Las Vegas Sands or Wynn Resorts: Which Casino Dividend Is the Better Bet?

Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS | LVS Price Prediction) or Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN): which casino dividend holds up better for a retirement-focused investor? Both companies stopped paying during the pandemic. The questions that matter: what did each one do when business turned bad, and what can each one keep paying from here?

Dividend Income: Sands Pays More and Keeps Raising

Las Vegas Sands yields 3.04%, while Wynn yields 1.26%. Sands pays $0.30 a quarter. The payout was lifted from $0.20 to $0.25 in February 2025 and again to $0.30 in February 2026. Wynn has paid $0.25 every quarter since it restarted in May 2023 and has not raised it.

Both records have gaps. Sands paid $0.79 in March 2020, then nothing until August 2023. Wynn paid $1 in February 2020, then nothing until May 2023. Both payouts are still far below their pre-2020 levels. A dividend that was cut once can be cut again.

Both suspensions showed up with the usual warning signs well before the official cut (we laid out the seven that tend to precede a dividend cut in a free guide here: Dividend Traps).

Coverage is closer than the yields suggest. Free cash flow is the cash left after capital spending. Sands produced $1.78 billion of it in 2025, and dividends used about 47%. Wynn’s dividend used about 25% of its $692 million, but its investing outflows hit $1.66 billion as it put money into the UAE project. Winner: Sands, on yield, two raises and a bigger cash buffer. One caution: in the second quarter, Sands generated $360 million of free cash flow but paid $328 million in dividends and spent $788 million on buybacks.

Business Durability: Singapore Gives Sands a Second Engine

Sands brought in $1.38 billion from Singapore and $1.79 billion from Macau last quarter. Marina Bay Sands produced $689 million of EBITDA at a 50% margin. Management said “Singapore remains an ideal market for high-value tourism spending.” Unusually weak VIP luck pulled Macau EBITDA down to $430 million, against $517 million at normal levels. Sands carries $15.11 billion of debt and $3.38 billion in cash. Its board raised the buyback authorization to $6.0 billion.

Wynn carries $10.72 billion of debt and negative shareholders’ equity, meaning its liabilities exceed its assets on paper. Wynn Palace revenue rose 21.1%, but EBITDAR fell 8.3% in Las Vegas and 12.2% at Encore Boston Harbor. The construction budget for Wynn Al Marjan Island rose to $5.7 billion, the opening is now set for September 2027, and Wynn still owes $525 to $650 million in equity. Wynn’s beta, a measure of how much a stock swings with the market, is 0.991, versus 0.819 for Sands. Wynn shares trade at $78.21, down 34.53% this year. Winner: Sands.

Valuation: Sands Is Cheaper on Every Core Multiple

Analysts like Wynn more. It has 4 Strong Buy and 16 Buy ratings and no Holds. Sands has 7 Holds. Still, Wynn’s upside depends on the UAE resort opening on time. Sands costs less today on profits it is already making. Winner: Sands.

Verdict: Las Vegas Sands Is the Income Investor’s Casino

For a retirement portfolio, Las Vegas Sands wins. It pays more than twice Wynn’s yield, it has raised the dividend twice since resuming, it earns money in two major markets, and it trades at lower multiples. Wynn fits a growth investor who can live with heavy debt and construction risk while waiting for Al Marjan to open.

Two things would flip this call. If Sands keeps falling short of its $700 million quarterly Macau EBITDA target while buybacks exceed free cash flow, its dividend gets weaker. If Wynn opens Al Marjan on schedule and finally raises its payout, it becomes the better choice.

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