PENN Entertainment has launched its standalone Hollywood Casino app in West Virginia, and company leaders hope it will result in the kind of gains the app has produced in other states.
Since PENN introduced the digital version of its Hollywood Casino brand in Pennsylvania last December, it has rolled it out in Michigan in January, New Jersey in March and now West Virginia.
The Hollywood Casino brand adorns nearly 20 physical gaming facilities across 11 states. One of those is Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, and PENN can now tie together that retail property with its latest interactive venture.
Hollywood Casino features a variety of online slots, table games and live dealer content, including bespoke live dealer tables and a dedicated casino floor lobby that allows users to find virtual versions of games from PENN’s brick-and-mortar casinos. It also hosts original titles from PENN’s in-house game development arm, PENN Game Studios.
While Hollywood Casino can also be accessed via the sportsbook-focused ESPN Bet app, PENN executives suggested this month that the standalone app in particular is reaping rewards for PENN Interactive.
Omnichannel states are Hollywood Casino’s A-listers
Other than New Jersey, PENN has at least one land-based Hollywood Casino in all of the states in which it now offers the app, and it shed some light this month on how the brand is translating across those channels.
In its August 2025 investor presentation, the company detailed that pre-existing retail Hollywood Casino customers who play on the standalone casino app have increased their omnichannel spending. In Pennsylvania, year-over-year retail theoretical play rose 19% in the first six months of 2025, while the cohort’s online theoretical play more than doubled (+133%). In Michigan, those increases were 28% and 242%, respectively.
CEO Jay Snowden noted on an Aug. 7 earnings call that the app experienced sequential growth month-over-month and contributed to PENN Interactive’s highest-ever monthly GGR in July in both Pennsylvania and Michigan.
“We’re seeing great migration and cross-play between the two, but also the cross-sell between sportsbook and iCasino has been very, very healthy,” added EVP of Operations Todd George on the call.
Retail slot players not sold on ESPN Bet’s casino appeal
While the Hollywood Casino channel within ESPN Bet skews more towards table games, Snowden admitted that PENN has struggled to get slot players at retail Hollywood Casino properties to download ESPN Bet to play the casino. “It just doesn’t really resonate,” he acknowledged.
Ticking that box on the standalone casino app was crucial, with George noting that the standalone casino app customer looks a lot like PENN’s retail slot player.
“We’re seeing that in our slot mix, which is, I believe, the highest in the industry in the states where it’s tracked,” added Snowden. “From a marketing perspective, you can be a lot more successful in targeting your retail database with a brand that they’re used to seeing on all of their marketing materials on top of the building that they’re walking into.”
Ultimately, while casinos continue to voice concerns about online casino cannibalizing retail revenues, Snowden stressed that PENN has not seen that in the early days of Hollywood Casino.
“Having both a retail and digital relationship with your consumer is clearly a major key to success for the industry moving forward,” he added. “The success of our stand-alone app is incremental to our overall iCasino performance, with minimal cannibalization of our in-house iCasino products.”
