PENN Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Jay Snowden said on Thursday that while the legal situation around sports prediction markets continues to be as “clear as mud”, the company will stay on the sidelines. But he knows that casino operators may need to take action sooner rather than later.
PENN has a deep-rooted presence within the retail gaming space across the U.S. and a constantly evolving online gaming business across online casino and sports betting through its Hollywood Casino and theScore Bet brands. The mixture of operations leaves PENN and other land-based gaming giants like Caesars and MGM Resorts International stuck in the mud, Snowden opined on an earnings call.
“It’s really clear as mud today in terms of where this is going from a legal perspective,” the CEO told investors and analysts. “You’ve got regulators and attorneys general that are suing prediction markets, and then you have the prediction markets that are suing regulators and trying to beat them to the punch.
“It really puts the PENNs, the MGMs, and the Caesars of the world in a very awkward position. We have our land-based businesses that generate tremendous cash flow, we employ tens of thousands of team members across the country, we’re big contributors to our communities. And those gaming licenses are the most valuable assets we have. We’re not going to put those at risk.”
Sports contracts are obviously gambling, says Snowden
It echoes the public position that the CEOs of Caesars and MGM, as well as Snowden, have taken on prediction markets in previous earnings calls. While companies without a major land-based casino presence like FanDuel and DraftKings have jumped into the prediction markets realm with both feet, operators for whom brick-and-mortar gaming is an essential core piece of the business have steered clear.
As litigation continues in various federal and state courts across the U.S., with companies like Kalshi contending that sports prediction markets fall under the federal authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Snowden says PENN’s position is clear: sports event contracts are sports betting. Without firm legal approval to do so, companies like PENN feel that they cannot participate.
“Regulators say this is illegal gambling, don’t do it,” he noted. “But there are those that are able to do it and are doing it in other states, so it’s just very confusing. It’s obvious to anybody who’s ever been in the gambling business, and even those who aren’t, that sports betting is gambling. I don’t know how you can defend that it’s not. We’re obviously not going to put our licenses at risk. We’re going to stay very close to our regulators.”
Are casino prediction markets next?
Snowden was speaking after PENN reported its latest financial update, which included record Interactive segment gaming revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025. That was driven by the company’s online casino business, although sports betting also posted strong growth.
Executives said on Thursday’s call that they do not believe that the company’s sports betting business, which is now under theScore Bet brand after the termination of the ESPN Bet venture, is being greatly affected by the proliferation of sports prediction markets across the country. However, they did admit that it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact impact that the new competition in the sports betting/trading field is having.
“There’s lots of variables that impact handle, prediction markets certainly are one of those,” continued Snowden. “How much, we don’t know today.”
Meanwhile, Snowden was one of the first executives in gaming to speculate that prediction markets may look to expand into the world of online casino while legal and regulatory uncertainty continues. He suggested last year that if sports prediction markets are essentially deemed permissible for the time being amid the muddy waters, there is little to stop platforms from offering event contracts on the next spin of a slot machine or the next hand of blackjack.
“This is existential,” he warned last November. “We’re going to be talking about this in a matter of months, not years.”
Attack may be best form of defense
On Thursday, he explained that land-based casinos may have to work out a way to go on the offensive, without offering any specifics on what that might entail.
“I do think that as an industry of land-based casinos that aren’t allowed to participate in prediction markets, the best defense is offense. And we’ve got to figure out how to play more offense here. I’ve got ideas, I’ve shared that with some of my counterparts, and we continue to discuss those ideas with our regulators as well as lawmakers on how we can play more offense and turn this into a win for states and for operators like us.”
Ultimately, like many observers, Snowden believes that the legal wrangling around prediction markets is destined for the Supreme Court. How long that might take is anyone’s guess, but PENN’s CEO hopes it’s sooner rather than later.
“This really can’t get in front of the Supreme Court fast enough, that would be my ultimate perspective,” he added. “Because we’re going to keep seeing this get delayed and delayed and delayed, and the [prediction markets] businesses get bigger and broader.”
