PENN expects ‘important’ Alberta to be a top…
On PENN Entertainment’s Q2 2024 earnings call CEO Jay Snowden said that he believes Alberta’s upcoming regulated gaming market will be “a top three or four” market for the company’s Canadian-centric theScore Bet brand.
Snowden confirmed that theScore Bet will enter Alberta’s regulated gaming market when it opens, which he speculated will be late 2024 or early 2025.
“With both online sports betting and iCasino, we expect Alberta to be a very strong market for us given the power of the theScore Bet brand,” Snowden said.
“We would anticipate that the success we’ve seen in Ontario with theScore and theScore Bet, we would be able to replicate that in Alberta,” the CEO said.
“theScore is a very popular brand throughout Canada, it’s not just a Toronto or Ontario thing. So given the success we’ve had in Ontario and given that Alberta will have very similar tax rates, as we understand it, and be both OSB and iCasino, we think it’s going to be a really important North American market for us. Probably a top three or four market.”
Snowden’s note on comparative tax rates is interesting. There has been no official word from the Alberta government as to where they will land on that front, but industry advocates have urged the province to implement a rate similar to the 20% that Ontario levies on commercial online gaming and betting operators.
Anything significantly higher than that could be a deterrent for operators considering entry, experts have warned.
At the Canadian Gaming Summit in Toronto in June, the verdict from a variety of operators, suppliers, regulators, consultants and other industry personnel was pretty unanimous: Alberta offers huge opportunity as a commercial market.
Given how many brands currently operating within Ontario have high brand visibility and awareness in other parts of the country through things such as unlicensed operations or nationwide advertising, “first mover advantage” could work differently in the province than in other jurisdictions. But whatever happens, whenever Alberta opens and however it looks when it does open, theScore Bet intends to be there to take advantage of all that it offers.
