State of the Union: ESPN Bet layoffs, SEC should be “vigilant” to protect athletes

Welcome to iGB's State of the Union, a look at the biggest North American sports betting stories we've covered over the week and briefs on others we found interesting.

Penn lays off some ESPN Bet employees

Less than a year after launching its ESPN Bet platform, and about three years after buying Canadian-based theScore, Penn Entertainment announced layoffs.

Front Office Sports on Wednesday (17 July) tweeted a letter from Penn CEO Jay Snowden to employees. In the letter, Snowden says the company will be “implementing changes” to “streamline the reporting lines”. He also wrote that this process will “result in a limited number of team member separations”.

PENN Entertainment—the gambling company behind ESPN Bet—had a round of layoffs, including multiple employees who focused on ESPN Bet, a source tells @FOS. (Layoffs first reported by @DustinGouker)
Here's an email that was sent to employees this afternoon from the company's CEO: pic.twitter.com/zW7LKOVI9U

— A.J. Perez (@byajperez) July 17, 2024

Despite the flowery prose, the bottom line is layoffs, although the company did not make public how many or in what departments. Penn has been in the spotlight since a shareholder in late May wrote that Penn’s digital gambling platforms are weighing down the company.

The Donerail Group recommended Penn divest itself of that division. Since then, there have been rumours that Boyd Gaming might be interested in purchasing some Penn assets or that it might partner with Flutter to buy the whole company.

SEC commissioner Sankey: “We must be vigilant” about betting

During SEC Media Day this week, conference commissioner Greg Sankey didn’t mince words when it comes to how he feels about legal gambling. “Sports betting has the potential to fundamentally change the landscape of college athletics,” he said. “We must be vigilant in protecting the integrity of our games and ensuring that our student-athletes are not unduly influenced by outside forces.”

The comments are in character for Sankey who has traditionally placed a premium on integrity. Of the 16 SEC teams, half hail from legal wagering states and half call non-legal betting states home. But, as a Power-5 conference, all SEC teams get national attention and often play in heavily bet-on games.

Sankey is a realist. He went on to say that the SEC must be “proactive” in dealing with potential harm from wagering. And that “we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that sports betting does not exist. We must adapt to this new reality and ensure that we protect the values that have always defined college athletics.”

MLB joins national harassment conversation

In comments made before the All-Star Game on Tuesday, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said that player safety, as it relates to gambling, is a priority. The issue has been in front of regulators over the last few months since the NCAA called for legal gambling jurisdictions to ban college-player prop bets. Some regulators have suggested that the real issue isn’t betting but harassment.

While the NCAA is focused on the safety of college players, regulators on a panel at the National Council for Problem Gambling said that the issue extends beyond college athletes. Wyoming’s regulatory commission earlier this month said that banning bets may not be the solution, but it was unsure how to deal with harassment. Manfred didn’t offer a solution, although he did say he’s a “believer that penalties and demonstration of your ability to figure what’s going on serves as a deterrent”.

Manfred also said that he has heard from players who have been threatened.

“If a player receives a threat from any source, on any topic, it is a matter of concern to us that we take really seriously,” Manfred said. “I’ve had players in the last month mention this issue to me as one of concern and we’re discussing what we should do to be more proactive in this area.”

Will legal digital betting come up in Nebraska special session?

Nebraska lawmakers are set to convene a special session next week and some say the state should revisit legalising digital sports betting. KETV Omaha reported last week that Nebraska residents could get a $30 million tax break if online betting were legal.

Ho-Chunk Inc, which operates several War Horse casinos in the state, is the main stakeholder. President and CEO Lance Morgan is encouraging the legislature to take another look at the issue. “It’s additive. It’s not a tax shift,” he said. “And so we think that’s a pretty viable option. And we’ve been proposing that to be part of this special session.”

Nebraska voters approved an expansion of gaming in November 2020 and lawmakers went on to interpret that to mean that in-person wagering was legal, but declined to draft rules around digital betting. The special session opens on 25 July.

Worth the read

Geofencing company GeoComply and wagering education company EPIC Risk Management have long had monopolies or near-monopolies in the sports betting space. But as more and more states legalise and go live with online wagering and casino, new companies are launching and both companies are seeing competition. Sports Handle’s Mike Seely takes a deep dive into what GeoComply and EPIC are expecting in terms of competition coming online.

In other news…

CalMatters reports that California’s tribes made more than $1m in donations to lawmakers on a committee considering a bill that would allow them to sue the state’s cardrooms. The cardrooms donated about $393,000 to members of the same committee. Did the donations sway the vote?

Accel Entertainment on Monday (15 July) announced it will acquire Illinois’ Fairmount Holdings, which owns FanDuel Sportsbook & Horse Racing in Collinsville.

North Carolina Representative Jason Saine, who backed legal sports betting bills in the state, is resigning after more than six terms. His resignation will be effective from 12 August.