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Reviewing the Three Best Casino Stocks to Buy Now

Three best casino stocks to buy now include a sports betting platform changing online gambling, the world’s sixth-largest casino and an organizer of…

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2 years ago

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Three best casino stocks to buy now include a sports betting platform changing online gambling, the world’s sixth-largest casino and an organizer of a Triple Crown horse race.

Like the rest of the travel and tourism industry, casino stocks have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years. Casinos have seen their shares remain at a fraction of their pre-pandemic prices. As a result, casino stocks are immensely underpriced.

Rising cases from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 have played a significant role in subduing the growth of casino stocks in recent months. However, tourists and bettors have begun displaying a propensity to move past COVID-19. The American casino industry recorded a breakout year in 2021, despite the emergence of the Delta variant of COVID-19, raking in over $44 billion in sales.

Government restrictions designed to combat COVID-19 are also seemingly coming to an end. Omicron has “outcompeted” the less contagious Delta variant, providing hundreds of millions worldwide an additional layer of natural immunity against its more dangerous cousin. National governments across the globe, ranging from Israel to the United Kingdom, have begun pursuing a return to normalcy policies. At home, even states with the most stringent COVID-19 policies have begun lifting mask mandates.

The rise of online betting during the pandemic has added the positive attribute of soaring growth to an industry known for high-profit margins. Many United States casinos emphasized the development of their online gaming platforms over the past two years, allowing companies to increase their total addressable market significantly. The global online gambling industry is projected to reach $100 billion by 2026, double its $50 billion market size in 2019.

The casino industry is undoubtedly a winner in the coming years. However, which stocks should you choose out of the dozens of casino investments available? Luckily, we have identified the top three casino stocks to buy now.

3 Best Casino Stocks to Buy Now: #3

DraftKings Inc. (NASDAQ:DKNG)

DraftKings Inc. (NASDAQ:DKNG) is an online sports entertainment and gaming company founded in 2012 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The platform offers fantasy sports, sports betting, iGaming and casino products to consumers and businesses.

DraftKings has encountered a significant slide over the past year due to missed earnings and fears about Omicron’s impact on professional sports. The company’s stock has fallen by 69.7% over the past year. DKNG’s movement over the trailing 12 months is graphed below, along with a 50-day moving average to better illustrate change.

Chart provided by Stock Rover.

However, the market appears to have overcorrected. Savvy investors have an opportunity to generate triple-digit returns.

DraftKings has successfully combined the consumer base of North American sports and the profitability of online gambling to create an industry titan. The North American sports market is valued at $77.9 billion. The American online gambling industry possesses a sky-high 22.1% profit margin. The company has managed to construct a duopoly in the sports betting market, online gambling’s fastest-growing vertical, squaring off against its only true rival, FanDuel (OTC: PDYPT). In less than 10 years, DraftKings has reached a market capitalization (market cap) of $9.0 billion.

DraftKings has become the leading force in online gambling in the United States with an 18.3% market share of an industry worth $27.9 billion, beating out gaming icons such as MGM Resorts International (NYSE:MGM) and Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ:PENN).

However, DraftKings is not content with just being the market leader. DKNG’s lackluster 2021 performance is not backed by the company’s underlying financials. The company has increasingly widened the gap between it and its industry rivals. In the two years since its 2019 initial public offering, DraftKings has increased its sales by 254.5%. The industry average revenue growth over the last year is 29.2% and 11.5% over the previous three years.

DraftKings’ surge is only expected to continue. The company is forecasted to see a 49.6% jump in revenue in 2022. DKNG is projected to collect a 39.2% increase in year-on-year revenue in Q1 2022 alone.

The company’s success is due to its aggressive expansion strategy, prioritizing growth over profits. DraftKings boasts one of the best marketing teams in the industry. The company has seen its monthly paying users more than double in two years, from 684,000 in 2019 to 1.49 million in 2021, equaling an 118.4% increase. Paying customers also have dramatically increased their spending, from an average of $39 per month per user in 2019 to $67 in 2021.

In April 2021, DraftKings announced a deal to become an official sports betting partner of the NFL. The agreement will help the company tap into the league’s 410 million fans globally. Football is the most popular sport among bettors in the United States.

DraftKings has never recorded a profit. However, over the long run, the company will inevitably become profitable. It costs DraftKings an average of $370 to acquire a customer. In comparison, each customer produces $2,500 in lifetime value for the company. DraftKings has repeatedly stated that it aims to reach profitability within two to three years of going live in a given state, and it has delivered in New Jersey, the only state to reach the three-year milestone so far.

The rapid growth of DraftKings in recent quarters and the potential for online sports gambling have caused Morgan Stanley analyst Thomas Allen to predict that the company will reach profitability by 2024. Despite the recent downturn, DraftKings represents the future of sports betting, making the stock a buy.

A discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, using Stock Rover, values the stock at $36.18, 72.5% higher than its latest closing price of $20.96, earning DKNG a “BUY” recommendation from Stock Rover and a place among our three best casino stocks to buy now.

3 Best Casino Stocks to Buy Now: #2

Churchill Downs Inc. (NASDAQ:CHDN)

Churchill Downs Inc. (NASDAQ:CHDN), founded in 1875, is a legendary horse racing and entertainment corporation. The company, known for its annual Kentucky Derby race, operates over 16 racing tracks and casinos across the United States. Churchill Downs is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, and has a market cap of $8.5 billion.

The name Churchill Downs is synonymous with the famous Kentucky Derby horse race held every spring, and for a good reason. The Kentucky Derby is the first and arguably most renowned event in horse racing’s highly prized Triple Crown. Specifically, 16.5 million viewers tuned into the 2019 race.

Two years later, 14.4 million individuals watched the Kentucky Derby in 2021, a near-full rebound to pre-pandemic figures. The famous Derby will likely return to complete normalcy in 2022 as Wells Fargo analyst Daniel Politzer predicts that the Derby is an “economic rebound catalyst in 2022 due to pent-up event demand following the ongoing health crisis.”

Horse racing presents some of the highest barriers to entry of any betting industry. Races are built on legacy. Rivals not only have to construct and maintain expensive race tracks but also negate decades or even centuries of history to compete. The Kentucky Derby, the youngest of the Triple Crown races, was first run in 1875. Furthermore, Churchill Downs has managed to leverage the popularity of its horse races to expand into other areas of the gaming industry.

The Kentucky Derby and other horse races are important revenue streams for Churchill Downs. However, live and historical racing’s primary boon to the company is its ability to draw consumers to its other business segments. The races allow Churchill Downs to directly tap into the millions of horse racing fans worldwide, providing the company millions of dollars worth of free publicity without additional advertisement spending.

Churchill Downs is divided into four main business segments: live and historical (horse) racing; TwinSpires, the company’s online wagering segment; gaming; and “all other.” Gaming, encompassing table games, poker and slot machines, is the largest, producing 42.5% of the company’s total revenue. Live and historical racing is the smallest business segment, accounting for only 25.9% of the company’s revenues. TwinSpires generates 27.4% of revenues, while the other business segment accounts for the remaining sales.

Churchill Downs’ growth of TwinSpires has been especially impressive, showcasing its ability to expand into new markets and proving it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks. TwinSpires has become the company’s second-largest business segment, despite only launching in January 2021. The online betting platform is potentially already worth up to $1.5 billion.

Churchill Downs has an unprecedented opportunity to expand its TwinSpires and gaming business segments in the company’s home state of Kentucky. The Kentucky gaming market is set to increase dramatically as the state’s legislature is on track to legalize sports betting in 2022. Politzer indicated that the Kentucky gaming market is already “large and underpenetrated, creating significant growth opportunities for Churchill Downs.”

The company maintains a Stock Rover growth score of 98/100 and is forecast to record a 51.1% increase in sales in 2021 once its 2021 10-K’s are released. As a result, Churchill Downs has managed to weather the recent downturn in the casino industry better than most. CHDN has seen its share price encounter a modest drop of 1.7% over the trailing 12 months. CHDN’s change in price is displayed alongside a 50-day moving average.

Chart provided by Stock Rover.

Churchill Downs is projected to continue its growth into 2022, with a respectable 14.5% increase in revenue. However, CHDN is a value investment and not a growth stock. Its appeal to investors is being undervalued relative to its actual market value rather than experiencing high growth year-over-year. The company possesses a (share) price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 38.7 and an enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EV/EBITDA) ratio of 19.9 below the industry averages of 88.6 and 22.2, respectively. Churchill Downs presents investors with an opportunity to take a stake in a historic and undervalued entity with growth potential.

A discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, using Stock Rover, values the stock at $280.86, 19.6% higher than its latest closing price of $234.78, earning CHDN a “STRONG BUY” recommendation from Stock Rover and a place among our three best casino stocks to buy now.

3 Best Casino Stocks to Buy Now: #1

Caesars Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ:CZR)

Caesars Entertainment Inc. (NASDAQ:CZR) is an American resort and casino corporation based in Reno, Nevada. The company owns and operates more than 50 gaming properties nationwide. Caesars is the sixth-largest gambling company globally, with a market cap of $17.1 billion.

Caesars Entertainment is one of the oldest and most iconic gaming brands in the world. The company first opened its doors in 1937. However, there is arguably no more exciting time in the company’s history than now. The company has elevated itself into the crown jewel of casino investments.

The current Caesars is technically a different entity than the legacy Caesars Entertainment. In July 2020, Eldorado Resorts acquired the original Caesars company for $17 billion. Despite being the acquirer, Eldorado promptly changed its name to Caesars Entertainment to capitalize on the brand’s legacy.

The combined entity promptly moved to purchase British online gambling corporation William Hill in April 2021 for $3.7 billion. The deal is expected to generate up to $800 million in synergies for Caesar and allow the casino to better tap into the $27.9 billion online gambling market in the United States. William Hill is one of the most well-known brands in online gaming.

Caesars has announced plans to sell William Hill’s non-U.S. operations for $3.0 billion, a deal set to finalize in early 2022. Bank of America Securities analyst Shaun Kelley estimates the sale could increase CZR’s stock price by up to $5 per share.

Caesars Entertainment has always been an attractive investment in the entertainment and gaming industry. The company has grown its revenue, on average, by 56.3% annually over the past 10 years. However, Caesars’ recent deals have elevated it into an industry superstar.

The company currently enjoys a 96/100 Stock Rover growth score. The casino has seen its sales skyrocket by 142.1% over the past 12 months. The company raked in $8.4 billion in sales in 2021, shattering 2020 and 2019 figures of $3.5 and $2.5 billion, respectively. Caesars’ growth shows no signs of slowing down, with year-on-year revenue growth for Q1 2022 forecasted at 54.8%.

Caesars, however, has been hurt by COVID-19 and the subsequent Delta and Omicron variants. The company has suffered nearly $2.9 billion in losses over the past two years. The losses have caused CZR’s price to remain relatively flat, with the stock only growing by 0.9% over the past year. CZR’s share price and 50-day moving average over the past 12 months are charted below.

Chart provided by Stock Rover.

The company has been forced to leverage its balance sheet to remain afloat over the past two years, making it a riskier investment than other established stocks in the gaming industry.

However, the firm’s potential is well worth its risk. Caesars’ $1.2 billion debt sale in September 2021 has allowed it to refinance a significant portion of its outstanding debt. The company’s 1.2 current ratio is high but manageable.

Meanwhile, its revenue growth remains far above most of its competitors, and its share price has dropped below its fair market value. CZR possesses a (share) price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 2.0 and (EV/EBITDA) of 19.7. The industry averages stand at 3.5 and 39.4, respectively. Caesars Entertainment seems too enticing of an investment opportunity to pass up as it is projected to return to profitability in 2022 with an earnings-per-share (EPS) of $1.08.

A discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, using Stock Rover, values the stock at $121.10, 45.8% higher than its latest closing price of $83.06, earning CZR a “STRONG BUY” recommendation from Stock Rover and a place among our three best casino stocks to buy now.

Capison Pang is an editorial intern who writes for www.stockinvestor.com and www.dividendinvestor.com.

The post Reviewing the Three Best Casino Stocks to Buy Now appeared first on Stock Investor.

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The Coming Of The Police State In America

The Coming Of The Police State In America

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The National Guard and the State Police are now…

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2 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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The Coming Of The Police State In America

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The National Guard and the State Police are now patrolling the New York City subway system in an attempt to do something about the explosion of crime. As part of this, there are bag checks and new surveillance of all passengers. No legislation, no debate, just an edict from the mayor.

Many citizens who rely on this system for transportation might welcome this. It’s a city of strict gun control, and no one knows for sure if they have the right to defend themselves. Merchants have been harassed and even arrested for trying to stop looting and pillaging in their own shops.

The message has been sent: Only the police can do this job. Whether they do it or not is another matter.

Things on the subway system have gotten crazy. If you know it well, you can manage to travel safely, but visitors to the city who take the wrong train at the wrong time are taking grave risks.

In actual fact, it’s guaranteed that this will only end in confiscating knives and other things that people carry in order to protect themselves while leaving the actual criminals even more free to prey on citizens.

The law-abiding will suffer and the criminals will grow more numerous. It will not end well.

When you step back from the details, what we have is the dawning of a genuine police state in the United States. It only starts in New York City. Where is the Guard going to be deployed next? Anywhere is possible.

If the crime is bad enough, citizens will welcome it. It must have been this way in most times and places that when the police state arrives, the people cheer.

We will all have our own stories of how this came to be. Some might begin with the passage of the Patriot Act and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security in 2001. Some will focus on gun control and the taking away of citizens’ rights to defend themselves.

My own version of events is closer in time. It began four years ago this month with lockdowns. That’s what shattered the capacity of civil society to function in the United States. Everything that has happened since follows like one domino tumbling after another.

It goes like this:

1) lockdown,

2) loss of moral compass and spreading of loneliness and nihilism,

3) rioting resulting from citizen frustration, 4) police absent because of ideological hectoring,

5) a rise in uncontrolled immigration/refugees,

6) an epidemic of ill health from substance abuse and otherwise,

7) businesses flee the city

8) cities fall into decay, and that results in

9) more surveillance and police state.

The 10th stage is the sacking of liberty and civilization itself.

It doesn’t fall out this way at every point in history, but this seems like a solid outline of what happened in this case. Four years is a very short period of time to see all of this unfold. But it is a fact that New York City was more-or-less civilized only four years ago. No one could have predicted that it would come to this so quickly.

But once the lockdowns happened, all bets were off. Here we had a policy that most directly trampled on all freedoms that we had taken for granted. Schools, businesses, and churches were slammed shut, with various levels of enforcement. The entire workforce was divided between essential and nonessential, and there was widespread confusion about who precisely was in charge of designating and enforcing this.

It felt like martial law at the time, as if all normal civilian law had been displaced by something else. That something had to do with public health, but there was clearly more going on, because suddenly our social media posts were censored and we were being asked to do things that made no sense, such as mask up for a virus that evaded mask protection and walk in only one direction in grocery aisles.

Vast amounts of the white-collar workforce stayed home—and their kids, too—until it became too much to bear. The city became a ghost town. Most U.S. cities were the same.

As the months of disaster rolled on, the captives were let out of their houses for the summer in order to protest racism but no other reason. As a way of excusing this, the same public health authorities said that racism was a virus as bad as COVID-19, so therefore it was permitted.

The protests had turned to riots in many cities, and the police were being defunded and discouraged to do anything about the problem. Citizens watched in horror as downtowns burned and drug-crazed freaks took over whole sections of cities. It was like every standard of decency had been zapped out of an entire swath of the population.

Meanwhile, large checks were arriving in people’s bank accounts, defying every normal economic expectation. How could people not be working and get their bank accounts more flush with cash than ever? There was a new law that didn’t even require that people pay rent. How weird was that? Even student loans didn’t need to be paid.

By the fall, recess from lockdown was over and everyone was told to go home again. But this time they had a job to do: They were supposed to vote. Not at the polling places, because going there would only spread germs, or so the media said. When the voting results finally came in, it was the absentee ballots that swung the election in favor of the opposition party that actually wanted more lockdowns and eventually pushed vaccine mandates on the whole population.

The new party in control took note of the large population movements out of cities and states that they controlled. This would have a large effect on voting patterns in the future. But they had a plan. They would open the borders to millions of people in the guise of caring for refugees. These new warm bodies would become voters in time and certainly count on the census when it came time to reapportion political power.

Meanwhile, the native population had begun to swim in ill health from substance abuse, widespread depression, and demoralization, plus vaccine injury. This increased dependency on the very institutions that had caused the problem in the first place: the medical/scientific establishment.

The rise of crime drove the small businesses out of the city. They had barely survived the lockdowns, but they certainly could not survive the crime epidemic. This undermined the tax base of the city and allowed the criminals to take further control.

The same cities became sanctuaries for the waves of migrants sacking the country, and partisan mayors actually used tax dollars to house these invaders in high-end hotels in the name of having compassion for the stranger. Citizens were pushed out to make way for rampaging migrant hordes, as incredible as this seems.

But with that, of course, crime rose ever further, inciting citizen anger and providing a pretext to bring in the police state in the form of the National Guard, now tasked with cracking down on crime in the transportation system.

What’s the next step? It’s probably already here: mass surveillance and censorship, plus ever-expanding police power. This will be accompanied by further population movements, as those with the means to do so flee the city and even the country and leave it for everyone else to suffer.

As I tell the story, all of this seems inevitable. It is not. It could have been stopped at any point. A wise and prudent political leadership could have admitted the error from the beginning and called on the country to rediscover freedom, decency, and the difference between right and wrong. But ego and pride stopped that from happening, and we are left with the consequences.

The government grows ever bigger and civil society ever less capable of managing itself in large urban centers. Disaster is unfolding in real time, mitigated only by a rising stock market and a financial system that has yet to fall apart completely.

Are we at the middle stages of total collapse, or at the point where the population and people in leadership positions wise up and decide to put an end to the downward slide? It’s hard to know. But this much we do know: There is a growing pocket of resistance out there that is fed up and refuses to sit by and watch this great country be sacked and taken over by everything it was set up to prevent.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 16:20

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

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6 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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7 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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