Wynn’s coming UAE market more stable than press reports suggest: JP Morgan

Conditions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd is developing the Wynn Al Marjan Island casino resort (pictured in an artist’s rendering), are “a lot more ‘back to normal’ than would be indicated in the press,” said a Wednesday memo from JP Morgan Securities LLC. The casino firm “continues to target a September 2027 opening” for the US$5.7-billion Wynn Al Marjan project, in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the emirates of the federal nation of the UAE, suggested the institution. JP Morgan’s commentary followed a meeting with Lauren Seiler, vice president of Wynn Resorts’ investor relations team, during the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) casino trade show and conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the United States. The gaming group – which has a 40-percent equity stake alongside local partners – “remains confident in achieving its base-to-high case steady-state assumptions” for business in the UAE, added JP Morgan analysts Daniel Politzer, Samuel Nielsen, and Michael Hirsh. “Conditions in the region are a lot more ‘back to normal’ than would be indicated in the press, with lodging demand/revenue per available room in the UAE pacing -25 percent year-on-year during September, versus -50 percent [year-on-year] earlier in the year,” they added. The reference to “back to normal” for UAE was in the context of a lull in the military conflict that has periodically broken out between the U.S. and Iran, one of the UAE’s neighbours, since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February. JP Morgan’s memo also said Wynn Resorts had suggested the regional conflict could potentially extend its period of effective exclusivity in the UAE casino market by delaying competition. While Dubai, another part of the UAE, is a mature tourism market, Wynn’s casino venture has been touted as a way of boosting Ras Al Khaimah’s less-developed one. In mid-September, representatives from Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority and airline Emirates signed a memorandum of understanding on joint marketing to boost visits to the city from “select markets” within the airline’s network. In July, Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism authority reported that the emirate had welcomed more than 670,000 visitors in the first half of this year. That was circa 2.4 percent up on the “over 654,000” it recorded in the first half of 2025. The year-on-year improvement was amid periodic drone attacks against other parts of the UAE and other Gulf states. In Macau, Wynn Resorts maintained its outlook that The Enclave at Wynn Palace, a planned US$950-million second hotel tower at its Cotai resort, would bring market share gains, according to JP Morgan. Wynn Macau Ltd, the U.S.-based gaming group’s Macau operating unit, recently secured government approval for land-use changes to accommodate the expansion. The 425-room Enclave project in Macau should help support “roughly US$400 million of GGR [gross gaming revenue] and a mid/high-teens [percentage] return, translating to approximately US$150 million to US$175 million of incremental EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation]”, said the JP Morgan team. The analysts added that Wynn Macau Ltd’s current hotel inventory at Wynn Palace “runs at approximately 99 percent occupancy”. The bank said the casino group was not insulated from the slowdown in Macau’s industry-wide gaming revenue growth, although management had not highlighted any meaningful change in promotional activity or the competitive environment.