In this article, we discuss 5 best gambling stocks to buy now. If you want to read about some more gambling stocks, go directly to 15 Best Gambling Stocks To Buy Now.
5. International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 34
International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT) operates and provides gaming technology products and services. It is one of the top casino stocks to invest in. On September 20, the company announced that Global Solutions, a unit of the firm, had been selected by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming as the primary technology provider of self-serve lottery terminals. The firm said this deal marked the first time that self-serve technology will be available to lottery players in Ontario. The contract in this regard will run till June 2027.
At the end of the second quarter of 2022, 34 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $263.5 million in International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT), compared to 34 in the preceding quarter worth $413.6 million.
In its Q4 2021 investor letter, Palm Harbour Capital, an asset management firm, highlighted a few stocks and International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT) was one of them. Here is what the fund said:
“The second largest contributor was International Game Technology PLC (NYSE:IGT), the Italian American lottery and slot machine company, which we introduced in our first quarter 2020 letter and which contributed 78 basis points to performance. Early in the quarter, IGT’s main competitor, the highly levered Scientific Games, entered into a definitive agreement to sell its lottery business to Brookfield Business Partners for total consideration of $6.1 billion in cash and contingent payout. At $471 million last twelve months EBITDA (admittedly COVID affected, excluding unallocated central costs), Scientific Games lottery business was sold at trailing 13.0x. Scientific Games exited lottery business to optimize the portfolio and aggressively de-lever its balance sheet. We believe IGT’s lottery business to be much higher quality and certainly larger. If we were to use a similar metric for IGT, including all corporate costs but excluding Gaming and Digital and Betting, we would have around 90% upside. We are willing to bet the Gaming and fast growing Digital and Betting segments are worth something as well. It seems the sell-side willfully ignores this transaction and sticks with their 7-8x EV/EBITDA valuation.
The company reported third quarter earnings with sales up by 21% year on year, EBIT up by 144% and leverage down to 3.8x from 6.4x at year-end 2020. Total Adjusted EBITDA improved by 42% with margin gaining 618 basis points. Following the recovery, management reinstated the dividend of $0.20 per share…(read more)”
