Gambling CEOs are optimistic about industry’s future

The American Gaming Association has gauged opinions among C-level executives in gambling firms in the industry, outlining an upbeat outlook for the future. According to AGA’s dedicated Gaming Industry Outlook conducted and presented in collaboration with Fitch Ratings, the majority of respondents see the coming months as positive developments.

Some 68% of those who took the survey said that business is going well and another 28% said that things are satisfactory, putting the overall number of satisfied executives at roughly 96%.

38% of those interviewed said that they expect things to get even better with time, a remarkably high number despite a number of challenges that the United States faces in terms of political alignment, geopolitical involvement in the war in Europe, and rising costs of living.

AGA President and CEO Bill Miller pitched a positive outlook himself, arguing that the industry had remained fairly resilient because of strong consumer demand for the product that gambling establishments in the United States offer their consumers. The optimism is driven by a variety of economic factors, too.

Revenue numbers are already stronger than expected, but AGA and Fitch, along with executives, cited microeconomic factors that are equally important and telling of a future in which the industry does so much better. However, there are some issues that CEOs agree on, such as supply chains.

Some 65% of C-level executives in the gambling industry said that supply chains can indeed be a pain. Shortage of labor and the uncertainty of the economic environment was cited as worrying factors by 50% of executives. In other words, executives are not rosy-eyed about the future of the industry because they have failed to acknowledge the risks. Rather, they have proffered an optimistic outlook despite those challenges and assessed the industry’s ability to deal with and cope with sudden shocks.

In fact, three out of four surveyed CEOs said that they expect wages and benefits in the industry to continue increasing over the next three to six months. This can be a direct response to the industry trying to claw back professionals who left the industry during the pandemic when many employees were left without a job.

Even though the pandemic certainly had a bearing on the industry, one that is still being recovered from, it also allowed gambling companies to tap into pent-up demand and build up good cash stocks to use should things take a turn for the worst again. If you were to ask America’s gambling CEOs, though, this is not very likely – hopefully.

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