PENN Entertainment players placing “significantly more bets” after account-linking rollout
Operator reaps early rewards of new feature since November 1 launch as it eyes up future cross-sell opportunities for its icasino platform
PENN Entertainment chief technology officer (CTO) Aaron LaBerge is “incredibly happy with the progress” of its account-linking feature across ESPN Bet and ESPN citing that “tens of thousands” of customers were using the feature already.
The feature, which went live on November 1, allows ESPN Bet customers to track upcoming, live and settled bets within the ESPN app and on the ESPN desktop website.
Players are also given a personalized betting experienced centred around their preferences, with PENN citing prompted markets based on users’ favorite sports, teams, players and fantasy rosters as potential applications of the feature.
Speaking during PENN’s Q3 earnings call on November 7, CTO LaBerge explained the early effect account linking has had for PENN customers.
He said: “As you’d expect, all placing significantly more bets, higher handle, higher GDR and, also impressive, they’re consuming significantly more ESPN content.
“These are super fans that are linking and we’re incredibly happy with the progress so far.”
PENN CEO Jay Snowden added: “This is a big technical feat from the team here at PENN as well as at ESPN. It’s great having partners where there’s alignment in vision, where we want to take this thing and exactly how ESPN Bet integrations will play into the total ESPN sports fandom.
“We’re really happy with the execution and now it’s time to start marketing the linked-betting opportunity as people are grabbing onto it very quickly.”
Snowden also talked up the cross-sell opportunities presented to PENN for its online casino platform Hollywood Casino.
“We haven’t had the opportunity other than when we initially launched Hollywood Casino in Pennsylvania years ago,” he continued.
“When we launched, we saw pretty strong market share, and the biggest reason was the cross-sell opportunity with our land-based casinos.
“The cross-sell opportunities for us are going to be very significant when we launch that standalone Hollywood Casino app.”
Snowden added that PENN could take inspiration from its competitors with regards to its deployment of its Hollywood Casino product.
He said: “What we’re doing right now is messy because you’re marketing to your land-based casino database and telling them that they should download the ESPN Bet app to play their favorite slot machine.
“We know this is a big opportunity. We’ve watched our competition launch standalone icasino apps with great success, and many times it was with the same brand.
“For us, it’s not only about leading with icasino in that app but also the brand connection, which is going to be pretty powerful for us.”
PENN recorded an online adjusted EBITDA loss of $90.9m (£70.1m) for Q3 2024, with online revenue rising 24.6% year on year to $244.6m.