Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, MGM President and CEO Bill Hornbuckle Bill another thing that analysts had said, the analyst at Susplhanna saying that if you buy MGM, you better be right on Las Vegas. What is the promise of Las Vegas in terms of how much you can bring in this year and how booming the economy could get this year.
Look for us, Las Vegas fundamentally is still at the core of our business. We're in the luxury segment and about eighty percent of our earnings come out of luxury. So anything about the place I'm sitting in today, Blazio, Aria, the Cosmopolitan, MGM, and to a certain extent even Mandalay. In our core convention business, it is all doing well. Occupancies are at all time high again average rate we reported to the quarter, and I think it'll send in
this quarter up sixty seven percent. And so Las Vegas continues to do well. I think the question will be not if they come, but what the spend will be around the perissery, round, entertainment, through beverage, and some of the other answery things people spend money on here. But our core fundamentals are solid, and Las Vegas is continuing to drive that for us and I think ultimately for the industry.
Bill, how do you feel about inflation at this point in time? Are there any signs that the consumer is feeling the sting of inflation that could impact that trajectory in Las Vegas or anywhere else in the country.
We're not immune from any of it.
I think at the end of the day, people still cherish this experience.
It's a getaway, it's an escape.
I'll reflect on something back during even the Great Recession, the community ran.
Our company rund eighty two percent.
So if you think about nineteen two thousand and eight and all that happened, that people come to Las Vegas, what they do when they're here, what they spend money on, ultimately,
I think becomes that differential the barometer. We have not seen a slowing down somewhat in the lower end of our category, the legacy properties that we have, We've seen some minor pullback, but you saw the results as it relates to the overall mol totality of our business driven by this particular quarter, super Bowl here in Las Vegas, and other events that will continue to host here. You know, We've become not only the entertainment capital of the world,
but one of the sports capitals. And so you think about the entertainment drivers we have between Allegiant, T Mobile, Ultimatellions and subsequently in a couple of years the A's coming year, the long term view is pretty pretty strong.
Well, just to meditate a little bit longer on Las Vegas, I mean you mentioned the super Bowl for example, some of the other sporting events coming up, your Formula one coming up as well. When you think about those events and the benefit on Las Vegas properties, I mean, how tangible, how meaningful has.
That been.
Substantively?
I mean if you look at if you go back to nineteen, which was, you know, given the pandemic, was the last real full year we could measure off of. We have absolutely raised the bar when it comes to rooms of note and pricing, and so you know, we're looking at twenty five to thirty five percent more than we were at that baseline, and that has been consistent and continues to be consistent from last year twenty three,
which was a record year, now into this year. And so we remain very optimistic and we have now enough of those events, not like we have one, we consistently pull them in and continue to continue to motivate that activity. Our Legion Stadium was destined to have about two thousand events a year.
Last year, it had forty two.
This year it's going to have like thirty five or thirty six, and so they're meaningful, and it literally that stadium sits in our backyard, particularly at the south end of the strip, and so the activity case is consistent, and it's just raised the fatality to the bar for all of us, but particularly us year with nine properties.
We let's talk a little bit about your portfolio of casinos because Bloomberg News has reported that you're considering some of your domestic casinos and you actually said earlier today that your casinos must show quote real growth or risk sale. So if you could define real growth and over what timeline you're thinking about potential sales, that would definitely be helpful.
I think principally our regional properties, and when you think about the marketplace, when you think about real growth over inslation, when you think about capital requirements and where's best to put our capital either, as you've seen, we've brought back thirty six percent of the company over the last couple of years or in assets that are both international or well as well here in Las Vegas.
To a certain extent, what's the best use of our capital?
And so when you think about a couple of our markets, you know, we question, we challenge, is there going to be real growth there? What are the capital requirements coming up? And how are we best in our shareholders best served? And in a couple of instances, you know, we probably will do something, but that's time to tell.
You know, when you look at the access cash that you reported, I believe it's about one point two billion dollars bill and it raises the question would you consider acquisitions at this point, particularly when it comes to expanding in your digital presence online sports betting.
What do you think brick and more? You know, I think less.
So we are more interested in new jurisdictions that have real growth. You know, we're building in Japan and then I'll take a great deal of our cash over the next couple of years. But when you think about digital, we see that as the horizon. And I know, you know, we have a partnership with n TAN and VETMGM here domestically, but we've invested a great deal of time, energy, and money,
and we'll continue to do so internationally. Through our Leo Vegas acquisition, we now have a content gaming company that helps us provide content into that business. We're looking for other bulletons that would make it make sense. Was very interested in Live Dealer, a proposition we'd like to motivate here from Las Vegas and broadcasts to the rest of
the world. We think it could be meaningful over time, and so we're going to continue to invest into that space and relatively aggressively, but realizing those are not massive capital allocations or capital outlays. We're more structurally getting a business right to long term growth and.
Bill We don't have much time left, but we haven't even talked about China, and we have to talk about what's going on in Macau, where you recently gained share. I think a lot of people got excited to see those details in the report this morning. What do you attribute that game to? Is that just the overall pie growing? Of course that recovery is still going on. Are you actively taking share in that market?
Well, I think we're actively taking share.
Look, we came into the pandemic with about eight or nine percent of the market.
We currently sit in the mid teens left. This last quarter was seventeen percent.
We've been aggressive in the context of what we've done to the properties, what we've done at the casino floor, in the layout, how we've approached a new error without junket operatives. We've had offices all over the globe, most notably in the Far East for thirty years, and so our ability to leverage into our own network and our own systems to go get customers directly and understand their wants, needs and desires, we think is somewhat unique and it's paying off and.
You can see the results. Obviously, we just hit our quarter over three
Hundred million cash flow, which was an all time record, and we believe we can sustain this level