Golden Entertainment Inc. operates more than 12,000 gaming devices and nearly 30 table games in Nevada, Maryland and Montana. The company owns four casino properties, more than 50 taverns and operates about 980 distributed gaming locations in multiple jurisdictions.
Company: Golden Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ: GDEN)
Revenue: $104.2 million, compared to $62.5 million in the third quarter 2015.
Income: $1.3 million, compared to a loss of $3 million in the third quarter 2015.
Earnings per share: $0.06, compared to a loss per share of $0.16 cents one year earlier.
What it means: In information accompanying the release of third-quarter financials, Golden touted the completion of a merger and other achievements:
• A first full quarter of results from its Montana distributed gaming operations.
• A new tavern, the SG Bar, in Las Vegas.
• Completion of capital improvement projects at the Rocky Gap Resort in Maryland and Pahrump casino properties.
Gaming stock analysts, on a conference call to discuss the third-quarter numbers, focused their questions on other issues, including margins on slot routes, organic versus inorganic growth and new gaming devices being tested at Golden properties.
Specifically, executives were asked about the results from the new StarBar game that was field tested recently at Golden properties.
“We’re cautious about the metrics (of that) given the short period so far of the trial,” said Blake Sartini, chief executive officer of Golden. “But we are encouraged that these games tend to be pulling a millennial crowd that tends to interact with these live games on these bartop devices.”
“The trial is over, and we have the ability to roll them out in greater numbers. But we are going back and reworking the software post the trial, because we learned a lot … but do anticipate rolling out in greater numbers. And it’s been decades literally since there’s been a new product in this bartop market.”