Golden Entertainment Q4 and FY22 results remain steady YoY

The company’s total revenue was reported at $1.12bn (£937.9m/€1.05bn) for the full year. This is a slight increase of 2.3% compared to 2021, despite a slight drop in Q4 revenue to $279.7m from $281.9m.

Blake Sartini, chairman and chief executive officer of Golden Entertainment, remarked that the results remained above pre-pandemic levels.

“Our fourth quarter demonstrates strong financial performance that remains well above 2019 levels, while higher labour and other costs impacted the comparison to last year’s fourth quarter results,” he said. 

“For the second consecutive year, our total annual revenue exceeded $1bn, and our operating discipline continues to support the significant margin improvement we have achieved leading to a 45% increase in full-year adjusted EBITDA compared to 2019.”  

During the fourth quarter, Golden Entertainment repaid $25m of its outstanding term loan and repurchased $2m of its senior unsecured notes.

Additionally, the company repurchased over $1.1m shares of common stock during the year and over $300k in shares of common stock in Q4.  

Fourth quarter 

The total revenue was down by 0.8% for Q4.

Revenue from food and beverage, as well as other revenues, remained very similar across Q4 2022 and Q4 2021. Food and beverage revenue was $45.4m, up by 1.3%, while other revenues grew by $246,000 to $16.6m.

However, gaming revenue fell by 3.2% to $185m during the quarter, and profit from rooms grew by 10.3% to $32.6m.

Total expenses fell by 1.2% year-on-year to $244.2m. The highest expense was within gaming, at $105.5m, followed by selling, general and administrative expenses at $57.8m.

After the total expenses, the operating income hit $35.4m, up by 2.7%.

Further non-operating expenses, including interest expense at $17.9m and loss of debt extinguishment at $178,000, brought the income before tax to $17.3m.

Following income tax provision of $6.2m, the net income came to $11.1m, down by 42.1% year-on-year. 

Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was lower in 2022 with $63.7m reported in comparison 2021’s $67.8m Q4 results.  

Full-year results  

Turning to the full-year report, revenue from gaming was $766.3m, down by 0.7%. Food and beverage revenue rose by 4.5% to $175.3m. However, revenue from rooms, at $122.3m, increased by 11.4% and other revenue grew by 20.0% to $62.1m.

Net income for the year was $82.2m, almost half of Golden Entertainment’s net income from full-year 2021.

The operator’s total expenses increased by 4.6% during the year to $973.7m. The operating income after expenses was $147.9m, a fall of 10.9%.

The expenses also included a comparative figure of $60m, for which there was no figure provided for full-year 2022. Golden Entertainment said this was because the $60m was “income recognised from the payment related to Caesars Entertainment’s acquisition of William Hill”. 

Adjusted EBITDA for full-year 2022 was $267.1m, falling by 8.4% from $291.7m full-year 2021. 

Future projections 

Sartini outlined a number of key projections for 2023, including growth in Las Vegas and the completed sale of its Rocky Gap Casino Resort.

“Our business trends to start this year are encouraging, and we anticipate capitalising on the strength of Las Vegas in 2023 and beyond,” said Sartini.

“We expect the sale of Rocky Gap Casino Resort to close in the second quarter of 2023, which will provide meaningful liquidity that, combined with our free cash flow, will position us to maintain low leverage, invest in our owned properties and accelerate capital returns to shareholders.”