ESPN Bet App Hits $13M in Maryland, Achieving Huge Success
Transcript
00:00 ESPN bet, which I know you guys have reported recently have seen an incredible amount of people downloading their apps. So that's definitely a good sign. Maybe partially of the reason is because Jim they're offering such tremendous promos to get signed up. And I think that's probably a good idea, especially in the state of Maryland, which it looks like they've made a big push to get things going.
00:27 Yeah, we're getting our first glimpse into just how much Penn, the parent company of ESPN bet, just how much they're spending to make inroads into certain markets where they're available. And we're seeing to how that translates into the overall volume of bets that the ESPN bet app is accepting.
00:52 So in Maryland, we found out that Penn passed out $13 million in free bets, nearly twice as much as any other sportsbook in the state. And keep in mind to Craig that ESPN bet only launched halfway through the month. And as we know, Barstool, Penn's previous sports betting partner, they pretty much shut off all promotion of the Barstool app.
01:20 So this $13 million in promos, free bets, odd boosts, bonus bets, you name it, is all focused on the ESPN bet app. And now that translated into more than $33 million in handle, which accounted for about 6% market share of Maryland's another record setting online handle there at $535 million.
01:50 So again, like we've talked about Craig over seemingly the last couple of months, record after record after record in markets across the country. And just to do a little bit of math here, did a little digging and we took Barstool's daily average handle from October, boosted it by 15%, which what we saw that that 15% month over month increase from October to November just to get a little bit of a sense of what we're seeing.
02:19 Just to get a little bit of a sense of how much betting volume came through that ESPN bet app halfway through the month since they launched on November 14. And you know, we figured it was plausible that about 86% of that $33 million handle came through the ESPN bet app.
02:43 So a little bit of a math lesson there for you on Friday if you're able to follow along. And you know, interestingly enough to Penn CEO, Jay Snowden has said frequently in recent months that he almost saw that this mid November launch for the ESPN bet app, he saw that as a bit of an advantage and an opportunity to spend quite heavily figuring that you know,
03:12 all of the other promo offers at the start of football season from the fan duels and draft teams of the world, those most likely have expired for players at this point. So this was an opportunity to break into a market, offer a fair bit of promotional dollars and free bets and whatnot, and capture a little bit of market share.
03:38 One other interesting note that I found at Maryland last month was that parlays of course, were the most popular bet but basketball was more popular than football in November, a couple million dollars more in handle on basketball as opposed to football, Craig.
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