Spin Cycle: Oodles Of Earnings Reports Highlight Week In Gambling

Welcome to “Spin Cycle,” Casino Reports’ weekly Friday roundup of all things impactful, intriguing, impressive, or idiotic in the gambling industry. Pull up a chair, grab a stack of chips and a glass of your beverage of choice, and take a spin with us through this week’s news cycle …

Shareholders’ delight

The first-quarter earnings reports from gaming companies came fast and furious this week, and if there was a common theme, it was a focus on the positive. (Not that we should expect anything different on these calls with investors.) A quick whip around the horn for some highlights:

• MGM Resorts acknowledged that a downturn in visitation to Las Vegas has been bad for business, but it still expressed optimism about growth over the balance of the year and seemed pleased with a 4% year-over-year increase in Q1 revenue, to $4.5 billion.
• Rush Street Interactive — the company behind the BetRivers brand — celebrated “the success of our casino-first strategy,” in CEO Richard Schwartz’s words. RSI’s stock reached a new high this week after the company said it raised 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance from a range of $210-$230 million to a range of $230-$250 million.
• Red Rock, following a report of record revenue for 2025, kept the momentum going by touting its best ever first quarter in net revenue and its second-highest Q1 in adjusted EBITDA, trailing only Q1 of 2025 in that statistic.
• Sports betting supplier Kambi revealed that revenue rose 5% in the quarter compared to 2025 and adjusted EBITDA soared 64%, leading to a new 52-week high in the company’s stock price after the Wednesday earnings call.

More news to know … 

• Tennessee is a governor’s signature (or a governor’s non-action) away from becoming the latest state to ban sweepstakes casinos. Gov. Bill Lee has until this coming Tuesday to veto SB 2136/HB 1885, or else the legislation prohibiting dual-currency gambling will become law. Tennessee would become the third state in 2026 — following Indiana and Maine — to enact a sweeps ban.

• Great news for The Lodge Card Club in Round Rock, Texas, which has been closed since a March 10 raid by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission: A grand jury heard arguments against the poker room Tuesday, and charges were effectively dropped when not enough jurors felt there was probable cause a crime had been committed. Poker pro and co-owner of the club Doug Polk announced that he expects all seized assets to be returned and the club to reopen “within a few weeks.”

• Who’s ready for the “Run for the Roses” this Saturday? DraftKings is, announcing Monday that its DraftKings Racing feature is now available in nine states, in time for the Kentucky Derby. DraftKings Racing is now available in Delaware, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Oregon, and it is integrated into the DraftKings Sportsbook app in those states where the company has a sports betting license. For Saturday’s big race, DK is offering a $1 million “King of the Track” promotion in which customers can place a qualifying bet and all those who took the winning horse will receive a share of a $1 million prize pool.

• While Resorts World opening up for table games in New York City sucked up most of the casino-launch oxygen this week, it wasn’t the only major East Coast ribbon-cutting, as Happy Valley Casino near the campus of Penn State opened its doors to the public Monday. It was a long road here since the project received approval from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board back in 2020, but now it’s open daily from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m., with 600 slot machines and 30 table games.

• Three-time Super Bowl champion Richard Seymour came thisclose to becoming a World Poker Tour champion Wednesday, ultimately finishing second in the WPT’s Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship in Hollywood, Florida. The title went to Ian Cohen, who earned a $645,800 payday in the $3,500 buy-in tournament; Seymour’s pain figures to be soothed by his $430,000 runner-up prize.

House Rules: Insights from around our network

Cards Shuffling, Wheels Spinning, Dice Tumbling On First NYC Casino Tables

Senate Prohibits Members, Staff From Using Prediction Markets

The Vegas All-Nighter: A Casino Road Trip Without So Much Road

Why 91 Strangers Picked The Exact Same Powerball Numbers Wednesday Night

Caesars Earnings: Making Moves In Online Casino

Federal Prosecutors: Damon Jones ‘Converted His Fame’ Into ‘Criminal Betting Operation’

This Is Your Brain On Five-Minute Bitcoin Markets

Warren Buffett On Legalized Gambling: ‘I Don’t Like Things That Make A Sucker Out Of People’

Small stakes and hot takes

This week on the Casino Reports podcast Low Rollers, I welcomed my Third Planet Media colleague Daniel O’Boyle, one of the world’s foremost reporters covering prediction markets, for a deep dive into where they stand legally, the extent to which public perception has taken a turn against them, whether a prediction market will offer casino games soon, and much more.

I also gave my take on how massive Resorts World New York City can be and some of the feedback regarding the opening this week of its table game floor, plus there’s a new Huff N’ Puff slot available in legal online casino states, so naturally I took it for a spin.

Full episode:

The Shuffle: Other news and views

Las Vegas Tourism Head Says First-Quarter Numbers Will Change Negative Narrative [CDC Gaming]

The Handle: US Online Casino Revenue Tops $3B In Q1 [The Closing Line]

Bally’s Hits Chicago Casino Construction Milestone With Fanfare — And Big Questions [Chicago Sun-Times]

Eyesore Or Game Changer? The Latest On Hard Rock’s Guitar Hotel Tower Rising Over Strip [The Nevada Independent]

Missouri House Committee Considers Higher Casino Taxes, Fees [News Tribune]

Las Vegas Gaming Company Awarded $420M Verdict In False Advertising Trial [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

How Kent State’s Casino Class Leads Hospitality Students To Vegas Careers [Akron Beacon Journal]

Hochul: 10-Year Gambling Study Will Survey New Yorkers To Assess Support Services [Spectrum News 1]

Atlantic City’s Ocean Casino Resort Unveils $20M In Upgrades For Summer [Press of Atlantic City]

Siegfried & Roy Sculpture From The Mirage Lands At Neon Museum [Las Vegas Sun]

Graton Resort And Casino To Debut $1B ‘Vegas-Class’ Expansion [FOX 2 KTVU]

Las Vegas’ Failed Ferris Wheel Site Sells To Developer Who Plans New Hotel-Casino [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

The Bonus Round

Completing the Spin Cycle with a few of our favorite social media posts of the week: