EN Sep 16, 2026 ·NYSE GAMING CASINO MACAU SINGAPORE

While Everyone Chases AI, This Casino Giant Quietly Went on Sale: The Case for Las Vegas Sands

Updates

Oct 22, 2026

This stopped being a ‘cheap stock, quick bounce’ story. It’s now a ‘cheap stock, slow grind, get paid nearly 4% to wait’ story — and management just raised the dividend as if to say exactly that.

Las Vegas Sands' Big Test Came Back — and This Time Singapore Stumbled Too

I told readers to watch October 21 for one thing: proof that Las Vegas Sands could stop its costs from eating its profits. The proof didn't come. But the real surprise was somewhere else entirely — the Singapore resort I'd called the company's safe anchor had its weakest quarter in years. Here's the honest read, one day after results.

In my last update I said the whole near-term story came down to one date: October 21, when Sands would report its July–September results. The key question was simple — had management kept its promise to stop costs from growing faster than sales?

The results are in. The short answer: no, not yet. And there was a twist I didn't see coming.

What the numbers said

Sands reported after the market closed on October 21. Compared to a year ago:

Revenue: $3.22 billion, down about 3%
Profit (adjusted): $0.54 per share, versus $0.78 a year ago — and well below the roughly $0.73 that analysts expected
Core profit (EBITDA): $1.12 billion, down about 17%

The stock fell around 4.5% on the news. Notably, that's a small drop — because the stock had already fallen so far that much of the bad news was baked in. In fact, in the two weeks before results it had quietly recovered from $35 back up toward $38, so some of this was simply giving that bounce back.

The twist: this time, Singapore was the problem

In every article I've written on this company, I've leaned on one reassuring fact: Marina Bay Sands in Singapore — their single resort there — was a money machine that kept humming no matter what Macau did. It was the safe half of the story.

This quarter, it stumbled. Marina Bay Sands' core profit fell about 21% from a year ago. Its profit margin dropped from nearly 52% to under 46%.

Here's the important nuance, though: a big part of that was luck, not lost customers. Casinos win a fairly steady share of what gets bet over time, but any single quarter swings. This quarter, Singapore players ran lucky — the house's win rate on regular table play fell from about 24% to under 19%. That is the coin landing tails again, the same thing that hurt Macau last quarter. And the non-gambling side of Singapore actually got better: room revenue rose and rooms were more expensive than a year ago. So the Singapore engine isn't broken — it had a genuinely unlucky, softer quarter. But after Macau's own rough patch, seeing both markets wobble in the same three months is the thing that stung.

Did costs improve? That was the real test — and it didn't

This is the part I most wanted answered, and it's the honest disappointment.

Management had promised that the rapid cost growth in Macau would slow down in the second half of the year. It hasn't, clearly: company-wide resort running costs still rose about 5% from a year ago, even as revenue fell. In Macau specifically, the profit margin slipped again, to about 27% from over 31% a year ago.

So the single thing I pointed readers to as the make-or-break signal came back weak. I'd rather say that plainly than dress it up.

But Macau itself is quietly healing

Buried under the margin story is a genuine positive, and it's worth seeing clearly. Macau revenue actually grew about 2% from a year ago, and betting volumes rose across the board. Management says it's winning customers. So the Macau problem remains exactly what I described last month: not a shortage of gamblers, but how much profit the company keeps from them. Demand is fine. Costs and luck are the drag.

What management did about it — and it's a loud signal

Here's what tells you how the people running the company feel about their own stock.

Even with profits falling, they did two things. They bought back $950 million of their own shares this quarter — the biggest buyback yet — at an average price around $45. And they raised next year's dividend by 20%, to $1.44 a share.

Think about what that means. A management team worried about the future hoards cash. This one is doing the opposite: spending aggressively on its own shares and increasing the payout to owners. Either that's real confidence, or it's stubbornness — you can decide which — but it is not the behavior of a company that thinks its business is falling apart.

And don't wave the dividend away as too small to matter. At today's price of around $36.70, the current payout is worth about 3.3% a year — and next year's raised payout lifts that to nearly 4%. For comparison, the average big US stock pays only around 1.3%. So you're being paid roughly three times the market-average income simply to sit and wait. Over a two-year hold that's close to 8% back in your pocket from dividends alone, before the share buybacks quietly shrink the share count on top. It won't rescue you from a falling price by itself — no dividend does — but as a reason to be patient rather than panic, nearly 4% is real money, not loose change.

Where this leaves the long-term story

Let me be straight, because this is the second update in a row where the news was soft.

The thesis is more bruised than it was a month ago. Not because demand fell — it didn't — but because the margin problem I hoped was temporary has now lingered long enough, and spread to Singapore, that I can no longer wave it away as one unlucky quarter. The honest reframe: this is no longer a "cheap stock, quick bounce" story. It's a "cheap stock, slow grind, get paid to wait" story — one that needs patience through 2027 while renovations finish and costs hopefully settle.

What has not changed: people still travel to these resorts and gamble; the business still makes over a billion dollars in quarterly profit even in a bad quarter; the new $8 billion Singapore resort is still coming for around 2031; and the stock is cheap on past earnings (about 14 times) with a rising dividend. Wall Street's average price target still sits far above today's price — though expect some of those targets to be trimmed this week.

What I'm watching now

Costs, again — next report (early 2027). The promise slipped a quarter. If it slips another, "temporary" stops being the right word, and the stock likely stays stuck.
Does Singapore's luck normalize? If next quarter's Singapore profit bounces back, this quarter was mostly noise. If it doesn't, that's a bigger worry than Macau.
The dividend and buyback. As long as these continue, you're being paid a decent, rising income to be patient — which is the main reason a long-term holder can comfortably sit through this.

The honest bottom line

[Las Vegas Sands — the story so far]

Dec 2025 high:                 $70.45
Our first article (Sep 15):    ~$42.80
Last update (Oct 8):            $35.44
Today (Oct 22, after Q3):       $36.70

The test we flagged: costs did NOT clearly improve.
The surprise: Singapore had an off quarter too (mostly bad luck).
Still true: demand is fine, dividend RAISED 20%, biggest buyback yet.

A month ago I said October 21 would tell us whether Macau's weak profits were a temporary rough patch or something more lasting. The honest answer from this quarter is: more lasting than I'd hoped, but not yet proven permanent — and the company is backing itself with a bigger buyback and a fat dividend raise while we wait to find out. This remains a patience game, not a quick trade. If you can't hold it calmly for a couple of years, it was never the right stock. If you can, you're now being paid a little more, each quarter, to do exactly that.

What you do with that is your call.

At writing · LVS USD 36.70

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The analysis is based on publicly available information as of 22 October 2026 and may become outdated; prices and figures can change quickly. Please do your own research, read the company's official filings, and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decision. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Oct 8, 2026

Last month I made the case for Las Vegas Sands as a quiet bargain in an AI-obsessed market — and I said the company's huge share buybacks made a drop much below $40 unlikely. It's now $35.44. Here is exactly what happened, what I got wrong, and why the long-term reasons to own it are mostly still standing.

Las Vegas Sands, Three Weeks Later: The $40 Floor Broke. Here's the Honest Update.

Three weeks ago I wrote that Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) looked like a sensible, boring, real-world business that the market had left on the discount rack. I also said one specific thing that turned out to be wrong: that the company's massive buyback program made a fall "much below $40" hard to sustain.

It fell to $35.44.

If you started a position when we published (around $42.80), you are down roughly 17% in three weeks. I am not going to dress that up. Let me walk through what happened, separate what I got wrong from what is still true, and tell you honestly what I am watching — because this was always meant to be a long-term hold, and long-term holds get tested exactly like this.

What happened in three weeks

This was a slow bleed, not a crash. No single piece of bad news, no scandal. The stock simply slid, day after day: below $40 by September 18, down to $36 by early October, and $35.44 today.

But one real event sat underneath it. Every month, Macau reports how much its casinos took in, and that number is the heartbeat of this stock. I had expected September to be a turnaround month — a year ago September was hit by a typhoon, so the comparison should have been easy, and some analysts even expected growth.

Instead, Macau's September casino revenue came in down 1.2% from a year earlier — the fourth month in a row of declines, and the weakest single month of the entire year. The recovery I had been pointing to simply did not show up on schedule. That broke the hopeful trend I leaned on last month (the "down 12%, then down 8%, then down 1%, so it's healing" story), and the market noticed.

What I got wrong

Let me be direct about it, because you deserve that.

1. The buyback "floor." Buybacks support a share price — they do not put a hard floor under it when sellers are determined to get out. I trusted $40 to hold because the company was buying. It didn't hold. That was an overconfident call.

2. The "it's just the World Cup" explanation. Last month I leaned too hard on the idea that Macau's weakness was mostly temporary — football distracting gamblers for a few weeks. Four straight down months later, the people who study this market are pointing to bigger, slower-moving reasons: softer spending from mainland Chinese visitors, and tighter government scrutiny of how big gamblers move their money. That is not a two-week sports event, and it may take longer to clear than I implied.

What I got right — and what has not changed

This is the part that actually matters if you are holding for years, not weeks.

People are still showing up. This is the single most important fact, and it is easy to miss in a falling stock. The weakness is not because customers disappeared. In the most recent quarter, the actual amount of money played at Sands' Macau tables and machines was sharply higher than a year before — betting volumes were up strongly. And across all of Macau, casino revenue for the first nine months of 2026 is still up about 3% versus last year. Demand did not break. The problem is how much profit the company keeps from all that activity — a margin problem and a run of bad luck at the tables, not an empty-casino problem.

The business got cheaper, not worse. At $35.44, the stock now trades at about 14 times earnings (it was 17 last month), and the dividend yield has risen to about 3.4%. You are being paid more to wait than you were three weeks ago, for the same company.

The long-term engines are untouched. The brand-new $8 billion Singapore resort is still being built for around 2031. The company is still buying back its own shares — only now it is buying them much cheaper.

The professionals still see value. Wall Street's average price target sits near $60 — far above today's price — and one major firm this week kept its "outperform" rating even as it trimmed its target. A cash-flow model from one research house still pegs the stock as roughly 22% undervalued. None of that is a promise. But it tells you the fall is about mood and timing, not a belief that the business is broken.

The one new risk worth taking seriously

If there is a reason to genuinely worry about the long-term story, it is this: what if Macau's lower profits are permanent, not temporary?

Competition in Macau is fierce. Rivals are fighting for the same high-value players, and winning them costs money — more staff, more perks, thinner margins. This week one major bank specifically pointed at Sands as facing more margin pressure than some competitors like Galaxy and Wynn. If that turns out to be a lasting disadvantage rather than a rough patch, it caps how far profits can recover. That is the thing to keep an eye on — far more than the daily share price.

What to expect next

Mark the date: October 21. That is when Sands reports its July–September results. It is the real test of whether management's promise — to slow down cost growth in the second half of the year — is actually happening. Good news on costs could turn the mood quickly from these levels. Another margin disappointment, and the stock could stay under pressure for a while.

The rest of the year will probably stay soft. Analysts expect Macau's revenue to keep dipping slightly in the final quarter. So do not expect the business to snap back in a straight line, even if the stock bounces.

The long-term frame hasn't moved. For someone holding for years, the question was never "what does the stock do this month." It is: will people keep traveling to Asia's biggest resorts, and will this company keep turning that into cash while shrinking its share count? So far, the answer to the first part is clearly yes. The second part gets re-tested on October 21.

The honest bottom line

[Las Vegas Sands — the fall continued]

Dec 2025 high:        $70.45  ==============================>  $35.44 today

Our last article (Sep 15):  ~$42.80
Today (Oct 8):               $35.44   (another ~17% lower)

Still true: 9-month Macau revenue +3%, betting volumes up, buybacks ongoing,
            dividend yield now ~3.4%, new Singapore resort still on the way.

The price has been painful, and I called the near-term floor wrong. But the reason to own Las Vegas Sands for the long run was never that it wouldn't fall — it was that it is a dominant, cash-generating business in something people keep coming back to, now on sale. Three weeks of ugly price action and one soft month in Macau do not change that story. A permanently weaker Macau would. October 21 will tell us a great deal about which of those two we are really dealing with.

What you do with that is your call — but if nothing else, this stretch is a clean reminder of what long-term positions are built to survive.

At writing · LVS USD 35.44

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The analysis is based on publicly available information as of 8 October 2026 and may become outdated; prices and figures can change quickly. Please do your own research, read the company's official filings, and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decision. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Everyone is piling into AI stocks. Meanwhile, one of the world's biggest casino companies has fallen to its lowest price in a year — even though its resorts are still full and it is buying back a huge slice of its own shares. Here's why Las Vegas Sands deserves a second look.

In 2026, almost every conversation about the stock market comes back to one thing: artificial intelligence. Chips, data centers, chatbots. If a company can't spell "AI," investors seem to lose interest.

That is exactly why Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) is interesting.

This is a business you can touch. People get on planes, walk into a resort, eat, watch a show, and yes — gamble. No app can do that for them. And right now, while the crowd looks the other way, the stock trades at about $42.80 — its lowest level in a year, and down almost 40% from its high of $70.45 last December.

So the question is simple: is this a broken company, or a good company on sale? Let me walk through it in plain English.

First — do people still go out and gamble?

Short answer: yes. And the numbers are getting better, not worse.

Las Vegas Sands no longer operates in Las Vegas at all — it sold those famous properties back in 2022. Today it makes all its money in just two places: Macau (five casino-resorts) and Singapore (one giant resort, Marina Bay Sands).

Macau is the key. Earlier this year its casino revenue looked scary — down 12% in June. But that was mostly due to one thing: the football World Cup, which kept players glued to their TVs instead of the gaming tables. As soon as the tournament ended, the numbers started healing:

June: down 12%
July: down 8%
August: down just 1%

And for the whole year so far, Macau is actually up about 4% versus last year. In Singapore the story is even better — room rates at Marina Bay Sands jumped about 11%, and the resort is packed.

So the "people stopped gambling" fear doesn't hold up. They didn't stop. They were watching football for a few weeks.

So what scared everyone in July?

On July 22, the company reported profits for the April–June quarter, and they came in below what analysts expected. The stock dropped. That is what pushed it down to where it sits today.

But here is the part most headlines skipped: a big chunk of that miss was simply bad luck.

Casinos win a fairly predictable share of what gets bet — over time. But in any single quarter, luck swings. Last quarter, players at the tables in Macau got unusually lucky, which cost Las Vegas Sands roughly $50 million in profit. That is not lost customers or a weaker business. It is the casino version of a coin landing tails a few too many times. It evens out.

And zoom out: for the first half of 2026 as a whole, the company's profit per share was actually higher than a year ago. The business grew. One noisy quarter hid it.

The one honest worry: costs

I don't want to tell you only the good parts — that is how people get burned.

There is a real issue, and it is not gambling demand. It is spending. Over the past year the company hired more staff, opened more tables, and spent more on service in Macau. Great for customers — but costs rose about 10% while revenue was flat. When costs grow faster than sales, profit gets squeezed.

Management has promised this cost growth will slow down in the second half of the year. We find out if that promise is real on October 21, when the next results come out. That date is the single most important thing to watch. If costs behave, profits should bounce back. If they don't, the stock could dip again.

This is exactly why I am not suggesting you rush in with everything. More on that at the end.

What could push profits back up

Several things could lift profits over the next year, and none of them needs a miracle:

Costs settling down, as management promised (the October test).
Luck returning to normal at the tables — that alone adds profit back.
The Londoner in Macau — a resort they just spent $2.2 billion renovating, now filling up nicely; business there jumped sharply last quarter.
The Venetian in Macau — a fresh renovation, with the first new rooms opening now and the full refresh finished by end of 2027.
Singapore's upgrade — Marina Bay Sands turned a large part of its hotel into luxury suites (from 135 suites to 770), which is why room rates are climbing.
Share buybacks (explained below), which quietly lift profit-per-share even if total profit stays flat.

The big long-term prize: a brand-new Singapore resort

Here is the part that makes Las Vegas Sands interesting for patient investors.

Right next to Marina Bay Sands, the company is building an entirely new resort — often called "IR2." It is an $8 billion project: a 55-storey tower, 570 luxury suites, 23 ultra-exclusive "mansions," and a 15,000-seat arena for concerts and big events. It is aimed at the very richest travelers in Asia — a group Marina Bay Sands already has to turn away today, simply because it is full most nights.

One honest note: this is a long-term story, not a quick win. It won't open until around 2031, and until then it actually costs money to build (roughly $215 million every quarter right now). So don't buy the stock expecting this to lift profits next year — it won't. Think of it instead as a valuable prize you are getting almost for free at today's low price. Singapore only allows two casino resorts in the entire country, so this is protected, high-end growth that no competitor can copy.

There is even a possible bonus: Thailand is debating whether to allow casino resorts, and Las Vegas Sands is interested. Nothing is committed and it may never happen — but if it does, it is another future engine. Treat it as a free lottery ticket, not a reason to buy.

The safety net: the company is buying its own stock

This is my favorite part, and it is simple.

When a company believes its own shares are cheap, it can buy them back. That does two good things: it supports the share price, and it shrinks the number of shares — so each remaining share owns a bigger slice of the profits.

Las Vegas Sands is doing this in a big way. It just approved a plan to buy back up to $6 billion of its own stock — roughly a fifth of the entire company. Last quarter alone it bought $787 million worth. And over the past couple of years it has paid an average of about $48 per share doing this — which is above today's price of ~$43.

Think about what that means: the company itself believes the stock is worth more than it costs today, and it is putting billions behind that belief. That is a strong floor under the price — and a big reason a fall much below $40 may be hard to sustain. It also still pays a dividend of about 2.7% a year, so you are paid a little to wait.

The price, and what to keep an eye on

Here is the whole situation in one simple picture:

[Las Vegas Sands — one year, from top to bottom]

Dec 2025 high:  $70.45  ===========================>  Today: ~$42.80   (down ~39%)

Yet first-half 2026 profit actually went UP,
and the company is buying back ~1/5 of itself.

The stock trades at about 17 times earnings — cheap for a business this dominant — pays a dividend, and sits right on its lowest price in a year.

A few things stand out at this price. Around $42–43, the stock is sitting on strong support, and that giant buyback puts a floor beneath it — the company's own buying may make a fall much below $40 hard to sustain. The next big signpost is October 21, when the results will show whether those Macau costs are finally behaving. And it is worth remembering that the main risk here (costs) and the main reward (costs improving) are really the same thing, decided on the same day.

What you do with that is your call.

In short: this is a strong, cash-rich, real-world business that the AI-obsessed market has left on the discount rack. It is not risk-free, and the next few months could stay bumpy. But at a one-year low, with the company itself buying aggressively and a giant new resort on the way, Las Vegas Sands is a name worth understanding right now — a patient story built on something very human: people continuing to travel, celebrate, and play.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The analysis is based on publicly available information as of 15 September 2026 and may become outdated; prices and figures can change quickly. Please do your own research, read the company's official filings, and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decision. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital. Past performance does not guarantee future results.