The CFO of MGM Resorts International told Nevada regulators Wednesday a fall off in drive-in traffic from California brought down Las Vegas visitation numbers this year, but maintained the city still offers tourists a lot of value.
Jonathan Halkyard appeared before the Nevada Gaming Control Board and was recommended for licensing to the Nevada Gaming Commission. His appearance followed CEO Bill Hornbuckle’s licensing appearance before the Commission.
Halkyard said it’s true MGM has had some challenges in 2025 around occupancy at a few of its properties, that’s compared to 2023 and 2024, strong years for the market and the resort operator.
“When you’re operating at 90% occupancy in most markets, that would be a banner year,” Halkyard said. “For us, it’s a little bit of a disappointment. I do think it eventually gets cured with renewed visitation growth. We’re optimistic about 2026 and the dynamism of what’s going on here, as well as our events and attractions. The attractiveness of those are unabated.”
Halkyard admitted that MGM has suffered this year from drive-in traffic from southern California, but disputed that Las Vegas has lost its value. Most of the national focus on the decline in visitation has been tourists flying into the city from across the country.
“I don’t think it’s valid to say Las Vegas lost it value when one compares the cost of hotel rooms here and the cost to get here and all of the options here for entertainment and food and beverage. I travel to other cities in this country and this is a very good value here in Las Vegas.” Halkyard added, however, that there are understandable concerns about added fees and the notion that people are getting “nickel and dimed.” He said MGM has taken that criticism on board and lowered specific prices that executives found didn’t make sense.
“These aren’t large issues in the grand scheme of things, but they do matter to the reputation of the city. So we changed some of those.”
In response to questions from the Board, Halkyard said MGM’s withdrawal from seeking a gaming license in New York was something they deliberated on for a long time. It was a large potential investment and with the terms of competition and time to realize the return, he said it didn’t make sense. MGM is focusing elsewhere.
“We do see growth opportunities here in Las Vegas investing in our properties,” Halkyard said. “The new growth opportunities we’re focusing on now are in Osaka, Japan, where we have a large integrated resort under construction, and a non-gaming project underway in the United Arab Emirates, where potentially there could be gaming that we could be very interested in. We have a number of opportunities in digital gaming as well.”
Board member George Assad agreed with the decision for MGM to pull out of New York and was optimistic MGM would get gaming in the UAE in the future. “I’ll lay 3 to 2 that you’ll have gaming there in five years,” Assad joked. “It’s just a wild guess on my part.”
Halkyard talked about responsible gaming issues and said the state and operators have done a good job on that topic.