Forensic Analysis · Hotels & Casinos · as of Nov 9, 2026
Boyd Gaming Corp (BYD)
A forensic read on Boyd Gaming Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
2.3
Distress distance
4
Forensic signals
88.0%
ROE
4.1%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Boyd Gaming Corp earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.3, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by cash conversion.
What the filings flag
0.91×
FY2023–FY2025
Cash conversion.Over FY2023–FY2025, cumulative operating cash flow was 0.91× cumulative net income before $86.5M of non-cash goodwill impairment. Cash is lagging reported profit. The shortfall is profit tied up in working capital rather than collected — the accrual and receivables lines below show where.Cash conversion: operating cash flow divided by net income, the share of profit that arrived as cash.
11.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 11.0% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 13.7%. After-tax operating profit was $743M in FY2023 and $591M in FY2025, with operating income at 24.1% of revenue in FY2023, 23.6% in FY2024 and 18.3% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $5.4B in FY2023 to $5.4B in FY2025 (-1%), while the revenue it carried went from $3.7B to $4.1B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $1.1B went into capital expenditure, purchases of intangible assets and acquisitions against $543M of depreciation excluding $36M of intangible-asset amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference. FY2023's operating profit carried a $108M asset write-down and a $87M goodwill write-off that alone took about 3.0 points off that year's return, so the FY2025 return is being compared with a base year that charge had already pulled down. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
215% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $836M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 215% of free cash flow, but 86% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow because the business is also funding heavy growth capex (usually debt-financed); the payout itself is covered by operating cash — sustainable as long as that spending is genuine expansion, not upkeep. Counting the $32M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 224%.
$87M
FY2023
Goodwill impairments.Took $87M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2023 ($87M)) — about 14% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$4.09B
Revenue Growth YoY+4.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+4.6%
Net Margin45.0%
Free Cash Flow$388.5M
Return on Equity88.0%
Debt / Equity0.78x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Boyd Gaming Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?