One of the most renowned sports brands in Canada is now signing up betting customers in Alberta, and executives at theScore Bet expect big things.
theScore owner PENN Entertainment has applied for a license to offer online sports betting and casino gaming in the province’s upcoming iGaming market and has begun letting Albertans download the gambling app and register for accounts, the company announced on Friday.
Pending all requisite regulatory approvals, theScore Bet and theScore Casino will be among the first platforms available to Alberta gamblers when commercial brands begin competing with the government-run Play Alberta site.
When exactly that will be still has not been confirmed, but Alberta officials suggested to Canadian Gaming Business that a late spring or early summer launch is the target. The best bet right now seems to be about July. Speaking on an earnings call the day before PENN’s public update about theScore Bet in Alberta, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Jay Snowden said he expects the market to go live “sometime around mid-year.”
“That hasn’t been firmed up yet, but that’s what we’re anticipating,” he added.
Whenever Alberta does open, theScore will be there. It will have a lot to lean on in Alberta, and not only from its experience as one of dozens of authorized online gambling brands in Ontario.
For PENN and theScore, connections matter
In a release announcing the Alberta development, PENN Interactive Chief Product Officer Billy Turchin cited theScore’s status as “Canada’s premier digital sports media brand.” Certainly, for many sports fans in Alberta (and there are many), theScore will be a familiar name and perhaps even a familiar user interface.
The brand’s flagship sports media app, owned by PENN since 2021, had already been around for years by the time of that takeover and today has approximately 1.3 million active users per month across Canada, per numbers cited by Snowden last year. theScore Bet also benefits from visibility that transcends provincial borders, no more so than through the exclusive 10-year partnership it has with the Toronto Blue Jays that puts theScore Bet’s name in full view in various places inside Rogers Centre and the Jays’ branding on several exclusive casino games.
“theScore brand really does carry across the country,” said Snowden on Thursday’s earnings call. “It’s not just specific to the province of Ontario. We feel pretty good about that.”
In Ontario, currently the only province open to theScore for real-money gaming, PENN has tied the sports news and media app together closely with the sports betting and casino experience, allowing users to opt into something called “theScore Bet mode.” That allows for account linking between the sports media app and the betting app, as well as for sports fans to see live odds and other betting features while they read or watch sports content.
PENN has also pursued that integrated model in the U.S. with first ESPN Bet and ESPN and now, since December, theScore Bet. Under PENN’s new Head of theScore, ex-ESPN Senior Vice President Nate Ravitz, that will continue to be a key focus.
Turchin said that the company will offer an “integrated media and betting offering” when the market opens, so Edmonton Oilers or Calgary Flames fans or other sports perusers will get the same connected experience that Toronto Maple Leafs fans get on the app in Ontario.
PENN execs expect Ontario-esque market share
In Ontario, the signs suggest that theScore’s name and legacy as a sports media leader in Canada have done very well for PENN. Market share data is hard to come by for Ontario iGaming, but Snowden has said in the past that theScore Bet holds double-digit market share in online sports betting and high-single-digit share in online casino.
Snowden has also said in the past that Alberta can be a top three or four market for PENN, boosted not only by theScore’s brand cachet but also by Alberta’s Ontario-like approach of allowing both online sports betting and online casino and taxing overall revenue across the two verticals at around 20%.
“Alberta should be a good market for us,” the CEO reiterated on Thursday. “Our strongest market has been Ontario from a market share and a contribution margin perspective. We expect Alberta to be a good market, with reasonable tax rates similar to Ontario and both online sports betting and online casino, and we would expect to have similar market share results in that market.”
Snowden told investors and analysts late last year that the abandonment of its failed ESPN Bet venture would allow PENN to invest more heavily in Canada, something that Chief Financial Officer Felicia Hendrix echoed on Thursday’s call. But how much marketing spend will a brand like theScore really need in Alberta?
“We’re still finalizing our marketing launch plans there and taking the best of what worked with our Ontario launch and eliminating the things that didn’t work,” Snowden said of the Alberta launch plan. “I would say it’s probably going to be somewhere in that $15m to $20m [USD] range.
“Obviously, it’s a really important market. And we’ve all learned through the years that those initial sign-ups you get, those are the most valuable customer cohorts that you end up with. We’ve got to make sure that we launch as successfully in Alberta as we did in Ontario. When you do, you tend to hold on to your market share much more effectively.”
