Hedge funds have historically been active investors in casino stocks. However, the times are changing and online gambling, gaming equipment suppliers, and lottery stocks are increasingly attracting investments from hedge funds. Consumers are able to bypass the traditional brick and mortar casinos with the help of websites that provide online casino reviews and identify reputable providers in this space. Currently the global gambling market is more than $300 billion and online gambling accounts for nearly 15% of this amount.
In May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court made a landmark ruling, allowing all states to decide whether they wanted to approve sports gambling. Before the ruling, bettors in most states were forced to resort to the black market to place sports bets. Although it was mostly a black market, sports betting is huge, with the research company Eilers & Krejcik Gaming estimating that the sum wagered in sports betting is around $50-$60 billion annually when excluding bets between friends. The American Gaming Association is more bullish, estimating that around $150 billion is wagered in amateur and professional sports every year in the United States. As more and more States legalize online gambling, we believe this will grow the gambling market as well as the share of online gambling in this growth industry.
As you can guess there are a lot of investment opportunities in gambling stocks and we follow hedge funds to identify the most promising stocks. Insider Monkey tracks billionaires, hedge funds, and well-known value investors because their consensus picks generally outperform the market. Our flagship strategy’s long hedge fund stock picks returned 34.1% in the first half of 2019 and outperformed the market by nearly 16 percentage points. Hedge funds’ favorite top 20 stocks, on the other hand, returned 24% so far in 2019. Investors could have beaten the S&P 500 Index funds by 5.7 percentage points by investing in hedge funds’ top 20 picks in 2019, whereas they could have outperformed the index funds by 15.8 percentage points if they invested in our top hedge fund picks.
In this article we will list the 25 most popular gambling stocks among hedge funds. To provide some perspective, the #1 most popular stock among the 743 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey was Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). Facebook was also the third most popular stock among hedge funds at the end of December (see the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds). Here are the 25 best US gambling stocks in 2019 according to hedge funds:
- Dover Downs Gaming & Entertainment Inc (DDE)
Number of Hedge Funds: 1
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $652
- GRAVITY Co., Ltd. (GRVY)
Number of Hedge Funds: 1
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $693
- Canterbury Park Holding Corporation (CPHC)
Number of Hedge Funds: 1
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $7019
- Full House Resorts, Inc. (FLL)
Number of Hedge Funds: 4
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $5617
- Studio City International Holdings Limited (MSC)
Number of Hedge Funds: 4
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $186155
- Nevada Gold & Casinos, Inc. (UWN)
Number of Hedge Funds: 5
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $3537
- Century Casinos, Inc. (CNTY)
Number of Hedge Funds: 6
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $57293
- Inspired Entertainment, Inc. (INSE)
Number of Hedge Funds: 8
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $33693
- Monarch Casino & Resort, Inc. (MCRI)
Number of Hedge Funds: 10
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $130391
- Golden Entertainment, Inc. (GDEN)
Number of Hedge Funds: 12
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $87918
- Century Communities, Inc. (CCS)
Number of Hedge Funds: 16
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $197409
- Red Rock Resorts, Inc. (RRR)
Number of Hedge Funds: 17
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $377954
- Melco Resorts & Entertainment Limited (MLCO)
Number of Hedge Funds: 22
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $394196
- Penn National Gaming, Inc. (PENN)
Number of Hedge Funds: 24
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $263918
- Everi Holdings Inc. (EVRI)
Number of Hedge Funds: 26
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $244606
- Boyd Gaming Corporation (BYD)
Number of Hedge Funds: 28
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $404116
- Scientific Games Corp (SGMS)
Number of Hedge Funds: 28
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $604918
- Churchill Downs, Incorporated (CHDN)
Number of Hedge Funds: 29
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $519547
- Eldorado Resorts, Inc. (ERI)
Number of Hedge Funds: 31
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $549919
- International Game Technology (IGT)
Number of Hedge Funds: 32
Dollar Value of Positions (in thousands): $395322
- Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS)
Number of Hedge Funds: 37
Dollar Value of Positions: $1.71 billion
- The Stars Group Inc. (TSG)
Number of Hedge Funds: 44
Dollar Value of Positions: $903 million
- Wynn Resorts, Limited (WYNN)
Number of Hedge Funds: 44
Dollar Value of Positions: $2.20 billion
- MGM Resorts International (MGM)
Number of Hedge Funds: 45
Dollar Value of Positions: $1.76 billion
- Caesars Entertainment Corporation (CZR)
Number of Hedge Funds: 57
Dollar Value of Positions: $3.15 billion
