If Bally Technologies (NYSE: BYI) misses estimates again it will be the fourth consecutive quarter for the company. The company will unveil its latest earnings Thursday. Bally Technologies is a worldwide gaming company that designs, manufactures, distributes, and operates gaming devices and computerized monitoring, accounting, and player-tracking systems for gaming devices.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: The majority of analysts back Bally Technologies as a buy. But with 58.8% of analysts rating it a buy, Bally Technologies is still below the mean analyst rating of its nearest 10 competitors, which average 60.6% buys. Analysts like Bally Technologies better than competitor WMS Industries overall. Seven out of 18 analysts rate WMS Industries a buy compared with 10 of 17 for Bally Technologies. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, but they are a bit more wary about it compared with three months ago.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $203.5 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 4.2% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.55 per share. Estimates range from $0.51 to $0.61.

What our community says:
The majority of CAPS All -tars see BYI as a good bet, with 71.4% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The majority of the Fools are in agreement with the All-Stars as 73.3% give it an "outperform" rating. Fools are gung-ho about Bally Technologies, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 77 posts in the past 30 days. Bally Technologies' bearish CAPS rating of one out of five stars falls short of the Fool community sentiment.

Management:
Bally Technologies' profit has risen year over year by an average of 3.1% over the past five quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q3

Q2

Q1

Q4

Gross Margin

64.3%

64.0%

65.4%

64.6%

Operating Margin

19.9%

19.5%

19.9%

24.8%

Net Margin

12.4%

14.9%

12.8%

26.1%

For all our Bally Technologies-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Bally Technologies to My Watchlist.

The Fool has opened a short position in Bally Technologies. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.