of the most important markets in the world for our industry.

Great. Well, I mean, I think when we hosted the company before, we've always started in Macau, but now it feels like we should start in Singapore for the best news. So I think Singapore has now become pretty much your biggest or at least joint biggest part of the business, exceeded, I think, anyone's expectations of what they would have had for Marina Bay Sands. Maybe you could just talk us through what's driven that success? Is that structural? Have you had some cyclical upside from it? What's driving the strong performance you've seen in Singapore in the last year or so?

If you look at our company's history, we've always created success through investment. So the first investment that the company did was based on changing the status quo about developing something new that had both leisure and tourism components.

And we -- our company brought that to Singapore. And I think there's always been a long-term vision about the growth of Singapore. I think our company has a very positive view about Singapore and its long-term potential, and we've been investing behind that thesis for more than 15 years. And so if you look at Marina Bay Sands, it's actually always exceeded industry expectations. When it was first opened, I think people didn't anticipate just how well it received it would be. It created massive tourism growth for Singapore, which was the goal, created a lot of follow-on foreign direct investment, which was the goal. And we've had a great partnership with Singapore in developing high-value tourism over time. We've invested a lot in the MICE industry there. We've invested a lot in entertainment and in hospitality. And I think the last round of investment that we did, which was a $1.75 billion reinvestment program, really created a much better experience for high-end patrons and high-end guests.

And we really focused on a few things. We focused on the product. We focused on the design, the materiality of our rooms, how we would service our customers. And we created a whole new category of suite product that we didn't have before on top of renovating our food and beverage and some of the other experiences our guests would have, and that helped create the growth that we see today in Singapore.

So for us, it's really in the most important market in our industry in terms of the high-end part of it. The structural tailwinds for Singapore are extraordinary, and we have a government that is investing in other sectors to help high-value tourism. So I think it's a great market. Southeast Asia is growing. There's a lot of wealth creation and a lot of people are looking for tremendous experiences, unique experiences, and they come to us. And so it's very fortunate that we're there.

So is Singapore now the destination for premium gaming tourism? Is that now overtaken Vegas, Macau, it's the top destination now to go to if you want a gaming vacation?

That's what it seems like. That's what we -- that's what our goal was. Our goal was to create the best hospitality experiences in the world, the best service experiences in the world, the best dining, the best entertainment in a way that these critical massive amenities would drive the highest value tourists. And I think we've achieved that, and we're going to continue to invest and continue to look to grow.

So talk to us about the extension. So I think $8 billion, correct me if I'm wrong.

Expansion.

Expansion. Sorry. Okay. Well, maybe you explain exactly what the expansion is then in the -- if I'm using the wrong term in Singapore. Fourth tower, am I again using the wrong term here? But...

All good. All good.

What are you looking to achieve by adding this extra capacity, what does that add to the product in Singapore?

I think we've learned a lot in the last 15 years about the market and about its potential. And we've been able to get the benefit of some of that knowledge and experience in the recent reinvestment that we did and the EBITDA growth that you've seen across through 2025.

And I think now we're looking at our IR2, and it will have a name besides IR2 by the time we open it. We're looking at IR2 as a way to take all of that knowledge and experience and create a higher level of luxury, a higher level of unique hospitality experiences, a higher level of food and beverage, a higher level of gaming and most importantly, a higher level of entertainment with a new 15,000-seat live performance venue that really creates experiences that our customers can't get any place else to continue our leadership in Southeast Asia as the premier IR.

And talk to us about the sort of getting a return. I mean, sitting from a sort of hotel analyst, $8 billion sounds like a lot of money to spend on an expansion, or an extension, whatever it is. What -- is this -- are you hoping to get the same return on that investment as you put into the original Marina Bay Sands Hotel?

We think about it as a total investment. So we don't break it into its component parts. We think about it as we spent close to $6 billion building Marina Bay Sands. We spent several billion dollars recently renovating it. We spent almost a little bit more than $1 billion over the years in CapEx in certain areas.

And then with the expansion of $8 billion, I do want to point out that $2 billion of that is actually land premium to the Singapore government, right? And so you could almost think about that as amortizing that over the life of the investment of the lease. But more importantly, even if you want to consider the $8 billion, I would say that when you look at all of that spending in aggregate and you look at the productivity of the asset in aggregate, we would exceed our return thresholds that we expect.

So we're very excited about it. We have a very long-term view about Singapore. We consider this a tremendous opportunity for our company to invest in this scale with these type of assets in this market, given what the market has in terms of its productivity. And we're very excited about it, and we're optimistic about the returns. Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing it.

Absolutely. And is the current level of profitability you enjoy in Singapore, I think it's a 52% EBITDA margin. Is this a sustainable margin through the future of Singapore? Or does eventually get competed away in some way?

So I think what's interesting about Marina Bay Sands is if you look at it throughout its history, its margin structure has been the best in the industry at that scale, right? I think that's driven by the quality of investment and the type of patrons that are available in Singapore as a market, which is unique. It's a very high-end market. It is rarefied air. These are the best patrons in the world, and they're there in scale. And so for us, to be able to have an opportunity to expand and take advantage of this is very powerful.

And you mentioned it there that the expansion will take on a bit more of an entertainment focus. Is this to attract a different customer to the property? Or is this providing more experiences to your existing kind of core customer base, you're trying to expand the appeal of Marina Bay Sands with adding more of these entertainment type?

So it creates opportunities for a couple of different types of customer. I think it will drive more foreign tourism into Singapore. You saw that with Taylor Swift. You saw that with Lady Gaga. You see that with F1 that high-quality entertainment events drive visitation in Singapore.

And so we think that will be a great benefit to not only Marina Bay Sands, but also Singapore tourism as a whole. We think it will be a very unique experience for our high-value patrons because the type of luxury entertainment experience that we're going to present in the new arena is going to be unique to Asia. We're going to have a lot of high-quality amenities within the arena and create experiences that our customers can't get any place else. And I think the third component is it will be great for Singaporeans because now they'll have a live performance venues that they don't have today in Singapore. And so I think it hits a couple of different components, and it will do them all very well.

Okay. And then talk to us about the MICE opportunity maybe there as well. That's also going to be accelerated by the expansion you're going to be there? And how important is that to the Singapore customer, the Singapore revenue pool?

So Singapore has a goal of actually growing MICE materially over the next couple of years. And so there's been a lot of focus on how to grow MICE. And so we have an additional MICE component in our expansion in IR2. And this MICE component will be very important because it allows us to host events that we can't accommodate today because of the capacity. We'll also add another large-scale ballroom that's column-free. And of course, the arena itself is very useful for MICE because of the types of sessions you can run now and the types of events that you can have in coordination with the exhibition space and the convention space.

So for us, this just helps fill out and make our offering stronger. So it will be a good component of the MICE offering that Singapore has.

So beyond the current projects, is there more investment opportunities in Singapore?

Is there more opportunities in Singapore? Like can you keep growing fifth tower, sixth tower, seventh tower, other sites...

Let's start with this one. Let's see how it goes. But I like how you think. Hopefully so.

And then maybe just to throw in one short-term question here. Obviously, we've seen a lot of in Asia about jet fuel shortages and flights, et cetera. And I guess with Singapore, in particular, it's very much a transportation hub. Are you seeing any impact from sort of flight turmoil in terms of the demand coming into Singapore?

Right now, we don't have anything to report. And the question remains how long does this go on? And so we'll wait and see. But as of right now, there doesn't seem to be anything that we can measure.

Okay. Perfect. Let's shift over to your other key markets, Macau. I guess it would be fair to say we're in a slightly different trajectory to Singapore. Is this simply a cyclical impact of a softer Chinese consumer? Is it getting more competitive than maybe Singapore has been? Or is there any sense that you've kind of underperformed in that market?

So Macau is very interesting because Singapore opened after the pandemic at a different time line.

And when you think about when Macau opened in January of '23, there was a lot of uncertainty about what that would actually look like.

And it took a little while for the visas to actually hit a normal run rate. And so the -- as Macau opened as a market, it didn't recover as a snapback. So in other markets when the pandemic finally receded, there was a snapback. Macau had more of a ramp. And so it was uncertain what the ultimate market stability would look like, the stabilization point.

And the great news is Macau has actually kept growing. So if you look at the gross gaming revenue run rate in '23 when it first opened, it was more than $10 billion less than it is today. And over time, the patrons who have returned to Macau are actually new. There's a lot of new customers coming to Macau. A lot of them skew younger. They bring their families. And a lot of them have made a significant amount of wealth in the last 5 years because of the growth that has occurred across Southeast Asia and China in certain sectors.

And so what we're seeing is it's really a more premium-led recovery as opposed to the unrated play, which represented a large portion of our business. And so we're the scale player in the market. We have the most assets, the most hotel rooms, the most gaming positions. And so for us, it represents an opportunity to invest and actually change the way we address the market for the segments that are now the most powerful and the deepest, which we have the capacity to do. And so what we intend to do is invest over time and actually make adjustments based on some of the ways we position ourselves post pandemic to ensure that for the long term, we invest for success. But we believe very strongly in the Macau market.

We think there's a bright future there. Its feeder is China, Hong Kong and certain other countries and smaller amounts. And we feel like that the future is very bright given the level of investment there and the high-quality assets that exist in Macau today.

So is that a very different customer split than Singapore. Singapore is broader. It's not just Chinese and Hong Kong customers. that's coming from all around Southeast Asia.

I mean, can you attract those customers to Macau as well? Can you broaden the appeal of it? Or is it about getting the Chinese customer right that's about winning in Macau?

So it is very different feeder markets for both of these properties or grouping of properties in Macau. So Singapore is really inbound tourists from all around Southeast Asia. So Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, a little bit of Laos, some South Korea, some Japan. But it's really more of a local Southeast Asia customer base.

And when you look at Macau, it's what I described before. And the thing that's interesting about Macau is that we have a mandate to grow inbound tourism from other countries. And so all of us as a group of concessionaires are working on doing that. And it's much easier now because the Hong Kong Airport is readily accessible with the bridge that goes from the Hong Kong Airport to Macau. And so that is something that we're working on to help make a reality.

But because of the attractiveness of the Macau assets and their relative competitiveness to other hospitality centers globally, we feel like that's a possibility for the long term, and we're working towards that.

And so talk to us about some of the investments you're doing into Macau. So if I understand correctly, the attractive customer now is a little bit more premium than it used to be. So what do you need to do in your properties to attract that customer? How much investment is maybe necessary to get to that to attract that customer?

So I think for us, we're really focusing on 3 things. We're focusing on our product, which is part of the innovation that we talked about. I mentioned on our earnings call about how we're looking to engage in a CapEx program over the next 3 years to help create higher opportunities for return on investment.

We're really focused on our people to ensure that we have the right people in the right positions to maximize the value of the assets. And most importantly, for our customers, we're really improving our service.

It's something that post pandemic, we've had a lot of work to do on, and we're doing it. And so when we combine all these things, we feel like we'll have a really good opportunity to address the market and attract these high-value patrons. But they're a very discerning group. They're very sophisticated. They're on social media. They travel internationally. They're aware of other markets. And so you have to be very competitive on a global basis to ensure that you retain these patrons. And so it really is about investment in those things.

So talk to us about the Londoner. So that's now -- is that fully open?

Is that your favorite property of ours?

I like to go to a theme properties based around where I was.

Because you can go from Venice to Paris to London, all in one day.

[indiscernible] Fish and chips and David Beckham suites in there. But I mean, how well has that product resonated? I guess it's a new theme, if you like, for casinos, I guess, Parisian and -- and Venice have been well tried and tested. Is Londoner a theme that resonates with?

London is a hit. I have to tell you, London is a hit. But I think the takeaway is theming is not easy in our industry. There was a time when, particularly in the history of Las Vegas, the theming had a certain amount of import to it.

And I think for us, because our Macau properties are themed, we have to do it in a way that is both tasteful and remains current relevancy, right? I think we were able to do that with the Londoner. I think it's a lot of fun. It has some whimsy to it and people are happy with it. But I also think at the end of the day, it comes down to the performance of the asset. And if you look at what we were doing before and the results after, you can see that there is a real opportunity for growth there.

I think the other thing to note is just as an operator, our properties that are most freshly renovated are the ones that perform the best. And that makes sense intuitively. Someone who understands hospitality very well, there's a need not only to invest to offset depreciation, which is real in our industry. You really have to invest to keep your properties fresh, but also to create experiences that are new that keep people talking about it. And I think we've done that well with the Londoner transformation.

And I guess when you talk about sort of Marina Bay Sands back in Singapore, I think they actually took rooms out to make the rooms bigger and more premium. Is that something that's an option in Macau?

Is that something that's also going on, you can sort of premiumize the product, make it more exclusive?

We've done that. I think if you look at the transformation of Londoner, particularly most notably with the Londoner Grand product, that was a Sheraton hotel, and we basically went two-for-one. And we did that to create better experiences for people and go out of the room product into a suite product. And we were fortunate because of the way the floor plates worked that we're able to do it in a very efficient way.

And so I think we've got an outcome that works very well, particularly with the direction of the market and where the deepest segments are to be able to create these suite products to attract these high-value tourists in Macau.

But we still have hotel rooms in all of our hotels, but we are also overweighting certain types of suite products to ensure that we can grow with the market given where it's headed.

Okay. Makes sense. How -- I mean, if we sort of think about -- you kind of mentioned there you need to do theming right. Is -- you switched over Sheraton product to one of your own brands. Can we take that to mean that, that kind of branding product like having Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton or Sheraton above the door, that is resonating less for your customers, and it's more about the quality of the product that matters.

No. I think it depends on the brand, where the brand positions versus where the customers are headed because these are international brands. The Sheraton brand is a very strong brand globally. But when we made the decision, was it right for the type of customer that we wanted to attract into the building, given who's available to come to Macau and the type of investment we were making and does it fit with the theming of the property that we felt would be a marketing advantage. And so we have a great relationship with Marriott. We have a great relationship with the other hotel operators. We have a great relationship with Four Seasons. And there are some brands that work with what we're trying to do, and there are some brands that maybe are not aligned at this time. And so Four Seasons is a great brand. And they've done great work, and we really appreciate the partnership. And it's a brand that I think resonates really well with the customers that we have on that property. Same thing is true with the St. Regis. It's been a great brand to have, and it's done very well for us.

So I think it really depends on the type of product. There are certain things that we do at the very high end that are necessary to brand with a proprietary brand, right? There are certain things that we offer that are a certain level of design, a certain level of aesthetic, a certain level of service that goes beyond the typical 5-star hotel. And so therefore, it makes sense to identify with the brand that we control.

That makes sense. Maybe just going for a bit more of a short-term question here on Macau as well. What is your sort of macro outlook for Macau? I mean are you seeing Chinese consumer spending? You positive on that trend? Is it a necessary positive trend for you? Do you have a sort of positive outlook that there will be macro tailwinds in Macau for your business?

So I have a very positive outlook for Macau for the next 3, 5 and 10 years. And that's the reason why we're so confident to continue to invest there. I think it's a very unique collection of assets. I think there's been a huge amount of infrastructure that takes people directly into Macau from China, the rail system, the bridge, the connection to the Hong Kong Airport. All of these things are very powerful and very helpful. But also more importantly, there's a broader initiative to create a more powerful economic engine in the Greater Bay Area, which we're the hospitality component of. So in the long term, we feel very strongly that this investment will be part of a much larger initiative that we'll follow along with.

And we think that's positive just from a broader macro tailwind. I think the other thing is when you look at the size of the gaming market, given all the turbulence that you're seeing in sort of recent economic trends in the region, it's a $30 billion-plus gaming market. So imagine how well it's going to do when things stabilize and return to growth as you've seen prior to some of the turbulence.

So we feel very confident in the long term. We're very thoughtful in the way that we invest. But we think overall, given the rising middle class in China, the wealth creation that's going on in Southeast Asia and demand for high-quality experiences today, we think we're positioned very well.

And just to repeat the question we asked in Singapore, like is this also a market where things like entertainment and MICE are also important to attracting that incremental consumer into the market?

I think there are different pillars of the operation. And I think entertainment is very interesting because we have a partnership with the NBA and we present NBA preseason games and the NBA China games in Macau. And that's been a very strong success because it helps create buzz and a halo effect around tourism for Macau. It allows us to attract customers to draw attention to us, be able to show us as a relevant and internationally interesting tourism destination and really highlights the high-quality assets that Macau has because people pay attention to what the NBA does, particularly in China.

And I think other entertainment acts that come to Macau also bring that. There's K-pop acts that show up both with us and with some of our competitors' venues. And all of this is beneficial to Macau. So I think highlighting Macau as a tourism entertainment destination is very positive for the city, creates a buzz around the city and creates interest, which ultimately translates into visitation.

Great. I've got a couple of questions from the audience on Macau. Thanks for submitting those. Maybe this is wing into one of mine, but it kind of -- if I look at your stock price, it almost feels like Macau has driven your stock maybe more than the Singapore success. Is that fair? Maybe what is the misunderstood there? And would you ever consider spinning off or splitting the business between Macau and Singapore?

So I think I would encourage everyone to go to Macau and actually see it, anyone who wants to, we're happy to give you a tour and show you around just to see the high-quality tourism assets that are there. And I think the quality visitation there is also quite high as so evidenced by our growth in retail, some of the things we've experienced.

I think we have some work to do on our end. And I think we're going to embark on that, and we're going to obviously invest to improve where we are. But we have no interest in spinning off Macau.

We actually think that it's great for Las Vegas Sands to be a scale operator in both of these markets. We think there's synergies for management. We do have players that go back and forth. We think there's a branding component. And if you look out for the long term, we think this is a great asset base, and it's one of the foundational parts of our company. So I can't tell you why the market isn't viewing our cash flow with the same level of quality as we believe that it has. I will tell you that I think Singapore is the highest quality cash flow in our industry, just given the high barriers to entry, the quality of customer, the market that it's in and the EBITDA margins that it produces.

But I think Macau is an unbelievable market for its potential. There's a limited number of operators there. And over the long term, we feel very strongly about it. There's a lot of people in this room that might be able to answer this question better than I can. But I will tell you is that we fundamentally believe in the long-term value of our company. So we've been buying back stock aggressively, and we'll continue to do that. And so we're -- we think the valuation is low, and we think it's an opportunity for us to buy as much as we possibly can.

So we've been buying stock very aggressively. And we think that this enhances shareholder returns and increases our free cash flow per share, and we're very happy to do it.

Okay. So I'm going to just put in a couple of slightly more negative questions. We'll move back on the front foot after that. But I'm going to read this one.

In a sharp Chinese premium mass slowdown, how much property EBITDA can realistically come from non-gaming by 2028? What levers do you have to defend margins?

So I think for us, the business in Macau is driven by visitation, driven by gaming. And so if there's a material decline in visitation or material decline in gaming play like you saw in '23, that will impact the business and the margins.

So the downside case, we already went through. So you can actually see it in our results. 2019 was our best year on record. And then 2020 was one of our worst years of all time when the company had all its assets open, and we were forcibly closed and there was a global pandemic going on. And so I think there is variability within these downside cases and variability in the upside case. I think the great news is we continue to invest. The premium mass market is strong today, and there's more and more patrons that are new coming to Macau, and they're spending more money. And so I can't go through all the outcomes of a hypothetical because there will probably be many other things that would be true that aren't true today. But I will tell you, we feel very strongly about Macau and its future.

Okay. And you've talked, I think, and referenced the sort of ambition of EBITDA in Macau of $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion. What's the current pathway to get there? How much of that comes from revenue or margin expansion? And what kind of time frame could be looked at to get to that level?

So it's definitely going to come from revenue growth, right? It's going to come from us introducing products that are more able to address the demand of higher-value patrons because we're missing capacity in the premium -- in the most premium areas. And there's also some things we can do in the premium mass and actually in the base mass to optimize, and we're engaging and embarking on all those things.

But the key is going to be, like I said before, investment in our product, which we're going to do now and over the next 3 years. The Venetian is going under renovation right now as we speak. And over the next 18 months, we'll be getting rooms back online. They are newly renovated and it will be hopefully completed by the end of '27.

So that's a positive there. And then the rest of the things will happen along with that over the next 3 years. So that's the product side. The service side, we've been hiring people and training them, and we'll continue to do that. And I think the goal is to do this over the next few years. But it's going to require the market to continue to be the way that it is.

And hopefully, we'll add to the market growth by adding capacity and adding hiring patrons showing up, which will help grow the market. And so that's really our plan. It's something that we've done previously. I always joke with people. I said before the Venetian was built, gross gaming revenue on Cotai was 0, right? So it's a product-driven market. And so you have to build things that enable customers to show up and feel like they get great experiences and therefore, spend.

And then talk about expectations for the renewal of Macau licenses or changes to the framework.

So I think for us, the vision that Sheldon had about creating a Las Vegas in Macau and creating all this nongaming amenity has been very powerful. So we operate this huge MICE facility there. We had the first arena in Cotai. We have thousands of hotel rooms more than our competitors, and we have the largest retail portfolio and the largest restaurant portfolio. And these things create a critical mass of amenities that drive visitation and drive demand. And so one of the things that happened is during the midterm review for concessionaires, we got very positive marks for achieving the goals that were set out for us, including diversification of the economy and investment in working with small and medium enterprise and promotion of Macanese. And we have a lot of training programs. We do a lot of things that are helpful. We're also a good corporate citizen. We're the largest employer in Macau that's private, and we do a lot of things in the community. We do a lot of CSR events. We do a lot of things that show that we're part of the community, part of the fabric of the community there.

And so for us, the concession rule was something that we felt very strongly about because we wanted to continue to invest and follow the trajectory that we were doing. So we felt very good about it. We felt like we had a good thesis behind why we would get renewed, and we believe this will continue in the future, and that's why we continue to invest.

Does U.S.-Chinese relations matter at all to your business, right? If those -- if that sort of animosity between the 2 countries thaws, is that a positive? Or is it irrelevant?

So I think the good news is we've been in Macau for more than 20 years. And political things change over time. But hopefully, business and relationships and mutually beneficial exchange are durable.

And so I think the way we think about it is we, in Macau, are a local tourism company, right? We have a subsidiary listed on the Hong Kong Exchange. Our senior leadership is local, and our customers come from that area.

So -- and our largest trade partners are small and medium enterprise from that area. So for us, I think we sort of view it as, as long as we continue doing good things, we're in a good position. And then Singapore sits in a different environment. So it sits in Southeast Asia. So I think for us, as long as we continue doing the things that we've been doing, I think we're in a good position.

And just a final question on the topic. If you lifted Marina Bay Sands up and you put it in Macau, would it be the hotel that it is? Like is it the property that's spectacular? Or is it the Singapore market?

It's a combination of a lot of things that make it possible. The first being Singapore, the environment that is Singapore and the people who are in Singapore and the fact that it's a major financial center, it's a major trade center, and there's a lot of people who have been very successful who make Singapore their home or visit Singapore frequently.

And I think that market is very unique in that regard globally. And so I think having that building with that level of luxury, that level of experience, that level of aspiration is the perfect combination for what's there. It'd be very hard to be that productive outside of Singapore, just given the concentration of visitation for very high-value tourists into that market.

Makes sense. Okay. Let's move on to some slightly more techy stuff, I guess. But I asked this question last year to the new CEO. So let's ask you again, how are you thinking about online gaming? I guess you have a strong brand in gaming. Does it translate into online gaming at some point?

That's not something that we intend to pursue. We're very focused on doing the things that we're market leaders in. We think we're the market leader in Singapore and what we do. We think we're the market leader in Macau for what we do. We believe that we have a very strong argument to be made where there's -- if there's a new jurisdiction that wants to bring integrated resorts that we're someone that should be on the call list because we have the ability to really drive both leisure and business tourism and a demonstrated track record of building ground-up resorts that can achieve the objectives of the host markets.

So we feel like that's what we're really good at, and that's what we're going to stick to. And when we have excess capital, we're going to return it. And I don't think we're going to look to pursue things that are not in our core.

Would you ever license the brands to someone else to use for online gaming?

No. That would be.

No. Okay. Fair enough, easy one. What about -- so no online gaming, what about wider digital? Like is there -- smart tables or something you've been investing in? Is that product continuing to improve? Does AI have any role in gaming? Like is there further digital transformation even if it doesn't take the brands online?

So yes to both. We started investing in smart tables more than 8 years ago. Our solution that we run is a little bit different from some of the other solutions that other operators run. And the key for us is really a combination of RFID and optical. And that allows us to really be precise about the way that we understand what's happening at the table. I think the goal was really to get analytics to the point where it was almost as good as it was from a slot side, and it allows us to really understand what's happening in a much better way and actually better for the patron experience because we can rate them better and understand their behaviors better to make sure they have a better experience.

So in that regard, I think the investment that we've made in our smart tables has been very successful. And it's early days yet. We're still continuing to invest. We're continuing to innovate on the smart table systems that we have, and we're rolling more of them out.

Right now, they're in their early days in terms of how efficient they're making things, and we think there's a real opportunity to make our operations more secure, but also create a better patron experience in a more efficient way. So smart tables have been a great investment.

And the question about AI, so AI is changing the way people think about a lot of things, and it's something that we look at a lot. And I think there's a couple of things where it could change our business and impact our industry.

I think the easiest one is how you do information technology, right? That's sort of one of the fastest ones, right? How do you develop? How do you use it to create proprietary tools? How do you use it to think about the speed and really to be fair, the efficacy of what you create that's proprietary. And there's a lot of that in our industry, right? There's a lot of proprietary development that goes into what we do. So that's one. The other thing is how do you make your team more efficient, right? So there's a lot of efficiency tools that you get from some of the AI providers that you can get today that are actually quite useful, and they're early days yet. I mean these are things that you're starting to see, wow, if it does this, what can I do in a year. So that's very helpful.

And it's making our team more efficient and allows us to work better. But I think the biggest opportunity for us is business intelligence. The way we compile data, the way we think about our customers, and we think about the behavior of our customers and the way we learn about how we should interact with our customers by looking at our database and other bits of data that we collect, this is a new frontier for our industry, and it actually connects with the smart tables.

So for us, it's early days, but there's real potential there that we see in the future. It's not going to be right away because it's going to take a lot of work, but we're going. So we'll see. I think AI creates a real opportunity for businesses in a lot of different ways. But for me, the most important one is how we interact with our customer, how we attract new customers. I think a lot of things that you'll see is the way people actually book travel, right?

Think about Expedia, think about some of the early days of online and how that revolutionized travel and sort of opened it up and made it easier to understand what your options were. Now imagine having to do that through an agent and how quick that can be and how efficient that can be and what that could look like. And so that's another opportunity not only for our company, but for the travel industry as a whole.

Makes sense. I guess we're in the U.S. talking about gaming. So it was inevitable we're probably going to get one question on this. Prediction markets, any impact on physical gaming? Are you seeing any kind of cannibalization? Is there an opportunity that you can use that to complement table gaming in any way by using prediction markets?

So it's an interesting thing. I think it's early days for prediction markets because I don't know the legality of how they work has been settled, right? I think there's a lot of opinions going on that may be conflicting that may get things up to the Supreme Court.

So we'll have to see how that goes. But it's a very interesting idea. It's also a different concept than most people are used to. So when you typically would do sports wagering, you were facing the house, right? In this instance, you are facing somebody else.

And so it's very interesting to see the pricing dynamics, the margins that are available to the operators and any competitive advantage you may have or may not have given the nature of the product. And these are all things that need to be discovered. So we're watching it. We're trying to understand it. We are not in the sports wagering business. This isn't something that we intend to pursue, but it's interesting to watch and observe because it's tangential to our industry. So we'll continue to observe it and try to understand what the outcome will be.

You couldn't imagine offering prediction markets on what's happening within your casino sort of overlaying another layer of gaming on top of what's happening at the tables.

I'm always open to innovation. I'm just not sure how we would do that today. I will tell you that we're very focused on providing the best experiences to our customers. So if that's something that ends up being useful, we'll look at it. But I think for us, it's -- we provide very high-end luxury experiences to our customers, and that's a little different from being online.

Yes. And so there's no sports gaming in your casinos.

No.

There's not. It's all tables.

Correct.

Okay. Let's move on to capital allocation. So very high-margin business in the hospitality world. How do you balance that against faster growth? What do you think the priorities should be given how successful Singapore has been? Do you get sort of pressure to continue to funnel just more and more CapEx into that and keep growing that business as quick as you can?

So I think for us, in terms of capital allocation, we're moving as quickly as we can in Singapore to build IR2. I would love to have it open tomorrow, but we have a timeline, we're executing on the timeline.

In terms of investing in our existing assets, as I said before, the depreciation is real, and we continue to do that. You may note that in our last earnings call, we actually increased our forecast for maintenance CapEx in both of our portfolios over the long term to ensure that we continue to maintain the high level of finish that we have. I think our goal has always been to do ground-up development. So if you look at the highest level of returns that we've created for the company, it's when we build something from the ground up, right? Because we create properties that are very unique and drive a lot of visitation and create a lot of value. And if that's not available to us, so we have IR2, we have some renovations going on in Macau. But if that's not available to us, our goal is to return capital to shareholders. So we try to be a very shareholder-friendly company. We have a dividend that is at an appropriate payout ratio, and we have a share repurchase program that is active and is looking to shrink the share count to create better shareholder returns and create more free cash flow per share.

So from my standpoint, capital allocation is very much based on can we do new ground-up development? Can we grow our business? Can we get organic growth through investments? How do we need to maintain our properties to ensure our leadership position? And then if we don't have an appropriate return project to pursue, we return it.

And so talk to us about where appropriate returning projects could manifest themselves. I think in prior years when we sat here, a little bit of talk about the U.S. Is that still an opportunity? Thailand has been talked about as an opportunity. Are there other

markets you can imagine LVS going into over the years?

So I think Texas presents itself as the best opportunity in the U.S. currently that hasn't been open. I think the propensity to play is known. If you look at some of the surrounding markets and where Texans go, it's not in Texas. So I think the state of Texas has an opportunity there.

And we would look to invest there if the framework was right. And I think it's very clear that the cities in Texas are some of the largest economies in the world on their own, right? And without destination resorts in Texas, there's a missed opportunity, particularly for tourism and for tax recapture, direct -- foreign direct investment, economic multiplier. Texas should be, in my mind, this is something they should be pursuing. And I think there's a lot of people who feel the same.

But I also think that there's not an opportunity today. So it may be a few years. So if it's something that presents itself and the framework is right, it's something that we'd be very interested in. We've always been interested in Thailand. We feel like it's just a fantastic market. We have customers that come there. We're very familiar with it. It's a wonderful tourism destination. It has a great hospitality culture, has wonderful history, great cultural sites and just fantastic cuisine. There's a lot of great things happening in Thailand. So if that was a market that we would be able to pursue, we'd be very interested. But right now, it doesn't seem like anything is doing. So hopefully, in the future, we'll have that opportunity, but we're ever hopeful.

What's the barrier there, is just licenses? Just...

Legalization.

And in Texas, the barrier is the same?

Legalization.

Legalization. That's simply as it is it seems getting that. And -- the question here, does the growth in Middle East in gaming represent a step-up in competition for you? Have you ever looked at the Middle East as a potential market?

So I'm familiar with the Middle East. I've been to the Emirates numerous times. I'm a big fan of what they're doing from a hospitality standpoint. I think they have great investments there. The hospitality environment there is great. They have great food and beverage and nightlife. And so gaming is new there. And so I think we're watching and waiting. It's great for our industry if they're very successful because I think our industry needs to experience some growth and need to have new markets. And so I think it'd be a positive thing for all of us if they're very successful in that market. And so we'd like to see how it goes.

And in terms of sort of pursuing potential other opportunities, that would be purely on a returns basis, if that's the best opportunity. But is there a strategy we would like to see more diversification in the business as well? -- is it just to be in the right markets? Is diversification an aim in any respect?

I think it would be great if we could have more markets open. I think it would have a natural diversification. I think it would allow us to have more cash flow to return to shareholders, but I also think returns are really important. There's a lot of opportunities that have lower return profiles for Las Vegas Sands, but we'd rather stick to the assets that we have if those -- if higher returns are not available.

Yes. Okay. Makes sense. And then just -- I think my last question here is the balance of buying more Sands China versus buying LVS shares and paying dividends, how do you think about what's the best stock to buy back?

I think we're really interested in growing the dividend at Sands China. And I think we're really interested in having the balance of return of capital that we have that you see today at Las Vegas Sands. And some of that is structural. There's less liquidity in the market in Hong Kong. And so share repurchases are -- could be more structurally difficult from time to time, whereas we think the dividend also makes the stock much more attractive to Hong Kong-based investors.

So we think there's a couple of reasons why the dividend is more interesting there than it is at ParentCo.

We think ParentCo in the long run, will get rewarded by shrinking the share count.

Okay. That makes sense. All right. Patrick, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sands First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Sands. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Joining the call today are Patrick Dumont, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Wilfred Wong; Executive Vice Chairman of Sands China; and Grant Chum, CEO and President of Sands China and EVP of Asia Operations.

Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. The language on forward-looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call today.

The company's actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those forward-looking statements. In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call. Finally, for the Q&A session, we ask those with interest to please post 1 question and 1 follow-up, so we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate. This presentation is being recorded.

I'll now turn the call over to Patrick.

Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining the call. As we look to the future, we couldn't be more enthusiastic about the opportunities for our company. Our strategic priorities remain clear and consistent with the goals of investing with discipline and creating meaningful shareholder returns.

Turning to our current quarter results. we once again delivered outstanding financial results of Marina Bay Sands in Singapore with EBITDA increasing over 30% to reach $788 million. Singapore is an ideal market for high-value tourism spending and our focus on creating unique and memorable entertainment and hospitality experiences for our guests has been a tremendous success.

The company's fundamental operating strategy relies on 3 critical pillars: our people, our product and our service. When we get these 3 pillars optimized, we can create outstanding financial and operating performance. We are seeing that at Marina Bay Sands today. and we couldn't be more enthusiastic about our additional opportunities for growth in Singapore as we continue to enhance the customer experience for our guests in the years ahead.

Turning to Macao. We delivered $633 million in EBITDA for the quarter. an increase of over 18%. Mass market revenue share reached 25.7% for this quarter, our strongest performance since the first quarter of 2024. As in Singapore, the operating pillars of people, product and service underpin our strategy to deliver growth in Macao. We believe we will deliver growth over time in Macao as we implement specific strategies to improve both our products and our service levels.

We have a goal of reaching $700 million in quarterly EBITDA and beyond over time as we fully implement our investment and operating strategies and as the Macao market continues to grow. Today, the growth in the Macao market is primarily driven by the premium segment. The competition in that segment remains intense, and luxury suite product, coupled with outstanding service levels are critical to success. We have the suite product to effectively compete in the premium segment at both Londoner and Grand Suites at the Four Seasons. We are singularly focused today on matching that suite of room product with the service levels at the most discerning and valuable customers and Macao increasingly demand.

We are making progress. We have meaningfully increased our gaming revenues, gaming volumes and premium customer patronage since implementing the recent changes to our reinvestment programs. implementing meaningful improvements in the service pillar of our strategy in Macao will be critical to realizing additional growth and securing our long-term success. We believe we have outstanding opportunities for growth in every segment as we implement our strategies.

Accordingly, we will be making targeted investments in training and hiring of additional customer-focused team members throughout the portfolio. Creating and delivering unique and memorable hospitality experiences is the [indiscernible] piece of our strategy and improving service levels in Macao is critical to the achievement of our long-term financial and operating objectives. In addition, we plan to introduce refreshed and luxurious room and suite products throughout the portfolio as we further execute the pillar of our -- the product pillar of our strategy.

We are focused on the highest return projects to increase cash flow over the next few years. We will begin with the Venetian where work is already in progress with refreshed room products beginning to come into service in the third quarter of 2026. Additional luxurious suite product and the total product refresh is targeted to be completed by the end of 2027.

The meaningful patron growth we have seen in the London and Grand Suites in the Four Seasons provides support for these investments. It's important to note that the work we envision will not create significant disruption throughout the portfolio. The scale of our portfolio will allow us to serve customers in other properties and elsewhere in each resort while work is in progress. Nothing we are doing, as we invest in the portfolio over the next several years will hinder our ability to use our scale advantages to outperform the nonpremium segment should spending in that segment accelerate in the future.

We are confident in our strategy in Macao, and we look forward to updating you on our progress as we execute our plans.

Let's move forward to provide some additional detail on our current quarter financial performance. Macao EBITDA was $633 million. If we had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by $15 million. When adjusted for a higher-than-expected hold in the rolling segment, our EBITDA margin for the Macao portfolio of properties would have been 29.6% or down 200 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2025.

Our principal focus in 2026 is to deliver revenue and cash flow growth across the portfolio. Our investments in improving service offerings will naturally increase expenses, which will continue to negatively impact margins as we implement our strategy. We do expect margins to improve over time as we grow revenue in the lower end of the premium segment and in the nonpremium segment, where the scale of our hotel inventory gives us natural advantages as we improve our service levels and further refine our reinvestment strategies.

Margin for the quarter at the Venetian was 33.5%, while margin at the Londoner was 29.6%. We expect growth in EBITDA as revenues grow. We will use our scale and product advantages together with service level improvements and targeted incentives to effectively compete in every market segment. In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands EBITDA for the quarter was $788 million at a margin of 53%. If we had held as expected in our program, our EBITDA would have been higher by $6 million. The outstanding financial and operating results in MBS reflect the impact of high-quality investment in market-leading product, world-class service and the growth in high-value tourism.

Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders. We repurchased $740 million of LVS stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.30 per share. We have now purchased 14.3% of the company's outstanding shares over the last 10 quarters, and we believe additional repurchases of LVS equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long time. While we did not purchase any shares of SCL during the quarter, we do continue to see value in both the LVS and SCL names.

The company's ownership of SCL remained at 74.8% as of March 31, 2026. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company's share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders. Thanks again for joining the call today and for your interest in the company. Now let's take some questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question today is coming from Dan Politzer from JPMorgan.

Singapore has gone from strength to strength to strength. I think you had $18 billion of rolling ships in the quarter. I mean I guess, how do you think about what's driving this? I mean, it's just kind of the astronomical levels here? And to what extent are you seeing any benefit from some of the things kind of evolving the geopolitical landscape that may be hitting other regions and possibly benefiting Sagamore?

So there's a couple of things about the Marina Bay Sands growth story, which is really a story about investment. The more we invest in high-quality assets, better service levels we have the more we're going to differentiate the product that we have and the more high-value visitation we're going to get.

Look, I think the VIP segment is just a very competitive segment across Asia. The fact that we're able to see success here with these very high-value patrons is really just an example of the execution there at the property. I will tell you that our main driver of profitability at Marina Bay Sands is mass win in [ Flox ]. VIP is a very volatile segment. And it could be concentrated at times. It's high-value customers, and they can vary from quarter-to-quarter.

What I will tell you is that with the introduction of IR 2, we will have more product to address this market and scale with it. But the one thing to note is that we had an outstanding quarter. Team did a phenomenal job, but these quarters can be highly concentrated and can vary.

And then just turning to Macao. You mentioned the goal to get back to that $700 million in quarterly EBITDA level. Obviously, it's going to require a little bit more investment. But I mean in terms of the market growth that you have to get there, I mean, how -- at what level do you have to see the overall market or mass grow? Or is that something you can kind of get to or achieve independent of the market really accelerating here?

Look, I think we're heading in the right direction in Macao. I think you see the growth this quarter, and you see that our focus on service and improving our product. We have some work to do there across the portfolio, as we mentioned, is starting to show some progress. And so in our mind, that's a milestone that's achievable. Obviously, it's going to require some growth in the overall market. But more importantly, it's going to require us to continue on the execution of hospitality and service that we're showing. Brad, do you have anything else to add?

First of all, the market continues to grow. We had 14% growth year-on-year this quarter. And it's notable that we achieved significant revenue outperformance against each segment. So we gained share in every single segment, both on a year-on-year basis as well as sequentially. So we achieved the EBITDA growth as well as sequential margin improvement at the same time as we optimize our reimbursement levels.

The next question will be from Brandt Montour from Barclays.

So over in Singapore, you have a slide that you show us the theoretical rolling hold. And I know that, that's just sort of a pure statistical output from betting mix. But you kind of do show it kind of curling over and sort of reverting back lower. I just want to make sure, like do you -- are you guys seeing a change in betting behavior or any type of reversion away from side bets or the sort of long bets that you've talked about? .

Yes. I appreciate the question. The VIP business is very volatile and there's an interesting occurrence in the way patrons play now, which is some customers who are high-end VIP customers on rolling programs play traditional bets, and they bet in a much more traditional conservative way. And then we have other patrons who really enjoy the volatility and side bets that we present. And so when you have like on Page 12, if you look at the third quarter of '25, where we hit the peak of 4.2 with $9.1 billion in rolling volume, we had patrons in the building who really love those side bets. And so it drove the theoretical hire. .

In the case of this quarter with $18 billion of rolling volume, it was a barbell. We had people in the building who were [ getting ] the traditional bets in a very conservative manner and rolling a lot of volume. And then on the other side, we had some people who were really playing the side bets. And so the way we got to 3.6% was a more traditional VIP hold mixed with people who are taking advantage of the side bets and having a more, let's call it, modern approach to the game. And so what you ended up was this 3.6%. But it was not like an average of play. It really was a barbell.

Okay. That's really helpful. And then a second question would be on Macao. The base mass is not where most of the growth appears to be coming in the broader industry right now. And I'm just curious if you guys are starting to see any green shoots in that customer just given we've seen a little bit of better stock market and maybe some other green shoots in the macro, but just anything that you guys check or watching from what you -- sort of KPIs and things that you watch on the macro level that gives you any sort of confidence or incremental confidence in that segment. .

Thanks for the question. The market growth is driven by premium segments, both in rolling and non-rolling segments, but we can point to a couple of indicators to show that the base asset and the mass growth is actually solid. If you look at not so much the base mass tables, but the slot and [ ETG ] segment, we are seeing strong growth as a whole in the market and Sands China outperformed the market in that segment by a significant margin this quarter. So our slot in ETG segment grew by 31% year-on-year and 10% sequentially, especially driven by our more mass orientated properties in Parisian and Sands, where you can see the slightly ETG number has grown tremendously.

The second indicator is our retail business. We actually hit a quarterly all-time high in tenant sales in this first quarter, which is an exceptional performance. Our tenant sales grew by 37%. Yes, it was driven by the jewelry and watch sector but the spending was very broad across all of our malls. And we also saw significant growth in the fashion segment as well. So from the slot segment, from the retail mall, you can see that consumption is solid. But clearly, for the GGR, the premium segment is still driving the majority of the growth.

The next question will be from Robin Farley from UBS.

Just circling back, Patrick, you were making comments about Singapore, and you talked about both VIP and mass. And then you said something like IR2 will give us more product to address that. Did you -- were you suggesting that IR2 will be focusing on one or the other of those markets? Or did you just mean that broadly product to address the Singapore market? Sorry, I just want a clarification on that. And then I do have a follow-up.

Yes, no problem. Thanks for asking a follow-up on IR2. In our mind, this will be the most luxurious and most highly amenity hotel in the world. And our intention is to set a new standard for luxury hospitality, which will naturally attract very high-end patrons, some of whom are gaming patrons on rolling programs. And so my comments around the volatility and concentrated nature of the VIP play that we see in Marina Bay Sands, in our mind, can be smooth a little bit by having more inventory to bring in more of these very high-value patrons. And so while IR2 will not be focused solely on VIP patrons, it's really going to be for all the high-value tourists that we have coming into our building. But it's really going to set a new standard and those types of customers tend to gravitate to those types of hospitality and amenity environment.

It will also have an unbelievable entertainment component, which we believe will also appeal to the highest value tourists that we have -- high-value patrons we have coming into [indiscernible]. So we hope that, that gives us additional inventory and strength at the highest levels of patron rating.

Great. Helpful. And just a follow-up on Singapore in general. I don't know if you have any thoughts about how we should think about the 2 properties and what combined EBITDA might look like or incremental EBITDA from IR2? Any sort of -- I know it's early big picture.

I think for us, we're really looking to get our targeted return on invested capital across the total investment. So we've always said that we kind of target a 20% return. So that's kind of where we're trying to get to. And if you look at the productivity that we're seeing out of our highest end products within Marina Bay Sands, that we believe that this is achievable. And that's why we're investing in the project. The market is very unique. The tourists that are coming into the market, the structural tailwinds that are supporting growth in Singapore. The value of the single port has demonstrated a the tourism destination, the fact that we're going to have an arena now that we control that will have some of the best presentation technology in the world.

We're very excited about the opportunity there. So we think it will enhance not only the experience you would have at IR2 but the type of guests we have coming across the portfolio because what it will bring in terms of additional amenities. So for us, we're looking at a total project return in excess of the 20% we talked about.

And the next question will be from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley.

And this is maybe digging into some of the questions on Marina Bay Sands. Can you maybe just talk about how the customer concentration may have evolved over time? Are you actually getting more customers? And is the comment about having being able to attract the highest end customer, meaning that you're hitting some kind of threshold where you just don't have enough space for some of these customers? Or is it just that you're getting more play out of individual and you haven't seen any kind of upper bound on that?

We went from 132 suites to 770, and we need more capacity. And so we're -- we wish we're going to IR2 tomorrow. I think for us, the result -- there was a sea change in a way that we presented our products [indiscernible]. You hear us talk about the quality of the design, our design excellence initiatives and our design team had done outstanding work. The service levels there extraordinary. Our hospitality team has really stepped up. Our culinary efforts have really improved over time.

Our nightlife is really accelerating. And so with the strength in our retail business there, we really have so many amenities that just drive the highest value tourists from the region to Singapore and to our property. And we are able to use a lot more capacity when it becomes available. And so I think for us, we're looking at IR2 as a way to really increase the high-end suites that we have, add amenities across the portfolio that we don't have today in terms of entertainment, additional ballrooms, additional culinary, additional science to be seen. And so for us, this is something that we hope will have a multiplier effect on what we have on offer there, and we need more capacity.

And yes, where we made the change, we started bringing in much higher value tourists into Singapore and to our building, but there's more of them. And so for us, we're looking forward to the opportunity to grow to take advantage of what we see as the market opportunity.

That's helpful. And maybe one follow-up, but just on Macao. I think you mentioned some of the investments going on there. Can you just remind us of some of the timing of some of the renovations and work that you're doing and how you're thinking about where to invest based on what you're seeing in the market now?

So a couple of things I'll highlight, and then I'll turn it over to Grant. I think for us, we have a very strong fundamental view for the long-term success of Macao. And our company has been built from Sheldon's original vision that investment and scale creates a competitive advantage. And what you see in Macao today is even though the market is hypercompetitive in certain segments that we continue to perform in those segments with high-quality product and the right service levels and the right marketing.

And so for us, we're going to look to invest in our portfolio. So we do have scale. We do have rooms. We do have amenities. We do have retail. We do have entertainment, to invest in a way that will give us the maximum opportunity to take advantage of what we see as growth in segments that we're getting the benefit of today. And so I think the next couple of years, you'll see us invest in certain areas that we think we've underinvested in over the last 5 years and an attempt to reposition some of our assets to better address the market today and make us more competitive. Grant, would you like to add anything?

Sure. We can see exceptional results from our new product throughout the last 3 to 4 quarters. So part of our market share gain is a function not just of our reinvestment strategies but also the ramp-up of Londoner Grand. So you can see that very clearly in our results. And of course, for seasons with the Grand Suites product is also very competitive.

Looking forward, we have said, I think, in Patrick's opening remarks, we're starting the renovation of the Venetian. This is our flagship property and we are very excited by the upcoming transformation of the Venetian. This will deliver new inventory progressively starting in the second half of this year, the standard suites will start coming back and then progressively work our way towards the high-end suites and the villas into 2027, and then the entire project should finish by the end of '27 or early 2028.

The next question will be from Lizzie Dove from Goldman Sachs.

So it looks like the buyback stepped up a little bit this quarter. I'm just curious, especially as you see this continued inflection of Singapore EBITDA going from strength to strength. Is this an appropriate kind of quarterly run rate? Or how do you think about capital returns more broadly longer term?

So I think we said for a long time, we see significant value both LVS and SCL equity. And we're going to continue repurchasing shares. We thought this quarter represented a significant opportunity where levels were. So we were a little more aggressive than maybe you've seen in prior quarters. But our goal is to continue to repurchase shares in a meaningful way.

We think it's an important part of our return of capital strategy, and it's something that really creates long-term value for our shareholders over time. So you see the share count reduction over the last couple of years. It's very meaningful, and we're going to continue to look at that direction as we think about return on capital.

Got it. And then just as we think about Macao, for the rest of the year, we're only a couple of months away from comp starting to get a little bit tougher. Obviously, you're making progress on the margin side with that sequential uptick. But just how do you think about your ability to kind of keep improving on that, especially as the comps get a little tougher going forward?

Thanks for the question. First of all, the revenue growth is an important factor. Over time, we expect higher revenues will drive margin improvement. Outside of that, we are investing heavily, as Patrick referenced, in improving our service offerings across our operating capacity, across our sales force, distribution and also, importantly, into our hospitality and gaming service levels.

So those initiatives do -- are having an impact on the cost structure and will continue to impact the margin in the near term. At the same time, we are driving revenue growth. We're achieving revenue share gains and over time, we intend to grow margin as the revenue levels continue to increase.

In terms of the reinvestment levels, we have been able to spend less on reinvestment relative to revenue on a sequential basis. We see at least in our strategy and our ability to optimize stabilization in the reinvestment levels. The market continues to be very competitive. So we have to continue to monitor the dynamics very carefully. But for this quarter, we were able to achieve both revenue growth and sequential stabilization and improvement in our reinvestment strategy.

The next question will be from Chad Beynon from Macquarie.

Two questions on Macao. One, I just wanted to ask about how the entertainment calendar looks maybe through the rest of the year at [ Cotai Arena ] and then at some of the smaller venues? And then my second question is more around just the sentiment with the base mass customer, really good growth in the first quarter, as we've talked about a couple of times and particular growth in the Chinese stock market and just overall what we're able to see kind of consumer sentiment indicators. But are you getting any different sense from your customers since the tensions in the Middle East has started? Or do you think most of the base mass customer.

Chad, you've got a lot going on there.

Answer all these questions. You don't have to ask like 9 questions in one. Let's just regiment little segments and we'll get some of all, I promise. .

First on the entertainment calendar, and I'll stop there.

I just want to say, first off, I appreciate all the questions. One thing about the entertainment calendar. We've been investing in entertainment assets for years in Macao, and we feel that entertainment is a great way to drive inbound tourism into Macao from both China and actually from the surrounding region. And we're very happy to have some uptick in tourism from outside of Macao coming in. And we think over time, entertainment is an important component of that. .

We also feel like entertainment is a great way to show off the quality of our assets and the quality of the experiences that you can have at our portfolio of properties. And so we've been really focused on not only investing in our entertainment assets. So you saw our renovation of the arena that allowed us to have the NBA games. But also other things that we're doing around the portfolio to enhance the customer experience with our entertainment assets, including programming. So I did want to address that just in terms of the physical asset side. And now I'd ask Grant to comment on the calendar.

The calendar was strong in first quarter for us, which at our performance. We did 11 to 12 shows during the quarter. If you look at the pacing of the calendar, like Patrick said, we will continue to use entertainment content as a driver for the resort visitation. And it helps us across every segment of the patron value chain. We do see that the big [indiscernible] have slowed down in the Asian tour stops this year versus the prior immediate 2 years. However, we have the ability to bring content of different size, different spectatorship because we have access to both the Venetian Arena, which is the bigger arena as well as the midsized London Arena. So we're able to bring a more diverse range of ag and content because we do have the scale on the performance venues, which is an attraction for different artists and promoters because being able to access high-quality venues at different times of the year is not always easy.

So we do have an advantage in a number of x and artists in the region where we can offer them best-in-class and different range of performance venues all the way from the Venetian arena to London arena and then also to our performance status.

And in regards to the mass gaming, I think you've seen 30% growth year-over-year in the overall market. I think for us, that just speaks to the attractiveness of the assets on the market, liquidity, accessibility and just the overall growth in demand, which I think has been super helpful for us. Grant, I don't know if there's anything else you want to bring up on or to mass I think that's it. .

I think that is it.

Okay. And then you were going to ask us about Middle East disruption? Was that your next one?

Yes. Just we think that the Chinese customer can power through in the same way that we're seeing a U.S. customer, given where oil prices are and how that all factors into sentiment. .

The way to think about this is the number of options available to the outbound Chinese visitor. If you look at the options available today versus 3 months ago, 6 months ago. The reality is destinations that are closer to home are going to gain share in general as a result of the current environment for all sorts of reasons that you're familiar with. So the net effect from a demand standpoint, is, I think, a positive one for both Macao and Singapore because these destinations are going to be more desirable and not preferred during the current geopolitical and also the cost of air travel, all of those factors put together in this environment right now, the short-haul destinations, especially ones of this appeal in Macao and Singapore are going to be more popular with the Chinese market.

The next question will be from George Joy from Citigroup.

Just a quick one from me. Based on the numbers that you are seeing right now, how do you compare the popularity of best amongst your Macao players versus Singapore? And will you guys to use more new cyber options in Macao.

You are normally -- the first one to notice on new sites. We have introduced some new Siege options in Macao over the past week. In terms of your question about popularity, it remains true that the take-up of [indiscernible], especially as a percentage of total wages is much higher still in Marina Bay Sands than in Macao. That said, the take-up of side wages in Macao is increasing the propensity to wager on these side wages we do see a progressive trend upwards. And I think the introduction of these [indiscernible] that we'll be implementing now and in the next few months, will further enhance that propensity.

The next question will be from Joe Stauff from SFG.

For MBS, I wanted to follow up maybe on the rolling chip volume, just an absolutely huge number in the quarter. I'm wondering the volatility associated with this, is it visitations and what those visitations will do in terms of volume? What is easier for you to program I guess, between the 2? And was there a particular -- and the follow-up is, was there a particular reason maybe in the first quarter that drove higher visitation from this clientele versus, say, other quarters?

So the VIP segment is volatile. It can be concentrated and it depends on who shows up when. And so it is about visitation and it's about bringing the highest value patrons we have who want to be on a rolling program into the building. And so the great news is we have long-standing relationships with historical customers. We have new customers coming into the building, and they love our service, they love the hotel suites they get, they love the food, entertainment, they love going to the retail.

So it's really a total experience proposition and then they show up and they play. And so for us, it's about having the right amenities to satisfy these very discerning customers and just getting them into the building.

The next question will be from Trey Bowers from Wells Fargo. .

I guess just one on CapEx. The maintenance CapEx and the SCL level CapEx in the slide deck moved up for the next couple of years. Is that maybe just one, you guys are doing so well. So why not kind of reinvest a little more aggressively? And then two, is it a pull-forward concession. Just curious on those 2 numbers. Or is it also some of the things you guys referenced around like Venetian rehab?

So one of the industry grades a long time ago said that depreciation is real in our business. And we have to spend money to maintain our positioning and to grow. And so we are doing a full portfolio review to make sure that we're deploying capital in the most efficient way and the highest return projects to generate cash flow growth. And so this increase in CapEx is based on -- our expectation is that if we invest more, we will grow more.

Perfect. And one other question. The promotional activity in Macao looks like it ticked down a little bit sequentially. Could we kind of assume that -- you guys really ramped in Q4. It's higher year-over-year again in Q1, but it's getting better. As we look forward is just kind of the stickiness you guys are seeing from early promotional activity, demanding less of it as we go forward. And should that be one of the factors that's helping out this drive towards that 700 number.

We've been able to optimize some of our programs, having started to change our reinvestment programming and approach since the middle of 2025. So this is a natural progression as we change our programs, we assess what worked was less effective and great credit to the team who were able to achieve good optimization in this quarter, whilst continue to gain market share and grow revenue.

We are also able to optimize the reinvestment level because we'd be more successful in leveraging our product advantage. So we've been able to ramp up Londoner Grand, especially and that has helped us tremendously in -- especially in the core premium mass, mid-tier segments growing the customer base there, and that speaks to the CapEx and the upgrading of product referenced by Patrick that as we review the portfolio, there are going to be other significant opportunities for us to invest for growth. And at the same time, growing, it also allows us to be more targeted and disciplined in reinvestment as these products come online.

The next question will be from Steve Wieczynski from Stifel.

So Patrick, sorry, I'm going to ask another question about the -- getting to $700 million a quarter in Macao. So obviously, there's a lot of promotional activity taking place right now in the market. So I guess the question is, to get to $700 million eventually in EBITDA, does that assume your competitors pull back so-called aggressively on promotions? Or saying that differently, does that assume more of a normalized promotional environment from, I guess, not only yourselves but also your competitors as well?

No, actually, we're sort of thinking about that in the context of current conditions. It's more about -- if you look at the growth that we experienced in Q1, it's a very competitive market. But I think the market is growing. And I think we're also helping to grow the market with the high-quality assets that we have. So for us, when we think about $700 million, it's about continuing to invest, having the right marketing programs, utilizing our assets more efficiently. It'd be helpful if the market grows a little bit, the additional growth in the market and expansion of GGR market [indiscernible] is helpful. But we think that it's in the context of the current conditions.

Okay. Got you. And then kind of sticking with that, Patrick. Look, I know you guys don't give guidance, but is it -- based on what you just said there, is it kind of a -- is it fair to think that this sort of run rate of, let's call it, $600 million a quarter in Macao is probably the right way to think about the market for the foreseeable future until that base mass business really does return?

Yes. I think the one thing I just want to be careful about is there is seasonality in our business. I know you know that. And second quarter is typically our softest and just sequential comparisons between Q1 and Q2, given that we have Chinese New Year and Q1 are always tough and sometimes not that helpful. .

Well, just directionally, we'd like to believe that we're in a really solid place as we continue to grow our business and make the right moves in terms of marketing, in terms of utilizing our assets. But that's kind of how we think about it.

The next question will be from David Katz from Jefferies.

Can we just talk about the Venetian a little bit and the degree to which again, I know you don't give guidance, but the degree to which we should be factoring in some disruption as you go through that room renovation? And any qualitative perspective would be helpful.

Thank you for the question. No, we don't expect meaningful disruption impact, we'll be balancing the out of inventory with the businesses, and we are able to redistribute the demand throughout the rest of the portfolio. And at the same time, new rooms will continuously be coming back to the active inventory starting from the third quarter. So even as total number of keys will be reduced modestly during this period, we are going to be benefiting from brand new suites coming online over the coming quarters, especially when the multi-based suites come back online towards the back end of 2027.

Understood. And as my follow-up, I know we've touched on this just a bit, but maintenance CapEx, we usually think about in the context of nondiscretionary versus projects that can be decided upon and moved around, understand every company's perspective on it is different, but just noticing in the deck that should we think about that $500 million number as something that is nondiscretionary, and how did that come about?

First off, we believe that it is necessary to maintain our business. So it's split between Marina Bay Sands and Sands China. But we just want to be realistic about what we believe we need to spend going forward to ensure our buildings are kept in the best possible condition to maximize our cash flow. And so we don't view this as optional. We view this as something that's a responsible move to take care of our buildings into the future. .

And the next question will be from John DeCree from CBRE.

I know we've covered the topic of OpEx in Macao a little bit, but maybe just to round it out, if you could provide a little cover maybe coming out of from a modeling angle. So are we expecting kind of the investment in service you've talked about to kind of grow in line with revenue. Are these going to be kind of fixed cost people coming online more staff and will happen regardless of which way revenue goes? Or is it kind of something that you'll kind of time throughout the year as revenue increases at different paces, you'll have service levels. Just trying to get a sense of how much fixed costs are maybe coming in this year versus variable depending on revenue?

These are hires that are designed to increase and enhance the service levels of our buildings. So ideally, as we grow revenue because we're bringing in higher value patrons, we get some scale or some operating leverage across these fixed costs, but they're primarily payroll. We're adding people in certain areas to service certain patron tiers to enhance their experience and make sure that we're at the highest standards for service. And so this hiring in our mind is actually beneficial because while we have to hire and train these people and add them to our team so that we can accomplish our goals and providing leading hospitality in the market. Combined with the investments and the renovations that we're doing, this will put us in a better position to grow because you need the people and you need the physical product in order to provide the patrons experience that allows you to differentiate and draw the highest value customers and to our buildings. And so this is an investment in the future.

Got it. Maybe just a quick follow-up on that. So the new hires, and apologies a little granular, but kind of on a rolling basis going forward? Or have they already been hired I guess when should we think about the lion's share of the additional staff coming online? .

A significant number of actually -- are actually in the OpEx now. So we have people joining our staff and -- so actually, there's -- some of that's actually in the margin today, some of the additional payroll associated with the service enhancement. And it will continue to be added over the next couple of quarters.

Thank you. That concludes today's Q&A session, and it also concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sands Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Sands. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Joining the call today are Rob Goldstein, our Chairman and CEO; Patrick Dumont, our President and Chief Operating Officer; Dr. Wilfred Wong, Executive Vice President, Sands China; and Grant Chum, CEO and President of Sands China and EVP of Asia operations.

Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. The language on forward-looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those forward-looking statements.

In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release. We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call. Finally, for the Q&A session, we ask those with interest to please post 1 question and 1 follow on so we might allow everyone with interest the opportunity to participate. This presentation is being recorded.

I'll now turn the call over to Rob.

Thank you, Dan, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. Marina Bay Sands delivered EBITDA of $806 million, simply the greatest quarter in the history of casino hotels. We see $2.9 billion of EBITDA this year. Mass gaming and [ spot win ] exceeded $951 million this quarter, which is up 118% in Q4 in 2019, up 27% in Q4 last year. Of course, we are delighted with the results, we look forward to more this year.

This is an extraordinary market we have built a product to maximize the opportunity. The question is how much further can we go in the next 2 years. There's has never been a building to my knowledge to deliver these types of results.

Macao delivered $608 million of EBITDA for the quarter, and we are disappointed with that EBITDA number. However, mass market revenue did exceeded 25% this quarter of share, up 23.6% in the first quarter of 2025. Macao market is driven by the premium segment which is a highly competitive market. There may be a day when base mass recovers, and we will excel when that day comes, but until then, we will continue to focus on our ability to make the assets work harder to achieve $700 million per quarter. The team is in the right place, and we will deliver better results in 2026.

So let's hear it from Patrick.

Thanks, Rob. Macao EBITDA was $608 million. If we had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by $26 million. When adjusted for higher-than-expected hold of the rolling segment, our EBITDA margin for the Macao portfolio of properties would have been 28.9%, down 390 basis points compared to the fourth quarter of 2024.

We are focused on delivering revenue and cash flow growth across the portfolio. Margin at the Venetian was 32.3%, while margin at the Londoner was 28.8%. We expect growth in EBITDA as revenue to grow. We will use our scale and product advantages together with targeted incentives to better address every market segment. We see opportunity in every segment at every property in the portfolio.

In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands EBITDA for the quarter was $806 million at a margin of 50.3%. If we had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by $45 million. The record financial results at MBS reflect the impact of high-quality investment in market-leading product, world-class service and the growth in high-value tourism.

Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders. We repurchased $500 million of LVS stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share. We believe repurchases of LVS equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long term.

During the fourth quarter, we purchased $66 million of SCL stock, increasing the company's ownership percentage of SCL to 74.8% as of December 31, 2025. We continue to see value in both names. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company's share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders.

Thanks again for joining the call today. Now let's take questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question today is coming from Dan Politzer from JPMorgan.

And Rob, congrats on the storied career at Las Vegas Sands. We'll definitely miss hearing your honest assessment of what's going on in the markets across the world.

First, on Singapore -- yes. Another, obviously, a real strong quarter here. I mean the VIP rolling chip volume acceleration was notable. You saw obviously an acceleration across the board on the gaming side. I mean, where -- what particularly is driving that? I mean I know this is the third quarter we're seeing it, but maybe now you have a better pause on what's going on and what's specifically driving that? And are there any additional programming elements or OpEx endeavors that you feel like you need to put in place to further sustain this going forward?

I think you're seeing, Dan, the property is extraordinary. The offerings are great, and we have a lot of fantastic customers in Asia. I don't think it's a different story. It's the same story. Just more and more people coming into that property, 1 experiencing and coming away very happy. And the volumes across the border, extraordinary. As I referenced, the greatest building history of casino hotels made of any operating building. Nothing way different, just more of the same, more people showing up with, got lots of money to gamble, lots of appetite. We're very fortunate. It's a very strong customer base across the region. So nothing really different now.

Yes, I just want to comment on the last part of your question. There's really nothing that we have to do from an OpEx side, except to continue to improve our service models and our programs there. We're continuing to invest in Singapore. We continue to do some renovations. While the suites are done in the casino area is mostly done, I think we're going to tie to adjust our amenity set and continue to invest in our service there. But from our standpoint, I think where we are and where we need to be, but we'll continue to look to improve as we can.

Got it. And then just pivoting to Macao as we try to unpack these numbers. On a hold-adjusted basis, EBITDA margin is down quarter-over-quarter. I mean, how much of this is just the OpEx environment, if there's any other one-offs in the quarter to highlight? I mean, given that we're a few quarters in now to the promotional strategy that you undertook. I mean, where do you feel like it's not really resonating? What strategy do you have in place that you feel like you can start to gain traction there?

Yes. Thanks, Dan, for the question. Yes, first of all, I think the marketing strategies, leveraging the Londoner Grand ramp-up since May, I think we're moving in the right direction in terms of customer growth, in terms of revenue growth across all the segments. But obviously, Macao right now is driven by the premium segments, both in rolling and non-rolling. And that's where we are getting most of our growth.

So in terms of the sequential decline in operating margin, firstly, we have higher reinvestment. But on a sequential basis, that's mostly driven by the segment mix change. So we have more rolling business as a proportion of our total gaming. And within non-rolling is dominated by the super high end on the premium mass. So that's the first factor.

Secondly, OpEx was higher, yes. We invested more on event costs and we had higher payroll as we looked primarily as a result of us increasing our operating table hour capacity. And lastly, against prior quarter but also against prior year, the non-rolling home percentage was lower by about 140 basis points. So that obviously impacts ourselves as well.

The next question will be from Lizzie Dove from Goldman Sachs.

And I'll echo my congrats to Rob. You'll definitely be missed. Sticking with Macao, I mean, you've talked in the past about the path long term to getting back to that, somewhere in that $2.7 billion, $2.8 billion kind of range for EBITDA. Curious, kind of tracking on an annualized basis, a little below that right now. How do you think about the pacing to get back there and kind of time line and what needs to happen?

So I think, first off, I think we've made a lot of changes over the last couple of quarters, both on our approach to the customer, how we think about service levels we've invested in personnel. We've had additional table hours, which you heard Grant just mentioned. I think we're really focused on both growing revenue and EBITDA. And so I think we've made some great progress this quarter.

If you look at some of our top line numbers, we've definitely grown, and we've had success in both rolling and non-rolling at [ thoughts ] as well when you look at year-over-year comps. I think for us, we're sort of working through some of the changes that we've made. And I think the trajectory is heading in the right direction. And I think we've made a lot of important changes. And I think we're in a position to do better over time. And while this quarter may not have produced the results that we want on an EBITDA basis, we see growth, we see better market positioning. We see revenue share growth, but we're heading in the right direction.

Got it. Makes sense. And then you've had so much success in Singapore with side bets and kind of just making gambling more diversified over there. I know you've talked about kind of introducing more of that in Macao. Can you maybe share an update of how far you are in terms of rolling that out in Macao, anything that's kind of different structurally or with the customer base that maybe makes it more or less appealing? And how we should kind of think about structural hold there long term?

Thank you for the question. I think in Macao, we have been continuously rolling out additional wager options on the baccarat layouts. And we've been having progressively more success in attracting volume against those side wagers. The level of participation in the side wagers is not as high as Singapore, but it is on an increasing trend. And we'll continue to innovate in terms of offering more fun and interesting side wager options in the traditional game of baccarat and also other games as well in terms of additional wager options. So that will continue. But we are seeing a rising interest in these side wagers, but it's just not as high a level as what you see in Marina Bay Sands.

The next question will be from Trey Bowers from Wells Fargo.

Great to catch up. Could you guys just talk to what you're seeing in the promotional environment in Macao? Has that changed dramatically in the near term? And what's the expectation as we make our way through '26?

So I think the market definitely has become more promotional over time. You heard Grant mention that it's much more premium-focused, and that goes hand-in-hand with that segment. That being said, we're being very competitive. And I think we're seeing the results related to our positioning as we look to be more promotional and as we add the right service levels to ensure that we can take care of these customers in a way that allows them to keep coming back. Grant, I don't know if there's anything you want to add?

Yes. I think the promotional environment remains intense. And especially in the premium segments, which is really driving the growth in the market. That said, I think we are at a more stable level now in the current quarter, and we can see that progressively in the fourth quarter. But of course, things can change anytime as competitive dynamics change. But at this point in time, I think we are stabilizing at the current levels, at least for our portfolio. And actually, we're hoping to find some headroom to optimize on the reinvestment front into 2026.

Great. Then just back to MBS, given the exit rate of where you were in Q4, if we apply seasonal levels of kind of sequential growth to the market, we come up with some pretty big numbers on the top and bottom line in the market. Is there anything to call out that you would just put out there as a put or a take against that as we kind of build our models for the next 12 months?

I don't think it's seasonal. I think this is just a building that defines the seasonality of most markets. I think it's more about the right customers showing up, events, et cetera. I don't think that people are dealing with that driven by the seasonality of the market. I think it's just a very, very -- it's the best product in the market, obviously, in one of the best parts of the world. People want to be there if you get the right people to show up. I think it's December, July, it doesn't matter as much as used to in places like Macao or Las Vegas. It's less seasonally driven, I think, and more driven by the building itself in a strong market. So I don't think seasonality figures in. I wouldn't model it based on that.

And the next question is coming from Robin Farley from UBS.

Rob, I just want to add my congratulations and best wishes. I don't even want to say how long I've know anybody, you'll be missed.

[indiscernible].

That will be between us. So I guess 1 question is, any early signs of kind of Chinese New Year levels for demand in Macao, anything you're seeing at this point?

I do want to point out that we're going to stay consistent. We're not really going to talk about current quarter. But I will tell you that if you look at the growth in the Macao market overall, it's been very encouraging. So if you look at liquidity in the market, you look at the type of players that are coming in, the value of those patrons, it is premium focused, but it's very encouraging. And I think it's good for the market overall and good for the trajectory of our business and the market.

Okay. Great. And then maybe just a follow-up on Singapore. And Rob, I hear your comments about defining seasonality and kind of -- it seems like every quarter has done better than one would have expected. But maybe so that expectation don't get to -- I mean, is there anything you would say that is like a gating issue or sort of a natural point at which maybe it wouldn't even be reasonable to think that the building could do more early? Where do you see [indiscernible]?

We've proved to be very bad in forecasting this. I think last year, I said $2.5 billion is our goal, and people kind of thought that was very ambitious. It proved to be very unambitious. So I think I have a real hard time engaging it because what you now have is this plethora of facts on favor. You have a really great place to visit in Singapore, a wonderful government supporting us. We have a building that a different level was we opened it many years ago, service levels, et cetera, and suite product.

It's just the best thing in that region, I think, and people just keep coming to it, and we are pleasantly surprised at the amount of customers, the diversity of the geographic locations they come from. It's got diversity, it's got new customers shift all the time. And any time we think, well, we lost these 4 customers for a reason, 12 more show up. And I think that's the strength of Macao -- Singapore. And I don't think we should pretend to have any great handicapping skills. Can it go to [ 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 ]? I just don't know. I mean, we've had 3 successive quarters that keep getting better and better. It feels like it's sustainable. It feels great. But I think it'll be bullish about to forecast the future and kind of go to [ 3.1 or 3.2 ] as it goes back to [ 2.7, 2.8 ]. I don't know. But I think we've now passed the point of disbelief, realize this is a real building that has real potential to keep growing if the economy stays strong and we continue to deliver a great quality of product. I have a lot of belief in its future. I don't think it's going to fall apart at all. And how much stronger does it get? I don't want to forecast. I can't -- I just can't know. I don't know how to figure out -- more people keep showing up from all over Asia wanting to gamble at Marina Bay Sands. The answer has been thus far this year, absolutely, yes.

The next question will be from Brandt Montour from Barclays.

The first one is on Macao. The rolling chip volume number is obviously very strong. VIP isn't something that you historically focused on or at least it wasn't a huge part of your mix. But given mix did weigh on the quarter, EBITDA and margins and flow through, the question would be, do you -- has there been any shift in strategy in terms of your relative focus on the VIP part of the business? And is that something we should consider more thoughtfully going forward?

Brandt, thanks for the question. I think first of all, we have said we are committed strategically to grow in every single segment in Macao that's available to us. And secondly, the growth of the market is currently primarily driven by the premium segments, and that applies both to the rolling segment and the nonrolling.

So this quarter, yes, you can see that we've had a pretty significant, terrific increase in our rolling volumes up 60% against prior year, and we're outgrowing a fast-growing market. And I think that reflects a few strategies that we put in place. Number one, we've adjusted some of our commercial programs in that segment. Number two, we've been very successful in attracting the foreign play out of the rest of the Asian markets in the rolling segment, and that's given us a good boost in the volumes. And number three, partly reflecting the strong market in that super high-end segment. We've also been successful in that super VIP rolling segment this quarter as well. So all of these factors contributed to the very strong rolling segment growth.

And yes, it's much lower margin than the other segments, but it's still a profitable segment on an absolute gross dollars basis. And of course, our primary focus right now is to grow EBITDA. And of course, if we take advantage of where the market is growing, the rolling segment is definitely a segment that we'll be concentrating on to take advantage of the market growth.

And the second question would be on Macao and Singapore. The -- there are some concerns out there that World Cup could have some level of impact, folks staying home to watch the games and not traveling as much during that tournament. When you guys look back at your historical performance in prior World Cups, do you see anything that would suggest traffic or the higher end not coming during that term for either Macao or Singapore?

I don't believe it matters at all. You watch a telephone, they can I don't think it matters at all. I really -- that's been overblown in the past and overrated. There was a time we got over was coming in to World Cup changed the world for 30 minutes. I just don't think in size of our business is the scale, it matters all that much. You guys feel differently, but I think it's -- I wouldn't -- it's not critical.

The next question will be from George Choi from Citigroup.

And congratulations, Rob, for your criteria. Firstly, on Marina Bay Sands. At [indiscernible], it looks like MBS generated enough master yard to trigger the higher mass gaming tax rate. Can you confirm if that is right? And is that the reason why we see a slight sequential decline in EBITDA margin given the reported GGR?

George, you're very good. I have to hand it to you. We hit the higher tax rate in July. And in the fourth quarter, there was about $44 million of impact.

Okay. That's good. And encouraging. And secondly, given the CapEx schedule that you guys have for the next few years on Marina Bay Sands, are you guys interested in any other investment opportunities perhaps in Japan?

Sorry, are you asking about Marina Bay Sands or Japan?

I'm just thinking, obviously, you guys have -- just kind of spent a lot of money on Marina Bay Sands. With that in mind, would you be interested in any other opportunities around the region?

Yes. I think we're constantly looking at new development opportunities in markets where we think we can do what we do well. And so if Japan were ever to present an investment opportunity that works for us, we'd consider it. But right now, we're really focused on investing on our existing properties, building IR2. We're very excited about that opportunity. That's going to be a step functional growth, we hope. And so you can see the impact that we've had in our investment programs in Marina Bay Sands and the change we have there, and we feel like we're on our way in Macao. So we're very focused on the assets that we have. And if something comes up, we're definitely interested.

The next question will be from Shaun Kelley from Bank of America.

Rob, it's been a privilege to work with you for nearly 20 years, which is hard to believe, and congratulations just on everything you've done for the industry. You'll be missed.

Maybe just kind of pivoting or kind of 1 directly for Grant, specifically on Macao. Grant, just kind of wondering as some of the initiatives you've worked on, I think we think about some specific things going back 6 to 9 months ago, like adjusting cash comp mix and maybe some more direct cash player rebates in the market, which peers were already doing. Are all those things kind of where you want them to be right now? And have they been stable for a little while? Or are you still tweaking those things at the edges and finding what the right customer balance is for the mix that you're seeing in the market today?

Yes. Thanks, Shaun, for the question. I think we've been heading in the right direction for some time. And I think we are happy with where we are. You're right, there's been a number of initiatives that we've set out to implement since 6 months ago. I think the sales and marketing programs that were put in place, the product launch that we had in the ground and also some of the adjustments that we made in the rolling segment, those are all feeding through to a higher revenue capture and higher market share.

The reinvestment environment, as I described earlier, it's still intense. And also, it's subject to month-by-month change. But at this moment, seeing what we saw in Q4, I think we're reaching a level where yes, I think there is some stability in terms of the way we see our promotional intensity. And we actually hope to be able to optimize some of that across the different segments into 2026. So 2026, I think, is going to be a year where we sustain our revenue growth against the market and then hopefully convert more of that into EBITDA.

Great. And maybe just as my follow-up, kind of on the operating expense side of the equation. Could you just talk a little bit about both kind of when traditionally you see some of those annual escalators or market-wide increases you'd see particularly on the labor cost front. Are those primarily in 4Q? Or do they kind of come in more in 1Q? I'm not sure of the timing.

And then specifically for the 4Q, did you -- was there any direct impact or a tangible impact from the NBA activities in the market? We know that was probably a big success for Macao broadly, but just wondering if whether it's marketing or operating expenses attached to that could have had an impact on margins?

Yes. Sure, I referenced that we have higher event costs for fourth quarter, and NBA was the biggest event that we conducted both across the quarter and actually ever in the history of the company. And it was, as you say, tremendously successful. I think the brand projection, I think the stakeholder engagement, the way we're able to bring in new business partners through the NBA China Games Week. And of course, the entertainment we provided to our customers and community stakeholders, I think all of those things, we are absolutely delighted by. And of course, it has a cost impact. But we are very happy that we are continuing with this event in a multiyear partnership with the NBA, and we look forward to doing the event even better in 2026.

In terms of the OpEx question, your first point, I think, refers to just general wage inflation, if I'm right, and understand your question. Generally, that those wage adjustments occur in March for us and will occur again in 2026 in March with some wage inflation that we put in place for our frontline staff.

The next question will be from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley.

Rob, thanks for all the insights and stories. Given the reinvestment that you all are just mentioning through 2026 in Macao, how does this influence any strategy around renovations or reinvestment into other properties?

So I think we're very focused on upgrading our property portfolio, particularly at the high end. We've had some very strong success in the Londoner. Londoner Grand opened earlier in the year, and we're already seeing very strong adoption and strong productivity out of the higher-end suite that we've created there. And of course, we have the Londoner Suites. We have the Londoner Court, which is 1 of our core luxury products.

And so as we look around our asset base, we think we have the opportunity to add more amenities, to add better room product and better service over time. So this is part of our ongoing investment cycle in Macao and something that you'll see us do over the coming quarters.

And then maybe a quick follow-up on capital allocation. You mentioned spiking buyback and buying the stock in Hong Kong as well as the U.S. Does this eventually shift back to dividends as we get through this reinvestment cycle? Or what -- is this more of a permanent kind of shift towards buyback relative to dividend in, I would say, both entities?

I think if you look at the SCL level, just given the market dynamics and I think preferences at the Board level for SCL, hopefully, over time, you'll see the Board there approve dividend increases. And I think that's been the goal. As cash flows continue to grow, the dividend there would increase over time. And we think that's very beneficial to shareholders, including Las Vegas Sands.

I think at the Las Vegas Sands level, you see us be very consistent in the way that we repurchased shares. We've done over the last couple of years. I think we'd like to have that continue. We do think the dividend is fundamental to return to capital story. We do look at payout ratios and consider them and look at the flexibility that our cash flows provide to us, given that we do like the idea of investing in new growth opportunities. And we think that the flexibility as well as the accretion from share repurchases is kind of a balance that we like. And so you should see us heading forward in this general direction. And we've been pretty aggressive in the way that we buy back shares previously, and we're going to be positioned to do well with our future cash flows to do the same. So we're excited about it.

The next question will be from David Katz from Jefferies.

Good afternoon, everybody. Rob, thanks for everything, all the best. I wanted to just focus on Singapore for a minute. There has been a considerable amount of CapEx put in there in a variety of different places. I wanted to just go a little deeper and figure out and understand. Are all of the capital investments that we've been talked about, I know the rooms, gaming floor restaurants, amenities, maybe lobby. Are those all completed and activated at this point? And just thinking about how the property ramps from here continues to strength.

So they're not all done. So we still have work to do in other parts of the property gaming floor, yes, rooms, yes. Some public spaces, some mall lobby and SkyParks will have work to be done. So it's not fully completed. And so our goal is to continue to improve the experiences that we offer. The vast majority are done. And so you see the results, and you see how our patrons enjoy the changes that we've made. But over time, we're going to look to improve the property and continue to invest in it to continue to have it being the best in the world. That's our goal.

Understood. And if I may, as my follow-up, specifically with respect to the lobby, should we be contemplating any disruption as we go through, say, the next couple of years whenever you get to that?

No.

The next question will be from Joe Stauff from [ SIG ].

Grant, I just wanted to follow up on some of your comments about that you've -- in Macao, you think you've reached a level of stability regarding investment and the right promo mix. Is that -- could you -- just curious as to why you think that? Is that just a function of you're seeing some of the right KPIs inflecting because of that? Is it because you don't necessarily see a competitive response relative to your higher investment? I was wondering if you could broaden out that answer a little bit more.

Yes, thanks for the question. No, we can only observe from what we see in the recent months. And I think my comment simply attests to the fact that during the fourth quarter, as we progressed, we see some stabilization in the degree of promotional incentives that we're having to escalate to. I think part of it is we caught up with the market since May, and that was a progressive process. And I think in the fourth quarter, we start seeing, I think, on a stable basis, a higher level of market share and higher level of patronage across all the segments, in particular, in the segments where the market is growing the fastest, which is in the premium segments. And then we also see that dynamic apply to the rolling segment as well. So I think the evidence from the fourth quarter is -- is -- I think, offers good comfort.

However, the market changes day to day, minute by minute, so we will have to observe how competitive dynamics evolve in 2026. And one of the key drivers of how dynamics may change is obviously the level of market revenue growth, which is always tough to forecast. So I hope that gives you more color or explanation for my previous comment.

The next question will be from Steve Wieczynski from Stifel.

Congratulations, Rob, I'll add that in real quick. So Patrick, probably for you. If we think about the drop in the Macao margins, which was, I think, about 390 basis points or somewhere in that range, wondering how we should think about margins for the rest of the year, maybe how you guys are thinking about margins for the rest of the year? I'm not looking for guidance, so to speak, but just -- if we don't have visibility into that base mass business and we continue to see this shift towards rolling play and even the high end of non-rolling, should we consider the margins we saw in the fourth quarter a pretty good run rate, at least for the foreseeable future?

Yes. I think the way we think about it is that we sort of think about this business as a low 30s margin business, low 30% margin business, just given the mix of play and who's coming to the buildings, the promotional activity necessary to support the patrons. If the base mass comes back in some way, like it existed prepandemic, that's a very high-margin business, and our margin structure can change positively if we overweight towards the IP play, which is a lower-margin business, the margin may be a little bit tighter. But we'd like to believe this is a low 30s margin business and go from there.

But I think right now, we're really focused on growing revenue, growing EBITDA and the long-term health of how we grow. And we also believe that our investment over time that we talked about earlier will allow us to attract high-value patrons and position us well for future growth. And we're focused on all those things.

Okay. And then second question probably for Grant. Grant, wondering if you think about that base mass business, which hasn't really returned or improved? One maybe get your updated thoughts in terms of what you attribute that to? Or what factors do you think are kind of continue to hold that segment of the market back?

Steve, thanks for the question. I think when you see the sequential change in the quarter, obviously, base mass did not really grow, whereas premium mass did. I think what you're seeing is that the lower-end segments, the spend per head has been on a declining trend versus pre-COVID.

As to why that is the case, we can speculate different reasons. But I think the most helpful comment we can make on that is simply to observe that, yes, I think since COVID and even in the last few quarters where GGR has accelerated, the base mass, particularly looking at revenue spend per customer in those lower value segments really has been quite stagnant. And of course, you guys might be in a better position to speculate on drivers from the economy to other factors. But we can just tell you what we're seeing on the ground in terms of premium mass versus base mass. And you can see those numbers very clearly in the size that provides.

And the next question will be from John DeCree from CBRE.

And Rob, I'll pile on the gratitude, and congratulations as well. My question, Grant, also related to that base mass customer, if I could build on maybe Steve's question. And so spend per head is down, but are you seeing comparable levels of property visitation from that customer? And is there anything you guys have tried to do to stimulate higher spend? Obviously, the premium segment is quite competitive with player reinvestment, but is there anything you can do to maybe help get that customer to open up the wallet a little bit more?

Sure. We can and we are. I think property visitation across Sands China remains very strong. I think we actually slightly exceeded 2019 in 2025, approaching 100 million visitations in the whole year, but that's where we can also see the lower spend per visitation because it hasn't fed through into the base mass revenues to the extent that you would have expected given this level of property visitation.

I think what we have been doing and what we can continue to do is to leverage the assets that we have for that base mass and mid-tier across the retail malls that we have across the entertainment calendar that we provide. And obviously, all of the attractions that we can offer as the most diverse, an extensive integrated resort in Macao. And we're doing all of those things, including, I think, really pushing hard on the event calendar as well as introduce new nongaming loyalty programs into the market, particularly for the retail mall business. And we're seeing good take-up and good success in some of those initiatives. However, when we come back to the base mass gaming, that level of base mass gaming is just not growing as fast as the premium segments.

Thank you. That concludes today's Q&A session. I would now like to hand the call over to Patrick Dumont for closing remarks.

One final item today before we complete the call. I would like to mention that Rob is going to be serving in a new role as Senior Adviser to the company for the next 2 years. On behalf of the company's Board of Directors, the senior leadership team, all of our team members, I want to use this opportunity to thank Rob for 30 years of extraordinary contributions to the company and for all of his leadership. Rob served in many important leadership roles for LVS. He's also been a strong and vocal advocate for the gaming industry as a whole. There are not many individuals who have even more of this industry than he has. Rob has hired, led and mentor numerous people over the years. Many of these people serve in leadership roles in the industry or elsewhere because Rob Goldstein took the time to invest in them and their careers.

Finally, I want to recognize and thank Rob for his steadfast commitment to the Adelson family. Rob and [ Sheldon ] had a wonderful friendship and achieved so much together. On behalf of Dr. Adelson and the family, thank you, Rob, for everything you've given this company. Your contributions to this industry and this company are too many to list, but they will always be recognized and appreciated. So in closing, I would like to thank you, and I would like our entire team to look forward to working with you in your new role. Thank you, Rob.

Thank you, Patrick. Promise better margins in Macao. Stay the course. Thank you very much. Very kind. Thank you for all your kind comments. I appreciate it, and we will improve in Macao and continue to strive for better results. Thank you.

Thank you. And this does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Sands Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Mr. Daniel Briggs, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Sands. Sir, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Paul. Joining the call today are Rob Goldstein, Chairman and CEO; Patrick Dumont, our President and Chief Operating Officer; Dr. Wilfred Wong, Executive Vice Chairman of Sands China; and Grant Chum, CEO and President of Sands China and EVP of our Asia operations.

Today's conference call will contain forward-looking statements. We will be making those statements under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. The language on forward-looking statements included in our press release also applies to our comments made on the call today. The company's actual results may differ materially from the results reflected in those forward-looking statements.

In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our press release.

We have posted an earnings presentation on our website. We will refer to that presentation during the call. [Operator Instructions] This presentation is being recorded.

I'll now turn the call over to Rob.

Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon and thanks for joining us. Marina Bay Sands delivered EBITDA of $743 million. We had forecasted MBS could do $2.5 billion annually. It turns out we were too conservative we should easily exceed that figure in 2025. MBS is currently over $2.1 billion of EBITDA this year with a quarter still to go.

Mass gaming and slot was a record $905 million, reflecting 122% growth from Q3 of 2019 and 35% higher than last year. We are in the right place at the right time with the right product. Singapore is a highly desirable destination and our product is superb. It's difficult to find supreme described in magnitude of this result, operating performance and MBS is unprecedented in the history of our industry.

Macau delivered $601 million EBITDA for the quarter, which reflects an improvement in our financial results with Typhoon negatively impacted our reported EBITDA by about $20 million. We have underperformed in the Macau market for the past few years. We believe that our buildings will be enough to compete favorably, we were wrong. We've adapted to the market and changed our approach in the second quarter of 2025 to enable us to be more competitive.

Our mass market revenue jumped to 25.4% this quarter, up from 23.6% in the first quarter of 2025. We expect additional share gains and EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter. Our assets remain the strongest in the Macau market. But Londoner is moving towards $1-plus billion of EBITDA. We have meaningful opportunities for growth improvement throughout our Macau property portfolio. Importantly, the Macau market's GGR is growing, when you couple this back with our assets and our recent marketing changes, we believe will continue to improve in the fourth quarter and beyond.

Let's hear it from Patrick.

Thanks, Rob. Macau EBITDA was $601 million. We had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by $2 million. When adjusted for higher-than-expected hold in the rolling segment, our EBITDA margin in the Macau portfolio of properties would have been 31.5%, down 160 basis points compared to the third quarter of 2024. We are focused on delivering revenue and cash flow growth at the Londoner and across the portfolio.

Margin at the Venetian was 35%, while margin at the Londoner was 31.9%. We expect growth in EBITDA as revenues grow and as we use our scale and product advantages together with targeted incentives to better address every market segment. We see opportunity in every segment.

Now turning to Singapore. MBS' EBITDA for the quarter was $743 million at a margin of 51.7%. We had held as expected in our rolling program, our EBITDA would have been lower by $43 million. With this quarter's results, we are putting in place a new methodology for the theoretical hold percentage of rolling Baccarat play for the quarter. This new approach has been enabled by the introduction of smart tables on our Baccarat Games in Singapore. This technology has now been in place at our rolling Baccarat roundtables in Marina Bay Sands for over one year. Please see Slide 7 in the earnings materials for more detail. We have provided theoretical hold rates for rolling Baccarat plays for the last 5 quarters at Marina Bay Sands. There will naturally be fluctuations in theoretical hold rate in any specific quarter driven by player betting preferences.

The record financial results of Marina Bay Sands reflect the high -- the impact of high-quality investment and market-leading product and the growth in high-value tourism. We believe we are still in the initial stages of realizing the benefits of our investments in Marina Bay Sands.

Turning to our program to return capital to shareholders. We repurchased $500 million of LVS stock during the quarter. We also paid our recurring quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share. Our Board of Directors has approved an increase in our quarterly dividend of 20% for the 2026 calendar year or $1.20 per share per year or $0.30 per share per quarter. In addition, during the third quarter and in July, we purchased $337 million of SCL stock, increasing the company's ownership percentage of SCL to 74.76% as of today. We believe repurchases of LVS' equity through our share repurchase program will be meaningfully accretive to the company and its shareholders over the long term. We look forward to continuing to utilize the company's share repurchase program to increase returns to shareholders.

Thanks again for joining the call today. And let's take some questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question today is coming from Dan Politzer from JPMorgan.

So for Singapore, I want to go back to the hold rate. And obviously, you guys raised it to the 4.2% for VIP. Is there any impetus or desire or potential to raise the mass hold because that one has been going up, too. So I guess, one, is that directionally similar in terms of the benefit that you're seeing from the smart tables? And two, is that something you would ever give a whole range for?

Yes. I think right now, what you're seeing is a rollout on to the floor where we can get accurate rolling table data. So we're not there yet to give you data on the mass floor because if you remember, it's a mix of games. So it's not just Baccarat. So I think that's an important point to note. And the other thing is we don't really normalize mass hold because of the volume of play at that size and getting to the, let's call it, the theoretical. So for us, it's much more meaningful to deal with the rolling program because of the volatility of the hold in that segment.

Got it. That makes sense. And then just turning to Macau, this is more of a high level one. Londoner does seem like it's turned the corner. You guys have been marketing broadly across the portfolio there. Can you kind of talk about that path back to $2.7 billion, $2.8 billion of EBITDA that you kind of laid out is maybe a soft target last quarter, how are you pacing in terms of getting back there? Would you say that you need the market to kind of pick up from here to get there? Or can you kind of do this independent of the market to help?

I would say, Dan, you can't do independent market, you need market growth, which you're experiencing thankfully in Macau. The overall markets could be next year of $33 billion, $34 billion. We need -- everyone needs market growth to make [indiscernible] numbers work better. But we also had the main changes, and we've been making those changes in the last, I don't know, 4, 5 months and adapt to the market, which is we did not participate are now participating. Probably we're halfway there, another half to go. But I think when you marry the market growth to our assets to our new marketing programs, yes, we can get to our target. But critical to the market grows. That's essential for all of us. Otherwise, [indiscernible] the same customers are circulating.

But you're seeing -- we've come off the bottom here, we're growing, we're getting better. Probably [ 620 ] is the right number. If you take out the Typhoon. It's a respectable quarter. It's not our goal. Our goal, as you know, is to get to [ 2,728 ]. We're not there yet. I think we're making progress, and we keep putting down -- the team has to stay in sync with the market to deliver those results. Grant?

Yes. I think this quarter, what we saw was, I think, some of our reinvestment programs coming to fruition in terms of productivity across Londoner, yes, because this is the first quarter we've had the full deployment of the Londoner Grand rooms and suites. And on the product side, that definitely helped us. And then to Rob's point, in terms of our marketing strategies, responding to the market dynamics, we've obviously adjusted our reinvestment rates across the portfolio, not uniformly. Obviously, some of our smaller properties have had a bigger boost in our reinvestment ratios, as you can see. And we're seeing the results of that. You can see that both year-on-year and sequentially, we are outgrowing the market for the first time in a long time when you look at the mass GGR.

I think the weak link in our portfolio in Parisian, in sand, especially Parisians come way off the highs and about 50% of its -- used to be [indiscernible] of EBITDA performance, I think we have a lot of value in that property. Londoner, as you referenced, is fine. Venetian is okay. And I just think we've got to come off the bottom in Sands to get that back to being competitive. But it's underway. It's progressing. It just takes a lot of work and a lot of focus.

The next question is coming from Shaun Kelley from Bank of America.

To whoever wants to take it, I want to go back to Singapore because the smart table initiative is super interesting. Can we just unpack a little bit, though, about like -- what's the underlying betting behavior or change that would sort of be driving such a material increase? I mean, obviously, on your numerator, this type of change in hold would suggest some sort of underlying behavioral change or mix change. So is it mix of betters and we're maybe getting more casual better? Or is it a mix in, again, what games or in what they're making? Because I mean, historically, we think of Baccarat, in particular, as being extremely simple player banker. So how is the smart table piece evolving in a way that we're seeing an actual underlying change in behavior?

So just to be clear, the smart table is just the [ score keeper ], it's the umpire, the referee. It doesn't make this stuff happen. What makes it happen is, as you alluded to, historically, Baccarat's been [indiscernible] when I began in this industry, Baccarat was a boring game, its a [ sub-free ] whole percentage game, there was not a lot of juice in it. And it stayed that way for decades. What's changed in Baccarat is not the smart tables, that's the score keep, what's changed is the game itself offers a lot more opportunities to gamble different ways, it's analogous to sports betting and your side bets and sports bets, the [indiscernible] honestly, the low percentage bets for the customer play in your favor. And this is simply mathematics. This isn't casual betters, this isn't [indiscernible] better, this is everybody gravitating towards side bets that are house advantaged. And that's what's happening here. I don't think -- we tell you it's [ 4.1 or 4.2 ]. That's what the smart tables tell us. The score keeper said, "Hey, these guys are making these bets and that results in this result". It has the game, as you alluded to, it's changed dramatically from the old days was kind of a steady game. It's a very interesting [indiscernible] lots of opportunities that lose your money in different ways and people -- and especially in Singapore, we're seeing all levels, not just casual, but seasoned pros seem to want to bet these side bets. And it's become very powerful. And in a company like ours, which is Baccarat-dependent, it's a powerful driver of revenue and EBITDA flow through. So what you're seeing in Singapore is simply not the smart table helping us, but the game deviations helped us and the customers win to bet those deviations has driven this thing to 4-plus percent, which is astounding when you think back to what used to be a very boring [ 2.85 ] game for years. But that's a simple factor. This isn't an anomaly, it's just the way the market is proceeding. I think you'll see it happen in Macau as well. And for this company, it's a massive, massive change in the opportunity to make more money.

I think you have to give credit to our gaming innovation team for their willingness to really look at the customer experience and had the opportunity to enhance that experience through some higher volatility bets, which the customers are actually using. And it's their preference, right, they could choose not to use them, but they seem to be very popular, they create a better gaming experience and better enjoyment in the game. And so we're very fortunate that our team continues to innovate and try these things. And the market has received them quite well. And so I think the smart table system has helped us measure these bets better, but it's a practical matter, it's just as Rob said, it's about having the bets on the table and having the customers enjoy using them.

Very clear. And Rob, you kind of went where I was going to take it, which I think this is the next logical place, which is the ability to expand these types of bets or these types -- this type of table to other markets, obviously, Macau being and a big opportunity. So can you just talk a little bit about either where you're at and rolling that out? What segments, I mean, I would assume, given that sort of the junket based VIP business, is no longer a thing there, but perhaps in-house VIP or premium mass would have some real opportunities. So where are you at? What inning are you in? And then just maybe super high level, is this technology or these bets, are these proprietary to you all? I mean, I know there's kind of open secrets in gaming. But I mean you are developing these in-house, there's not like a third party that's kind of brought these to you from a sort of just pure optionality perspective?

Yes. We probably were the initiators as much a decade ago, we started this process with someone. We grew that team. The team has now expanded. So [ we were the issue ]. We're not -- it's not proprietary. We can't -- we don't have control and people can copy these bets. They are copying these beds, which, by the way, doesn't assume to be a problem. It's good for the industry to grow. Yes, we're moving towards this in Macao. Yes, the Smart table system will be there as well as a score keeper. And so as the Macau market has more opportunity, you're seeing it happening already. I think you'll see the [indiscernible] go up there as well. It's the more advantageous thus far in Singapore, but we are moving into Macau as is the Macau market. You go look at the layouts now, they're fraught with side bets [ oil ] plays. In fact, some of the times, you can't find the [ flat bed ], you're so busy with alternatives.

But yes, moving in that direction to Macau. No, it's not proprietary. Yes, we did develop it. I think we've initiated it. But -- and again, the confusion is sometimes people think it's a smart table, which is not true at all. The smart tables gives you a better measurement stick to know how many bets they're making in the side what that means the mathematics. And I think what Patrick alluding to the [ 4.1 or 4.2 ] is we have good evidence that these are -- this is not a guessing more or it should be this. For years [indiscernible] correct whole percentage. There is no correct whole percentage. It depends on that quarter, what those people bet. We can have a quarter that comes in at [ 5.1 or come at 3.8 ]. It depends on what the players at the table bet at that time, and every bet is calculated. So yes, it's going to move towards Macau. And I think it's very helpful for not just this company but others to make the gaming more interesting more diversified. And I don't think it's tied to the high end, by the way. Mass customers love it, too, small betters, large betters [indiscernible] sports book, the biggest prop better is the small guys. The guys who are betting 100 hours a game, they love betting props. I think Baccarat is similar to sports betting in that regard.

The next question is coming from Stephen Grambling from Morgan Stanley.

So you've upped the dividend for next year and you keep the pedal down on buyback. At the same time, you had the disclosure around CapEx is coming down as well over the next few years. So one thing you didn't touch on, I guess, that you talked about in the past is just maybe a willingness to buy back some of the shares in Hong Kong as well. So I wonder if you any thoughts that you have there or other capital allocation opportunities.

So I think the best thing is we are a capital allocation story and a return to capital story. You look at the company's history, we've been very shareholder-friendly. We allocate capital with growth in mind. So we invest for high returns. [indiscernible] those high-return investment opportunities are available. We return the capital and we try to do it through dividends in a prudent manner and through share repurchases. And so I think that's where you're seeing us today. We did buy back SCL for the last little while. If you kind of see where we're at, we're basically getting close to the limit we're at 74.76% I think the number is. And we can't really go past 75%. So I think for us right now, we're kind of where we are in SCL. But our goal is to continue to return capital both at SCL and in the [ parent code ], a friendly way. for shareholders. And so you'll see us continue to do that.

Makes sense. And maybe changing gears a little bit. Just going back to Macau. Would love any further color you could provide on kind of characterizing the strength that we've seen in DIP. I mean, it's been quite a while since we've seen this level of growth. Is that really just more semantics around where customers are referring to bet? Or is that a new customer who's coming in?

Stephen, let me take that. Yes, I think the VIP has outgrown the mass GGR over the last few months. In some cases, some months it's been -- it's been very high rates of growth. I think it is driven by some concentration of super high-end VIP players as well as increased liquidity in the market. This quarter, we haven't participated as much in that segment, but we are going to be getting more competitive in that segment as well. And of course, we have introduced our -- we entered the junket market this quarter. Of course, the growth of that segment in the past few months has also driven the rolling market. But at this point, it still remains a low margin segment, which typically is going to stay around 12% to 15% of the overall GGR. But we're also focused on growing that segment. But obviously, the bulk of the profit growth is going to come from the non-rolling.

The next question will be from Brandt Montour from Barclays.

I just want to double click on that comment. I mean I think that we all kind of see the premium mass led inflection since midyear. But it sounds like -- I mean looking at your slides, base mass per table was up nicely. And so I guess, Rob, for you, the question is that for the market to grow, what you need the market to grow [ 3334 ] when you think about that growth, is that -- does that require a broadening out of the depth and breadth of base mass? And are you seeing early signs of that inflection for that particular cohort?

I think it's impossible to say where it comes from, I'll be honest. I don't -- the junket they're rolling, they're not rolling the math, it's very hard to define. I think what's important to see is happening. I mean, the market looks to me like it's -- we know that October comes in, I would say it comes in 7%, 8%, 9% year-on-year. But it feels like there's a stronger trend over there. Macau is recovering in different segments. Obviously, we like a base mass recovery, but there's nothing like premium mass. I don't have real insight to where it come from, right? So it comes. Because I think the key thing for all Macau, for all the operators for profitability and growth is to see this GGR acceleration.

Grant, maybe you see it different?

I think that's right. And it is obviously helpful, especially to us if the base mass grows faster because of our advantage in that segment, but also the margin structure in that segment is very favorable. I think if you look at this quarter, you're right. Year-on-year, our base mass actually grew 18%. But part of that reflects the fact that a prior year, we had the closure of the Pacific Casino which is now the Londoner Grand Casino. If you look at sequentially, premium mass, we still grew faster than base mass 11% versus 7%. But yes, I think the summer was positive for base mass but again, I would characterize the bulk of the growth in this market, even in a non-rolling is still dominated by the upper tiers of the value segment.

Okay. Just a quick question on Singapore. Obviously, really strong results in the third quarter in MBS, and that was without the race, which usually falls in September it fell -- is now in October this year. So you didn't have that in the third quarter. What order of magnitude or how should we think about how impactful that event is that sort of has now moved into the fourth quarter for you now this year?

First off, it's a great event, and it's a great event globally, and it's one of the most important F1 events, and it's phenomenally attended and it really helps Singapore. And we're actually really supportive of it and involved in its presentations. So we're very happy about that. As a practical matter, you can see the demand of Marina Bay Sands as a product and that even with F1 in a different part of the calendar year, we continue to perform through that. So I think F1 is helpful, something that we really enjoy having in Singapore. It's great for visitation, it increases the prestige of Singapore by having such a prominent race there. It drives a lot of high-value visitation, much of which ends up at Marina Bay Sands. So we're very happy about it. But where it falls in the calendar is okay or fine.

I got to say that for the last couple of years, we had all these people pointing to F1 or Taylor Swift or I don't know, I don't think it matters all that much. I think Singapore has taken a whole new -- we can't figure out just how high is up. This thing just keeps getting stronger and stronger. And the reason to me is very simple. It's the most favorable location, a lot of people with high net worth to come to whether F1 is there or Taylor Swift is there or whoever is there that weak, I think the place -- the building is extraordinary, the place is extraordinary, and the events certainly move the customers around. In the end, Singapore is the driver. That place is well attended, well visited, very desirable. And it's become the place to go to in Asia for people who want to gamble at a certain level. And I think that's really the real driver is unique asset we built, unique room product. And again, what we provide there the option to gamble what you want, how you want.

So as much as I respect F1, I respect Taylor Swift, I respect all these drivers, I think Singapore has just gone to a whole new place, and you see these numbers. I thought we were ambitious in [ 2.5 ]. We probably this year, we get, I don't know, [ 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 ], I don't know , but the numbers are there. And it just seems like it's getting more and more desirable the high end of the market. So extraordinary results. I think no one could have seen this kind of growth. And I don't think it's that tied to special, not as much as tied to the place itself.

The next question is coming from Robin Farley from UBS.

Great. Just going back to your comments about kind of what you hope to achieve in market share in premium mass. I know you talked about upgrading the Londoner would kind of give you the assets to do that. You said something earlier in the call about how you're kind of only halfway there with what you hope to do or plan to do there. Can you talk a little bit about what other steps that you'll be taking and sort of what timing when you think about that?

Robin, let me take that. Yes. I think when you look at the progression in market share, clearly, would come off the bottom in Q1 when we were down at 23.5%, 23.6%. Now we are 2 points above that, which is great. But as Rob said, I think we're only halfway through, is that we started our tweaking our programs and changing our marketing programs in the middle of second quarter and that ramped up throughout each month in the third quarter. And you can see we were improving month-on-month within the quarter.

But I think it's important that we're also considering how each segment has a different requirement. So we are marrying the tactical incentives with the product advantage that we have. So in the Londoner that you can see it very clearly what we're doing, not just Londoner Grand, which is newly open, but also leveraging the other side of Londoner on the super high end and we're seeing good results there. I think in the smaller properties, we have adjusted our marketing programs, but also reset our distribution team as well in terms of composition and the number of people. So we should be seeing better results from the distribution side over the next two to three quarters because so far, what we've benefited most from, I think, the launch of Londoner Grand, married with these customer reinvestment adjustments. But I think there's still a lot to be done, but we're confident that we're going to be progressing month by month, quarter-by-quarter.

Great. And maybe just one follow-up on a different topic. I don't know if we've heard your thoughts to recently on any potential opportunity in the UAE where there may be other licenses to give out. Is that something that LVS is interested and kind of actively engage with?

I really appreciate the question. So we're always looking at opportunities to deploy capital and grow our business. And I think you've seen us be very disciplined and be very patient. The UAE is a tremendous tourism market. There's been really it's [indiscernible] investment in the UAE to create tremendous [indiscernible] of infrastructure, some of the best hospitality and food and beverage products in the world are located there. And it's a lot of fun to visit. That being said, it's not a market we're looking at this time, but we're [indiscernible].

The next question is coming from Lizzie Dove from Goldman Sachs.

So clearly, incredible results in Singapore again. And you mentioned for this year, '27, '28, '29, who knows. It feels like it's [indiscernible] that you said not tied to one event, but how should we think about the long term? Like is this sustainable? Can it, on a holder, just a basis grow next year? Like how are you thinking about kind of longer tail [indiscernible] the sustainability of growth in Singapore?

Lizzie I'd say we've been wrong all along for starters, and we've under forecasted this thing, we thought we were very ambitious at [ 2.5 ]. And like I said, we're a [ 21-plus ] currently with a quarter ago. With a big quarter, you get to [ 2.8, 2.9 ] is it sustainable? Yes, it's very sustainable. You're alone over there and you've got one competitor, which is just -- it's a duopoly, it's a market that has tremendous support of the government. And it's -- you've been in the building, it's incredibly well done. I think the team did a great job of building out a one-of-a-kind assets. So yes, it's very sustainable.

The question I can answer is -- does it get to [ 3 ] next year, is it a [ 3, 2 ] down the road? Does is get to -- I don't know. We've been rolling along. Here we are in 2025, as you said two years ago, we're delivering $700 million quarters back to back I would have said that's very ambitious. Well it turns out it was done easily. These last quarters came along pretty well. And so I don't think anyone should question the longevity and sustainability of Singapore. If anything, what I can't figure out is how deep is the well, and I've been wrong and I'm pretty aggressive by nature in forecasting the demand over there. [indiscernible] is going to break $1 billion looks like. These table wins are extraordinary, it's coming out to all sides. I think strength in the building, having all suites versus mostly more rooms is a very good idea. So yes, I think it's very sustainable. And the question for me is not sustainability, it's how high is up? Could this thing hit $3 billion, get to [ 3, 2 ]?, I don't know. But I didn't think you go from what used to be a $1.6 billion asset pre-COVID to now it looks like a $2.78 billion asset post-COVID. So -- it's hard to forecast something that feels so powerful and right now, it feels to me like it's got more growth to go.

Definitely. I guess on that subject, just one event, but making a bigger picture, I guess, on Golden week, it looked like -- there was a lot of outbound visitation from China into Singapore. It was up a lot year-on-year. And so curious what you're seeing really even just beyond Golden Week of just any changes in visitation trends and whether you are versus Macau seeing that kind of high-end -- higher-end Chinese customer visiting Singapore at the expense of Macau and whether you think that might continue?

Yes, we're not really getting into the current quarter. But just overall, Macau and Singapore are very separate markets. And typically, the catchment area for Singapore is very focused on Southeast Asia, and Macau is primarily [indiscernible] in China. So different businesses, different tourism base, different assets, but we'll talk about this quarter on the next earnings call.

The next question is coming from Joe Stauff from Susquehanna.

Just wanted to follow-up, Patrick, on your comment about, a, the opportunity in Singapore in particular, is still essentially in the early innings, obviously, maybe an expansion of other questions. I wondered if you could just maybe talk about the second and third quarter, the strength of the volumes and maybe the things that you learned that surprised you? And then as we think about the opportunity set going forward, I understand it's hard to put a number to it. But maybe some of the bigger layers of opportunity, is it a strategy such that you'd expect to get a higher level of average spend? Is it geographical reach? Are there any puzzle pieces you can give us from that perspective?

There's a lot there in this question. So bear with me, I'm going to try to get through it all. I think the first thing is the way we got to Singapore today and this performance was very deliberate. And it started probably 5 years ago, we first started charting out where we wanted to go with the asset, given where we thought the direction of growth in high-value tourism would be. And we start off by building a great customer experience by focusing on the physical asset, which took time to both design and ultimately implement. We redesigned our service teams that we could better service our customers in a more complete way. And that was also a big lift. We focused a lot on how we sold, how we attracted customers by developing larger and more geographically spread out marketing teams and sales teams. And all that come together with a very strong management group over time with lots of investment produced this result. So this was not something that happened overnight. It was planned. It was a strategic decision. It was an investment over many years in both human capital and physical capital, along with the philosophy with a service focus and a customer experience focus. We focused on a lot of different amenities, how we enhance our entertainment, how we enhance our retail mall, how we enhance our food and beverage and how we bring it all together so that gaming customers can come in and get a lifestyle experience that can't be replicated in any place else. And so for us, that was really key.

So the question is how do we grow the business more? Well, first off, I think people are just getting to know that we're in Marina Bay Sands. Remember, the renovation has not been done for that long. So we have a lot of customers who maybe experienced Marina Bay Sands a decade ago, and are not surprised by what's on offer today.

I think the other thing is the quality of tourists that is coming to Singapore is continuing to elevate. There are also a lot of people who are engaging in commerce out of Singapore, and that's growing. So we have a lot of people on the leisure and on the business tourism side that are experiencing Marina Bay Sands and it's only growing. I think segments that we look to in the future continue to bring high-value tourism from different parts of the [indiscernible] area and we're working on that. And to be fair, at some point, we're going to run out of capacity, and that's where IR2 comes in. Someone asked us earlier about how we feel about the sustainability of Singapore as a market for us. And I think the biggest statement is that we're investing $8 billion to continue to grow our presence there. And that to me is the biggest signal that we're very serious about long-term investment for the success of Singapore. But I think for us, it's going to come from continuing to attract high-value tests, continue to bring in high-value business and leisure tourism activities, great entertainment, great retail, continuing to lead and amenities the investments that are necessary to stay at the forefront of tourism and attract high-value tourists from different markets, and we'll continue to grow. That was the strategy, and we're executing it now.

Maybe just a quick clarification. Earlier in my response to a question on smart table deployment for the mass tables and games area of Singapore, are you 6 months? Are you 9 months behind kind of the process that you went through with the rolling tables?

It's not that we're behind. It's that -- we have it on some games and not on others. Remember, our casino floor as Baccarat, has [indiscernible], has a bunch of other different gaming products that are there, actually including crafts, like we've got different types of games out on the floor. And so not all those games are ready for this digital table system. So over time, we'll get there. But remember, we make most of our money from Baccarat. And the area with the most volatility was the rolling programs. And so we started there.

The next question is coming from Chad Beynon from Macquarie.

Just wanted to revisit the comments around reinvestment program. You guys have been very open and honest in terms of your strategy and your competitive strategy in the market, I guess, year-to-date in your decision to change that. Have you seen any change with those competitors that maybe are now on a level playing field from a reinvestment strategy and maybe they don't have the product or the service that you guys have and they could potentially step outside of the current ZIP code of what's being provided to players? Or does it remain pretty rational?

Yes, let me take that. I think in general, the competition remains intense, and we don't foresee that to slow down. I think what you see is basically constant action and reaction we have to stay very alert to those changes, which we are and like what Rob said, we're going to be laser focused on basically responding to the market with the right office. And I think you can see the benefit of that change in our marketing strategy over this quarter, and that will continue.

As to what other people are going to do and how they will respond, I think that's just an evolving picture that we have to monitor. And you would expect that the market to continue to be very competitive. But the positive aspect of the market is that we are seeing GGR growth, and I think that helps all of us, but it will stay competitive and we're very committed to staying ultracompetitive.

And then Patrick, I know the digital gaming business, I guess, the doors have been open or slightly open for the past couple of years. You haven't made many moves, but now you're officially closing that door, those windows. So why now? And then any cost saves that we should think about for our models?

Yes. I think we looked at this for a couple of years. I think we just didn't feel like there was something that we felt would be a good use of shareholder capital. So we shut it down. In terms of cost save, I think it's just things that all come out of development expense that you would have seen in the last year, but that's out now. It wasn't super material.

The next question will be from George Choi from Citigroup..

So obviously the encouraging [ whole rate ] disclosure in Singapore, very, very solid. But I'm just wondering when will you do the same thing in Macau? Is there any significant difference in terms of the player behavior on how much they wager on the side bets that make you -- make it different between how you do it in Singapore versus Macau?

One thing to note that our rolling volumes are much larger relative to our overall gaming win in Singapore. And so there was a real focus there to begin with that. Also, the number of tables are smaller in Singapore than they are in Macau. So I just want to highlight that, but I'll turn it over to Grant to respond to the rest of the question.

Yes, George, just to reiterate the distinction Rob made, that the smart technology helps us to understand what is happening at the table. Independent of that is the player propensity it's not one leading the other. So I think on the question of propensity to wager in the side wages in Macau, it is -- the mix is obviously smaller than in Singapore, but it's also rising and it has contributed to enhanced house edge over the past several years. And as you of all of the people here, you're visiting all these casinos. And you can see the layouts are being reinvented every few months with additional side wages. So that's on the side wages.

In terms of the smart tables, We, in Macau, have actually fully rolled out on [indiscernible] Baccarat tables, all of the smart table technology and we are in the process of completing the rollout in the rolling segment. So within the next few months, we should be able to gauge across the total [ Baccarat table ].

As a follow-up, now that we have a myriad of side bets in the Baccarat tables in both Singapore and Macau, I was just wondering how do you strike a balance between improving the incremental excitement and experience for players from obviously, these new side bets versus any potential cannibalization amongst the various side bets?

Well, I think the great thing about it is all the original bets are there. So if you -- all the bets that people are used to, are still in the [ belt ]. So this is really just up to the player, it's just an option. It just gives them some additional volatility if they want to take it. So for us, it's really a player decision. And in some cases, they take it. In some cases, they don't, which is the reason why [ Robert's ] remarks that in Singapore, you may see a quarter where we hold [ 5 ] where you see -- where we will [ high 3s ]. It just depends on propensity, the preference of the player to want to make that water. But as a practical matter, the games has more options, but it doesn't foreclose the ability for them to bet a more traditional path.

[ If you own a flatbed ], you can flatbed all day long. Bank player, high payer. It's not -- it doesn't exclude those bets. It's just like it's no different for years than the Super Bowl. The year people thought there was something different about the Super Bowl, all the while is they offered 2,000 side beds versus the usual [indiscernible]. All we've done here is expand the side bets. And -- but the unusual bets are still there, traditional bets people want to bet. So it's their decision whether to make that decision on what to bet. It's not ours, we don't dictate it.

I think the important thing here to remember is that we are iterative in the way that we apply new bets on the belt. So what you see today is after attempts to improve the game experience for people. We're very focused on the experience. So if players like it, that's great and we keep it out there and they use it. And if it makes their trip more enjoyable, that's fantastic. If it's not something that's preferred by the players, eventually it evolves itself out of the game. And we've had a lot of different iterations of what's on the belt. So I would just view this as an enhancement to the gaming experience mechanism. And so they enjoy the volatility, they enjoy the additional bets. And so they use them. But as to how those best will progress over time. Player's preferences may change over time. You may see us have different side bets on the belt over time as players change what they want to do.

That's a very important point. [In a supermarket ] we keep putting these on the shelves that sell and don't sell. We're constantly coming up with new bets all the time. We have a very important committee called the Make More Money Committee. That job is to find all bets and deviation [indiscernible] thing. And if things don't sell, we take it off the table and put something else to try it out. It's evolving all the time. It's kind of a static function.

The next question will be from David Katz from Jefferies.

With respect to Macau, one of the topics of conversation and one of the things that we're tracking very carefully is events, whether they're concerts or otherwise. Can you talk to us about your strategy around those? And more specifically, the recent I know it's sort of -- maybe post the end of the quarter, but I'd love to hear any general comments, learnings, opportunities, et cetera, around the NBA games that were hosted and events in general.

So I think, first off, going back to early days of the Venetian with Rob, entertainment has always been front and center. And I think it's something that's always helped us in the gaming business and the perception of the excitement around our properties. We've always been focused on providing high quality entertainment and actually building the assets to support it. Many years ago, our SCL built a first Arena in Macau for this very reason. And we've been very dedicated to programming it and creating entertainment that's been very successful over the years in creating opportunities for our patients to have a great experience. And I think you'll see that as well in Singapore. We broke ground in mid-July on what we're calling IR2 right now, eventually, we'll have a name. And we're building a 15,000-seat live performance venue there. That will be the most technologically advanced arena in Asia and provide a great customer experience to live performance. And we're always very focused on it. And so for us, I think it's a very important benefit for a company to have that excitement that goes along with entertainment, but also gives our patients something to experience in the environment as part of the lifestyle that we provide to them.

In terms of the NBA, this was something we started working on many years ago. We're very fortunate the NBA is a great partner. They really pulled out all the stops. They were very supportive. I have to give credit to both the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix [indiscernible] for the support that they gave to the China games. They really showed up in force. And there are teams that did a lot of charity events in the local community. They were great with the fans, really it's an unbelievable experience. And our team was very excited because the reaction in Macau was very strong. I think just some of the goals we set out for this event was to create something that brought a unique form of entertainment to highlight Macau and to showcase the investment that we've made and how high quality Macau is as a global tourism destination. And I think that goal was achieved. I think the media coverage, the social media into China, the social media externally around the globe has been very positive. I think the teams play very competitively. And I think it was a great format for the leak so I think that benefits Sands China because of that collaboration. I think it created a lot of excitement for our patients when they actually came to the games, and there was this outstanding visitation. And there was just a heightened sense of visitation around the business.

In terms of the impact, again, we'll talk about it at the end of this quarter, we'll have better data. But I think overall, it was a very strong success. We're very happy with the results. I think our fans and the NBA, we're very happy I think we did a lot of things that helped the local community, which is also a benefit.

And then lastly, we think it was very beneficial for Sands China on a lot of different levels. I think the marketing value that's created for us was also very strong. So a lot of benefit to it. And I also think we accomplished some of the goals that we set out in our concessional renewal, which was to bring, let's call it, high-value sports, global sports to Macau, which I think we did very successfully. So a lot of positive things all around.

I don't know, Grant, do you have any other comments or anything you'd like to add?

No, I think covers it very well. I think it did showcase Macau in a very, very favorable light. It was great for the city to have such a, I would say, strong visitation from different countries. As you know, the government has been very keen on pushing us to have international events drawing visitors from different countries around the region, but in the rest of the world. And I think this event really highlighted the attraction of Macau as an international tourism destination like Patrick said, and I think we're proud of delivering this first set of China games from Macau. And I think we got a lot of cost positive price, not just from the people who came from different corners of the world, but also a very positive feedback from the local community.

The next question will be from John DeCree from CBRE.

Thanks for all the color and commentary so far. I wanted to ask a follow-up on kind of more of the strategic priorities outlined in your deck development. I know you gave some comments about the UAE specifically. But curious what you're seeing around the globe, if there's anything particularly interesting right now. And I guess I specifically asked about Japan. You guys obviously looked at that in the past. This new Prime Minister, I think, historically supportive of IR. So curious if it's worth another look at Japan and anything else that might be out there right now that's garnering your attention.

Look, I think our strategic priority is to deploy capital in high-growth projects. And we're always looking at those opportunities and always evaluating them to see if the returns are there with the appropriate factor of safety. And I think for us, as I said before, we're looking at the UAE, trying to observe it and follow it. Obviously, Japan was something we're very interested in the past, although that seems unlikely. There's been talk about Thailand, which is something that we've expressed interest in the past. So we're very patient and we're constantly looking, and we'll see what opportunities arise. But as of right now, there's nothing really to report.

And the next question will be from Steve Wieczynski from Stifel.

So Patrick, I apologize if I missed this in your prepared remarks. But if we think about the 150 basis point decrease in your Macau margins, Wondering if most of that was tied pretty much directly to your change in marketing strategy or if that was just something else?

Yes, I think it was a combination of marketing strategy and a little bit of higher cost. But I think the key thing for us is the way we get operating leverage and increase margin over time despite growing revenue. You said it all along, I think there was a question earlier that Rob answered about the size of the Macau market. If you look at the Macau market today, it's growing, it's growing both in the mass segment and the VIP segment, which is very beneficial. I think we're very positive on the Macau market overall. And the way we're going to grow EBITDA and grow margins is through revenue growth. We have a great team there, but we have a big cost basis. So we need to leverage it. We need to get more volume.

Okay. Got you. And then, Rob, second question, if we go back to Singapore real quick, I mean you're at the point where you're pushing almost $1,000 a night per room. And yes, look, I understand there's more room capacity -- I understand there's more room capacity coming online in the next couple of years. But this is probably a little bit of a higher level question, but wondering, Rob, how you're thinking about room rates not only maybe now and your ability to still take price there, but maybe how you're thinking about room rates once your additional capacity comes online?

I think it's kind of irrelevant if you ask me. Our goal is to not sell rooms, just give away people who gamble because to be honest, that's the business we're in. You can't spend the kind [indiscernible] spend in Singapore in charge. If you charge $1,000 or $2,000 or -- last time I checked, you're not building $8 billion hotels anywhere. This is a gaming casino with a hotel attached to it. So our goal in Singapore, every night, we can, is to give these [indiscernible] people high-value gaming customers to drive $3 billion, $4 billion, $5 billion of top line revenue. That's the business we're in over there. I don't think -- we can squeeze the rates higher. I think we want to and the cash but it's such a small offering, we're mostly a [indiscernible] today. But the real goal is to not sell any rooms in IR 1 or 2, given where high-value gaming customers drive that site. You don't make $3 billion annualized with hotels. It's just that simple. So it's a very interesting dynamic, we [indiscernible] the hotel, it's working very well, we attract the high-value casino customers. That is the focus, not the ADR to be blunt with you. I think [indiscernible] selling for $2,000 rates of failure. We're not in the rooms business. We're in the casino hotel business, and those who simply are there to attract those patients to drive these ridiculously high EBITDAs.

Come visit, we'll give you a free room.

No free room.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.