Caesars' Q1 results are mostly flat, but the digital section does well again.

 Caesars Entertainment's brick-and-mortar business had less-than-stellar results in Q1, but the company's digital section had another great quarter.
 Board of Caesars Harris Jones
 Caesars reported $2.8 billion (£2 billion/€2.5 billion) in group net sales for the three months ending March 31. This was up 2% year over year.

 A year ago, adjusted EBITDA was $853 million. This year, it's $884 million, up 4%.  It showed that as of March 31, 2019, the company had $884 million in cash on hand and $12.3 billion in debt.  One was up a little from $866 million and the other from $12.29 billion as of December 31.

 In Las Vegas, Caesars' net sales for the quarter were just over $1 billion, which is 2% less than the same time last year.  The city did host the Super Bowl last February, though, which officials said several times on the investor call made this comparison "tough."  The city of Las Vegas had the same adjusted EBITDA of $433 million.

 Regional sales reached $1.38 billion, up 1.7% year over year, and adjusted EBITDA rose to $440 million, up 1.6%.  Officials were aware of the bad weather trends in the area as well as the terrorist attack in New Orleans on January 1 that killed 14 people and slowed down business in that market.

 But Caesars Digital was once again the star of the show. It has been the company's main growth source for several quarters.  It made $335 million in net sales, up 19% from the previous year, and $43 million in adjusted EBITDA, up from $5 million.  The division's boss, Eric Hession, said that players are "responding favourably" to new files and material in the games.

 There are rumours of a digital spin-off
 Many people are wondering if Caesars Digital could be split off into its own business because of how well it has done.  On March 18, two new directors from Carl Icahn's Icahn Enterprises were added to Caesars' board. This made the rumours even stronger.

 Icahn has a long experience with Caesars. In 2020, he led the sale of the company to Eldorado Resorts, which is based in Reno.  The activist wealthy investor sold his shares after the sale, but he made a lot of noise when he increased his stake again last spring.  In a statement released after the board appointments, he said he was excited to "explore strategic alternatives for the Company's underappreciated digital business."

 In response, CEO Tom Reeg told iGB at the East Coast Gaming Congress that Icahn "sees the same thing we see in an undervalued equity and an opportunity to change that through digital."  When Truist reporter Barry Jonas asked Reeg about these rumours again on Tuesday, he seemed willing to look into all of them.

 "Beginning in 2021, it's our job to deliver the numbers we set," he said.  It's clear what our goals are; we're well on our way.  We will look at all of our choices in order to make money for our shareholders.  We know that getting the numbers in is the most important thing right now, though.

 A slideshow for investors says that Caesars Digital is now live in some way in 32 North American countries.

 Caesars is paying close attention to macro trends.
 Since Caesars runs both destination and regional casinos all over the US, the company and experts were very interested in macroeconomic trends.  In the past few weeks, US taxes have caused big changes in the world's markets, and fears of a recession are growing.

 In the middle of Covid, Caesars was praised for its cost-cutting steps more than any other casino operator.  Officials played down fears about the economy, but when asked about it, they brought up those events.

 "We have levers that we can pull," Reeg said. "You saw them when we came out of the pandemic, when we were able to outperform our peers in the market by tapping into our database."  In the end, he said, "We still don't see any of the consumer softness investors seem to be worried about."

 Reeg kept bringing up future plans, which he said were good.  He also said that the company now has a strong digital side to fall back on, which wasn't the case during Covid.  "We have never had a segment that is growing for us like digital in a downturn before," he told analysts.

 People were also interested in stock repurchases.  If the stock moves around like it did in early April, Reeg said Caesars would be "opportunistic."  After the tariffs were announced, Caesars shares dropped to about $23. They have since gone back up to the high $20s.

 Other things going on in the business
 In addition to what was going on at Caesars, Reeg talked about a number of other trends in the industry on Tuesday.  Tax hikes were one of those trends.  Since the beginning of 2024, many states have either raised taxes on internet gambling or talked about doing so.  Some states, like New Jersey, are trying to raise rates, even ones that are known to be pro-gambling.

 Reeg said this was "symptomatic" of how states are having trouble with their budgets now that the federal government is cutting off Covid cash.  "It doesn't surprise me at all that [state lawmakers] are looking at gaming," he said.

 On the other hand, he thought this attitude was good for attempts to legalise marijuana.  These failed attempts in Nebraska and Hawaii mean that 2025 might not see any new sports betting or online gambling markets. This would be the first year after PASPA that this happens.  Reeg said that legalisation is a lot more likely to happen if budgets are slashed enough.

 He thought, "The online gaming business will be a popular spot to be."

 The CEO of Caesars also talked about prediction markets, which are financial markets where people can trade bets on sports events.  A lot of state officials told Kalshi, the most well-known prediction market, to stop what it's doing, but in Nevada and New Jersey, it has been given preliminary injunctions.  The Commodity Futures Trading Commission was planning to hold a meeting on April 30, but it was cancelled last week.

 Analysts were told by Reeg that Caesars has seen "zero impact" from prediction markets so far.