Full House Resorts (FLL) Telefonkonferenz zu den Ergebnissen für Q3 2026: Rekord bei American Place, Kostensenkungen bei Chamonix

Wichtigste Erkenntnisse

• Full House Resorts wies für das dritte Quartal 2026 einen Umsatz von 81,8 Millionen US-Dollar aus, ein Plus von 4,9 % gegenüber 78,0 Millionen US-Dollar im Vorjahreszeitraum. Das bereinigte EBITDA lag bei 14,6 Millionen US-Dollar im Vergleich zu 14,8 Millionen US-Dollar.
• Das Betriebsergebnis kletterte um 28,6 % auf 4,4 Millionen US-Dollar. Das bereinigte Segment-EBITDA für den Mittleren Westen und den Süden stieg um 18 % auf 13,6 Millionen US-Dollar, während sich die Marge um 2,2 Prozentpunkte verbesserte.
• American Place erzielte das beste Quartal seit seiner Eröffnung. Das Management ist weiterhin überzeugt, dass das dauerhafte Casino ein jährliches EBITDAR vor Miete von mehr als 100 Millionen US-Dollar erwirtschaften kann.
• Rising Star erzielte das beste dritte Quartal seit drei Jahren, während Silver Slipper das Standort-EBITDA um 13,6 % steigerte.
• Chamonix hat mit Kostensenkungsmaßnahmen im Umfang von rund 8 Millionen US-Dollar begonnen. Das Management strebt kurzfristig eine Ergebnisverbesserung von über 10 Millionen US-Dollar an und rechnet damit, dass der Standort im Jahr 2027 einen signifikant positiven Cashflow generieren wird.
• Die Finanzierung für das dauerhafte American Place ist noch nicht vollständig gesichert. Eine Kreditfazilität über 100 Millionen US-Dollar und eine Baufinanzierung mit verzögerter Inanspruchnahme in Höhe von 315 Millionen US-Dollar stehen im Wesentlichen fest, das Unternehmen muss jedoch noch seine bestehenden Anleihen refinanzieren.

Wichtigste Finanzkennzahlen

Geschäftliche und operative Entwicklung

American Place

American Place erzielte die stärkste Quartalsleistung seit seiner Eröffnung. Das Management gab an, dass der Standort trotz neuer und erstarkter regionaler Konkurrenz in jedem Quartal sowohl den Umsatz als auch das bereinigte Standort-EBITDA im Jahresvergleich steigern konnte.

Das Unternehmen geht davon aus, dass seine Marktdurchdringung im nördlichen Großraum Chicago (Chicagoland) nach wie vor gering ist. Das geplante dauerhafte Casino soll etwa doppelt so viel Fläche wie die Übergangseinrichtung bieten, und das Management peilt weiterhin ein jährliches EBITDAR vor Miete von mehr als 100 Millionen US-Dollar an.

Die Entwurfs- und Architekturarbeiten schreiten voran, wobei das Unternehmen in den letzten Monaten mehrere Millionen US-Dollar aufgewendet hat, um die Planungen zu verfeinern und die Kostensicherheit zu erhöhen. Das Management zieht es vor, das Finanzierungspaket vollständig abzuschließen, bevor die nächste, rund 5 Millionen US-Dollar umfassende Arbeitsphase vor Ort eingeleitet wird.

Rising Star und Silver Slipper

Rising Star verzeichnete das beste dritte Quartal seit drei Jahren. Die Erlöse im Glücksspielbereich stiegen um 9 %, die Hoteleinnahmen kletterten um 6 %, die Hotelauslastung verbesserte sich um 5 Prozentpunkte und die Gastronomieumsätze legten um 24 % zu.

Silver Slipper steigerte das Standort-EBITDA um 13,6 %. Das Management führte diese Verbesserung auf operative Effizienzsteigerungen und geringere Sachversicherungskosten zurück.

Chamonix

Chamonix verzeichnete ein Wachstum in seinen beiden wertvollsten Kundensegmenten: Spieler mit einem Wert von mindestens 1.000 US-Dollar sowie solche mit einem Wert zwischen 350 und 1.000 US-Dollar. Die Zahl der im September verkauften Hotelübernachtungen stieg im Vorjahresvergleich um 10,4 %, nachdem ein nahegelegener Waldbrand wichtige Zubringermärkte beeinträchtigt und den Besucherzulauf im Juli gedämpft hatte.

Das Management passt die Betriebsabläufe an das gegenwärtige Geschäftsvolumen an, anstatt sich an künftig erwarteten Umsätzen zu orientieren. Zu den Initiativen gehören die Einstellung des kaum nachgefragten Zimmerservice, die Zusammenlegung von Telefonzentralen-Funktionen (PBX) mit dem Kassenpersonal des Casinos, reduzierte Restaurantöffnungszeiten, die Übernahme von Zimmerreinigung und Wäscherei in den Eigenbetrieb sowie die Verlagerung breit gestreuter Fernseh- und Radiowerbung auf zielgerichtete digitale Kanäle.

Das interne Housekeeping soll jährlich rund 600.000 US-Dollar einsparen, während der eigene Wäschereibetrieb nach der Umsetzung zusätzliche Einsparungen von etwa 400.000 US-Dollar pro Jahr ermöglichen könnte. Durch gezielte Marketingmaßnahmen sollen rund 1,5 Millionen US-Dollar jährlich eingespart werden, und die Beendigung des Beratungsvertrags für das Steakhouse dürfte Ersparnisse von etwa 300.000 US-Dollar pro Jahr bringen.

Dem Management zufolge hat das Unternehmen die Marketingausgaben bereits um rund 20 % gekürzt, ohne dass dies den jüngsten Trend beim Umsatzwachstum beeinträchtigt hätte. Darüber hinaus versucht das Unternehmen, die Gruppennachfrage unter der Woche zu steigern, und prüft eine mögliche Partnerschaft mit einer großen Hotelkette, wobei noch keine Einigung erzielt wurde.

Ausblick des Managements

Das Management geht davon aus, dass Chamonix im Jahr 2027 ein komfortables Rentabilitätsniveau erreicht, und schätzt, dass der Standort bei aktuellem Umsatzniveau und einer normalen regionalen Casinomarge ein jährliches EBITDA von 10 bis 20 Millionen US-Dollar erwirtschaften kann.

Kostenoptimierungen im Umfang von rund 8 Millionen US-Dollar wurden bereits angestoßen, während kurzfristig eine Gesamtergebnisverbesserung von über 10 Millionen US-Dollar anvisiert wird. Die meisten Maßnahmen werden im vierten Quartal umgesetzt, wobei der Übergang beim Wäschereibetrieb voraussichtlich etwa sechs Monate in Anspruch nehmen wird.

Für das Gruppengeschäft bezeichnete das Management einen Beitrag von 10 Prozentpunkten zur Auslastung als ambitioniertes Ziel für das kommende Jahr. Ein Beitrag im mittleren bis hohen einstelligen Prozentbereich wurde als realistischer eingestuft.

Nach Angaben des Managements dürfte der Hebel zusätzlicher Umsätze auf das Ergebnis (Flow-Through) im Chamonix – abgesehen von Glücksspielsteuern und begrenzten Reinvestitionen in das Marketing – sehr hoch sein.

Risiken und wichtige Beobachtungspunkte

• Das permanente Projekt American Place hängt vom Abschluss der Refinanzierung der bestehenden Anleihen von Full House Resorts ab. Laut Management haben schwächere Kreditmärkte im Bereich der Ratings Single-B und CCC den Zeitplan sowie die Preisfindung verkompliziert.
• Die Umsätze im Chamonix bleiben weiterhin hinter den langfristigen Erwartungen des Managements zurück, weshalb die erfolgreiche Umsetzung der Kostensenkungen und Umsatzmaßnahmen für das Rentabilitätsziel für 2027 entscheidend ist.
• Ein Waldbrand in Colorado beeinträchtigte die Besucherzahlen im Juli erheblich, auch wenn das Management die finanziellen Folgen nicht bezifferte. Im September kehrte das Umsatzwachstum zurück.
• Einige Initiativen bei Chamonix sind mit kurzfristigen Übergangskosten verbunden. Das Management geht davon aus, dass die Umstellung auf ein internes Housekeeping im November durch die Einarbeitung neuer Mitarbeiter zu einer leichten Belastung führen wird.
• Das Management betonte, dass Chamonix nicht aktiv zum Verkauf steht und unmittelbar keine Transaktion geplant ist, merkte jedoch an, dass das Unternehmen ein angemessenes Angebot für jeden Vermögenswert prüfen würde.

Wichtigste Punkte aus der Fragerunde der Analysten

Finanzierung von American Place: Die vorgeschlagene Refinanzierung umfasst drei Komponenten: eine weitgehend ungenutzte Kreditfazilität über 100 Millionen US-Dollar, die von vier Banken gestützt wird, eine Baufinanzierung mit verzögerter Inanspruchnahme (Delayed-Draw) über 315 Millionen US-Dollar ohne Bereitstellungsprovision (Ticking Fee) sowie eine neue Anleihe zur Ablösung bestehender Verbindlichkeiten. Die ersten beiden Komponenten sind im Wesentlichen unterschriftsreif, während die Anleihenrefinanzierung noch aussteht.

Kostenstruktur von Chamonix: Laut Management wurden im Rahmen des übergeordneten Programms Einsparungen durch operative Effizienzsteigerungen in Höhe von rund 4,5 Millionen US-Dollar identifiziert, wovon etwa 2 Millionen US-Dollar bereits umgesetzt sind. Das Unternehmen überprüft den Personalbestand und das Dienstleistungsangebot auf der gesamten Anlage und achtet gleichzeitig darauf, das Kundenerlebnis zu wahren.

Marketingstrategie: Das Management erklärte, breit gestreute Werbung sei bei der Eröffnung von Chamonix angemessen gewesen, nun ziele der Standort jedoch gezielt auf bestimmte Postleitzahlengebiete im Süden von Denver und in Colorado Springs ab, darunter Kunden mit nachgewiesenem Interesse an Glücksspielen. Zudem räumt das Unternehmen der Hotelauslastung unter der Woche sowie Gruppenbuchungen Priorität ein.

Wachstumsprioritäten: Full House Resorts konzentriert sich auf den Bau des dauerhaften American Place und die Weiterentwicklung von Chamonix. Dem Management zufolge ist es unwahrscheinlich, dass in absehbarer Zeit weitere Casinoübernahmen angestrebt werden.

Regionales Angebot: Nach Einschätzung des Managements verringert das Scheitern von drei Casino-Bürgerentscheiden in Indiana die Wahrscheinlichkeit kurzfristiger neuer Casinoprojekte nahe Fort Wayne. Ebenso hält es nach der Wahl ein neues Casino im Südosten von Wisconsin für weniger wahrscheinlich, wobei diese Äußerungen die Beurteilung des Managements und keine bestätigten regulatorischen Entscheidungen darstellen.

Vollständiges Protokoll der Telefonkonferenz

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Ausführungen des Managements

Unknown Speaker

Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for your patience. Please continue to stand by. The event will begin shortly. Again, we thank you for your patience. Please continue to stand by. The event will begin shortly. Thank you.

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Full House Resorts Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Adam Campbell. Please go ahead. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to our third quarter earnings call.

Unknown Speaker

As always, before we begin, we remind you that today's conference call may contain forward-looking statements that we're making under the safe harbor provision of federal securities laws. I'd also like to remind you that the company's actual results could differ materially from the anticipated results in these forward-looking statements. forward-looking statements. Please see today's press release under the caption, forward-looking statements for the discussion of risks that may affect our results. Also, we may reference to non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA. For a reconciliation of those measures, please see our website as well as the various press releases that we issue. Lastly, we are also broadcasting this conference call at fullhouseresorts.com, where you can find today's earnings release as well as all of our SEC filings. And with that said, we're ready to go.

Daniel Lee

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us to discuss our third quarter results. And I know there's another call going on at the same time, so we'll be on the briefer side with you today. I'll start with the headlines. American Place had the best quarter in its history. Rising Star had its best third quarter in three years. Silver Slipper grew its adjusted EBITDA by 13.6%. And at Chamonix, we've already started on more than $7 million of cost improvements and are targeting more than $10 million of total bottom line improvements in the near term. On a consolidated basis, revenue grew 4.9% to $81.8 million, compared with $78 million in the prior year period.

Adjusted EBITDA was $14.6 million versus $14.8 million a year ago. Last year's third quarter included the benefit of a gaming tax accrual or gaming tax accrual adjustment. at our Colorado operations. Our Midwest and South segment grew adjusted segment EBITDA by 18% to $13.6 million, with all three properties improving and its margin expanded by 2.2 percentage points. Operating income rose 28.6% to $4.4 million. So So let me walk through the properties really quick. Starting with American Place, as I mentioned, the third quarter was the best quarter it's ever had. Since opening, American Place has increased both revenue and adjusted property EBITDA in every single quarter compared with the prior year period since opening.

That's a consistent record, and that's as two casinos moved from riverboats into land-based facilities Wind Creek opened, Bally's in downtown Chicago opened, the Pottawatomie Casino in Milwaukee expanded, and the Hard Rock in Rockford opened its permanent casino. In real time American Place's revenues and adjusted property EBITDA continue to grow while our overall penetration into the northern Chicagoland market remains low. More than ever, we believe that our permanent casino, which is designed to have roughly twice the square footage of our current temporary facility, can generate more than $100 million a year of EBITDAR. That's before we we pay any rent under our current existing lease with the city. At Rising Star, gaming revenue was up 9%, hotel revenue was up 6% in part due to occupancy being 5 percentage points higher, and food and beverage revenue was up 24%. All of that helped us deliver our best third quarter in three years. At Silver Slipper, property EBITDA increased 13.6% versus the prior year period.

A focus on efficiencies throughout its operations helped, as did a reduction in property insurance rates. At Chamonix, the most important trend this quarter is growth at the top of our database. We saw gains in our two highest value segments. That's players worth $1,000 or more and players worth between 350 and $1,000. These are the guests who matter most to a property like Chamonix, and they're coming more often. In July of this year, a large wildfire burned near a few of our feeder market cities. I think it was the eighth largest wildfire in Colorado's history, and residents in the region were told to stay indoors.

That kept visitors away for a meaningful part of the month and also led to the quarter getting off to a slower than expected start. The quarter was helped by a strong September when room nights sold were up 10.4% year over year. Revenues have grown at Chamonix and at Bronco Billy's, we expect them to continue to grow also. But as revenues have grown, we've adjusted operations. Rather than operate the business for the revenues that we expect to have in the coming years, we're operating it for the business levels that we have today. As a result, we've already commenced on approximately $8 million of cost improvements at Chamonix. That's in addition to our focus on growing our midweek group business and continuing to grow revenues overall.

We don't expect these changes to meaningfully affect customer service levels. A few examples, we eliminated little used services like room service, which was rarely used and is not offered at any other casino in the state. We staff three casino cages because we operate under three casino licenses, which gives us a lower average gaming tax rate. Some of these cages see very little activity midweek, so PBX calls will now roll into the cages instead of a separate operator team. This actually should improve customer service as our cages are staffed 24 hours a day, whereas our PBX operations were not. We're bringing housekeeping and laundry operations in-house. We started to phase out our outsourced housekeeping company last month, and the transition is expected to be largely complete by the end of this month.

Laundry is not expected to be in-house until the first half of next year. combined, those in-housing efforts are expected to save us about $1 million per year, and that's net of costs to lease the laundry equipment. With marketing, we're shifting from broad TV and radio advertising to more targeted digital spend, which we expect to save about $1.5 million per year. And then over at the steakhouse, we ended the consulting agreement for its operations. That will save about $300,000 per year, and it makes it easier and more efficient for us to use that space for dining periods beyond dinner. That's just a sampling of some of the changes that have either already been enacted or are expected to be enacted soon. Taken together, these steps lower Chamonix's cost base while we keep building the top line. It sets Chamonix up to generate meaningful, positive cash flow in 2027.

Daniel Lee

Those were the big points that I had, Dan. I don't know if you had anything else to add. I think you covered it pretty well. In the interest of time, let's just go to Q&A. All right.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. And our first question will come from Jordan Bender with Citizens.

Fragen und Antworten

Jordan Bender

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon and thank you for the question. Just kind of to start with the whole financing in Illinois kind of conversation here, you There's probably not much for you guys to say would obviously open if you are willing to kind of talk about that process to the extent that you can. But I don't think the CapEx bill in 26 was all that large. I know you would have started process. OF BUILDING THAT OUT IN 26. HAVE YOU STARTED OR HAVE YOU STOPPED ANY WORK AT THE SITE OR just kind of how do you explain what's going on currently there? Thank you.

Daniel Lee

Well, I'll address the site. Very little work at the site, but there is work going on behind the scenes. We've been working with the architects and the designers on refining the plans. The more refined the plans, the more certain you are on the cost and so on. And so we've spent a couple million dollars in the last couple months on that, and that's ongoing. The next chunk of work at the site is like a $5 million thing. And frankly, while we have 5 million, and at some point we might do that, I mean, as As the press release shows, we have decent liquidity. We'd really like to have all the financing in place before we really launch things, because it's kind of expensive to start and stop.

And I'll let Lewis address the financing.

Daniel Lee

Not a whole lot to your point, Jordan, that we can say, but let me try to get a little bit out there for you. You know, as we outlined in our recent 8K, the envisioned refinancing has three parts. First, there was a new $100 million credit facility, which we expect to stay largely undrawn and which would give us plenty of liquidity. Four banks have agreed to that. Second, we had $315 million of funding from a third party to build the permanent American Place Casino. Importantly, that funding would be on a a delayed draw basis with no ticking fee, which meaningfully reduces the amount of capital needed to be raised. Both of those agreements are essentially final and ready for signature.

The third piece is a new bond to replace our existing notes, slightly larger in size, primarily to accommodate legal and banking fees and the pay down of our existing revolver. You know, our timing was unfortunate as the Fed raised rates just as our process was starting, and that resulted in a weakening of the single B credit markets and the triple C market largely shutting down. We think we fall in between a single B and triple C rating, and we expect to grow back into a rating as our American Place and Chamonix operations continue to improve. You know, we've spoken to a handful of our largest bondholders and some potential new bondholders about our refinancing and we remain in active construction constructive, I should say, dialogue with them about completing that refinancing.

Daniel Lee

So that's it. Yes, I mean listen, we're eager to get going. The permanent will make a lot more money than the temporary. And so it's kind of a win-win. But if you were to graph CCC credits, They took a big spike in late September in yield, and they do that on occasion, but they usually only do it for a few weeks at a time. But about every five years, there's a spike, and it has not been this high a spike in about five years. The one before that was about five years before that. The one before that was 2008. and so and so that makes it a little complicated because nobody nobody wants to price a new bond that trades down.

We all want a bond that trades well. And so we're trying to figure out that conundrum. But the good news is these windows don't usually close for very long. I think if we have an improved market. The single B market's not as bad as the triple C. but it also backed up some. And so, you know, we're optimistic we'll get there. It's in everybody's best interest to get there.

Thank you. you know, that it'll make more money, we will be a better credit. Of course, the state and the city want to see the thing get built as quickly as possible. Everybody wants this thing as quickly as possible. And we have the overall financing, I'd say, is, you know, mostly done, but we have one very important key thing left, and that's refinancing the existing bonds.

Jordan Bender

Perfect. Thank you. And then switching gears, maybe that Chamonix and just kind of following up on some of the cost saving initiatives that are going on there. You're obviously heading to the seasonally slower period of the year. Maybe that the results there will start to show up more in the spring and summer of next year. But as we get to that, I think I guess like what is the updated view on where you think you can get margins to with kind of the ongoing process of addressing some of these cost issues around the property?.

Daniel Lee

Well, our revenues have been growing and we've been gaining market share, but we're still a long way shy of where we think the revenues could be. But we were operating this, in a lot of ways as a um, yeah the property we hoped it to be. And we finally said wait a minute, this the we need to make money. And there are two other casinos in town whose revenues are not much different than ours, and they're both comfortably profitable, like 10 to 20 million of EBITDA. We can do that as well. And when we started comparing in a what What do we have to do? And you realize stuff like room service hardly ever gets used. even Monarch does not offer room service. And we said, well, why are we the only casino in the state offering room service? And there were shifts where people would come in and work and very few orders were given. were taken.

Lewis mentioned the cages. We benefit from having three licenses. It's a little bit of a historic anomaly. we have to operate three different cages. The principle purpose of a cage these days is to redeem the gaming chips. We only have one and so that cage sees most of the action. The other two cages, we have to keep open, it saves us on the tax rate. So we save like 4 million a year on gaming taxes, but we probably spend 800,000 or 900,000 of it funding having these other cages. And, you know, as we were looking for all sorts of ways to get... more efficient.

It suddenly occurred to us that the people who worked at our PBX desk, which was kind of hidden in the bowels of the building, these are the people who take phone calls for room reservations and stuff, they have gaming licenses because they have to access the the gaming system to see if somebody qualifies for a comp, for example. And there's no reason they can't be sitting in the cage. And so we redid our phone system so that it rings in the least busy cage, and if that line happens to be busy, it goes to the second cage, and if that happens to be busy it goes to the third cage. And if all three are busy, then it goes to voicemail. But rarely are all three busy. And so we're not closing a cage, but we have figured out how to keep the people sitting in the cage gainfully employed, and we no longer have to operate a separate PBX. So that was a complete win and we had a little rockiness at first because you had to train people right and you had to get the technology right, but it's pretty smooth now.

I've been calling every morning pretending I'm a customer and it goes smoothly. and it saves us a significant amount of money. Housekeeping, we had an outside company doing it who primarily does hospitals, and we kept trying to get them to be more efficient, and we finally gave up on them. We operate obviously our own housekeeping at Rising Sun and Silver Slipper, and so we gave them notice, discontinued them, we've been hiring housekeepers and training them, we have a director of housekeeping, and that contract ends November 23rd and saves us about $600,000 a year. Our laundry goes down to Colorado Springs and goes to commercial laundry there. We operate our own laundry at Rising Sun, which is a similar size hotel. We do it at less than half of what we're paying in Colorado Springs. So we have a space in Cripple to where we can put laundry equipment and operate our own laundry.

It's going to take us about six months to get that in place. The laundry equipment can be leased. and even net of the rent of the laundry equipment that probably saves us 400,000 a year. Our restaurant operating hours, which Louis didn't mention, we've reduced back. There's no reason to operate three restaurants the middle of the week when there's not enough customers to keep them all profitable so that the high-end restaurant which which is quite successful, makes money on weekends, would lose it midweek, and we decided there's no reason to operate it midweek. And so we've cut back on that. We had a consulting arrangement with a very good chef and restaurant manager in Las Vegas. It was kind of expensive. but they were very helpful.

They trained the staff and did the menus and all of this stuff and they were very helpful. And the value they brought was primarily when it first opened, right, because it helped establish it, right? And I think the food and beverage team we had at that time have stumbled over that restaurant. Now the restaurant is well established, the people working there are well trained, and we have a food and beverage manager who's shown that he's very competent at it, and there was just no reason to be paying a consulting fee to the guys in Las Vegas, and we were allowed to cancel that contract and did. That ends in a week, I think. It ends in November and saves us for 215, 300,000 a year. to answer to it. And I think we'll speed, in fact, it's almost the opposite. The only ramification of doing that is we have to alter the menu some, so we're not using the recipes and stuff that are tied to them.

But, frankly, it was time to make some changes in the menu anyway. And so our food and beverage team was very good, come up with their own spins on different things. And that gives us a marketing opportunity to invite people into the new menus. So there's a lot of just blocking and tackling that we're doing that will make sure this place is profitable next year. comfortably profitable next year. We should be able to make between 10 and 20 million in 2027 and grow from there. And now, you know, it's disappointing because we're in at 300 million. Right. And people have asked us, well, would you sell it? Yes, we'd sell it if somebody offered us the right price.

It would probably be at a loss of the $300 million investment we have. But given how expensive our debt is, it would probably make sense to do that at some point. But you want to get it trending profitably and go in the right direction and evaluate it at the time. But that's kind of where it is. Yes, I think the only real... Just to be clear, because I know employees listening on this, it's not for sale. Don't anybody panic. It's just people ask that question, would you sell it? Listen, we're a public company.

Anything's always for sale. That doesn't mean we're actively trying to sell it. But the question came up from investors, would you sell it? Of course we would under the right circumstances, and that would be true of any asset we have. We have a financial obligation to our shareholders to do that, At the same time, I don't want our customers or employees to panic. There is no sale imminently contemplated.

Daniel Lee

The only other thing I had to add there was, a lot of the things that Dan described are, actively moving, so either implemented in October or about to launch in November or very shortly thereafter. You know, from a, you know, Dan walked through the cage savings and restaurant hour changes and that sort of stuff. You know, when you look at that piece, that efficiency piece, I didn't really quantify it for you, but that's about when all is said and done, about $4.5 million of savings. At this point, we're maybe about two months away. million into that four and a half. The other pieces that Dan described are largely in place for savings sometime in the fourth quarter, except for that laundry piece, which is, which as Dan mentioned is probably six months away. The only, the last piece we didn't really talk about was trying to push, continuing to try and push a group business a little further. If you look at where the group business sat last year, it was one percentage point of occupancy and you know that number will of course trend higher.

The stretch goal is something like 10 percent of, 10 percentage points of occupancy in the coming year but you know that that's kind of the stretch real realistically can you be somewhere kind of mid to high single digits, I think the answer is probably yes.

Daniel Lee

like getting rid of the outside housekeeping and bringing it in-house. will probably hurt us a little bit in November, not a lot, but a little bit, because we're training housekeepers to replace the outside companies. So you have a little bit of a cost associated with that, but there should be pretty significant savings going forward. Another one that's a good example of a win-win. We have a pretty good sales team now in sales and marketing, seven people. when the property opened, there was only one. And they are putting stuff on the books in future years. And the head of that, mentioned to me that they would really like to have an additional breakout room. We have very good meeting room space.

I thought we had plenty of meeting room space. And she said, no, actually, we could use more. And we were thinking about what do we do, what do we do. And literally right across the elevator lobby from the convention area, there was a reception area for the spa. and had a kind of a retail venue and all this stuff. And very seldom is there anybody hanging out in that reception area and the retail sales of spa goods was minimal. And it makes a perfect breakout room. And all we have to do is remove the retail stands that are in it and buy some folding chairs.

And we have an additional breakout room that's bigger. than any of the three breakout rooms we have now and The spa doesn't miss a beat because people go to the spa to get a massage to use the exercise room to get to the pool All of which can be accessed through different routes in the building So we're changing the signage to tell people well if you get a massage This is where you go if you want to use the exercise room This is where you go if you need the locker room. This is where you go and we can take the lobby of the spa and redeploy it as meeting rooms, the only CapEx is some folding chairs. I mean, it's nothing. And it actually saves us money because we've historically had a receptionist there who got paid, and there really isn't a reason to have a receptionist there. And so... So we're looking for ways like that. And on the marketing, we're also, it's a big focus, is to try to do more with less. We're spending quite a bit on marketing. We're trying to make sure that we can reduce our marketing spend, but continue the pretty steady growth it's had in revenues and even accelerate the growth in revenues.

Because eventually when people experience it, when they're there, they come back. We had a very big... meeting of, I forget the exact name, but they are business execs from throughout Colorado that filled the town, but principally us, we're the major hotel in town, for the third week of September. and most of whom had not been to Cripple Creek before. 90% had not been to Cripple Creek. Yes, and this is the sort of thing, you bring them up there because they are meeting planners who may come back. And that week went very nicely, and we got a lot of nice comments, and that's the sort of thing you do to build the business in the future.

Unknown Speaker

Great. Thank you very much. You got it. Thanks, Jordan.

Operator

And our next question will come from Ryan Sigdahl with Craig Hallum Capital Group.

Ryan Sigdahl

All right. Hey, good afternoon, Dan Lewis. I don't think I caught. I'm going to ask both my questions up front here. I'll turn over the others. But did you quantify the weather impact in the quarter? Or can you? And then secondly, you've tried several different marketing strategies. A targeted digital strategy certainly seems obvious from where I sit, but I guess. Why haven't you tried that earlier? What gives you confidence this will work and work better than the prior approaches? Thanks. Good luck, guys.

Daniel Lee

Don't disappear yet, Ryan. So, first question, you said weather impact. We did have a hurricane event in Mississippi in October, which may be what you're referring to, but otherwise what we refer to was wildfires in Colorado. in the early part of the third quarter. We did not quantify that impact for what it's worth, but it was...

Daniel Lee

It wasn't small. Well, revenues were running up 10% to 12% in the months leading into July, and July was... down a little bit or flat. So you can guesstimate it from there. And but then September went back to the growth trend. And the hurricane in Mississippi in October did not impact us. It did not hit us. Did not create any damage. coming in got flooded for a short while. So there was a day or two where we had very little business, but there was no property damage to the property whatsoever. Yes, you always get an impact as people prepare for the event, and then an impact after the event as people clean up.

And so we had an impact on both sides, but otherwise no damage. And it wasn't that serious, I mean. Yes. October might be a little weak compared to October last year, but it's okay.

Daniel Lee

And apologies, Ryan, your second question, just run that by us.

Daniel Lee

one more time. Yes.

Ryan Sigdahl

I was talking about the wildfires that you guys called out specifically in the quarter, but helpful in the hurricane. Just on the marketing strategy, moving to a targeted digital strategy, I guess you guys have tried buying different databases, tried different marketing teams. There've been several different kind of iterations of the strategy in Chamonix. I guess, why did you wait until now to do a digital kind of more efficient strategy to set logically makes sense to me. But then what gives you confidence this will work better than the previous approaches? Yes.

Daniel Lee

We've been moving that way steadily. We're getting more and more that way. You know, we also had hired a new VP of Marketing a year and a half ago or 15 months ago. opted to retire and so we're now in the market for a new which I think is an opportunity for us. We do have a corporate marketing person which we hired a year and a half ago, spending a lot of his time there. We've asked a team from American Place, who have been in regional casinos for a long time, and the number two person at American Place is one of the sharpest marketing guys in the business, in my opinion. And they're both helping out to try to... figure out the Rubik's Cube of Colorado, I guess, is the word I'm looking for. But what's a little mystifying is people will argue, well, they don't like to drive up into the mountains.

And it's like, well, they certainly do to go to Breckenridge or to go to Vail. They Lots of people do that, both winter and summer. And it's not an easy drive to Blackhawk either. And by the way, lots of people from Los Angeles drive all the way across the Mojave Desert to get to Las Vegas. So I don't think it's that. I get mystified that our market share is not higher. We are by far the best casino in Cripple Creek, and we have by far the biggest hotel.

We should be having a bigger market share. And so that leads us to think, you know, we're spending more on advertising than anyone else, and we don't have a... commanding market share, there's something there. And so we're looking at it and saying, obviously we're not being very effective on marketing. Let's figure out why. And so we are... We've actually already cut our marketing back 20%, and we're not having an impact on our revenues, okay? And because our revenues are growing as much as they were last spring. And so we're trying to make that more efficient. Ultimately, I mean, it's much easier to cut costs than to grow revenues.

Ultimately, we need to do both or want to do both. And to get to what this place should be able to earn, we need to do both.

Daniel Lee

You know, some of it was by design, too, if you think about it, Ryan. Like, you know, whenever you open a brand-new property, especially when you're trying to draw a market that historically had not been in Cripple Creek, you know, you're going to have to do a lot of work. you purposely go out with more in advertising, just generally, right? It's you're trying to, you want people to be aware that you opened, it's something new and different. And so you purposely go out a little broader and then as time goes by, you wouldn't naturally cycle that down anyway. And so there's some of that going on. There's some of the, transitioning into more targeted digital, as Dan went through. And part of that is, look, we've got very specific zip codes that we want to target both in South Denver as well as in the Colorado Springs market. And you can layer on top of that people that have historically shown an interest in gaming.

And so, you know, I ultimately, I these efforts are going to be quite fruitful and result in lower marketing spend. But so there's some logic behind why it was higher at first, but nonetheless, now is the time to reduce it. we are actively reducing it and feeling good about where it's all going. Yes, I happened to have a conversation about a week ago with...

Daniel Lee

somebody who's affiliated with a different casino in Colorado that's pretty successful. And we were comparing notes, and he said he figured out early on that the real key to their success was filling the hotel midweek, and they were very focused on that from the very first day. We're very focused on that now. We should have been more focused on it when we were under construction and we weren't. But we are focused on it now. Now I will also say, Boyd just announced a deal with Sonesta Hotels, where you tie into their frequent player program and so on. That's the sort of thing that can help your midweek a lot.

These big hotel chains have big sales organizations that keep track of where is Microsoft having their next meeting and so on and so forth. And gives your sales force leads to help fill midweek. And in addition, you get just the exposure from people can redeem their points with you and. earn points in their program and so on. Cosmopolitan was the first major hotel in Las Vegas that I recall doing it, and it was part of what turned and their results around, and then MGM acquired them, and now MGM has a big program like that with Marriott, and we are talking to the major hotel chains about doing something similar to that for Chamonix. We don't have a deal yet, but it's something we're looking at, and there's always a cost involved with those deals,.

Daniel Lee

but I think the benefits outweigh the cost. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Yes, you're welcome. Maybe time for one more, Dan. Okay.

Operator

All right, and we'll go next to Chad Beynon with Macquarie.

Samir Ghafir

Hey, Dan and Louis, this is Sam on for Chad. Thanks for taking our questions. First question, last quarter you guys discussed about 175 of win per position per day versus 330 for the broader Blackhawk market. you implement the cost savings? How should we think about the balance between EBITDA growth coming from the expense reduction versus win per day over the next couple of years?.

Daniel Lee

I think the expense reduction gets us to 10 to 20 million of EBITDA a year. And to go beyond that, we probably need to grow revenues. Hope so. Yeah, fair enough. Based on our existing revenues, with a normal margin for regional casino, we should be $10 to $20 million. So that's what we're doing. Okay. So, you know, that, you know, before we were, doing some stuff to, we were incurring operating expenses to help build the revenues. For example, we had valet parking and bell service you know, pretty much 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And if you were there midweek and looked in the valet parking lot, there might be six cars there.

And it's like, wait a minute. Nobody's using our valet parking midweek. Why are we paying a valet parker to stand there and park your car? Let's just cut it back to in the afternoon and when people are arriving and maybe midweek if the anticipated occupancy that night is low, maybe you only need one person. If somebody shows up in a car and they want to valet park and have help with their bags, well, you can park their car in the port-au-cocher. You're not busy. Help them with their bags and then go park in a valet parking. So we're looking at every single thing and trying to do it in ways that we still provide good service to our customers, that they don't really realize it. And so, for example, I mentioned you don't have to go to the spa, to the receptionist, to go to the exercise. room.

That's actually better service. You could go right to the exercise room. You don't have to go through the spa and through the locker room. And as it happens, the geography of the building, there's a public corridor that's quite pleasant that leads right to the exercise room. So it's finding ways where... We don't diminish the guest experience. Why would we run room service when nobody orders it? Right. And now we may eventually try to figure out a way that if somebody wants room service, we can do it out of one of our restaurants so we don't have to staff a separate room service area. And that might be important, for example, to get into one of these hotels.

If you're trying to join an announcement, national high-end hotel affiliation, they'll have a set of things on it, and it might be that you have to offer room service at least at the breakfast hours. Well, if it's midweek, I don't want to staff a room service kitchen. But you could call down to room service, it goes to the casino cage where we're already have a person sitting at a PBX phone, you don't know that it went to the casino cage, but the person answers and says room service. They type the order in and it pops up at the quick order cook in the home cafe and they have a waiter to bring your food up to your room and you're offering room service. And if there's only a couple orders a day, it's hardly a distraction in the home cafe. So you look for ways, but at the moment, we just eliminated room service. But if we needed to bring it back in some fashion in order to join the right hotel affiliation, we have ways to do it.

So. I think the only other thing to add.

Daniel Lee

add to your question there is flow through should be very, very high. Outside of getting Gaming taxes and a little bit of reinvestment dollars from a marketing point of view, it's extremely high.

Daniel Lee

So, you know, as long as Lewis mentioned gaming tax, I'll mention something. There was a proposal came out or an idea came out the other day of increasing the gaming tax rate at the highest tiers in Colorado. That's a long ways from done. It would take a public referendum to pass in order to happen. But if it did happen, the impact on us would be minimal if maybe even none. Because of the fact that we have three different licenses, we're not in the, our revenues, which are growing and not as high as they should be, but whatever our revenues are split three ways. And now it's not equally split three ways because the Chamonix license does more revenue than either of the other two licenses, but it is spread over three licenses.

And so we're not in the highest tax tier. In fact, I think our blended tax rate is like 12%, and the highest tax tier is 20%. And so... So I don't think that becomes law. At any given time, somebody's talking about raising gaming taxes somewhere. I think this is a long ways from happening, but even if it did happen, I don't think it would have much impact on us.

Samir Ghafir

Thank you. And then just for a quick follow-up, switching to the election results, can you discuss what whether they help reduce the risk of new supply in any of your markets, particularly Indiana or Illinois. and if they potentially created opportunities for you down the road.

Daniel Lee

Well, okay, let me address the second one first. We're pretty focused on getting American Place, the permanent American Place built, and getting Colorado fixed. And not very interested in taking on anything else in the foreseeable future. So we get phone calls all the time about casinos for sale, And sometimes we'll listen just to see what we can learn, but we're very unlikely to take on anything else until we get those two things fixed. The, in Indiana, I thought it exactly happened what I thought would happen. Somebody funded the opposition in those three referendums. It was probably an Indian tribe out of Michigan, and it was structured in a way that it incentivized nobody to fund the pro side.

So all three referendums failed solidly. which politically means that nobody's going to get a casino into the Fort Wayne area anytime soon. and there were a few people in the legislature that we were not our friends, and they lost election, and that's kind of nice, and I'll leave it at that. But at the moment, we make money in Rising Sun, and it's not a huge cash cow for us, but it's a consistent cash cow for us. And that will just continue to be the case. In Wisconsin, the man who was elected governor is the Democrat, and he had been on the city council, I believe, in Wisconsin. Milwaukee, which is where the Pottawatomie Casino is. So the efforts to get a casino in Milwaukee Now, Southeast Wisconsin is a very underserved market. I think if there's a small Indian tribe that's trying to get a casino there, and they And they've been trying for 20 years.

I don't think they're any closer than they've been at any other time. And if they ever did get it on, I think – their revenue would primarily come from increased gaming by people who live in southeast Wisconsin but I think the governor's race makes it less likely than ever that they're going to get casino there I haven't talked to that governor I don't know exactly where he stands but I would expect somebody who in Milwaukee where the Potawatomi's are a political force and it's very important. And he's on the Democrat side. I think... I just think that puts that further off. Anywhere else? I don't think it changes much.

Operator

So good luck guys. Okay, thanks. And this now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Louis Fanger, President and CFO for closing comments. Oh actually, I'm reflecting on that. This doesn't affect us very much because we're not a big player in sports betting. The Kalshi and Polymarkets, what do you call it? Prediction Markets. Prediction Markets. I mean, those companies came out of nowhere.

They're unregulated. They don't pay any taxes, and they've gotten big fast. And I think after this election, there's going to be a lot of investigation into what they're doing, and I think they'll end up being constrained. Now, that's not a very big positive for us, but for some of the other casino companies out there, that could be pretty important.

Unknown Speaker

That's it. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.

[Call has ended.]

This live transcript is auto-generated without human intervention or review.