Record results at Marina Bay Sands driven by advances in smart table technology on baccarat
Singapore casino showing operational performance that is ‘unprecedented in the history of the industry’
Las Vegas Sands delivered better-than-expected performance in its third quarter, driven by strong results at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, which CEO Rob Goldstein said are ‘unprecedented in the history of our industry.’ He also highlighted how baccarat performance is being driven by the side bets and links to sports betting enabled by smart table technology.
Overall, revenues were up 24.3 per cent to reach US$3.33bn with Marina Bay Sands delivering revenues of US$1.44bn, an increase from US$919m last third quater.
Mr Goldstein said: “Singapore has taken a whole new, we can’t figure out just how high is up. This thing just keeps getting stronger and stronger. Marina Bay Sands delivered EBITDA of $743m. We had forecast that MBS could do $2.5bn annually. It turns out we were too conservative. We should easily exceed that figure in 2025. MBS is currently over $2.1bn of EBITDA this year, with a quarter still to go.
“Mass gain in slot win was a record $905m, reflecting 122 per cent growth from Q3 of 2019 and 35 per cent higher than last year. We are in the right place at the right time with the right product. Singapore is a highly desirable destination, and our product is superb. It’s difficult to find superlatives to describe the magnitude of this result. Operating performance at MBS is unprecedented in the history of our industry.”
Performance at the baccarat tables has been driven by a new approach in side bets, enabled by the introduction of smart table technology on our Baccarat games in Singapore.
Mr Goldstein said: “This technology has now been in place at our rolling Baccarat tables in Marina Bay Sands for over one year. The smart table is just the scorekeeper, the umpire, the referee. It doesn’t make this stuff happen. What’s changed is the game itself offers a lot more opportunities to gamble in different ways with analogous to sports betting. When you have side bets and sports betting, the prop bets and side bets, the low percentage bets for the customer are playing in your favor. This is simply mathematics. This isn’t casual bettors but seasoned pros seem to want to bet these side bets. This is everybody gravitating towards side bets for their house advantage. It’s a very interesting game now. It’s become very powerful. In a company like ours, which is Baccarat dependent, it’s a powerful driver of revenue and EBITDA flow-through.”
Results were also improved in Macau, despite the effects of Super Typhoon Ragasa, with Sands China generating revenue of US$1.9bn, marking a 7.5 per cent year-on-year lift. The increase in Macau was led by the success of The Londoner Macao, where revenues increased by 49.1 per cent year-on-year.
Mr Goldstein said: “Macau delivered $601m of EBITDA for the quarter, which reflects improvement in our financial results, but Typhoon negatively impacted our reported EBITDA by about $20m. We have underperformed in the Macau market for the past few years. We believed that our buildings would be enough to compete favorably. We were wrong. We’ve adapted to the market and changed our approach in the second quarter of 2025 to enable us to be more competitive. Our mass market revenue jumped 25.4 per cent this quarter, up from 23.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2025. We expect additional share gains and EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter. Our assets remain the strongest in the Macau market. The Londoner is moving towards one plus billion dollars of EBITDA. We have meaningful opportunities for growth improvement throughout our Macau property portfolio. Importantly, the Macau market’s GGR is growing.”
In terms of improvements, Mr Goldstein highlighted the Parisian and Sands as the’ weak links in the portfolio.’
“Parisian has come way off the highs and about 50 per cent of it’s what it used to be because of EBITDA performance,” he explained. “I think we have a lot of value in that property. London is fine. Venetian is okay. I just think we’ve got to come off the bottom in Sands and get that back to being competitive. It’s underway. It’s progressing.”
Patrick Dumont, President and Chief Operating Officer, Las Vegas Sands, added: “We are focused on delivering revenue and cash flow growth at The Londoner and across the portfolio. Margin at The Venetian was 35 per cent, while margin at The Londoner was 31.9 per cent. We expect growth in EBITDA as revenues grow and as we use our scale and product advantages together with targeted incentives to better address every market segment. We see opportunity in every segment.”
