PENN To Make Online Casino Play Easier in 2025, Launching Standalone Hollywood Casino App
On its most recent quarterly earnings call, PENN Entertainment revealed that it expects to launch a standalone Hollywood Casino app online by 2025, which will make the WV online casino market more competitive. This came directly from CEO Jay Snowden.
“We’re making really good progress,” Snowden said. “It’s going to look great. We just need a little bit more time, given the priorities between now and the start of football season on the [sportsbook] side.”
With the launch date set at 2025, that means that we could see it launch in just eight months or so.
In the United States, only six states have legal online casino play, and West Virginia is one of them. Now, they could be adding a way to make online casino play easier to access.
PENN Entertainment owns numerous “Hollywood” branded casinos, including Hollywood Casino Charles Town. Snowden mentioned that they feel the brand matches what players expect and would want to extend the gaming to an online space.
As you may know, PENN is a massive iGaming brand. They oversee ESPN BET and now, they could be launching a standalone branded online casino application—something they don’t have yet.
“We’re probably the only major player that doesn’t have a stand-alone iCasino app at this point. We will have that ready to go in very early ’25, hopefully, a little earlier, but we’ll say early ’25,” he said.
Right now, the option for online casino play via PENN is the ESPN Bet Sportsbook app in states like West Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. On the sportsbook app in those states, there’s a tab to play online casino games.
As mentioned, online casino play is only available in six states and that should grow in the future. After all, online sports betting is available in roughly 80% of the country.
With this move, players will use ESPN BET for sports betting and Hollywood Casino for casino play. The two would be separated and the messaging would be a bit clearer.
“And you can imagine, when you’re talking about activating your land-based casino database and they’re sitting at a Hollywood property but they have to download ESPN BET in order to play with you with online casino, the messaging gets a little bit cluttered or confusing,” Snowden said on the earnings call.
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