Churchill Downs Incorporated (NASDAQ:CHDN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

But I’m confident that we’re going to face both of those challenges and I’m confident that while things probably won’t always go exactly the way we hope on exactly the timeframe we hope, I do think we’ll see success conquering those or meeting those challenges. When it gets to then deployment, it’ll depend on the site. And as I know you have, if you follow our Company over time, we’ll do a lot of testing. We’ll see what works. Different markets will probably show different appetites. And so, we’ll take it on a facility by facility approach based on data generated from that region. And so it’ll be a different answer for each of our properties and a different answer between jurisdictions.

Jordan Bender: Great. And then for my follow-up, I know it’s kind of early days for both retail sports betting and the gray market machines coming offline in Kentucky, but your win per day in Kentucky off of those machines have been ticking up in the last couple of months. Are you guys seeing a different age or demographic kind of walking through that door that you can kind of point to either of those catalysts pushing more people into the facility?

Bill Carstanjen: I think what you’re seeing in Kentucky is the fact that our facilities haven’t reached maturity yet. It was a product that was introduced to the state that they didn’t have a great deal of familiarity with and we’re reaching the consumer, we’re still getting trial. So, it’s still a growing business. And we’ve continued to invest in our properties that make those properties more attractive for visitors when they do come. We’re seeing some impact from turning off gray games too, I’m sure. There are a lot of variables at play there and in the state of Kentucky in general, they’re all positive variables. So, I wouldn’t put it to one thing. I think there can be assumptions around how long it takes a facility to reach maturity before it takes significant capital investment to grow it further. And we haven’t gotten to that point at any of our facilities in Kentucky. And that’s more the story than changes in the customer dynamics or demographics.

Jordan Bender: Understood. Thanks, Bill.

Operator: Thank you. One moment, please, for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Guglielmo with Capital One Securities.

Daniel Guglielmo: Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. When thinking about the size and scale of the gaming portfolio and the experience that the team has gained over the last few years, from an organic and same-store unit perspective, do you think there’s continued room for win-per-unit expansion from current levels? And what are some of the things you all are doing on that front to push that forward?

Bill Carstanjen: Sure. I think if you’re contrasting gaming versus HRM, obviously, our HRM haven’t approached maturity yet. That is an area of a lot of investment and a lot of growth and a lot of high margin. If you’re comparing it to some of our non-HRM gaming facilities, some of those are closer to maturity than others. Some of those have reached maturity. And in our minds, we look at this as two different growth trajectories. So, for more traditional brick-and-mortar gaming, non-HRM gaming, sure. I mean, we’re seeing some of the impact of the economy. And that’s a question of managing our margins well, making sure that we’re watching our costs and otherwise focusing on all the attributes of running that business, those sites, as well as we possibly can.

And then our team at those sites, they’re aggressive, growth-minded people. That’s our mindset. That’s our culture. So, they’re constantly pitching new ideas, new capital investment, which they think will drive an improvement in the top line and bottom line of those facilities. And we look at that very seriously, just like we look at investment in Twin Spires and Churchill Downs Racetrack and in our HRM facilities. And so those teams compete for capital as well. And they have to demonstrate that they can grow their top line and their margins when we give it to the facilities. So site by site, those team members are going to go forth and they’re going to make their presentations and they’re going to make their plans. And we’ll see what the best choices for us to invest our capital will be.