$32.00
$146.00
bear $32.00
base $103.00
bull $146.00
margin of safety $65.00
market price* $75.60
Wynn Resorts owns and runs four luxury casino resorts: Wynn Palace (Cotai) and Wynn Macau in Macau, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore on the Las Vegas Strip, and Encore Boston Harbor outside Boston. It also owns 40% of Wynn Al Marjan Island, a resort under construction in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, which holds the country's first commercial gaming license and is now scheduled to open in September 2027 at a total cost of about $5.7 billion, $600 million more than previously budgeted. The Macau resorts are held through Wynn Macau, Limited, a Hong Kong-listed company about 72% owned by Wynn; the other 28% of Macau's profits belong to outside shareholders, and 49.9% of the Las Vegas retail income belongs to a partner. Everything below is Wynn's share only. How we measure earnings. We start from the cash the business produces before paying its lenders: operating cash flow, less short-term working-capital swings, less stock-based pay (a real cost), less the spending needed to keep luxury resorts at their current standard, less the outside owners' share, plus the interest the company pays (we then subtract the debt itself). We treat routine room and venue refreshes, including the roughly $330 million Encore Tower remodel now under way, as a cost of staying in business and set normal upkeep at about $475 million a year, between the light spending of 2023–2024 and the heavier 2025. We measure from 2023, when Macau's new 10-year gaming concession began and the junket (VIP agent) system was dismantled; earlier years describe a different Macau business, the construction of Wynn Palace and Encore Boston Harbor, and the pandemic. Adjusting 2024 for a one-time $130 million US non-prosecution forfeiture and $9.4 million settlement, and 2025 for one-time 20th-anniversary stock awards, the business produced about $1.27 billion (2023), $1.54 billion (2024) and $1.32 billion (2025) for Wynn shareholders before interest. We use the middle figure, about $1.32 billion, or roughly $12.75 per share. Property earnings fell about 6% in 2025 (Wynn Palace −7%, Wynn Macau −9%, Las Vegas −5%, Boston −4%); the first half of 2026 has been better, with Wynn Palace up 28% in the second quarter and operating cash flow up about 20% for the half, while Las Vegas fell 8% in the second quarter as the remodel took rooms out of service. What the business owes. At June 30, 2026 Wynn had $10.72 billion of debt, including $5.76 billion at the Macau subsidiary and $599 million at the Las Vegas retail venture. In September 2026 it issued $900 million of 6.875% notes due 2035 and used them to retire its 5.25% Las Vegas notes due 2027, which removes the largest near-term US maturity but at a higher coupon. Against this it holds about $2.1 billion of cash and short-term investments, of which we treat about $1.7 billion as surplus to what the casinos need on hand, leaving net debt of about $9.1 billion. The debt trades close to face value, so we make no adjustment for its cost. Remaining maturities to watch: Wynn Macau's convertible bonds, which holders can put back in March 2027, and about $2.5 billion due in 2028 and $1.8 billion in 2029. Committed spending that is not upkeep. Under its Macau concession Wynn committed to about $2.6 billion of non-gaming investment over 2023–2032, including a new 432-suite tower at Wynn Palace budgeted at $900–950 million; we charge Wynn's share of the remaining capital (roughly $250 million in 2027, $200 million in 2028, $100 million in 2029, then $40 million a year) as a cost in every case. Wynn has contributed $1.06 billion to the UAE resort and we expect roughly $350 million more, higher in the bear case. Base case (about $103 per share: business worth about $19.7 billion, debt $9.1 billion, difference $10.6 billion). Macau holds flat at its 2025 level: the market's gaming revenue is up 3.2% for January–September 2026 but has fallen year-on-year for four straight months through September, and we give no credit for market growth. Las Vegas settles about 5% below 2025 and Boston drifts slightly lower, offset in part by Wynn Palace's 2026 momentum, for about $1.27 billion a year before interest. The new Palace suite tower, which is funded and under construction, adds a modest return from 2030 (about $40 million a year to Wynn). The UAE resort opens on schedule and earns about 8% a year on its cost before upkeep, at the low end of Wynn's own record (Encore Boston Harbor about 9%, Wynn Palace about 16%), leaving Wynn about $60 million a year after the project's own $2.4 billion construction loan; we credit it because the money is spent and the building is nearly complete, but at a low return because the UAE market is untested and its gaming tax is not yet known. US cash taxes, near zero today thanks to about $450 million of foreign tax credit carryforwards, rise to about $70 million a year from 2031. The Macau concession, which expires at the end of 2032, is renewed on similar terms with a similar investment commitment (about $115 million a year to Wynn from 2033): all six operators were renewed in 2022, and since that tender the casino floors themselves belong to the Macau government, so the business there depends on renewal. Beyond 2036 earnings are held flat: Wynn owns its Strip land outright, its resorts have kept earning through two decades, two downturns and a pandemic, and upkeep is already deducted. Bear case (about $32 per share: business worth about $12.9 billion, debt and higher refinancing costs about $9.5 billion, difference $3.3 billion). Las Vegas continues its 2026 slide (down 8% in 2027) and Boston weakens. Then one full downturn of the kind Wynn has already lived through: in 2008 Wynn's Las Vegas property earnings fell 39% in a single year, and in 2015 its Macau earnings fell 44% during China's anti-corruption campaign. We model Las Vegas down 40% and Macau down 35% at a 2029 trough, recovering by 2031 only to 90–95% of prior levels. Refinancing the 2027–2029 maturities in that environment costs about $400 million more in today's money. The UAE resort opens but earns too little to pay anything to Wynn after its own loan, and further overruns under Wynn's completion guarantee cost another $300 million. The 2033 Macau concession is renewed on tougher terms, cutting Macau earnings 15% and raising the investment commitment. In the trough years the business only just covers its roughly $600 million of interest; existing surplus cash and $2.4 billion of undrawn credit lines bridge the gap, but dividends and buybacks would stop. Bull case (about $146 per share: business worth about $24.1 billion, debt $9.1 billion, difference $15.0 billion). After the remodel, Las Vegas returns to its 2024 level ($947 million) and Macau to its 2024 level under the current concession ($1.18 billion) — levels the business has already reached under today's conditions. The Palace suite tower earns about 10% on cost and the UAE resort ramps toward Wynn Palace's record (about 13% on cost), worth about $160 million a year to Wynn. What would make this wrong. The largest single risk is that Las Vegas earnings, which more than doubled from $414 million in 2019 to $902 million in 2025 during the post-pandemic luxury boom, are partly temporary; if they gave back half that gain permanently the shares would be worth roughly $40 less than our base. A Chinese policy shock (as in 2014–2015 or the 2020–2022 closures), a materially worse 2033 concession, or a UAE resort that opens late or over budget again would push toward the bear case. A repeat of Wynn Palace's 2026 strength, a clean UAE opening, and Las Vegas returning to 2024 form would push toward the bull case. What changed since our previous analysis. Since late September, Macau's September gaming revenue fell 1.2% year-on-year, its fourth consecutive monthly decline, and Wynn refinanced its 2027 Las Vegas notes into 2035 at a higher coupon. Our previous figures were prepared on a different basis and are not comparable to these. Margin of safety price: $65. We are reasonably confident of the earning power of the current properties over a cycle, but not of its level: Las Vegas earnings sit far above anything Wynn earned before 2021 and are now falling, and half the business rests on a Macau concession that must be won again in 2032 from a government that owns the casino floors. The worst plausible outcome is a Macau shock coinciding with a US downturn while about $4 billion of debt comes due in 2027–2029; Wynn's owned Strip real estate, $2.4 billion of undrawn credit and history of refinancing through 2009 and 2020 suggest it would survive, but shareholders could lose more than half their money in that case. If we are wrong about Las Vegas holding near today's level, the shares are worth about $60–65. The price assumes a holding period of about three years, while the UAE resort opens and the Macau spending peak passes; over that time the business pays about $1 a share a year in dividends. From $65, the base case implies roughly a doubling over three years, a Las Vegas reversion implies roughly break-even, and the bear case implies a serious loss. The margin-of-safety price is set no higher than that given the leverage and the dependence on two regulators.