Entain prepares for HMRC settlement, ESPN Bet announced, Hacksaw Gaming launches in US

This has been a remarkable week in terms of what happened industry-wide. Casino Guru News continued to catch up with leaders from various sectors, but we also covered the biggest events of the week, which involved PENN Entertainment, ESPN, Entain, Hacksaw Gaming, PokerStars, and many others. In our weekly roundup, we will brief you on all of them.

Entain confident in the outcome of HMRC probe, sets aside $750m

The HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) probe into Entain’s operations is moving forward, with the company outlining several changes to what investors may expect. First, the company has said that it has offered its full cooperation to investigators who are looking into the sale of Entain’s Turkish betting business under the leadership of former Chief Executive Kenny Alexander.

The sale was carried out in 2017 when Entain was known as GVC Holdings. To address repercussions and a potential financial settlement with the HMRC, the company issued an update in which it said that it had set aside £585m ($744.5m) to this end, which is likely to be paid over a period of four years.

Entain Chair Barry Gibson said that the company has moved past the issue and has offered its full cooperation to the investigators and was now confident in a "positive outcome." Alexander, Gibson said, was no longer with the company and much has changed under the Entain brand and leadership. Entain still awaits a final ruling from the HMRC.

Penn Entertainment rebrands sportsbook to ESPN BET

PENN Entertainment, the previous owner (will be explained in a moment) of Barstool, will rebrand its sportsbook operations to ESPN Bet as a part of an agreement with the company that will see the ESPN brand roll out in 16 legalized betting states. This marks a new chapter in the American sports betting landscape, with Disney and ESPN long being coy about their intentions when it comes to sports wagering, but never fully denying the possibility of a sportsbook entirely.

The announcement from earlier this week benefited PENN Entertainment’s own financial results and even suppressed those of competitors such as DraftKings which plummeted on the news that a new and relevant competitor is emerging. PENN’s sportsbook has a very strong consumer-centric approach which has been both criticized and hailed, with ESPN providing some of the most insightful coverage of sports events with a particular betting angle, such as the Daily Wager.

The agreement marks a monumental and interesting shift in sports betting in the US, with Flutter Entertainment recently pulling out of its FOX BET brand and Fanatics forging ahead with its dedicated sports wagering business. The news of PENN Entertainment coincided with a confirmation that the company has sold the Barstool sportsbook brand back to its controversial founder, David Portnoy, for just $1 after paying $550m to acquire it, and reports surfaced that ESPN had hoped to secure a different sportsbook partner than PENN.

According to analysts, it’s possible that PENN Entertainment originally tried to work with DraftKings and FanDuel, as a previous Bloomberg report already suggested. PENN was ESPN’s third choice, and the only viable one it seems.

The partnership rounds

Since Hacksaw Gaming received a provisional license to launch in West Virginia, United States, the supplier has been looking to the day it will roll out its products fully in the market. This finally happened this week, after the company also secured a full supplier license on August 3, and has now rolled out with BetRivers, а Rush Street Interactive, Inc brand. The two companies have already collaborated previously in Ontario, Canada, where Hacksaw Gaming’s titles are live with Betrivers.

Meanwhile, Bragg Gaming Group and PokerStars, a Flutter Entertainment brand, have announced a new global content distribution agreement, which is designed to strengthen PokerStars’ iGaming arm and its presence in the online casino vertical. PokerStars has been building actively when it comes to its online casino content with Bragg Gaming Group now providing a significant boost and bringing a range of titles to PokerStars’ global operations, including Europe and North America.

Digital Gaming Corporation has also signed a content partnership with FanDuel to strengthen the prominent sportsbook’s reach in the iGaming vertical. The supplier is rolling out its games, including Hyper Gold, Kings of Crystals, Assassin Moon, Thunderstruck Wild Lighting, and Mask of Amun with FanDuel’s online casino at a time when the United States is also expanding the interactive casino vertical.

BetMGM and NetGaming have stolen another march in iGaming this week, with the companies teaming up for exclusive content. BetMGM is presently one of the fastest-growing sports betting and iGaming companies in the United States and holds a significant market share. NetGaming will help provide the company with a range of excellent experiences, including 3 Wild Jokers, Skulls Gone Wild, and Shelby Online Video Slot, among many others.

The industry and its leaders

Another week has passed and the Casino Guru News team had the opportunity to talk about the important issues of today in our industry. We added another interview to our Casino Guru Insiders section, which follows the careers of the team members at Casino Guru.

In this week’s edition, we spoke with Maros Gasparik, the Casino Guru’s Head of Content, who spoke about his own journey, where he started, how he joined the project, and how he helped and continues to help shape it into the informational powerhouse it is today. The full conversation with Gasparik is worth reading in its entirety.

Oliver Niner, Head of Sales at PandaScore, caught us up on the latest developments in the esports betting industry. Niner said that the year has been kind to the vertical, with several prominent events on the calendar paying off and more data and betting operators beginning to look closer at the segment.

We had another interesting conversation with Matthew Calascione, the Chief Operations Officer at iGaming Platform whose company builds flexible solutions and tech platforms for operators that are willing to provide their audiences with a tailored experience. iGaming Platform focuses on branded solutions that help partners elevate their experience.

Our third conversation for the week was with Michael Pedersen, the Chief Commercial Officer at Livespins who spoke about the company’s mission to build a new type of product that resonates with industry needs. As Pedersen puts it, "Streaming isn’t just the future – it’s here and now," with Livespins creating a compelling new vertical that has completely revolutionized how we think about live casino gaming and experiences.

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