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BYD, Boyd Gaming

Casinos & Gaming capital-intensive Capital build-out

Boyd Gaming Corporation is a multi-jurisdictional gaming company that has been in operation since 1975.

In connection with the sale of the Equity Interest, Boyd Gaming and FanDuel or their respective affiliated entities terminated certain of their existing agreements related to their strategic partnership and entered into certain new agreements (collectively, the "FanDuel Market Access Agreements").

Through the FanDuel Market Access Agreements and market access agreements with other online operators, and subject to state law and regulatory approvals, we offer online sports wagering in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio (through June 30, 2025 ) and Pennsylvania as well as online casinos in Pennsylvania.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

BYD · Boyd Gaming

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$4.1B

+4.1% YoY · 13% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $4.1B 5-yr avg $3.7B

Operating margin 17.4% 5-yr avg 24.1%

ROIC 13% 5-yr avg 16%

Owner-earnings margin 13% 5-yr avg 19%

Free cash flow margin 7% 5-yr avg 16%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is led by Casino (64%) and Online Reimbusements (14%), with 6 more lines behind.
Situation: Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 14% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 14% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The operating margin has swung widely — from 0.7% to 28% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Read this kind of business on occupancy and revenue per available room, and the model. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 14%, above 15% in 4 of 9 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 13% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Casino is 64% of revenue, with Online Reimbusements the other meaningful line at 14%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Casino64%$2.6B
Online Reimbusements14%$576M
Food and Beverage8%$310M
Occupancy5%$191M
Product and Service, Other4%$145M
Online3%$132M
Other5%$198M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$3.3B	$2.2B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$3.9B	$4.1B	$4.1B	RevenueRevenue
15%	15%	14%	14%	16%	11%	11%	10%	11%	11%	11%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$260M	$344M	$355M	$473M	$14M	$900M	$981M	$902M	$928M	$748M	$713M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
11.8%	14.3%	13.5%	14.2%	0.7%	26.7%	27.6%	24.1%	23.6%	18.3%	17.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$420M	$189M	$115M	$158M	($135M)	$464M	$639M	$620M	$578M	$1.8B	$1.8B	Net incomeNet inc.
—	2%	26%	22%	—	23%	23%	18%	23%	21%	21%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$300M	$423M	$435M	$549M	$289M	$1.0B	$976M	$915M	$957M	$977M	$855M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$196M	$218M	$230M	$277M	$281M	$268M	$258M	$257M	$277M	$303M	$329M	DepreciationDeprec.
($332M)	($2M)	$64M	$90M	$133M	$241M	$44M	$5M	$73M	($1.2B)	($1.3B)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$160M	$190M	$162M	$208M	$175M	$199M	$269M	$374M	$400M	$588M	$574M	CapexCapex
7.3%	7.9%	6.2%	6.2%	8.0%	5.9%	7.6%	10.0%	10.2%	14.4%	14.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$140M	$232M	$273M	$341M	$114M	$811M	$707M	$658M	$680M	$674M	$525M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
6.4%	9.7%	10.4%	10.3%	5.2%	24.1%	19.9%	17.6%	17.3%	16.5%	12.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$140M	$232M	$273M	$341M	$114M	$811M	$707M	$541M	$557M	$388M	$281M	Free cash flowFCF
6.4%	9.7%	10.4%	10.3%	5.2%	24.1%	19.9%	14.5%	14.2%	9.5%	6.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$593M	$1M	$934M	$6M	$11M	$0	$168M	$0	$30M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$11M	$25M	$29M	$8M	$0	$48M	$64M	$63M	$58M	$57M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	$32M	$60M	$28M	$11M	$81M	$542M	$413M	$686M	$778M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
7%	9%	5%	8%	—	16%	17%	17%	16%	14%	13%	ROICROIC
45%	17%	10%	12%	-12%	30%	40%	36%	37%	71%	72%	Return on equityROE
45%	16%	8%	10%	−13%	30%	37%	32%	33%	68%	70%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$194M	$204M	$250M	$250M	$519M	$345M	$283M	$304M	$317M	$353M	$373M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$30M	$40M	$55M	$55M	$53M	$89M	$109M	$138M	$132M	$84M	$79M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$19M	$18M	$21M	$22M	$23M	$20M	$22M	$21M	$21M	$20M	$20M	InventoryInvent.
$84M	$106M	$111M	$91M	$97M	$102M	$130M	$125M	$131M	$151M	$137M	Accounts payablePayables
($35M)	($48M)	($36M)	($14M)	($21M)	$8M	$1M	$34M	$22M	($47M)	($39M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$308M	$329M	$400M	$399M	$650M	$508M	$478M	$529M	$562M	$531M	$530M	Current assetsCur. assets
$366M	$385M	$470M	$557M	$524M	$557M	$586M	$596M	$623M	$979M	$883M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.8×	0.9×	0.9×	0.7×	1.2×	0.9×	0.8×	0.9×	0.9×	0.5×	0.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$826M	$888M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$971M	$971M	$1.0B	$947M	$958M	$958M	$958M	GoodwillGoodwill
$4.7B	$4.7B	$5.8B	$6.7B	$6.6B	$6.2B	$6.3B	$6.3B	$6.4B	$6.6B	$6.6B	Total assetsAssets
$3.2B	$3.1B	$4.0B	$3.8B	$3.9B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$2.9B	$3.2B	$2.0B	$2.3B	Total debtDebt
$3.0B	$2.9B	$3.7B	$3.5B	$3.4B	$2.7B	$2.8B	$2.6B	$2.9B	$1.7B	$1.9B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.2×	2.0×	1.7×	2.0×	0.1×	4.5×	6.5×	5.3×	5.2×	4.7×	5.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$930M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$2.6B	$2.5B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.7%	0.7%	1.0%	0.8%	0.4%	1.1%	1.0%	0.9%	0.8%	0.8%	0.8%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$12M	—	—	—	$112M	—	$32M	$87M	—	—	$87M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
115M	116M	115M	114M	114M	114M	109M	101M	93.3M	81.7M	76.8M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$19.09	$20.76	$22.83	$29.19	$19.19	$29.53	$32.62	$36.88	$42.10	$50.08	$53.37	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.65	$1.64	$1.00	$1.38	$-1.19	$4.07	$5.87	$6.12	$6.19	$22.56	$23.93	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.22	$2.01	$2.37	$3.00	$1.00	$7.11	$6.49	$6.49	$7.29	$8.25	$6.84	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.22	$2.01	$2.37	$3.00	$1.00	$7.11	$6.49	$5.33	$5.96	$4.75	$3.66	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00	$0.10	$0.21	$0.25	$0.07	$0.00	$0.44	$0.63	$0.67	$0.71	$0.75	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.39	$1.65	$1.40	$1.82	$1.54	$1.75	$2.47	$3.69	$4.29	$7.20	$7.47	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$8.08	$9.49	$9.96	$11.10	$9.90	$13.49	$14.59	$17.20	$16.94	$31.92	$33.04	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+11.3%/yr	+21.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+23.7%/yr	+52.4%/yr
EPS	+22.4%/yr	—
Dividends / share	—	+59.6%/yr
Capital spending / share	+20.0%/yr	+36.1%/yr
Book value / share	+16.5%/yr	+26.4%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Online-15.1%
“Online revenues decreased $23.6 million, or 15.1%, in 2025 compared to 2024 primarily driven by a $56.5 million decrease in revenue from market access agreements due to the termination of certain agreements starting in the third quarter of 2025 and in some instances, entry into new agreements at lower rates than those terminated.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

82Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

14%low FY2018

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.5×peak FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$674Mowner earningsvs.$1.8Bnet incomelow FY2020

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $674M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $303M it takes just to hold its position. It put $286M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $388M.

Reported net income$1.8B

Owner earnings$674M · 16% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$1.8B	$578M	$620M	$639M	$464M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$303M	+$277M	+$257M	+$258M	+$268M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$32M	+$30M	+$32M	+$34M	+$38M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$1.2B	+$73M	+$5M	+$44M	+$241M
Cash from operations	$977M	$957M	$915M	$976M	$1.0B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$303M	−$277M	−$257M	−$269M	−$199M
Owner earnings	$674M	$680M	$658M	$707M	$811M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$286M	−$124M	−$117M	—	—
Free cash flow	$388M	$557M	$541M	$707M	$811M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	16%	17%	18%	20%	24%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $303M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $286M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $32M), owner earnings is nearer $642M.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 4.7×

Adequate

Operating income $748M ÷ interest expense $158M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.7B · 2.3× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $353M + ST investments $500K − debt $2.0B

What this means
Netting $354M of cash and short-term investments against $2.0B of debt leaves $1.7B owed, about 2.3× a year's operating profit (2.7× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 14%

Solid through the cycle

9-yr median, range 5%–17%; 14% latest = NOPAT $591M ÷ invested capital $4.3B

Industry peers: median 6%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran 14% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 10%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 5%–24%; latest $674M = operating cash $977M − maintenance capex $303M

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 16% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 10 years. It chose to put $286M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $388M — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $32M of SBC) leaves $642M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 0.53×

Thinly cash-backed

Cash from ops $977M ÷ net income $1.8B

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 124%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $836M ÷ Owner Earnings $674M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $674M of Owner Earnings, $836M (124%) went back to shareholders, $58M dividends, $778M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $32M stock comp, the real buyback was about $746M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 1.94×

Expanding

Capex $588M ÷ depreciation $303M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $4.1B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.54×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $2.0B vs ($448M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Near

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · 8 of 10 yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +320%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $13.64/share (latest year $24.80), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $35.09/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 9 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 4 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 13% → 22% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 13% early to 22% lately, median 14% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +15%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 15% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · 0.7% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −3.7%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$530M

Cash & short-term investments$373M
Receivables$79M
Inventory$20M
Other current assets$58M

Current liabilities$883M

Accounts payable$137M
Other current liabilities$745M

Current ratio0.60×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.58×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.42×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($353M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+0.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.8× → 0.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$107Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$2.9B$650M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $2.7B (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$0

'27$1.0B

'28$0

'29$0

'30$0

later$900M

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$0the first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.0Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.0Bin 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$1.9Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$157M

'27$156M

'28$117M

'29$116M

'30$116M

later$512M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$157Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.2Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$666Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$2.0B

Lease obligations (present value)$666M

Total fixed claims on the business$2.7B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $2.7B, of which the leases are 25%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $6.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$2.7B · 40%
Dividends$305M · 4%
Buybacks$2.6B · 39%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.2B · 17%

Returned to owners$2.9B
63% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $305M as dividends and $2.6B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$60.74
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 43M shares were bought for $2.6B, about $60.74 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $16.28 (2020) to $76.92 (2025), and 2025, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($778M).
Net change in share count−33.3%
The diluted count fell from 115M to 77M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.71/sh
Paid in 8 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.
Return on what it retained23%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($2.0B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $456M, so each retained $1 added about 0.23 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$2.4B37% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity37%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$1.7Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $2.7B of capital spent building

$243M written down across 4 years (2016, 2020, 2022, 2023): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Smith	$14.7M	$25.4M	$811M
2022	Mr. Smith	$10.4M	$7.1M	$707M
2023	Mr. Smith	$11.4M	$14.8M	$658M
2024	Mr. Smith	$11.5M	$14.4M	$680M
2025	Mr. Smith	$14.7M	$18.1M	$674M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership22.8%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio375:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$32M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Boyd Gaming is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?8 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 8 of the last 10 years, $727M in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Casinos & Gaming

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
LVSLas Vegas Sands Corp.	$13.0B	—	21.9%	16%	16%
CZRCaesars Entertainment Inc.	$11.5B	—	15.7%	5%	5%
WYNNWynn Resorts Limited	$7.1B	—	12.4%	6%	8%
PENNPENN Entertainment Inc.	$7.0B	—	12.1%	12%	8%
BYDBoyd Gaming	$4.1B	—	16.3%	14%	13%
PKPark Hotels & Resorts	$2.5B	—	13.0%	4%	8%
RRRRed Rock Resorts	$2.0B	—	24.8%	—	13%
XHRXenia Hotels & Resorts Inc.	$1.1B	32%	9.8%	4%	10%
Group median	—	—	14.3%	6%	9%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Boyd Gaming has delivered.

Boyd Gaming’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Boyd Gaming earns about $550M on its 13.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 16.5% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($550M) Net of stock comp (−$32M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($552M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−3%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+11%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $281M on 74M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-27; net debt $1.9B. The if-converted diluted count is 77M, 3% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($574M) runs well above depreciation ($329M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $552M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh BYD against another business →

The owners of BYD: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Boyd Gaming (BYD), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BYD, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BY its page in the Manual BYND →

Industry order: ← BRSL the Casinos & Gaming chapter CDRO →