When PENN Entertainment forked over $2 billion to buy Canadian-based Score Media and Gaming in August 2021, it was among the biggest acquisitions in the sports betting world. And it seemed to many like an awful lot of money to spend on a media and wagering platform that at the time served four U.S. legal betting states — in addition, of course, to our neighbor to the north.
Fast forward two years and the buy seems ingenious. It is the technology that theScore developed that helped make PENN an attractive partner to ESPN.
PENN and the Worldwide Leader in Sports are poised to launch ESPN BET in 17 U.S. states on Tuesday, while theScore and theScoreBet were well ahead of their time two years ago, offering consumers the opportunity to read about their favorite team and place a bet, seemingly all in the same place. That’s exactly what ESPN and ESPN BET will offer, PENN CEO Jay Snowden said Thursday during the ESPN Edge media event in the New York borough of Manhattan.
“You can actually put together your bet slip while you’re in the media app,” Snowden said. “You place your bet and we seamlessly move you over to theScoreBet in Canada or ESPN BET here. The bet slip will be moving along with you.”