PENN Entertainment on Thursday detailed plans to launch a standalone Hollywood Casino app in several U.S. states next year, extending its multi-brand iGaming strategy in North America.
The new app will start in Pennsylvania in Q1 2025, potentially as early as January pending regulatory approval, said CEO Jay Snowden on a Q3 earnings call. Launches will “follow pretty quickly” in other key iGaming markets including Michigan, New Jersey, West Virginia and Ontario.
Original Hollywood Casino offering did well in PA
PENN previously offered Hollywood Casino online in Pennsylvania in partnership with IGT before it was discontinued about a year ago. Snowden noted it captured high single-digit market share. PENN has numerous physical Hollywood Casino properties in the U.S. including four in Pennsylvania and others in the likes of Michigan and Ohio. Snowden and fellow executives told investors and analysts they see a big cross-sell opportunity by taking the brand online in-house.
“We watched our competition launch standalone iCasino apps with great success, and many times it was the same brand. For us, it’s not only leading with iCasino in that app but it’s also the brand connection, which is going to be pretty powerful for us with regard to the marketing plan,” Snowden noted.
“We think Hollywood Casino will perform very well, we think that’s going to be a really nice shot in the arm for us in terms of continuing to grow our online casino business.”
Executives noted that the cross-sell factor won’t just be seen between land-based casino gaming and iCasino, but also online sports betting.
“There is a whole cohort of iGamers who don’t get the fact that they have to access our casino through our sportsbooks,” added PENN EVP of Operations Todd George. “This completely unlocks that, and building on that further is the entire omnichannel opportunity where people are in our casinos and we clearly market to them the same branded product that they’re playing on-site as they go interactive.”
The Hollywood Casino product launch and offering will be geared towards slots first and table games second.
Further ESPN integration upgrades coming
Snowden and Co. also discussed the newly launched account linking initiative around their ESPN Bet brand.
Noting that ESPN funneling has been the main driver between PENN’s 1.8 million new users since the ESPN Bet launch, executives provided an update on the activity around account linking. Tens of thousands of users have linked their accounts within a few days of the feature going live, and PENN will heavily promote the linkage opportunity in-app in both ESPN and ESPN Bet.
“We’re pretty excited about account linking,” said Chief Technology Officer Aaron LaBerge. “These are super fans that are linking. They’re all facing significantly more bets, higher handle, higher GGR and they are consuming significantly more ESPN content as well. We’re incredibly happy with the progress so far.”
LaBerge added that PENN will integrate further personalization in the coming weeks and months, including tailored promotions and offers related to a user’s favorite teams and interests across both the ESPN and ESPN Bet apps. PENN will also drill into the fantasy football market, incorporating users’ fantasy selections and activity into their betting experience.
“We know that fantasy players love sports betting, and they love this content and they’re hyper-engaged, so this allows us to take this to the next level.”
George also revealed that the company is working with ESPN and Disney on an opportunity to offer its ESPN Bet user database a free monthly trial membership of ESPN+, which will be rolled out soon.
PENN looks to Missouri opportunity
Snowden was also asked about the company’s prospects in Missouri.
“I think Missouri is an interesting state,” Snowden reflected. “It’s probably one of the last states in the country, obviously excluding California and Texas and Florida, where we know there’s real sports fandom.
“We’re we think we’re pretty well-positioned. The tax rate is attractive, the structure was attractive… We think overall this is good news for Penn and obviously good news for us launching ESPN Bet. We feel like we’ve got a nice database that we can tap into across the state.”
Snowden also said that the company is still clarifying with Missouri regulators whether companies will get one sports betting skin regardless of their number of brands, or one skin per brand. PENN’s understanding is that it will be the latter.
