If rumored deal is made, ESPN BET’s fate would remain a major question. Would another company spend, presumably, several hundred million dollars to acquire it? Reports that Boyd Gaming has considered acquiring Penn Entertainment could shake up the national corporate gaming landscape. It could further jeopardize the future of the multi-billion dollar ESPN BET Investment.
Still, if completed, Boyd’s ownership stake in U.S. market leader FanDuel could potentially threaten the long-term future of Penn’s sports betting platforms. This in turn jeopardizes one of the most heavily invested sportsbooks in the country and one of the few remaining legal wagering options that has hopes to compete with the market leaders. Boyd and Penn had similar business models as of the May 2018 Supreme Court decision that struck down the federal sports wagering ban.
By 2023, the sportsbook had low single-digit national market share and Penn has sold all Barstool properties back to founder Dave Portnoy for $1. It then doubled down on branded partnerships, this time on a 10-year, $1.5 billion deal with ESPN, the biggest name in American sports media. Boyd could take sportsbooks in more than a dozen Penn casinos and rebrand them under the FanDuel name. The company already did so at its Fremont Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas. The sportsbook has cost billions of dollars and has yet to show a long-term path to profitability.
DraftKings and FanDuel have already spent hundreds of millions investing in their own brands. The No. 3 and No. 4 sportsbooks by marketshare, BetMGM and Caesars, have likewise spent heavily, focusing their offerings around their respective casino operator parent companies. Fanatics acquired PointsBet and is looking to revolve its online platform around its eponymous sports merchandise company. bet365, a major name in international gaming, is still a relative unknown in the U.S.