Casino, tavern, and slot machine operator Golden Entertainment (NASDAQ: GDEN) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, with sales falling 5.2% year on year to $155.6 million. Its GAAP loss of $0.33 per share was significantly below analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Golden Entertainment (GDEN) Q4 CY2025 Highlights:
- Revenue: $155.6 million vs analyst estimates of $164.7 million (5.2% year-on-year decline, 5.5% miss)
- EPS (GAAP): -$0.33 vs analyst estimates of $0.14 (significant miss)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $33.53 million vs analyst estimates of $37.69 million (21.5% margin, 11% miss)
- Operating Margin: -1.5%, down from 7.1% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $752.1 million
Company Overview
Founded in 2001, Golden Entertainment (NASDAQ: GDEN) is a gaming company operating casinos, taverns, and distributed gaming platforms.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term performance is an indicator of its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. Over the last five years, Golden Entertainment’s demand was weak and its revenue declined by 1.8% per year. This wasn’t a great result and is a sign of poor business quality.
Long-term growth is the most important, but within consumer discretionary, product cycles are short and revenue can be hit-driven due to rapidly changing trends and consumer preferences. Golden Entertainment’s recent performance shows its demand remained suppressed as its revenue has declined by 22.4% annually over the last two years. Note that COVID hurt Golden Entertainment’s business in 2020 and part of 2021, and it bounced back in a big way thereafter. 
This quarter, Golden Entertainment missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 5.2% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $155.6 million of revenue.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 3.3% over the next 12 months. While this projection suggests its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.
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Operating Margin
Operating margin is a key measure of profitability. Think of it as net income - the bottom line - excluding the impact of taxes and interest on debt, which are less connected to business fundamentals.
Golden Entertainment’s operating margin has shrunk over the last 12 months and averaged 10.3% over the last two years. The company’s profitability was mediocre for a consumer discretionary business and shows it couldn’t pass its higher operating expenses onto its customers.
In Q4, Golden Entertainment generated an operating margin profit margin of negative 1.5%, down 8.6 percentage points year on year. This contraction shows it was less efficient because its expenses increased relative to its revenue.
Earnings Per Share
Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.
Although Golden Entertainment’s full-year earnings are still negative, it reduced its losses and improved its EPS by 44.9% annually over the last five years. The next few quarters will be critical for assessing its long-term profitability.
In Q4, Golden Entertainment reported EPS of negative $0.33, down from $0.10 in the same quarter last year. This print missed analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street is optimistic. Analysts forecast Golden Entertainment’s full-year EPS of negative $0.25 will flip to positive $0.75.
Key Takeaways from Golden Entertainment’s Q4 Results
We struggled to find many positives in these results. Its revenue missed and its EPS fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this was a softer quarter. The stock remained flat at $28.73 immediately after reporting.
Golden Entertainment may have had a tough quarter, but does that actually create an opportunity to invest right now? When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
