Wynn Resorts Ltd (WYNN) — Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. On the call with me today are Craig Billings, Brian Gullbrants, and Steve Weitman in Las Vegas. Also on the line are Linda Chen, Frederic Luvisutto, and Jenny Holaday. I want to remind you that we may make forward-looking statements under safe harbor federal securities laws, and those segments may or may not come true. I will now turn the call over to Craig Billings.

Thanks, Julie. Afternoon, everyone, and as always, thank you for joining us today. I'll start here in Vegas. Wynn Las Vegas delivered $220 million of adjusted property EBITDA, up 12% on an incredibly difficult year-over-year comp. Yes, it was aided by high hold, but it was also despite the fact that we accrued during the quarter for the estimated increases associated with the new agreement with The Culinary Union. I have to tell you, the activity at the property was frenetic during the quarter with hotel occupancy, restaurant covers, casino visitation, table drop, and slot handle all up over what was a very strong third quarter of 2022. As a result of all that activity, we produced third quarter records in gross gaming revenue, food and beverage revenue, and hotel revenue with 10% year-over-year growth in RevPAR. We continue to be at the top of our game here in Las Vegas and I'm incredibly proud of the team who continue to deliver to our exacting standards, even in the midst of significant customer volumes. Our top-line trends remained strong through October with healthy GGR and strong year-over-year RevPAR growth during the month. Looking ahead, we have a strong pipeline of forward group demand, very healthy gaming market share, and a robust programming calendar with F1 and Super Bowl just ahead of us. While it's certainly an increasingly complex world out there between inflation, rates, and geopolitics, things continue to feel pretty good around here. Turning to Boston, Encore generated $60 million of EBITDAR during the quarter. Business at the property was largely stable year-on-year, with revenue and EBITDA down about 1%. There were some meaningful pockets of strength, including all-time property records for slot handle and hotel revenue. More recently, we were encouraged by the acceleration in the business we experienced during October with month-over-month growth in slot handle, table drop, and strong year-over-year RevPAR growth. We will continue to closely monitor the ongoing Sumner Tunnel construction, which is expected to continue in fits and starts over the next 12 months, along with the general macroeconomic uncertainty that seems to have been impacting some of the regional gaming operators. On the development across the street from Encore Boston Harbor, we have been asked by a state environmental agency to provide yet another round of analysis and documentation, delaying our construction by approximately three months. We will continue to update you on this project, which will add meaningful amenities and EBITDA to Encore Boston Harbor. Turning to Macau, we generated $255 million of EBITDA in the quarter, which was 85% of our pre-COVID levels. Hold was mixed in the quarter, as we held high in our VIP business, which was more than offset by low hold on the mass table side. With mass now comprising the vast majority of our business, we are going to start normalizing for both VIP and mass. To that end, we estimate fully normalized EBITDA in the quarter was $266 million, or 87% of the third quarter of 2019 levels. Encouragingly, mass hold returned to the expected range at both properties in October. During the quarter, we saw broad-based strength across our properties with several key areas of the business trending well above 2019 levels. In the casino, mass table drop increased 19% versus Q3 2019 and direct VIP turnover was 13% above Q3 2019. On the non-gaming side, our retail business continues to be incredibly strong with tenant retail sales up 24% on Q3 2019, and hotel revenue up 20% relative to the third quarter of 2019. The quality of our product and service, our relaunched Wynn Rewards Loyalty program and our very robust non-gaming events calendar all helped drive GGR market share in the quarter that was consistent with the second quarter and in line with our share as we exited 2019. The strength in our business has continued in Q4 with mass drop in October 24% above October 2019, 98% hotel occupancy, and healthy tenant retail sales. On the development front in Macau, we expect our first concession-related capital project, a collaboration with the team behind Las Vegas-based Illuminarium on a mesmerizing multimedia exhibit space to open before the end of the year. We're also deep into design and planning for our other concession-related CapEx commitments including our destination food hall, the new event and entertainment center and a unique spectacle show. Lastly, construction continues on Wynn Al Marjan Island, our planned integrated resort in the UAE. Much of the hotel tower foundation is complete, with nearly all of the piles supporting the 1,500 room tower in the ground. Following several recent regulatory developments in the UAE, I've noticed increased chatter about the opportunities there. So, I want to take a moment and give you our perspective. We believe it's highly unlikely that every Emirate will ultimately avail themselves of the right to host an integrated resort. There are a multitude of reasons for this, ranging from cultural nuances to population density to varying degrees of need for additional visitation. Our view is that it will likely be us and us alone for a multi-year period given that we are well underway on construction now. We all know the advantages of being first, as we have seen in other markets. After that, it may be a duopoly or an oligopoly of three. But I find either ultimate market structure undaunting given the database advantages of being first and the fact that we've very successfully operated in the two most competitive markets in the world, Las Vegas and Macau. As I've said before, this is the most exciting new market opening in decades. With that, I'll now turn it over to Julie to run through some additional details on the quarter.

Thank you, Craig. At Wynn Las Vegas, we generated $219.7 million in adjusted property EBITDA and $619 million of operating revenue during the quarter, delivering an EBITDA margin of 35.5%. Higher than normal hold benefited EBITDA by around $12 million in Q3 and hold normalized adjusted property EBITDA was up slightly year-over-year. The strength in the quarter was broad-based across the business. Hotel revenue increased 10% year-over-year, to $178.5 million, a new third quarter record on the back of a 9% increase in ADR and a 120 basis point increase in occupancy. Our other non-gaming businesses were strong, with food and beverage, entertainment, and retail all up nicely year-over-year. In the casino, GGR increased around 22% year-over-year, driven by a 7.6% year-over-year increase in slot handle, a 6.5% increase in table drop, along with higher table games hold. OpEx excluding gaming tax per day was $4.1 million in Q3 2023, up 14% year-over-year due to variable costs associated with revenue increases, roughly $10 million of non-recurring items and certain structural changes, including an accrual for the anticipated increases associated with the new union contract, our annual cost of living adjustments for non-Union employees, and the launch of our production show. Turning to Boston, we generated adjusted property EBITDA of $60.5 million on revenue of $210.4 million, both down around 1% year-on-year. EBITDA margin was 28.8%, broadly in line with Q3 2022. As Craig noted, business was largely stable year-on-year. In the casino, we generated $182.6 million of GGR, down 1% year-on-year as record slot handle was offset by lower table games volume. Our non-gaming revenue was flat year-over-year at $54.4 million, with record hotel revenue offset by lower food and beverage revenues. As noted on our prior call, and as Craig mentioned earlier, business volumes at the property were impacted by the Sumner Tunnel Restoration Project, which is expected to continue intermittently over the next 12 months or so. While the tunnel construction is out of our control, we have stayed very disciplined on the cost side with OpEx excluding gaming tax of approximately $1.13 million per day in Q3 2023, down 0.5% year-over-year and down around 2% sequentially. The team has done a great job mitigating union-related payroll increases with cost efficiencies in areas of the business that do not impact the guest experience. Our Macau operations delivered adjusted property EBITDA of $255 million in the quarter on $819.8 million of operating revenue. We estimate lower-than-normal hold negatively impacted EBITDA by around $11 million during the quarter, with higher-than-normal hold at Wynn Palace more than offset by lower-than-normal hold at Wynn Macau. We felt particular strength in mass casino drop, direct VIP turnover, luxury retail sales, and hotel revenue all above Q3 2019 levels. The EBITDAR margin was 31.1% in the quarter, an increase of 300 basis points relative to Q3 2019, with Wynn Palace margin reaching 33.7%, while 660 basis points above Q3 2019 levels. Our concession-related non-gaming programming has accelerated over the past few months with the FIBA 3x3 basketball tournament, the Da Vinci Immersive art exhibition, the Hypercar exhibition, some DJ events, and several other well-received concerts and culinary events. EBITDA margin strength was driven by a combination of the favorable mix shift to higher-margin mass gaming and operating leverage on cost efficiencies. Our OpEx excluding gaming tax was approximately $2.4 million per day in Q3, a decrease of 20% compared to $3 million in Q3 2019. The team has done a great job remaining disciplined on costs and we are well positioned to continue to drive strong operating leverage as the business recovers over time. In terms of CapEx, we're currently advancing through the design and planning stages on our concession commitments. As we noted in the past few quarters, these projects require a number of government approvals, creating a wide range of potential CapEx in the very near term. As such, we expect CapEx related to our concession commitments to range between $300 million and $400 million in total between Q4 2023 and the end of 2024. Turning to Wynn Interactive, you will recall we announced in August that we decided to rationalize the business to primarily focus on Massachusetts and Nevada, where we have a physical presence. As a result, our EBITDA burn rate decreased substantially, both sequentially and year-over-year to $4.9 million in Q3 2023. Moving on to the balance sheet, our liquidity position remains very strong with global cash and revolver availability of approximately $4.3 billion as of September 30th. This was comprised of $1.8 billion of total cash and available liquidity in Macau and $2.5 billion in the U.S. Importantly, the combination of strong performance in each of our markets globally with our properties run rating over $2.1 billion of annualized property EBITDA together with our robust cash and liquidity creates a very healthy leverage and free cash flow profile for the company globally. To that end, we repurchased $400 million of our 2025 Wynn Las Vegas senior notes at a discount to par during the quarter. Further, the board approved a cash dividend of $0.25 per share payable on November 30 to stockholders of record as of November 20, 2023. We also repurchased approximately 597,000 shares for $56.2 million during the quarter, highlighting our commitment to prudently returning capital to shareholders. Finally, our CapEx in the quarter was $114 million, primarily related to the spa villa renovations and food and beverage enhancements at Wynn Las Vegas, concession-related CapEx in Macau, and normal-course maintenance across the business. With that, we will now open up the call to Q&A.

Hi, Craig. Julie, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Craig, the market in the 3Q was about annualized about $24.5 billion, which is about 8% kind of below the midpoint of that range you spoke to earlier in the year, I believe what was on the first quarter call. It looks like just annualizing 3Q results and not adjusting for hold you're about halfway there at the Macau property and basically there at 2019 levels give or take a couple of million bucks at the Cotai property. Based on what you've seen over the last kind of six months since that call, the way the markets have evolved from several perspectives. Does that kind of benchmark for market GGR still hold true with how you're thinking about getting back to those 2019 levels in totality?

Thanks, Carlo. Yes, your observation on Wynn Palace is right. I mentioned earlier in the year that Wynn Palace would get back to 2019 levels first. If you annualize what we did in Q3, it's in that same zone. I think Wynn Palace did normalize in 2019 at something like $675 million. So when it comes to Wynn Palace, we can check the box. We've done it. In October, when the market was running over $28 billion, obviously, we had Golden Week, and Wynn Palace normalized EBITDA per day exceeded October 2019 as you would expect. Wynn Macau, which had healthy results but lower market share in October versus 2019 for many other reasons that we've talked about on previous calls, did not exceed its October 2019 EBITDA. So it's lagging our prediction a tad. We need to see market share stability and growth at Wynn Macau to get back to 2019 levels. The last point I would make is that our concession-related non-gaming programming has picked up quite a bit faster than I had anticipated earlier in the year. As Julie talked about in her prepared remarks, we've been doing some pretty amazing programming and it's generated a bit of extra OpEx that is, in fact, a slight headwind. Of course, in these early days, we're figuring out what programming is EBITDA-positive and what's not, etc., and we'll drop that program that ultimately isn't. But that extra OpEx probably pushes the full EBITDA recovery at Wynn Macau back a bit, but speaks to the strength of Wynn Palace because even with that incremental OpEx, we've hit that target that I talked about. At the end of the day, I guess, what I look at is, we've proven that we can hold share without junkets, that we have structurally better margins. Our business is pretty well-positioned for growth in Macau as the market continues to come back. So I feel pretty good about where we are.

Great, that's helpful. And then if I could, just one follow-up. Obviously, a lot has been made in recent earnings around reinvestment within the Macau gaming arena. It's always hard to tell when looking at the public filings and releases and whatnot. It doesn't look like there was anything sizable in this quarter in terms of reinvestment, the direction of reinvestment one-way or another. Could you comment a little bit about how you guys see that data relative to 2019, maybe how you see it now, and how you see it trending?

Yes. I think your analysis, what you just said is correct. I mean, reinvestment in that market can bounce around for us anyway. I can't really speak to the rest of the market, but it can bounce around 50 basis points, 60 basis points, 70 basis points at any given point in time, but I haven't seen anything that is irrational or substantive.

Good afternoon, guys. Just going back to your earlier comments, Craig, on October in Macau, the two properties in the aggregate. How close are they at October 2019 EBITDA levels in the aggregate? Obviously, Wynn Palace ahead, Wynn Macau as you mentioned it.

Yes, I would say that they are lagging slightly behind our view. Nothing tragic. But the strength at Wynn Palace including the programming costs that I mentioned and the work we still have to do at Wynn Macau, you know, those are the dynamics of the two properties now. I would say that we are slightly below, but again, we're within line of sight at this point, and I'm just not all that worried about it.

Great. And then my follow-up question relates to Wynn Al Marjan. Craig, what are the next steps and the timing for the next steps there, including the issuance of a license?

Sure. The regulations are in draft form, and we expect that the regulations will be passed soon. The licensing process is a two-step process. The issuance of a provisional license and then a final license, and I would expect that that would happen soon. So it's going, it's happening. The process is moving along. You've seen that they've appointed leadership for the regulatory body there. I think, by the way, that is really good for the market because it lends a lot of certainty, eliminates a lot of questions that we used to get, and creates a lot of certainty for financing sources, which allows us to move forward with the construction financing relatively quickly.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I was hoping you could comment a little bit about just the high-end play in Las Vegas. It seems like we are definitely starting to see material rebound there and can you just talk a little bit about behavior that you're seeing, maybe a level of recovery, and just kind of some of the dynamics there would be helpful.

Sure, I'll start and then I'll see if Brian has anything to add. I mean, that's really our business. I can't say that we've seen anything materially different this quarter than we've seen in the past few quarters. The revenue numbers are incredibly strong, and so we're pretty proud of what we've been able to deliver over the course of the past year. High-end international play remains a little bit of a mixed bag, as it has over the course of really since the reopening from COVID. But I feel great about where our database is. We always skew towards the high-end. Brian, would you add anything to that?

Yes, our team is continuing to do a great job. I think we're still continuing to steal share. We continue to expand the hosting team, and everything is looking quite positive as we look forward.

Just as a quick follow-up. Any OpEx still? I think this was maybe in Julie's remarks. I heard something about maybe a $10 million impact in Las Vegas. I was wondering if I caught that correctly, if you could elaborate a little bit on what that may have been.

Sure, yes. I mentioned that there were a number of factors impacting OpEx, which did increase to $4.1 million in the quarter. There were a number of one-off items that added up to about $10 million in the quarter that we wanted to call out that will be non-recurring. In addition to that, of course, as Craig mentioned, we did accrue for the anticipated union outcome. We also took in a cost of living allowance increase for our non-Union employees effective July 1. We had the relaunch of our production show, which we just started to ramp in the quarter as well. The combination of those factors drove up the operating expense. Yes, I can confirm it was a $10 million one-time non-recurring item.

And it was a mixed bag of stuff, Shaun.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First one, just wanted to touch on the promotional environment in Macau. Some of your competitors have made comments that they are being more aggressive. I wanted to check with you there, and I know the contra-revenue has picked up a little bit in the quarter. I think that's mostly in Wynn Macau, but just anything to call out there in terms of the environment at your properties.

No. A colleague of yours had a similar question just a couple of minutes ago. Nothing to call out on the reinvestment side, as I said to him. Our reinvestment can bounce around 50 basis points, 60 basis points, 70 basis points at any given point in time. But I haven't seen anything that looks irrational or of course, a concrete trend. In terms of the mix of what is contra-revenue versus running through OpEx, you may recall that we relaunched our loyalty program earlier this year. The structure of that program allows for a lot more flexibility for the customer in terms of what it is they are choosing to be rewarded with, and that can cause shifts in movements of a dollar of reinvestment between contra revenue or between OpEx, but it's the same dollar. So it's not really any indication of an increase in reinvestment, per se. It's really just geography on the income statement.

Okay, so just some accounting nuance, okay. And then just moving to Las Vegas, you know, obviously, F1 is right around the corner. This is an event that skews more to the high-end, and that's right in your wheelhouse. Is there any way to think about the EBITDA uplift given some of your competitors have thrown out this kind of mid-single-digit type EBITDA lift?

Yes, we won't. Well, I'll tell you this. I've heard on a couple of our competitors' calls commentary around expectations coming down within the market. I will tell you that our expectations for F1 haven't changed one bit, because as you rightly pointed out, we knew that it was our customer base that would be at that event from the beginning. We have more front money and credit lined-up for this event than any event in the history of Wynn Las Vegas. We've had some doozy before. So this is shaping up to be a great event for us. We're incredibly excited. We're not talking about EBITDA uplift, but it's going to be good. Brian, what would you add?

Sure, I'd say F1 is really coming in nicely right now for all areas of our business. We should exceed our all-time hotel revenue record by about 50% for the three-day period. As Craig mentioned, the gaming revenue and credits are looking quite promising. We're looking forward to an exciting and exceptional race week here at Wynn.

We barely even put any rooms on public sale. I mean, we've had robust demand.

Good evening, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. So back to Macau, and we've talked about this on prior calls, Craig, about the Peninsula. There was some disruption earlier in the year that I think tailed off into the early part of this quarter. But maybe you could just remind us the game plan of how you're going to get more recovery at that property. Any update would be helpful.

Yes, sure, you're right. Disruption did tail off in the early portion of this quarter. There were some trailing works, including some work that was done in some of the high-end salon areas that took a little bit longer, but in the main, your statement is correct. Now it's really the hand-to-hand combat of gaining market share. I mean, we've done this before; when Wynn Palace opened, we were not nearly as experienced as some of our competitors in mass marketing. We got experienced very fast. You can see the results of that at Palace. It's all about pulling every lever you can pull, right? It comes down to the hosting team, food and beverage, and some entities that you're offering. It's everything. I can't tell you that there is one silver bullet. It's really doing it one basis point at a time, and that's where we're focused now.

That's super helpful. And then another question. Macau, the OpEx consideration from the concession commitments, it's probably too early to quantify what that is for next year. But maybe you could give us a little bit of flavor for, if it's going to be, how the mix will skew between Peninsula and Cotai and sort of how it might, and how the cadence might step up throughout the year?

Sure, maybe I'll start with, and maybe Craig can add if I miss anything. I'll just talk sort of more broadly for our whole Macau business. Sequentially, you’ll have seen that the OIBDA margin decreased around 90 basis points. About half of that was due to lower hold. There was an additional $6 million of OpEx sequentially due to a bad debt swing because we could have a credit in Q2. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, I think I gave you a pretty detailed list of all the non-gaming programming that we've really accelerated and started doing in the last few months with the FIBA tournament, that Da Vinci exhibition, the Hypercar exhibition, some DJ events, and concerts and culinary events. So when you adjust for that noise, the margin improvement clearly shows operating leverage because we held share and we were prudent with OpEx. If we think about going forward, we're expecting the margin at Palace to generally stay in the current range and the margin at Wynn Macau to improve as business volumes come back. There will be quarter-to-quarter variations in our events calendar as we continue to rollout programming associated with our concession commitments.

It's really too early to say. Honestly, when I think about everything we've done this year, the list is extensive. I actually didn't expect it to pick up this quickly. The team has gotten incredibly creative and resourceful in terms of what they've done. Keep in mind, we do not yet have certain tools that our competitors have, like an arena or an event center. That's part of our plan and part of our CapEx concession commitments. We'll catch up in due course. It's really too early to say what the seasonal cadence will be because some can only be done outside of typhoon season, others can be done year-round. It's also a little too early to say what the split will be between properties. I don't think it changes the investment thesis much; we're talking about a few million dollars here and there, but it's important in terms of fulfilling our concession commitments. Honestly, it's important. If you do it right, it's important in terms of building a brand in that region, similar to what we've done in Vegas frankly with all the programs we've done here.

Helpful comments. Thanks all.

Great, thanks. Two questions, one is, and I don't know if this may not be a key in your view to the Peninsula property recovering. But I'm curious if you have a view on the kind of the grind mass visitor coming back to Macau or, you know, what it will take for that customer to recover to 2019 levels, if you see it as a transportation bottleneck issue or kind of macro factors in Mainland China or. I guess, just would love to get your take on that.

Sure, Robin. I think it's a little bit of all of the above. You're correct in that downtown is much more skewed towards transient customers, towards a more base mass customer. We benefit when visitation to Macau is high. As visitation to the market returns, which inevitably, I believe it will, we will benefit from that. Of course, we don't want to wait for that. Right. So in the meantime, we need to be very focused on market share and driving operating leverage by gaining market share. No doubt, as that transient customer comes back, downtown we'll benefit disproportionately to Palace, which is already doing extremely well.

Thank you. And then just the other question is, just wondering why you're adjusting for hold in the mass business in Macau. You haven't done it historically; other operators typically don't do this. So just why the change in thought and why would that be something to start adjusting for? Thanks.

Sure, others not doing it has never been a reason for us to consider. We have no problem being the first or being a little bit of an outlier. It's really because of the mix of our business now. We are disproportionately mass now. So what we're trying to do is give a clearer view of how the assets are performing by providing a normalized number. Frankly, the same way we do in Vegas.

Thanks. So you referenced accruing for the union contract in Vegas in the quarter. I'm sure you still have an impact in the fourth quarter. But as we look forward to 2024, how are you thinking about the major puts and takes to margins and whether you can hold margins and data similar to what you were just outlining in Macau? Obviously, different considerations here.

Sure. First, it is important to note before I get to the crux of your question, that normalized margin historically comprised from Q2 to Q3. You can go back to see that. It's really due to the customer mix during the summer months. To your primary question: As we've said before, we really view margin as an outcome of aggressively driving revenues and diligently managing costs and outcome, not a target. We don't forecast margin per se. On the revenue side, I think our results in Q3 speak for themselves, and we will continue to ensure that we have the best offering in Vegas. On the cost side, Julie mentioned a whole bunch of factors affecting Q3 in her prepared remarks. With respect to the labor cost increases that you referenced, we are of course looking at ways to offset some of them. As I've said before, because of COVID, we have a playbook for every scenario out there and we know how to run the business as efficiently as possible at any given revenue. But as always, we will focus on our service levels and our brand. If demand continues to be as strong as it is right now, will we trim solely to claw back? I don't have a point of margin. For example, yet damage the brand now, but if the demand picture or pricing power changes, we will of course manage OpEx accordingly in a manner that is best for the long-term.

Fair enough. And then one follow-up on the top line. How should we think about Super Bowl versus Formula 1 for you? Do you generally think that this will be a different customer base, the same customer base? I guess, what are you seeing as you get closer to Formula 1 and start to see bookings? I imagine at least interest.

I guess at a headline level, and then I'll turn it over to Brian. Think about it as international individuals and domestic groups. But Brian, would you add anything to that?

No, I agree with you, Craig. I think on the casino side, we're going to see a very similar overlap. On the transient side, we're going to see heavy domestic. We're really looking forward to it, and already getting quite a bit of interest with one heck of a waiting list on the corporate side. I think we'll even do stronger; there's tremendous demand on the corporate group side for hospitality entertaining at the highest level, and our specialty here at Wynn, so I think it'll pair very well for Super Bowl. We're looking forward to two successful weekends.

Thank you. I'll jump back in the queue.

Sure.

Afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I'd love just a little more color on how we think about margins going forward. I admit, it's one of the aspects of the model where we've spent more time and thought and trying to get those particularly in Macau. What a normalized margin could be and what the puts and takes are around that. Obviously, not asking for specific guidance number. Just some qualitative commentary. Thanks.

Sure. Julie, do you want to cover again you're thinking on...

Yes. I think, David, I ran through it. Clearly, you heard the point about sequentially, we had to move in margin, which was really a bunch of timing with the credit from OpEx. We hold in the credit from OpEx in versus Q2. If you think about the way we look at it, we manage our OpEx really tightly, and we're thinking carefully about our concession commitments and how we can program really effectively to use them as a marketing effort to drive brand recognition and attract customers. We've done a lot of that, and that has impacted OpEx per day in the quarter. In the early days, I think some of those will work and some of them won't, and we're going to get a better sense of that and we'll be sure about the kinds of things that we'll do. We're expecting, you know, the margin for Wynn Palace to generally stay where it's at, and for Wynn Macau to improve with operating leverage as business volumes return. The cost of coast, there will be some small movement, but we wouldn't expect it to be significant from the events calendar in Macau.

Both properties are structurally higher than they were in 2019. We're doing great from a margin perspective. If we can yield, and I do believe we can, if we can yield Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace rooms appropriately, because as you know, it's not about occupancy; it's about who is in the room, then we could see some incremental margin expansion there. I wouldn't underwrite it yet. I think Wynn Macau's Wynn Palace margin is great as it is, and I would hold at that level while Wynn Macau, it's a question of operating leverage coming from volumes.

Right. And so, if I may just following that up, as you continue to add in more non-gaming elements, should we think about that as somewhat of a headwind to sort of finding that comfortable margin? Or, are those just really vehicles for maintaining where you're going to wind up from gaming anyway?

Yes, I would break that into two pieces. I would say that as we bring material CapEx online, like an event center or a spectacle show, those businesses will have a margin profile in and of themselves that will be additive to our gaming business and ultimately drive gaming customer visitation, which will be accretive to margin. But it's way too early to even talk about that qualitatively, given where we are in the CapEx cycle. With respect to programming, which is what we're doing now, which is essentially more OpEx driven with the facilities that we have today, if you were able to do that without having a material impact on margin, and you saw that in Q3, where we did a reasonable amount of programming at Wynn Palace, actually, and we were still able to deliver the margin that we have shown you today.

Hi, everyone. Just one for me, maybe finish up with a quick capital allocation discussion. So I guess the share repurchase is a bit higher than we've seen in the quarter, and also the tender for the Wynn Las Vegas notes. Julie or Craig, curious if you could tell us how you're thinking about allocating capital in the quarter. As we look ahead. We have the dividend and some CapEx that's on the horizon. How are you kind of thinking about capital allocation for things like we saw in the third quarter as well, but share repurchases are being opportunistic with your debt?

Yes, we're currently balancing our liquidity needs between capital deployment, growth, and returning capital to shareholders. We are in a strong position to do all of these things. As you mentioned, we recently restarted our dividend, which reflects our solid capital standing. I anticipate that we will maintain extra liquidity while we assess events in New York, the macroeconomic situation, and the yield curve. Our approach is to keep our free cash flow position stable, even in a rising rate environment. We're fortunate to have long-dated fixed debt, giving us time to navigate these changes before we need to refinance significantly. Until we have clarity on the licensing situation in New York, we plan to buy back shares when we believe the stock is undervalued and manage our debt strategically to mitigate additional interest expenses. Additionally, we have capital projects underway, including the development of a luxury property in the UAE. That's our current stance.

Well, thank you. Thank you, everyone. So that will now conclude the Q3 earnings call for Wynn. Thank you for your interest, and we look forward to talking to you again.

Thanks, everybody.