ESPN Bet Is Dead — and PENN's Q1 Shows What Comes Next
PENN Entertainment's Q1 2026 earnings confirmed what had been telegraphed since December: ESPN Bet no longer exists. The app is theScore Bet, the ESPN partnership is DraftKings', and PENN is rebuilding its US digital sports betting business from a cleaner but less glamorous platform.
What Happened
PENN reported Q1 2026 net revenues of $1.779 billion with a net loss of $2.8 million and consolidated EBITDA of $265.8 million. The interactive (digital) segment delivered its best-ever online casino quarter at $70.9 million in revenue (+14.9% YoY) and online sports betting revenue of $65.2 million. Interactive marketing spend was reduced by more than 65% versus the prior-year equivalent period as PENN eliminated the heavy promotional spend that characterised the ESPN Bet customer acquisition strategy. The theScore Bet rebrand is now live across 21 US jurisdictions. PENN targets overall interactive segment profitability in Q4 2026.
Looking forward, PENN confirmed plans to launch regulated online casino and sports betting in Alberta on July 13, 2026 — the province's day-one market opening.
Why It Matters
The ESPN Bet to theScore Bet rebrand represents the unwinding of one of the most expensive brand bets in US sports betting history. PENN's $2 billion-equivalent commitment to the ESPN partnership was premised on leveraging one of sports media's most powerful brands to acquire customers at scale. The termination — widely read as ESPN choosing DraftKings' deeper promotional commitment — removes both the brand advantage and a significant portion of the marketing budget in the same period.
The theScore Bet repositioning makes commercial sense in Canada: theScore has strong brand equity in Ontario, and Alberta's launch gives PENN a day-one presence in Canada's newest regulated market under a brand that Canadian sports fans already know. The online casino record ($70.9M) is the positive signal: it validates PENN's investment in the interactive segment and suggests the business can reach profitability on its own terms without the ESPN halo.
Industry Context
PENN's 65%+ cut in interactive marketing spend is the starkest example in the Q1 2026 earnings season of an operator reducing CAC investment rather than increasing it in response to prediction market pressure. The bet: improve margins through cost discipline and let the theScore brand do the retention work, rather than spend into a CPA environment inflated by Kalshi and Polymarket's user acquisition campaigns.
Illia Lisovskyy
Senior Editor
Member of the iGaming Pulse editorial team. Covering industry news, analysis, and B2B developments across the global iGaming sector.
