Caesars Stock Booted From S&P 500, Robinhood Gets the Nod

• Caesars stock declines in after-hours trading on news it will depart the S&P 500
• Robinhood Markets is one of three additions to the widely followed index

Shares of Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR) dipped during Friday’s after-hours session after S&P Dow Jones Indices said the casino operator, Enphase Energy (NASDAQ: ENPH), and MarketAxess Holdings (NASDAQ: MKTX) will be removed from the S&P 500.

Victimized by a year-to-date decline of 29%, Caesars stock made for an unsurprising deletion from the benchmark domestic equity gauge. The minimum market capitalization required for membership in the S&P 500 is $22 billion, or roughly quadruple the $5.36 billion market value sported by Caesars as of the close of US markets today.

The additions to the benchmark are AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP), Emcor Group (NYSE: EME), and Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD). Those additions and removals become official prior to the open of US markets on Sept. 22, according to S&P.

Some Gaming Ties with S&P Additions

Though it’s classified as a financial services company, Robinhood has some gaming-related ties. Notably, the purveyor of the popular investing mobile application has a prediction markets partnership with Kalshi and it recently announced it will offer yes/no event contracts on college football and the NFL this year.

Consensus wisdom in the investment and sports betting communities is that companies like Crypto.com and Robinhood will continue pushing into various forms of sports betting, knowing many of their core clients are bettors. However, such ventures currently represent a mere sliver of Robinhood’s broader revenue mix.

AppLovin has faint gaming ties by way of Wynn CEO Craig Billings being a member of its board of directors, something at least one pundit said is a positive for the S&P 500 addition.

“He’s (Billings)also on the board of AppLovin by the way, which makes me feel like AppLovin’s okay,” said CNBC’s Jim Cramer.

Flutter Next Up?

When altering the S&P 500, the index provider doesn’t always replace companies from a certain sector with newcomers from the same group. Rather, the goal is to provide an index that’s representative of the broader US economy and equity market.

That’s one reason why Caesars isn’t being replaced by another dedicated gaming company, but on that note, attention now likely turns to FanDuel owner Flutter Entertainment (NYSE: FLUT) as the next logical addition to the S&P 500 from the gaming industry — a point that’s already been frequently discussed in gaming investing circles.

Flutter’s market cap is $51.38 billion, so it passes that requirement with ease. It’s also close to or already meeting S&P’s profitability, liquidity, and share-float criteria for inclusion.