theScore’s growth in Ontario headlines Penn Interactive Q4
Penn Interactive is indebted to the success of theScore in Ontario after the Canadian province became its top market in North America for sports betting and icasino.
Publishing its Q4 results from last year, Penn Entertainment reported group profit for the three-month period ended Dec. 31 – with revenues of $1.59bn (+8%YoY) and adjusted EBITDA of $483.3m (+18.8% YoY) – aided by “better than expected” results in Ontario, particularly in the online casino division.
“This was a huge year for us on the technology front as the migration to our own tech stack and Ontario was a tremendous milestone, and we could not be more pleased with the results thus far,” said Jay Snowden, Penn Entertainment CEO.
“With full control of our product roadmap, we’ve been able to quickly add new features and betting markets to the score bat, including our own same game parlay offering, which has led to a noticeable increase in hold.”
From July through the rest of the year icasino GGR in Ontario continued to grow, culminating in a record-breaking December. It was a similar tale for the sports betting division which, although rising at a slower rate than its counterpart, ended the year with record monthly revenues, helped by its first NFL season.
This was achieved despite a 50% increase in the number of operators over Q3, something Snowden attributes to “the quality of our products and the stickiness of theScore media ecosystem”.
Other top-line numbers from the company included a 46%YoY decline in net income to $20.8m, and a 2.6% downtick in adjusted EBITDAR to $468.3m.
Meanwhile, its Barstool Sportsbook brand achieved record revenues last year, and is set to follow theScore’s lead and complete the migration of its services to its own in-house proprietary tech stack in the second half of 2023.
Offering a general assessment of the year, Snowden said: “2022 was a solid year for Penn despite ongoing macroeconomic headwinds. I’m proud of Penn’s numerous financial and operational achievements in the past year as well as our continued progress on the ESG front.”