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A little more than two weeks ago, the Missouri Gaming Commission awarded PENN Entertainment three retail sports betting licenses plus a mobile license under its ESPNBet branding.
But that affiliation came to an abrupt end on Thursday, when the sports network giant announced it was ending its 10-year agreement with PENN after just two years — and then, in a separate announcement, revealed it was pivoting to a partnership with DraftKings.
The divorce is effective Dec. 1, the same day that MO sports betting becomes legal.
PENN positions itself for retail and online sports betting in Missouri
In preparation for its entry into the market, PENN affiliated with a trio of casinos with the ESPNBet brand:
- Argosy Casino & Hotel, in Kansas City;
- Hollywood Casino & Hotel St. Louis; and
- River City Casino & Hotel, also in St. Louis.
Penn also secured a mobile license for ESPNBet Sportsbook, allowing it to offer online sports betting throughout the state. As of Thursday afternoon, ESPNBet still had a promotional website page, maintained by PENN, announcing its arrival in the state.
Can you still use ESPN Bet in Missouri?
Yes and no.
According to Legal Sports Report, Penn will be focused on retaining its existing customers during and after the transition, with CEO Jay Snowden saying on a Thursday morning earnings call that it will pivot to using theScore Bet branding, which hasn’t operated in the U.S. since 2022, though it still operates in the Canadian province of Ontario.
Previously, in early 2023, PENN had re-branded the Barstool Sportsbook after ending its partnership with Barstool Sports. Effectively, PENN changed the look and feel of Barstool Sportsbook to ESPN Bet, ensuring that old Barstool Sportsbook users wouldn’t notice any significant difference in the product beyond the colors and branding.
Missouri bettors can expect the same process when ESPN Bet Sportsbook shuts down and theScore Bet takes over. The look and feel may change, but the betting products will largely remain the same.
After ESPN Bet closes shop, PENN will shift focus away from digital
Snowden said on this call, previewing a year-end earnings call that has now been postponed to February,
“I think we have a very good plan around retention, we’ve been working on this plan for a couple of months now, and so we’re going to know a lot more in February and we’re going to continue to adjust our cost structure and our marketing spend assumptions based on what we’re seeing around retention and revenue projections as we go into 2026.
“So, [that’s a] long-winded way of saying we have full control over all of those variables, so stay tuned, we’ll have more to share in February. But the goal is to move away from losses in digital and turn that around and really start generating significantly more free cash flow as a company.”
He also provided reassurances that the transition for current PENN customers will be relatively frictionless when compared to the earlier transition from Barstool Sportsbook to ESPN Bet in 2023.
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Meanwhile, DraftKings Sportsbook — which got one of the state’s two untethered licenses in August from the MGC — was up with online outreach in September, reminding bettors they can begin making deposits in DraftKings mobile accounts on Nov. 17, ahead of the Dec. 1 betting launch. According to a report from Reuters, DraftKings will operate a betting tab within the ESPN app and promote ESPN’s recently launched streaming service to its customers.
