Wynn Resorts WYNN
Consumer Cyclical · Gambling, Resorts & Casinos · Synthos Deep Dive · 2026-07-03
The Overview
Wynn Resorts runs some of the fanciest casino-hotels in the world — the two Wynn towers in Las Vegas, two big resorts in Macau (China's gambling hub), and Encore Boston Harbor. It makes most of its money from the casino floor, plus hotel rooms, restaurants, and shopping.
Is the stock cheap or expensive? On the surface it looks cheap — it's near its lowest price in a year and trades at a normal-ish earnings multiple. But there's a catch that doesn't show up in the sticker price: the company owes a lot of money (about $11 billion more debt than cash), so much that on paper the company's net worth is negative. That debt acts like a magnifier — when business is good the stock can jump, but when business dips, the stock drops harder than a debt-free company would.
Our verdict is Watch — interesting, but not a buy yet. We'd want to see the business get less risky first.
Here's what our three scores mean in everyday terms:
- Downside Risk 7/10 (fairly risky). Heavy debt plus a business that rises and falls with the economy and with China. A bad year would hurt.
- Growth Quality 4/10 (below average). Sales are basically flat and only expected to grow a few percent a year. The profit rebound is real but partly comes from buying back shares, not from the business booming.
- Exponential Potential 4/10 (low-to-moderate). The existing resorts won't grow fast — but Wynn is building a giant new resort in the United Arab Emirates (the Gulf), opening around 2027, which is a real "swing for the fences" bet on a brand-new gambling market.
The one big worry: the debt. If Macau softens or a recession hits Las Vegas, the leverage cuts the other way and the stock can fall a long way.
Putting a number on it: our fair-value estimate is $108 against a current price of $95.26 — real upside if our numbers are right.
Our summary metrics
6.0× net-debt/EBITDA and negative equity dominate; beta ~1.0 and Macau/UAE cyclicality add to a high-risk profile.
Only ~3% forward revenue CAGR and flat FY25 revenue; EPS recovery is real but low-quality, driven by buybacks and one property.
No exponential engine in the base business, but the UAE Al Marjan mega-resort (opening 2027) is a genuine, binary new-market option.
What does “fair value” mean?
Fair value is Synthos’s estimate of what one share is worth today, based on our model of the company’s future cash generation and the risks to it. It is not a price target or a prediction of where the stock trades next quarter — it’s the price where we think risk and reward are balanced. Above it, you’re paying for outcomes better than our base case; below it, the market is offering a margin of safety.
The model’s inputs and weightings are proprietary — they’re the product. What we publish is the output, We don’t publish a reverse-DCF cross-check for pre-profit companies — negative or missing earnings break that math — so take this number on our modeling alone.
What do the 5 tiers mean? (Core · Tactical · Watch · Hold · Avoid)
Exponential Potential
No exponential engine in the base business, but the UAE Al Marjan mega-resort (opening 2027) is a genuine, binary new-market option.
What could take this further than the base case — and where the market may be underpricing it. Full forward-growth and acceleration math in Deeper analysis, §4 below.
Deeper analysis
Technicals, fundamentals, valuation, and the full expert-claim evidence panel — the detail behind the numbers above.
Reference table
| Street consensus | $138.38 (high $150 / low $127; 29 Buy · 15 Hold · 1 Sell) — context, not our anchor |
| Valuation | 26× trailing EPS · 21× FY26E · 18× FY27E · 16× FY28E · EV/S 2.9× · EV/EBITDA 11.4× |
| Technicals | Downtrend — $95.91, −28% off 52-wk high, below 50/200-DMA, RSI 22 (oversold), −6% 12-mo (SPY +21%) |
| Conviction | Low — 0 expert voices, 0 claims in the Synthos KB; this is a screen/quant call, not an expert-panel call |
| Position sizing | Small/tactical only, ≤1–2% if at all — a levered cyclical, not a core holding |
What the experts actually said
No independent expert claims in the Synthos knowledge base yet for WYNN — this dive is fundamentals- and technicals-driven, not panel-driven.
Price & moving averages 12 months · 50 & 200-day averages · 52-week range
Solid line = price · dashed line = 50-day average · dotted line = 200-day average · the two thin horizontal lines mark the 52-week high and low. Price above both averages is an uptrend.
Data summary: last close $95.26, 4% below the 50-day average ($99), 12% below the 200-day average ($108) — a downtrend. 29% below the 52-week high of $133, 2% above the 52-week low of $94.
Bollinger Bands 20-day average ± 2 standard deviations
The shaded band widens when the stock gets more volatile. Riding the upper edge = strong momentum (sometimes stretched); the lower edge = weak / potentially oversold.
Data summary: price $95.26 is currently inside the band (band $95–$106).
RSI (14) momentum gauge · 0–100
Above 70 (overbought zone, shaded) = overbought, below 30 (oversold zone, shaded) = oversold. Currently 38.
MACD 12 / 26 / 9 · trend & momentum
The MACD line crossing above the signal line (bars flip to the up color) = momentum turning up; crossing below (bars flip to the down color) = turning down. Bar height = the size of that gap.
Data summary: MACD is currently below its signal line by 0.85, negative momentum.
Relative performance vs S&P 500 & its sector (XLY (sector)), set to 100 a year ago
Solid = WYNN · dashed = S&P 500 · dotted = XLY (sector). A rising line means it is beating that benchmark — the sector line shows whether it is a leader or laggard within its own group.
Forward revenue & earnings actual → estimate · "FY" = fiscal year, "E" = estimate
Darker bars = actual results, brighter = analyst estimates. Taller bars to the right = expected growth.
Key stats an RIA wants
1. What it is
Wynn Resorts, Limited (NASDAQ: WYNN) is a luxury integrated-resort operator founded in 2002 and headquartered in Las Vegas. It designs, builds, and runs upscale casino-hotels with gaming floors, luxury rooms, restaurants, retail, spas, and entertainment. Its four operating properties are Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau (in Macau, China), Wynn Las Vegas / Encore (the Las Vegas Strip), and Encore Boston Harbor (Massachusetts). A fifth property — Wynn Al Marjan Island in the UAE, a 40%-owned JV — is under construction and expected to open in 2027. Fiscal year ends December 31. CEO: Craig Billings.
Revenue mix (FY2025, from FMP segmentation):
- By type: Casino $4.41B (62%) · Occupancy (rooms) $1.14B · Food & beverage $1.04B · Entertainment/retail/other $0.55B. This is a gaming-led business — the casino floor drives it.
- By property (geography): Las Vegas Operations $2.57B (36%) · Macau Operations $2.31B (32%) · Encore Boston Harbor $0.85B (12%). (Note: FY24 and prior FMP files split Macau into Wynn Palace + Wynn Macau; the FY25 "Macau Operations" line of $2.31B looks understated versus the ~$3.68B Macau total in FY24 — likely a segmentation reclassification in the FMP feed. The Q1'26 earnings release confirms Macau is still a very large chunk: Wynn Palace $659M + Wynn Macau $330M ≈ $989M in one quarter. Treat the FY25 geo split as directional.)
The single most important structural fact: Macau is roughly a third to a half of the business, so WYNN is levered to Chinese consumer strength, Macau gaming policy, and the six-operator Macau concession regime — a concentration and a policy risk that a US-only casino would not carry.
2. The expert thesis (no expert coverage)
There is no expert coverage of WYNN in the Synthos knowledge base — total_claims is 0, and there are zero net-bullish or cautionary voices. We will not manufacture conviction we do not have: no claim_id is cited anywhere in this note because none exists.
That means this deep dive is entirely fundamentals- and quant-driven. The Street sell-side is constructive (29 Buy / 15 Hold / 1 Sell, consensus "Buy," average target $138), but sell-side ratings are not part of the Synthos conviction panel and we treat them as context, not signal. The honest read: this is a name where you are underwriting the numbers and the balance sheet yourself, without the benefit of a distilled expert panel. That absence is itself a reason for a more cautious verdict.
3. Synthos scores & the Bull / Base / Bear cases
The one-glance judgment — three scores, 0–10, each anchored to real metrics (not probabilities we can't honestly calibrate):
| Score | 0–10 | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Downside Risk (lower = safer) | 7 · High | Net-debt/EBITDA 6.0× and negative book equity (−$275M) dominate the score; beta ~1.0, a −31% max drawdown, and Macau/cyclical exposure add to it. The leverage magnifies any EBITDA wobble. |
| Growth Quality | 4 · Below Average | FY25 revenue was flat (+0.1%); forward revenue CAGR is only ~3% (FY25 $7.14B → FY28E $8.10B). The EPS rebound to $4.68→$6.12 is real but leans on buybacks and Las Vegas, not broad demand. ROIC ~8% is decent, not elite. |
| Exponential Potential | 4 · Low–Moderate | The installed resort base does not compound fast, but Wynn Al Marjan Island (UAE, ~2027) is a genuine new-market option — the first licensed casino in the region. At a $9.95B cap versus that TAM, there's room; but it's binary and JV-diluted (40%). |
The three cases (our own scenario model — assumptions shown; each target is a ~12–18-month fair value). We deliberately do not attach probabilities: the base case is by definition the expected path, so a weighted blend would just restate it with false precision. Instead the cases bound the range, and the scores above summarize them.
| Case | Key assumptions | Fair value |
|---|---|---|
| Bull | Macau recovers, Las Vegas holds record EBITDAR, UAE opens on time in 2027 and the market credits the new cash flow early. FY27E EPS beats to ~$6.0; multiple re-rates to ~25× as leverage fears fade. | ~$150 (+56%) |
| Base (our anchor) | Estimates roughly hit — FY27E EPS ~$5.26; a levered, slow-growth cyclical with a real but unproven UAE option earns a modest ~20×. | ~$108 (+13%) |
| Bear | Macau softens or a US consumer downturn hits the Strip; EBITDA falls and the 6× leverage bites; UAE slips or disappoints. FY27E EPS misses to ~$4.1; multiple de-rates to ~15×. | ~$62 (−35%) |
Synthos fair value = the base case, ~$108 (+13%), with the full $62–$150 span as the honest range. Our base sits well below the Street's $138 consensus — the sell-side is pricing a fuller Macau/UAE recovery than we will underwrite given the balance sheet, and our bear ($62) takes the leverage seriously. This is a tracked call — the Forecaster Scorecard grades it once it matures.
4. Exponential Potential
Synthos separates compounders (durable high returns on capital) from exponentials (accelerating, multi-baggers-from-here). WYNN is neither, in its core — it is a mature, cyclical, high-fixed-cost operator — but it has one real option:
- Forward growth: revenue CAGR FY25→FY28E is only ~3.2% ($7.14B → $8.10B). This is a GDP-plus cyclical top line, not a growth story.
- Acceleration (the 2nd derivative): roughly flat-to-slightly-positive. FY25 revenue was +0.1%; consensus is +5.0% (FY26E), +3.7% (FY27E), +4.2% (FY28E). No inflection in the base business — it is a recovery-and-hold profile, not an accelerating one.
- Room to run: at a $9.95B market cap WYNN is small enough that a successful new market could move the needle. The UAE Al Marjan Island resort (40%-owned JV, ~$1.0B contributed to date, opening 2027) is the first licensed casino resort in the Gulf — a genuinely new, potentially large TAM. If it works, it is a step-change in earnings; if it slips or underwhelms, it is dead capital on a levered balance sheet.
- Reinvestment runway: heavy capex is going into UAE and property refreshes, but FCF (~$692M FY25) is largely absorbed by capex, dividends, and buybacks against an $11B net-debt load — the reinvestment is real but financed on a tight balance sheet.
Exponential Potential: Low–Moderate (4/10). Own the option on the UAE and a Macau recovery, not a fast compounder. The base resorts grow low-single-digits; the only thing that could make this a multibagger is the new-market bet landing — and that is binary.
5. Financials (real numbers — FMP annual/quarterly)
- Revenue: FY25 $7.14B, essentially flat (+0.1% vs FY24 $7.13B; FY23 was $6.53B). The post-COVID Macau recovery has plateaued. TTM revenue ~$7.29B.
- Quarterly trajectory: Q1'25 $1.70B → Q2 $1.74B → Q3 $1.83B → Q4 $1.87B → Q1'26 $1.86B (+9.2% YoY). Modest sequential recovery, not acceleration.
- Margins: gross 38.7% TTM, EBITDA margin 25.1% TTM, operating ~15.9%, net 5.1% TTM. Property-level Adjusted EBITDAR (management's metric) was $562M in Q1'26. Interest expense (~$625M/yr) eats a large share of EBIT — interest coverage is only ~1.9×, a direct consequence of the leverage.
- Earnings: net income $327M FY25 (EPS $3.16 basic / $3.14 diluted), down from $480M FY24 — pressured by higher costs and the flat top line. TTM net income per share ~$3.64. History is volatile: WYNN lost money in 2020–2022 (COVID shut Macau).
- Cash flow: operating CF $1.35B FY25, capex −$661M, FCF ~$692M (FCF yield ~7%). FCF is real but is claimed by dividends (~$175M), buybacks (~$380M), and UAE contributions.
- Balance sheet (the crux): total debt $12.3B, cash+ST investments $2.07B, net debt $10.83B. Net-debt/EBITDA 6.0× — high. Total stockholders' equity is negative (−$275M) and total equity including minority interest is −$1.03B, largely a function of years of buybacks and the Macau minority structure. This is the single most important line in the whole note: the equity is a thin, levered sliver on top of a large, mostly-fixed debt stack.
6. Valuation — priced in or room?
On the surface WYNN screens cheap: 26× trailing EPS, 2.9× EV/sales, 11.4× EV/EBITDA, ~7% FCF yield, and a forward P/E that falls to 21× (FY26E) → 18× (FY27E) → 16× (FY28E) as the EPS recovery plays out. The FMP letter rating is C- (overall score 1/5), flagging weak DCF, ROE, and debt-to-equity scores — the model dislikes the balance sheet.
The honest tension: EV/EBITDA is the right lens for a levered casino, and 11.4× is a fair-to-slightly-full multiple for a low-growth operator, not a screaming bargain. The optically-low P/E is flattered by buybacks shrinking the share count (110M shares FY24 → 103M now). Because so much enterprise value is debt, the equity is a small, geared residual — which is exactly why the P/E looks cheap and the risk is high. Street targets (context): consensus $138.38, high $150, low $127 — meaningfully above today's $96 and above our $108 base, because the sell-side underwrites a fuller Macau/UAE recovery than we will. Not a value trap, but not the free lunch the headline P/E suggests: a fairly-valued, high-leverage cyclical.
7. Technicals (from the tech block)
- Trend: down. $95.91 sits below the 50-DMA ($102.34) and the 200-DMA ($112.87), and the 50 is below the 200 (death-cross posture). MACD −1.49 (negative).
- Location: −28% off the 52-week high ($133.34) and only +1.2% above the 52-week low ($94.78) — pinned near the lows, with a −31% max drawdown from peak.
- Momentum: RSI(14) 22 — oversold (<30). That can mark a bounce zone for a trader, but it also confirms the price action is heavy; oversold in a downtrend is not the same as a bottom.
- Relative strength (the tell): WYNN −5.9% 12-mo vs SPY +20.6% and QQQ +30.3%; −6.5% 3-mo vs SPY +13.7%. Persistent, broad underperformance of both the market and tech — a laggard, not a leader.
- Read: technicals do not confirm a buy. Price is in a downtrend near 52-week lows and lagging badly. The oversold RSI is the only bullish tell, and it argues for patience (wait for a base or a catalyst) rather than chasing.
8. Moat & competitive position
Wynn's moat is brand and location, not scale or network: the Wynn/Encore name is synonymous with the top tier of luxury gaming, its properties sit on prime real estate (the Strip, Cotai, Boston Harbor), and its Macau and Boston concessions are licensed franchises with a limited number of competitors. That licensing is a real barrier — there are only six Macau concessionaires and one Boston-area license. The offset: it is a capital-intensive, cyclical, geographically concentrated business with high fixed costs and no pricing power in a downturn, and its Macau exposure ties it to Chinese policy and consumer sentiment.
Peer set (FMP-supplied, market cap): the file lists a mixed consumer-cyclical basket — DraftKings $12.8B (online gaming), Hyatt $18.2B and H World $12.9B (lodging), Domino's $10.4B, Deckers $14.5B, SharkNinja $21.4B, Toll Brothers $14.7B, Ball $16.9B, Magna $17.1B, Service Corp $10.8B. None is a true integrated-resort peer — the real comps are Las Vegas Sands, MGM, Melco, and Galaxy/SJM in Macau, which are not in this list. Read the peer set as a size cohort, not a valuation comp.
9. Management, capital allocation & guidance
- Capital allocation: shareholder-return-heavy despite the leverage — FY25 saw ~$380M of buybacks and ~$175M of dividends ($1.00/share, ~1% yield), plus ~$100M/quarter into the UAE JV. Buying back stock at 6× net-debt/EBITDA is aggressive; it is why book equity is negative and why per-share metrics flatter. Reasonable people can disagree on whether that capital should be de-levering instead.
- Insider activity: the notable filings are from Tilman J. Fertitta, a 10% owner, writing/selling call options (obligation to sell) at $118–$128 strikes in June 2026 — i.e., monetizing upside/collecting premium above the current $96, not dumping stock outright. It is not a clean insider-buy signal, but nor is it panic selling; read it as a large holder hedging/harvesting premium.
- Management's own guidance (half-weighted by design): the Q1'26 earnings release (SEC 8-K, 2026-05-07) is a real earnings release but contains no forward numeric guidance — casinos rarely issue EPS/revenue guidance. CEO Craig Billings' operational commentary: Las Vegas "delivered another quarter of EBITDAR growth and continued to make gains in gaming market share"; Macau saw "a meaningful increase in gaming volumes year-over-year"; the Wynn Macau dividend was increased; and Wynn Al Marjan Island (UAE) construction continues and is "expected to open in 2027," with management noting it is "closely monitoring the broader situation in the Gulf region." Bottom line: no numeric guidance was provided; treat the commentary as management's own, self-interested framing (half-weight).
10. Catalysts & what to watch
- Next earnings: 2026-08-06 (Q2'26; Street EPS $1.08, revenue ~$1.85B). Key lines: Macau gaming volumes and win %, Las Vegas EBITDAR, and any UAE timing update.
- Wynn Al Marjan Island (UAE): construction progress, opening timing (currently 2027), and Gulf-region stability — the single biggest swing factor for the bull case.
- Macau recovery: monthly Macau gross-gaming-revenue trends and Wynn's market share — the largest driver of consolidated EBITDA.
- Las Vegas Strip demand: consumer/convention strength; the Strip has been the profit anchor.
- Deleveraging: any debt paydown or refinancing that lowers the 6× leverage would materially de-risk the equity.
Thesis tripwires (what would change the call): a Macau demand or policy shock; a US consumer/Strip downturn; a UAE delay or cost overrun; or leverage rising instead of falling. Conversely, an early, credible UAE ramp plus visible deleveraging would move this from Watch toward Buy — Tactical.
11. Key risks
- Balance-sheet leverage (structural): 6.0× net-debt/EBITDA, ~1.9× interest coverage, and negative book equity. The equity is a geared residual — the dominant risk in the whole thesis.
- Macau / China concentration: roughly a third-plus of revenue and a large share of EBITDA sit in Macau, exposed to Chinese consumer strength, gaming policy, and concession terms.
- Cyclicality: luxury gaming and travel are highly discretionary; a recession hits both Macau and the Strip, and WYNN swung to large losses in 2020–2022.
- UAE execution/binary risk: the growth option is a 40%-owned, ~2027 JV in a new market with regional geopolitical exposure ("monitoring the broader situation in the Gulf").
- No expert coverage: zero Synthos KB claims — no distilled panel to lean on; the call rests entirely on the numbers.
- Capital-allocation tension: buying back stock at high leverage flatters per-share metrics but leaves the balance sheet thin.
12. Verdict, position sizing & monitoring
Watch. Wynn is a high-quality operator of trophy assets trading cheaply near its 52-week low, and the sell-side is constructive ($138 average target). But the equity is a leveraged bet: 6× net-debt/EBITDA, negative book value, ~1.9× interest coverage, flat top-line growth, and a Macau-heavy, cyclical revenue base. The optically-low P/E is a function of that leverage and of buybacks, not of a bargain business. There is no expert coverage in the Synthos KB, so we are underwriting the numbers alone — and the numbers say interesting, not compelling, at this price. Our base fair value (~$108) sits below consensus precisely because we will not underwrite a full recovery on this balance sheet.
- Sizing: if owned at all, small/tactical (≤1–2%) — a levered cyclical option, never a core holding. The cleaner entries are either (a) a lower price that pays you for the leverage (toward our ~$62 bear), or (b) evidence the UAE bet is de-risking.
- Monitoring: re-underwrite on Macau GGR trends, UAE timing, and any deleveraging; formal re-score each earnings print. This verdict is logged as a tracked Synthos call as of 2026-07-03 at $95.91.
- Single biggest risk: balance-sheet leverage into a cyclical, Macau-dependent revenue base — the reason this is a Watch and not a Buy.
Provenance & disclosures
- Traceability: 0 KB claims, breadth 0 — there is no expert coverage of WYNN in the Synthos knowledge base, so no
claim_idis cited. This is a fundamentals- and quant-driven note. Fabricated conviction is structurally impossible (claim-ID reconciliation), and we have none to reconcile here. - Data as-of: fundamentals 2026-03-31 (Q1'26) · estimates & prices 2026-07-03 · no expert claims. Forward figures are analyst consensus (FMP), labeled as estimates.
- Management caveat: the Q1'26 8-K earnings release is management's own words (half-weighted); it contained operational commentary but no numeric forward guidance.
- Segmentation caveat: the FY25 geographic split from FMP appears to reclassify Macau versus prior years; treat property-level FY25 figures as directional and cross-check against the Q1'26 release.
- Not investment advice. Independent research, educational and informational only, never personalized. Hypothetical/forward figures are labeled; the only performance numbers Synthos will headline are the live, real-money Flagship's.
- Version: 2026-07-03. Prior versions available via the deep-dive version dropdown ("based on the info at the time").