- Just 34 of the 4,973 machines Light & Wonder shipped in the U.S. and Canada went to new or expanding casinos.
- Replacements made up 4,939 of those shipments, and new-opening units fell from 293 in the first quarter.
- Overseas casinos took 342 new-opening units, up from 74, so the construction slowdown is American rather than global.
- Leasing revenue of $247 million passed machine sales of $184 million, though a charitable-gaming deal supplied $24 million of the rise.
LAS VEGAS – Light & Wonder shipped 4,973 gaming machines to casinos in the U.S. and Canada in the second quarter, and just 34 of them went to new floors or expansions, down from 223 in the same quarter a year earlier.
Replacements Made Up 4,939 Of The 4,973 North American Units
Light & Wonder’s machine shipments for the June quarter read almost entirely as maintenance work. Replacement units, the cabinets a casino swaps in for machines already on its floor, made up 4,939 of the 4,973 units shipped across the U.S. and Canada. Casino opening and expansion units came to 34.
A slot supplier’s unit table is the earliest read on whether anyone is building casinos, because the machines are ordered long before the doors open. The drop is not a quarter-to-quarter wobble either. The company shipped 293 opening-and-expansion units in the first quarter, which puts the first-half total at 327 against 594 in the same stretch of 2025.
Machine sales revenue fell 4% to $184 million from $191 million, while the average sale price per new unit held at $18,936 against $18,930 a year earlier. Steady pricing with falling revenue puts the shortfall in volume, not discounting.
Light & Wonder put the decline down to weaker demand from new openings and expansions, and to orders sliding into the back half of the year. The company also lists slow addition of casinos in existing jurisdictions and a weakening replacement cycle among its stated business risks.
Overseas Casinos Took 342 New-Opening Units, Up From 74
The same unit table shows the slowdown is not a worldwide one. International shipments included 342 opening-and-expansion units, up from 74 a year earlier, on 3,823 total international units. Global shipments came to 8,796 machines.
New floor space is being built, then, just not in North America. For players that is the practical difference between a market where new rooms and new game banks keep arriving and one where the same footprint gets refreshed. The cabinets landing on an American floor this year mostly stand where an older machine stood, running newer titles from the same studios that supply online slots for USA players.
Leasing Passed Machine Sales, Though Grover Supplied Part Of The Gain
With machine sales down, the growth came from machines Light & Wonder never sells. Gaming operations revenue, covering leases and revenue-share placements, rose 18% to $247 million from $209 million and cleared machine sales for the quarter.
The crossover is narrower than it looks. Grover, the charitable-gaming business acquired in May 2025, contributed $45 million and supplied $24 million of the $38 million increase.
Stripping Grover from both years leaves leasing at $202 million against $184 million of sales, still a crossover but a modest one, and a year earlier the comparison ran the other way at $188 million against $191 million. Grover added 277 units in the quarter to pass 12,550 installed.
North American installed units, excluding charitable gaming, reached 36,068 after adding 722. Premium placements now account for 58% of that base, following a 24th straight quarter of growth.
Each Leased Machine Returned $48.88 A Day, Up From $46.05
Across 48,639 units in the U.S. and Canada, average daily revenue per unit rose to $48.88 from $46.05. That figure is what the machine returns to the supplier, not what it takes from players. On a participation deal the casino pays a daily fee or hands over a share of the machine’s net win, which ties Light & Wonder’s take to how the game actually performs on the floor rather than to a one-time sale.
The international side moved the other way. That installed base shrank to 18,408 units from 19,526, earning $16.38 a day per unit against $16.97.
iGaming Hit A $31.3 Billion Wagering Record As SciPlay Lost Payers
The online arm posted the quarter’s cleanest growth. Players pushed a record $31.3 billion through the company’s Open Gaming System, against $26.6 billion a year earlier. Revenue for the segment reached $92 million and its AEBITDA $33 million, gains of 14% and 18%, even with higher U.K. gambling duties taking effect April 1. The same first-party catalog feeds the game libraries at regulated USA online casinos.
SciPlay was the only segment to shrink, with revenue down 9% to $182 million. Monthly paying users fell to 447,000 from 512,000 while average monthly revenue per paying user rose 4% to $133.80, so the social casino is losing payers rather than spend.
Direct-to-consumer sales reached $53 million, or 29% of the segment, where players buy coin packages instead of wagering cash the way they do at online gambling sites for USA players.
Outlook Held, With Leverage At 3.4x
Consolidated revenue rose 2% to $828 million, net income rose 26% to $120 million and consolidated adjusted EBITDA rose 9% to $383 million.
Chief executive Matt Wilson said the quarter showed “broad-based growth, margin expansion and quality earnings across all three businesses.”
Buybacks took $134 million in the quarter, covering roughly 1.6 million CHESS Depositary Interests, with about $180 million left on the current authorization. Net debt leverage stood at 3.4x on June 30 against $5.2 billion of principal debt outstanding.
Oliver Chow, the chief financial officer, said the plan from here is to “pare back on share repurchases and rapidly de-lever our balance sheet.” The full-year guidance was left alone, still calling for consolidated AEBITDA growth in the mid- to high single digits this year, with leverage due under 3.0x in the first half of 2027.