Joseph Jaffoni - Investor Relations Blake Sartini - Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Arcana - Chief Operating Officer Charles Protell - Chief Strategy and Chief Financial Officer :

Chad Beynon - Macquarie Patrick Schultz - SunTrust John DeCree - Union Gaming :

:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Golden Entertainment’s Fourth Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded today March 13, 2017. Now, I would like to turn the conference over Joe Jaffoni, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much Sandra, and good afternoon everyone. By now, everyone should have access to our fourth quarter, 2016 earnings release, which can be found on the company website at www.goldenent.com under the investor section. Before we begin our formal remarks, we need to remind everyone that the discussion today will include forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward looking statements, which are usually identified by the use of the words such as will, expect, believe, anticipate, should or other similar phrases are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our corporate working statements and therefore, you should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them. We refer all of you to the risk factors in our recent SEC filings, including our most recent form 10-K as updated by our subsequent quarterly reports on form 10-Q for a more detailed discussion of the risk that could impact our future operating results and financial condition and other forward looking statements. During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which management uses and believes are useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Financial results before August 2015 did not include the results of Sartini Gaming. Sartini Gaming was merged with a subsidiary of the company on July 31st, 2015 and its financial results were included beginning in August 2015. Because of the merger, management believes it is helpful to provide comparisons on an unaudited combined basis where the results of the company are combined with the pre-merger results of Sartini Gaming for the relevant period. We have provided that information in the press release issued earlier today. The combined presentation does not conform with GAAP or the SEC's rules for pro forma presentations. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available on our fourth quarter 2016 press release. On the call today, we have Blake Sartini, the Company’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Arcana, the Company’s Chief Operating Officer and Charles Protell, the Company’s Chief Strategy and Chief Financial Officer. Blake and Charles will provide prepared remarks, after which, we will open the call to questions. With that, it’s my pleasure to turn the call over Blake Sartini. Blake?

Thanks, Joe and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter call. The fourth quarter kept off an extremely active and successful 2016 for Golden Entertainment, as we delivered record financial results across our business. Over the course of the year we continued our strategic inspection of our distributed gaming business for two significant acquisitions in Montana and the opening of five new wholly-owned taverns in highly attractive Las Vegas locals market. Also we’ve gained additional traction with our whole scale casino operations in Nevada and Maryland. Finally, we strengthen our senior management team with the appointment Charles Protell as Chief Strategy and Finance Officer. Charles will go through the numbers in more detail in a few minutes. But let me first say that is deep industry and financial expertise has been a welcome addition to Golden Entertainment and will no doubt service well as we continue to pursue growth. We entered 2017 as a leading provider of distributed gaming services operating the largest footprint in Nevada and the second largest footprint in Montana. In total we operate more than 10,000 devices in nearly 1000 locations including a growing base of wholly-owned taverns in Las Vegas. Our strong market position is the direct result of 13 successful acquisitions completed over the past 15 years including the two key Montana acquisitions which together added approximately 2,900 gaming devices and 300 locations to our footprint in 2016. We are a leader in negotiating, financing and integrating accretive acquisitions and the combination of our scale and leadership in both Nevada and Montana has created strong barriers to entry. Turning to our branded taverns we've been able to generate excellent returns and see no reason to slower pace of investment in new wholly owned locations. Our locations branded SPTs, Sierra Gold and Sean Patrick's…

Thanks, Blake. Before getting to the results, let me remind you that the fourth quarter represents the first period in which the year ago comparison also includes the full results of Sartini Gaming, which was merged with the subsidiary of the company in July 2015. The 2015 full year financials presented in our earnings release include what we believe to be helpful comparison on an unaudited combined basis where we our results with the premerger results of Sartini Gaming. In the fourth quarter, Golden Entertainment generated record net revenues of $105.4 million, representing increase of 21.9% over last year. Adjusted EBITDAI in the quarter was $12.2 million, up 29.1% year-over-year. For the full year net revenues were record $403.2 million, up 16.7% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA grew 20.2% over the prior year to a record $48.6 million. For distributed gaming segment, net revenue during the quarter was $81.2 million, year-over-year increase of 28.3%, while adjusted EBITDA of $11.5 million with a 28.1% from a year ago, as we benefited from our two acquisitions in Montana as well as opening of five new calibers in Las Vegas. In our Nevada distributed business, our primary focus was and remains driving financial performance by shifting our mix towards higher margin, wholly-owned tavern allocations from chain store locations. Our existing chain store locations typically operate at a lower volume and margin levels, and we are working to manage these locations to maximize profitability. As our same store locations come up for renewal we have been aggressive in managing underperforming locations out of the portfolio and we expect this to continue over the coming years. This will lead to increase margins that provide us with the ability to redeploy capital into a high return margin owned taverns. In 2017, we plan to open seven new…

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Chad Beynon with Macquarie. Your line is now open.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Schultz with SunTrust. Your line is now open.

And our next question comes from the line of John DeCree with Union Gaming. Your line is now open.

At this time there appear to be no further questions. I’d now like to turn the call back to Mr. Sartini for any closing remarks.

Thank you operator and thanks to everyone for joining us today. We will report updating everyone on our continued progress as we report our first quarter results in May. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.