PENN Entertainment's 2026 Strategic Shift in Online Gaming

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Transcript

00:00Sam Penn Entertainment in 2025 made a lot of headlines. I'm not sure they were for all the

00:05right reasons. They're definitely sticking around in the gaming space. But what direction will they

00:10head after a couple of failed attempts to really take over the markets?

00:15Yeah, Penn, the company behind ESPN bet, which we know has come and failed behind Barstool

00:21Sportsbook, which had a very similar story, now trying to kind of salvage its sports betting and

00:28iGaming operations with the score bet. It's entering 2026 with a new plan for online gaming,

00:34which is going to revolve around the score. They just appointed chief technology officer Aaron

00:39LaBerge, who actually came over from ESPN and Disney to help facilitate that partnership and

00:45transition and has stayed on with Penn even after the ESPN partnership. They've appointed him to

00:50oversee the digital and technology segment behind its iGaming app and its sports betting

00:58app as well, where I'll be hoping to capture some more market share and quite frankly, just save more

01:04money and stop spending on frivolous partnerships that haven't worked out and really invest in the

01:09product. So LaBerge has a lot of experience rolling out the ESPN app, which was very value-hood and

01:17watched when that was coming out and being developed. Now he's going to be focusing primarily on Penn's gaming

01:22app. So we'll see what happens as far as progress this year, but it's definitely going to be kind

01:29of a new road that Penn is trying to take as it, you know, tries to attempt to salvage and make inroads

01:33from sports betting and hopefully turn a profit in 2026.