Golden Entertainment (NASDAQ:GDEN) and DoubleDown Interactive (NASDAQ:DDI) Head-To-Head Analysis

Golden Entertainment (NASDAQ:GDEN) and DoubleDown Interactive (NASDAQ:DDI) are both consumer discretionary companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation and risk.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and recommmendations for Golden Entertainment and DoubleDown Interactive, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Golden Entertainment	0	5	3	0	2.38
DoubleDown Interactive	0	2	4	0	2.67

Golden Entertainment presently has a consensus price target of $32.75, suggesting a potential upside of 16.42%. DoubleDown Interactive has a consensus price target of $18.60, suggesting a potential upside of 114.78%. Given DoubleDown Interactive’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe DoubleDown Interactive is more favorable than Golden Entertainment.

Risk and Volatility

Golden Entertainment has a beta of 1.47, suggesting that its stock price is 47% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, DoubleDown Interactive has a beta of 0.85, suggesting that its stock price is 15% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Golden Entertainment and DoubleDown Interactive’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Golden Entertainment	0.85%	1.20%	0.52%
DoubleDown Interactive	32.94%	12.92%	11.89%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Golden Entertainment and DoubleDown Interactive”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Golden Entertainment	$666.82 million	1.10	$50.73 million	$0.18	156.28
DoubleDown Interactive	$341.33 million	N/A	$124.11 million	$2.30	3.77

DoubleDown Interactive has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Golden Entertainment. DoubleDown Interactive is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Golden Entertainment, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

70.7% of Golden Entertainment shares are owned by institutional investors. 29.1% of Golden Entertainment shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

DoubleDown Interactive beats Golden Entertainment on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Golden Entertainment

Golden Entertainment, Inc. owns and operates a diversified entertainment platform in the United States. The company operates through four segments; Nevada Casino Resorts, Nevada Locals Casinos, Nevada Taverns, and Distributed Gaming. It also operates casino, casino resorts, and taverns; and slot machines in third party non-casino locations. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada.

About DoubleDown Interactive

DoubleDown Interactive Co., Ltd. engages in the development and publishing of casual games and mobile applications in South Korea. It publishes digital gaming content on mobile and web platforms. The company offers DoubleDown Casino, DoubleDown Classic, DoubleDown Fort Knox, and cash me out games, as well as sells in-game virtual chips. Its games are primarily distributed, marketed, and promoted through third party platform providers. The company was formerly known as The8Games Co., Ltd. and changed its name to DoubleDown Interactive Co., Ltd. in December 2019. The company was incorporated in 2008 and is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. DoubleDown Interactive Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of DoubleU Games Co., Ltd.