Penn CEO: Alberta Is a Cog in Company’s Digital Outlook for 2026
According to financial reporter Todd Shriber of Casino.org, Penn Entertainment has been receiving a lot of criticism from unhappy shareholders regarding the company's strategy in digital gaming, particularly its ESPN BET venture. However, an earnings call on Thursday indicated that the company is growing in this area, with Canada playing a significant role.
Revenue Up Interactive
The company's best quarter ever for online gaming was one of the highlights of PENN's financial results for the three and a half months ending June 30, 2025, which were released last week.
With an adjusted EBITDA loss of USD $62 million (USD $102.8 million in Q2 2024), online gambling brought in USD $316.1 million during the quarter, up from USD $232.6 million during the same period in 2024.
Interactive revenues increased from USD $440.3 million to USD $606.2 million in the first half of the year.
Financial Results Are Affected by Severance Costs at the Score
The launch of new engagement tools on ESPN BET, such as Player Insights, which enable bettors to more effectively examine player statistics in relation to player prop betting, was the company's main highlight of impending product updates during an earnings call on Thursday.
Additionally, in anticipation of the NFL season, the firm this fall introduces FanCenter, a "personalised hub" within ESPN BET that will make it simple for users to locate betting markets based on their preferred teams, players, and ESPN fantasy football rosters.
Alberta Launch in 2026
"We achieved record quarterly revenue in both OSB and icasino in Q2, and while still plenty of work to do, we delivered significant year over year improvement in adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA,” said PENN Entertainment CEO and President Jay Snowden during the earnings call.
This past week, the NFL and ESPN ecosystem underwent a significant shift when it was announced that ESPN would buy the NFL Network and other league-owned media properties, including as the well-known RedZone and NFL Fantasy, in return for NFL stock in ESPN. In 2023, PENN inked a 10-year contract with ESPN, which will combine with ESPN Fantasy to establish a massive new platform.
“We have much improved KYC, we have real personalization this year that not only flows through the app, but flows into FanCenter,” said Penn’s Chief Technology Officer Aaron LaBerge. “We do have better brand marketing, and a truly differentiating feature that no other sportsbook has. Nobody else is a partner with ESPN Fantasy, the biggest fantasy platform in the U.S., that is integrated with our product.
“And it’s going to be clear in our marketing messaging, that this is a feature that if you’re a fantasy player, that you might want to try out. Last year, we were marketing the brand of ESPN BET, but we didn’t have something distinct enough to hook on to, to make that compelling.”
Half of Newsroom at theScore Let Go
“These new rollouts are driving engagement. Since the spring, we have seen strong and consistent year over year growth in first time betters, which are most recently up over 50% year over year in July,” Snowden told investors. “Similarly, first time deposits have more than doubled year over year in July.”
The company's financial results included USD $2.9 million in severance expenditures due to layoffs at theScore in Toronto, which were disclosed in June and involved the termination of 75 people, including half of the editorial department. Canada was included in those remarks.
"These results include approximately $2.9 million in severance costs incurred as part of our strategic workforce adjustments to drive efficiencies and support a modern, scalable technology infrastructure,” Snowden said. “Excluding that one-time expense, we would have come in slightly ahead of the midpoint of our digital Q2 guide and consensus.”
The Government of Alberta Involving Stakeholders
For the U.S. OSB handle, excluding New York, the company projects "modest" year-over-year growth in market share of 3.4% in Q3 and 4% in Q4. PENN anticipates a 3.2% market share in Q4 and a 3% market share in Q3 for Icasino, GGR.
In Canada, iGaming Ontario releases market performance statistics as a whole rather than financial data specific to each of the 50 licensed businesses. However, the Score has a double-digit market share in Ontario, according to previous reports.
Now that the Ontario-controlled market is nearing the conclusion of its fourth year of operation, attention is turning to Alberta, where the open, regulated igaming industry is expected to launch in early 2026, according to Casino.org.
No schedule
Although a precise launch date—even a month—has not yet been decided, an industry source told Casino.org today that the Alberta government is "doing all the right things" and interacting with the sector, which is a good thing. However, no one is discussing the schedule.
In the Thursday results call, Snowden was questioned about Alberta.
“We know that Alberta is going to launch at some point, and we think early ‘26 from what we’ve been told,” he said. “So that’s built into our assumptions. We’re targeting right now. Q1 which is the best information we have.”
