00:00We've had contributors all week long from Legal Sports Report talking about some of
00:06the numbers coming in from ESPN Bet.
00:09Simply put, it's showing that some moderate success, but also proving that you can't just
00:14throw a logo on a sports book and assume that you're going to cash in.
00:19Am I wrong?
00:20No, you're absolutely right, Craig.
00:23I think the executives at Penn Interactive, Penn Entertainment, are realizing that now,
00:32as we've seen over the last couple of months, just in various markets, the amount of handle
00:40that they're generating in relation to a lot of their other competitors.
00:47Coming out this week, we got a look at the revenue and handle figures in Pennsylvania.
00:53For May, what stuck out to me, and not surprisingly really, is that the amount of promotional
01:00dollars that ESPN Bet offered its Pennsylvania customers reached its lowest point since ESPN
01:09Bet took over for Barstool Sportsbook back in November.
01:14It's not terribly surprising, Craig.
01:16As we see each year, around this time in the calendar, those promos tend to drop off
01:24as we're out of football season.
01:28You've got just the NBA and NHL finals going on.
01:34Baseball is really the main thing on the menu.
01:37Those promo dollars do typically tend to fall off.
01:42One million dollars was the promotional spend for ESPN Bet in Pennsylvania in May.
01:48That's been a consistent downward trend since they launched ESPN Bet in November.
01:56February was $2.1 million, March 1.7, April 1.6, and like I said, May, just that $1 million.
02:04When they launched back in mid-November, it was nearly $15 million that they offered up
02:11and Penn CEO, Jay Snowden, said that he was even surprised, talking about it on a national
02:16level, just at how much of a response there was to the new ESPN Bet offering and they
02:26did not anticipate giving out as many promotional and sign-up bonuses as they did.
02:32The interesting thing to me, though, since that November total through May, $31.2 million
02:39in promotional spending for Penn in Pennsylvania.
02:43In return, they've generated $30.1 million in revenue.
02:48That promotional spend outweighing what they've made back in winnings off of players, obviously
02:54before being able to deduct that for tax purposes in Pennsylvania, but just an interesting nugget
02:59there to wrap up Pennsylvania in May, Craig.
