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Macquarie at G2E: US Gaming’s Resilience Is Real, but It’s Spreading Unevenly

By jili tutorial · October 7, 2026

Macquarie at G2E: US Gaming’s Resilience Is Real, but It’s Spreading Unevenly

Executive Summary

Macquarie’s gaming research team left this year’s Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas with a phrase that has become something of a mantra for the sector: “cautiously optimistic.” The optimism comes from a resilient U.S. consumer, stable regional trends, and continued spending by core casino customers. The caution comes from a set of softer indicators that are impossible to ignore — weaker Las Vegas visitation, declining hotel metrics, mixed feedback on lower-income players, and the ever-present risk of regulatory shocks.

Led by analyst Chad Beynon, the team completed more than 20 meetings at G2E and walked away constructive on the roughly $175 billion regulated U.S. gaming sector, with the strongest conviction around land-based slot suppliers. But the evidence from those meetings paints a more complicated picture than a simple industry-wide thumbs-up. In short: the gaming industry is holding up, but it is not holding up evenly.

This guide expands on Macquarie’s key findings, provides the context needed to understand the underlying trends, and highlights what data points will matter most in the coming months.

G2E as a Sector Barometer

G2E, or the Global Gaming Expo, is the largest gathering of gaming industry professionals in North America. It is where casino operators, slot manufacturers, technology vendors, and analysts come together to take the industry’s pulse. For a research team like Macquarie’s, the event is not just a trade show — it is an opportunity to test assumptions through direct conversations with company executives.

Twenty-plus meetings in a few days provides a broad cross-section of sentiment. That is why Macquarie’s takeaways carry weight: they reflect not just public filings and earnings calls, but private, off-the-record conversations with the people running the businesses.

The headline from those meetings is that U.S. gaming is resilient. But the underlying details show a market with clear winners and losers. The winners are companies with multiple ways to grow even when foot traffic is flat. The losers, or at least the more vulnerable players, are those that depend on getting more people through the door.

Slot Suppliers: The Clearest Growth Story in the Industry

Macquarie’s strongest conviction coming out of G2E is around slot suppliers — the companies that design, manufacture, lease, and operate slot machines. The bank’s forecast calls for industry slot gross gaming revenue (GGR) to reach $104 billion in 2026, up 4% year over year. Notably, the growth is expected to come more from gaming operations than from outright machine sales, with leased revenue projected to grow 4%.

Why suppliers have more levers than casinos

A traditional casino operator grows by increasing visitation, getting each visitor to spend more, or both. Slot suppliers, by contrast, have a broader toolkit. They can:

This is why Macquarie sees suppliers as less dependent on a broad consumer rebound. Even if casino foot traffic remains soft, suppliers can grow by taking share from rivals, upgrading existing machines, or pushing successful titles into new markets.

The theme that came up repeatedly at G2E was the importance of new cabinets, premium products, and wider distribution across both physical casino floors and digital channels. These are structural growth drivers that do not rely entirely on macroeconomic conditions.

Light & Wonder: AI-powered porting changes the economics

Light & Wonder is a good illustration of how suppliers are becoming more efficient. Management told Macquarie that the time needed to port a game across platforms — moving a title from land-based to digital or from one system to another — has fallen dramatically.

Previously, porting a game took six to eight weeks. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, Light & Wonder can do the same work in roughly 17 hours.

This is not a minor operational detail. Faster porting means games can be launched simultaneously across multiple channels, extending the commercial life of a successful title and reducing development costs. It builds on a strategy the company outlined earlier this year, when it said AI was improving both development speed and game portability across land-based and digital channels.

Light & Wonder’s recent results support the broader supplier thesis. In the second quarter:

The message is clear: the momentum is not necessarily in selling new machines, but in creating recurring revenue from games that players keep coming back to.

Aristocrat: Content pipeline and premium placements

Aristocrat told a similar story, emphasizing its content pipeline, premium product offerings, and digital distribution capabilities. The company expects its growing premium installed base to help it gain market share, while Aristocrat Interactive provides a second avenue for growth beyond traditional casino floors.

Aristocrat’s strategy is to keep the product pipeline fresh, place premium games in high-visibility positions, and then leverage those games across digital channels. That approach gives the company multiple opportunities to monetize a single game title, reducing its reliance on any one channel.

What could still derail the supplier thesis?

Macquarie is bullish on suppliers for good reason, but the thesis is not entirely independent of consumer health. Casinos need to keep investing in their floors, and players need to keep spending for revenue-share arrangements to pay off.

Still, compared with casino operators, suppliers have more ways to win even in a low-growth environment. That is why they are the clearest conviction in Macquarie’s report.

Las Vegas: A Tale of Two Markets

Las Vegas presents the hardest test for the “cautiously optimistic” view. Macquarie reports that visitation was down 0.9% year over year quarter to date, while Strip revenue per available room (RevPAR) fell 6.9%. Hotel performance is softening, and yet gaming revenue continues to grow.

Operators described gaming fundamentals as stable and attributed the softer property-level performance to a mix of factors:

Visitation and hotel metrics point down

The modest quarterly visitation decline actually hides a sharp swing between the two most recent months. LVCVA data show:

Yet Strip gaming revenue increased in both months:

Through the first eight months of the year, visitation was nearly flat, while Strip gaming revenue was up 2.9%. In other words, the people who are coming to Las Vegas are still spending enough on gaming to keep the casino side of the market growing.

Operator results split by property and business mix

Second-quarter earnings showed a similarly uneven picture across the major Las Vegas operators:

These mixed results suggest something important: gaming on the Strip has held up better than the hotel and tourism side, but not every operator is capturing that resilience equally. The difference often comes down to property mix, customer profile, and how much revenue comes from rooms versus gaming.

Seasonality vs. structural cooling

The seasonality argument still needs time to play out. Summer heat happens every year, and monthly results can also be distorted by the calendar — shift of major holidays, convention dates, or weekends. If this is mostly a return to normal seasonal patterns rather than a sign of weaker demand, the next few months should make that clearer.

For now, the main question is whether gaming revenue can continue to hold up if visitation remains soft. If tourists are simply spending more while visiting less often, the resort business might still face pressure.

Regional Casinos: The “For Now” Resilience

Regional casinos — properties outside of Las Vegas that rely on local residents and drive-in traffic — are telling a similar story. Weaker traffic has not necessarily translated into weaker spending.

Same-store regional gaming revenue increased 1.3% year over year in July before declining 1.9% in August. That August decline was the first negative comparison since December 2025, making it a notable data point rather than a routine monthly wobble.

Same-store revenue, core customers, and lower-income players

Operators at G2E told Macquarie that core customer behavior remained resilient and that promotional activity was disciplined. That is an encouraging signal because it suggests casinos are not panicking and cutting rates or increasing free-play offers to buy growth.

But the broader picture is more nuanced:

That “for now” qualifier is one of the most important consumer signals in the entire report. Gaming revenue can remain resilient even with fewer visitors if the customers who do show up spend enough. But that is not the same as saying the underlying consumer base is expanding, or even fully healthy.

Why August matters more than most months

One negative month does not establish a trend, particularly in a business where monthly results can move with the calendar. But August stands out because it was the first negative year-over-year comparison since December 2025.

The next two months — September and October — should provide a clearer answer. If August was a temporary setback, regional gaming revenue should return to positive territory. If weaker traffic is beginning to weigh on spending, the declines will become more consistent. That distinction is critical for the market to judge whether Macquarie’s cautious optimism is justified.

Prediction Markets: New Revenue, Open Questions

Prediction markets — platforms where users wager on the outcome of political, financial, and cultural events — are becoming a meaningful part of the gaming ecosystem. For Macquarie, they are another example of growth driven by factors outside traditional customer demand.

The B2B opportunity for data providers

For sports data providers like Genius Sports and Sportradar, the opportunity goes beyond simply acquiring more bettors. Both companies told Macquarie that one of the largest long-term opportunities could come from serving market makers with:

Market makers in prediction markets need the same infrastructure that sportsbooks rely on: accurate data, fast pricing, and reliable settlement. That is exactly what data providers already do for traditional sports betting.

Both companies have expanded their deals with platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket. Sportradar executives said on the latest earnings call that the sector would bring in “tens of millions” in revenue this year.

Sportsbooks want both sides of the market

Companies like Flutter Entertainment and DraftKings are pursuing prediction markets from two angles. On one hand, they view prediction markets as supplemental to sports betting, offering a new product for existing customers. On the other hand, they see potential in market-making — using their pricing capabilities to profit from trading activity rather than just taking bets.

Executives have framed prediction markets as a customer acquisition tool, especially in states where traditional sports betting is not legal. Several companies told Macquarie they have seen limited evidence of cannibalization — that is, prediction market activity does not appear to be taking spending away from sportsbooks.

Cannibalization: early answers, no final verdict

Macquarie is careful to note that those are still management assessments, not the result of a detailed consumer study. The current data suggest prediction markets are helping operators reach new customers in unregulated states. But the longer-term question remains: do prediction markets expand the overall wagering market, or do they eventually take spending away from sportsbooks?

The report cannot answer that question yet, and neither can the market. What is clear is that the distinction becomes increasingly important as prediction-market volume grows and more sportsbook operators enter the space.

Brazil: How Regulation Can Reshape the Outlook

No discussion of gaming’s future is complete without acknowledging the role of regulation. Brazil is the latest reminder of how quickly that risk can materialize.

On September 25, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a provisional measure banning fixed-odds betting. A provisional measure has immediate legal effect, though it must still be approved by Congress to become permanent. The ban specifically targets fixed-odds wagering, which is the standard format for sports betting.

The impact on operator earnings was immediate:

All three companies remain positive on their longer-term opportunities in Brazil. But those estimates show that regulatory uncertainty can have an immediate and measurable financial impact, even for diversified global operators.

Brazil also offers a warning for prediction markets in the United States. The commercial opportunity is becoming easier to identify, but the regulatory framework remains far less clear. If a major market can ban a whole category of wagering almost overnight, the same could happen elsewhere.

What to Watch: The Data That Will Test the Thesis

Macquarie’s G2E takeaway is not that every part of the gaming industry is strong. It is that the better-performing areas are the ones with other ways to grow:

The weaker signals are harder to ignore:

These cross-currents help explain why Macquarie uses phrases like “so far,” “for now,” and “cautiously optimistic.” They are not signs of a bearish analyst — they are signs of an earnings environment that depends on customer quality rather than customer quantity.

The next tests will come from the data itself:

If traffic stays soft but gaming revenue remains resilient, Macquarie’s cautious optimism will look like the right call. If the softening begins to bleed into spending, the optimism will fade quickly.

Bottom Line: Cautious Optimism With a Narrowing Base

The U.S. gaming industry is not uniformly strong, and it is not uniformly weak. It is an industry where resilience is concentrated in specific pockets: suppliers with digital reach, data providers with new customers, and casino operators with premium-heavy customer bases. The broader consumer picture is still intact, but it is more fragile than the headline numbers suggest.

Macquarie’s “cautiously optimistic” stance is best understood as an acknowledgment that the next few months will determine whether the gaming industry is truly resilient or just temporarily insulated. For investors, operators, and suppliers alike, the right approach is to watch the data closely — because in an industry this uneven, the average often hides the most important details.