Golden Entertainment has announced plans to renovate The STRAT Hotel ahead of upcoming sporting events taking place in Las Vegas over the next 12 months.
Speaking on an earnings call following the company’s Q4 financial results, President & CFO Charles Protell spoke about plans to renovate more rooms at the resort before the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix in November and the Super Bowl in 2024.
To make sure that the company has a “competitive product” before the big sporting events come to town, approximately $30m will be spent on the renovations at the property.
Protell stated: “In 2023, we intend to renovate more rooms at The STRAT to provide a more competitive product in order to capture demand from group business and citywide events like F1 and the Super Bowl.
“We are currently renovating additional 537 rooms, hallway corridors in our pool areas, which should be completed in the first half of the year at an expected cost of approximately $30m in 2023.
“This will bring the total rooms and suites that we have renovated to 1,200 out of 2,400 rooms at the property, with most of the others having been updated prior to our acquisition of The STRAT in 2017.”
Alongside renovations to The STRAT, Golden Entertainment provided an update on the sale of the Rocky Gap Casino Resort in Maryland, which is expected to close in Q2 2023.
CEO and Chair Blake Sartini noted the sale 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”.
Publishing its Q4 results, the company reported a 0.8 per cent drop in revenue year-over-year to $279.7m (Q4 2021: $282m), but better than 2019’s $242.1m. Gaming revenue declined by 3.22 per cent to $185m (2021: $191.2m).
For the full year, Golden Entertainment reported $1.12bn in revenue, a 2.3 per cent increase YoY (2021: $1.1bn). Gaming revenue rose as well by 3.07 per cent to $428.9m (2021: $416.2m).
