Spirited away
Spirit’s collapse and rising gas prices darken the Vegas horizon
Specter of a pressured gaming consumer rises again on inflation fears.
In +More: Wynn reported to be considering UAE delays.
Sandler says goodbye to Entain as Eminence plans to cash out.
Venture playground: XO Market raises with self-serve predictions.
Hard Rock Bet is growing – we know you know! And we want to bring in some more maestros to make beautiful music in our Sportsbook. You need to be among the very best in the industry to be considered for these roles. Are you up to it?
Gas guzzled
Running out of runway: The first US airline casualty of the Iran war hit at the worst possible moment for Las Vegas. Spirit Airlines, the bright-yellow ultra-low-cost carrier that for years drove leisure fares into the basement, ceased operations just after midnight on Saturday (May 2).
The news comes at a time where Las Vegas appears to have posted a tentative recovery versus the previous summer’s doldrums.
MGM Resorts and Caesars spent their recent respective earnings calls trying to convince investors that a tentative recovery is real.
The pair posted Q1 Las Vegas numbers that were better than feared, on the back of a stacked group and convention calendar, and they were backed up by March’s positive numbers.
Strip GGR of $780m represented a 14.4% YoY leap while RevPAR was even better, up 16% YoY.
The big tent: On his company’s Q1 call, MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle argued that his company’s Q1 earnings was evidence that the city was adapting to new leisure market demands.
“Today’s consumers are decisively gravitating towards live events and experiential travel in Las Vegas,” he said, pointing to the preponderance of sports attractions.
“The ability to attract professional sports franchises and tentpole events exemplifies Las Vegas structural resilience,” he added.
Highs and lows: Over at rival Caesars Entertainment, meanwhile, CEO Tom Reeg said Vegas is “obviously in a much healthier spot than it was in the middle of last year, starting in the summer.”
But he noted the company was still seeing a bifurcation of “exceedingly strong” weekends and weeks when the market has significant group events and “weeks that are soft.”
Analysts remain cautious. Truist noted the “higher highs, lower lows,” dynamic, while Citizens called Q1 the trough for MGM’s Strip properties and CBRE said Vegas was “getting less worse.”
Spirit leveled: But this commentary came before the Spirit shut down. The carrier had already shrunk dramatically at Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport, with Q1 passengers down 72% YoY, dropping it to the eighth-busiest carrier, so the immediate seat-loss is manageable.
All 16 Vegas markets Spirit served are flown by at least one other airline, and Allegiant, Frontier and the legacy carriers are adding capacity and capping rescue fares.
But the bigger concern is what happens to the price floor, with Spirit being seen as the operator that kept prices in check across the market.
Running out of road: Another worry is the impact of high gas prices at the pumps. Reeg was keen to stress that Caesars doesn’t see any direct correlation between higher gas prices and Las Vegas visitation.
“I would say correlation between gas prices and spend in our portfolio is not particularly high,” he told the analysts.
But he admitted the situation could change depending on the length of time that fuel costs stayed at elevated levels.
“Obviously, as you can certainly get to a level or extended a period of time where that may change,” he said.
A similar hedging came from Hornbuckle. While extolling the company’s status as a purveyor of luxury brand experiences, he said that despite “many headwinds whether they be air or gas” MGM was “yet to see a slowdown.”
But he also warned “that doesn’t mean over summer that can’t happen because booking cycles still remain short.”
It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world: For now, Vegas isn’t the epicenter of the fuel shock. But of the major US gaming markets, none is more exposed to airline capacity, drive-in fuel costs and discretionary leisure spending all at once.
As Hornbuckle told the analysts: “It’s a crazy world out there right now.”
How the ongoing conflict affects the sector is hard right now to discern.
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+More
The last resort: Wynn Resorts is reported to be considering postponing the expected opening date of its Al Marjan Island casino resort in the UAE due to construction delays caused by the ongoing Iran/US conflict. Bloomberg said that the presence of attack drones and missiles in the region has caused work disruptions and a slump in tourism. Wynn reports its Q1 earnings on Thursday.
New debt: The Apollo Global-owned The Venetian Resort Las Vegas is seeking to raise $2.35bn in debt to refinance its capital structure, including a $1.175bn term loan led by Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase. The deal reflects renewed demand for high-yield debt, with pricing at 3.75 points above benchmark as leveraged loan issuance rebounds.
Meanwhile, Las Vegas Sands is refinancing $1bn of senior notes due August with two $500m issuances: one set of notes maturing in 2031 and another due 2033. Remaining proceeds will cover transaction costs and general corporate purposes, extending maturities at higher interest rates.
All clear: A hedge fund broker called Clear Street is partnering with Kalshi to offer hedge fund clients access to event contracts, deepening institutional entry into prediction markets. The futures commission merchant will connect to Kalshi’s exchange and clearing house, alongside new swap capabilities for ETF issuers.
Kentucky Derby: Churchill Downs reported record $487m all-sources handle for Derby Week, up 3% YoY, and expects record adj. EBITDA, rising $15m-$18m. However, betting on the Kentucky Derby itself fell to $225m, while full-day handle declined to $340m. TwinSpires posted a record $129m handle on Churchill races, up 6%.
Genius Sports has completed its acquisition of Legend, the owner of Covers.com, Casino.org and Casino Guru, in a deal valued at up to $1.2bn. Genius Sports reports its Q1 numbers tomorrow, Thursday.
While my guitar gently weeps: The topping-off ceremony for the Hard Rock Las Vegas took place last weekend. The ~$5bn development, featuring Hard Rock’s signature guitar body shape, is expected to open next year,
Earnings in brief
Accel Entertainment reported record Q1 revenue of $352m, up 9% YoY, while adj. EBITDA also increased 9% to $54m. The distributed gaming operator cited continued strength in Illinois and developing markets, including Nebraska, alongside momentum from ticket-in, ticket-out technology rollouts and ongoing preparations for Chicago gaming terminal expansion.
SkyCity Entertainment has cut its FY26 EBITDA guidance, citing weaker consumer spending and declining visitation across New Zealand and Australia. Underlying EBITDA is now forecast at NZ$180m-NZ$190m ($106m-$112m), down from NZ$190m-NZ$210m. Rising fuel costs and softer economic conditions were flagged as key headwinds impacting demand.
Deal talk
Minority shareholder at DoubleDown Interactive, Four Tree Island Advisory, has urged the company’s independent committee to reject the proposed take-private offer from majority owner DoubleU Games, arguing the $11.25 per share bid materially undervalues the company. Four Tree said the proposal largely reflects DoubleDown’s cash position while assigning little value to operations despite EBITDA growth and acquisitions, including SuprNation and WHOW Games.
Greentube has entered the Czech online gaming market via the acquisition of local sportsbook and casino operator Kingsbet CZ. The deal supports Greentube’s broader European expansion strategy while providing Kingsbet access to additional investment, technology and gaming content.
Sandler departs Entain
Unhappy Gilmore: Ricky Sandler has announced he will be stepping down as a director at Entain after two-and-a-half years on the board. It follows the winding up of the Sandler-founded and led Eminence Capital activist hedge fund, which built up a sizable position in the company.
That position will now be “liquidated in an orderly manner” but with the intention of “maximising value realisation.”
Still, the shares fell 5% on the news of Sandler’s departure.
Sandler said in his statement that in his time on the board, Entain has seen “significant operational transformation,” but it is debatable whether this was necessarily his aim when he lobbied for change.
After building up a ~6.5% stake in the company, Sandler first made an open complaint about the cost of Entain’s acquisition of Polish operator STS.
Subsequently, he was invited onto the board and immediately set in process the appointment of Moelis to advise on potential sales of elements of the business.
However, despite publicly putting the Georgian business up for sale, the net result has been no movement in breaking the company up.
I can almost remember their funny faces: One industry source with knowledge of the situation at Entain pointed out that the Eminence Capital “reconception” was that Entain had been wasting money in M&A. “But that was the wrong prognosis,” the source added.
“The only thing he called right was that Jette [Nygaard-Anderson, former CEO] had to go,” they added.
“But his big plan – to sell off bits of the business – fell apart on contact with reality. Entain proved unsurprisingly difficult to sell off piecemeal.”
The source went on to question exactly what has been achieved “strategically” in the two-and-a-half years. “Entain hasn’t bought anything, it hasn’t sold anything,” he said.
E+M PRO
Flesh wounds: The speed of the rise of predictions means that when Flutter and DraftKings report this week, the questions will no longer turn on whether they have seen any effect on their respective businesses but to what extent predictions have not taken a bite out of OSB.
See Monday’s The week ahead earnings preview edition (PRO subscribers only).
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Venture playground
Funding news
House Advantage Fund
Main stream: The user acquisition financing platform offered by Discerning Capital and PvX Capital has announced its strategic partnership with Maincard, the iGaming sector no-code provider, to provide non-dilutive capital.
Maincard’s ecosystem powers operators across 185-plus countries and is one of the fastest-growing operator ecosystems in iGaming.
It enables entrepreneurs to launch fully licensed brands in minutes through its Sandbox platform.
Through the House Advantage Fund (HAF) partnership, Maincard’s top operators will gain a direct path to performance-based financing, allowing them to scale user acquisition and improve marketing efficiency without unnecessary dilution.
HAF’s previous deals include a $100m facility arrangement with Midnite, which it followed up with a $15m facility for PowerPlay.
Box clever: Valerii Makovetskii, CEO and founder of Maincard, said the company’s Sandbox was “built to eliminate the infrastructure barrier for operators.” He said that partnering with HAF “closes the final gap” with access to capital that “actually matches how iGaming businesses grow.”
Davis Catlin, managing partner at Discerning Capital, said that by partnering directly, HAF could identify high-performing operators earlier and deploy capital faster.
“This is the kind of repeatable, scalable growth model the industry needs,” he added.
XO Market
Pick your own: The prediction market startup has raised $6m in a seed funding round led by Coinbase Ventures, 20VC, Picus Capital and Venture Together, as it looks to offer a next-gen prediction markets platform designed to allow users to generate their own markets.
Co-founder Ali Habbabeh told CoinDesk that the likes of Kalshi and Polymarket are already old hat in deciding what markets should exist.
“We’ve flipped that model entirely,” he claimed, while on LinkedIn fellow co-founder Walid Al Habboul teased that the next products would be XO Vaults and XO Parlays.
The core proposition is a more decentralized, creator-led ecosystem where users can design markets and earn fees, potentially accelerating content breadth and engagement.
XO is effectively betting that user-generated supply can scale liquidity and variety faster, mirroring social media or creator-platform dynamics.
However, this approach may amplify moderation, quality control and regulatory risks.
Growth company news
Odditt has launched a B2B betting content platform and said it is in the process of raising a $1.5m seed funding round. The new platform delivers ready-to-embed wagers, contextual betting content and automated parlays through widgets, feeds and APIs for sportsbooks, DFS operators and prediction markets.
New intel: The now former CEO at Verse Gaming, Dan Zimmermann, has written about his new venture, Betting Intelligence, which he said is a private intelligence firm dedicated to the extraction of real-time signals intelligence from betting markets. He said he will serve the company as chief intelligence officer and board member.
ALT Sports Data has partnered with Caesars Entertainment to launch an advanced Formula 1 betting product across Caesars Sportsbook and William Hill. The offering uses real-time data, predictive modeling and race simulations to enable dynamic pricing, live micro-markets and integrated pre- and in-race wagering.
Gambling.com Group [Nasdaq: GAMB] is fueling the online gambling industry with unmatched performance marketing solutions. Leveraging proprietary technology, a diverse portfolio of premium websites, and the newly acquired consumer-facing OddsJam and B2B service provider, OpticOdds, $GAMB connects operators to high-value players across the globe.
Positioned as a dynamic leader in the sector, Gambling.com Group is an engine of growth and profitability, backed by a proven track record of driving revenue for operators in sports betting, iGaming, and beyond.
Visit our investor page to see why it’s the platform behind the industry’s most successful operators.
Upcoming earnings
May 6: Light & Wonder, Lottomatica, Flutter
May 7: Genius Sports, Full House, Inspired, Wynn, Codere Online, DraftKings (earnings)
May 8: DraftKings (call)
May 11: Super Group (earnings)
May 12: Super Group (call), Brightstar, Catena Media, DoubleDown Int.
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