ESPN BET has arrived in New York.
After receiving licensing approval from the New York Gaming Commission earlier this week, a PENN Entertainment spokesperson told Covers that sports betting operator ESPN BET entered the Empire State with a soft launch on Thursday and an official rollout set for Friday.
ESPN BET’s winding road to becoming operational in the most lucrative legal sports betting state in the U.S., and the most taxed, comes just in time to capitalize on Week 4 in the NFL and Week 5 in college football.
New York is the 19th U.S. market for ESPN BET, which also operates in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Winding road to N.Y.
PENN acquired WynnBet’s New York licensing rights for $25 million earlier this year after the Wynn-owned mobile operator exited the market, per regulatory approval.
The gaming company had planned during its second-quarter earnings release to launch by the start of football season, but that was held up by New York regulators until Monday when PENN got final approval. It only took a few days to be ready to roll in the Empire State.
This is PENN’s first foray into the New York sports betting market as Barstool Sportsbook, the gaming company’s previous platform brand, was never licensed in the state.
Big-time market
The ESPN BET launch gives PENN a 15% population presence increase. New York’s eight online operators combined have generated nearly $14 billion in wagers through August, but the Empire State charges a 51% tax fee on gross gaming revenue.
PENN agreed in August 2023 to pay the sports media company $1.5 billion in cash over 10 years and $500 million of warrants to purchase roughly 3.8 million shares of PENN, based on the performance of the platform.
ESPN, which is headquartered about 100 miles from New York City, has helped PENN get into markets like this, but the sports betting brand hasn’t been able to break up the market share owned by leaders FanDuel and DraftKings in many states.
PENN, which recently announced a 9.7% year-over-year revenue loss in Q2, will take on the same two main established operators as well as BetMGM, Caesars, and Fanatics Sportsbook in the Empire State.
