John Levy is not exactly sitting quietly on the sidelines as he watches Penn Entertainment attempt to revive theScore Bet in the U.S. after ESPN Bet collapsed.
Speaking on the Gaming News Canada podcast Thursday, the founder of Score Media and Gaming, which was the parent company of theScore and theScore Bet, didn’t mince words about Penn’s handling of theScore, Barstool, ESPN Bet, or really anything involving Penn and the digital world.
Spoiler: He’s not impressed.
Asked whether Penn will eventually exit digital gaming and return to its casino roots, Levy delivered what might be the cleanest summary of his view of the company’s trajectory since 2021, when Penn bought the company. (Levy and his family left the company for good in 2024.)
“Newsflash. They’re out of it now. It’s dead. Nobody’s told them,” Levy said.
That line pretty much sums up Levy’s feelings about Penn’s nearly four-year effort to prove it belonged in online sports betting. In his telling, what was sold as a transformational acquisition has instead become a masterclass in how to torch value.
“They never respected the [Score] brand. They never invested in the brand. They never listened to us,” Levy said. “It was our family. And I’m not just talking about the boys who work with me, but the staff, and you mentioned about 75 of them laid off.”
Penn’s main issue, he argues, is that it’s a casino operator that wandered into a tech business and immediately tripped over the wires.
“I honestly think that the core to the problem here is the management at Penn really has had difficulty throughout the whole process in dealing with the acquisitions that they made, with the people, the identity,” Levy said. “And I think part of it, honestly, is it’s a casino company. They really had no idea what they were doing in the digital landscape. And it proved itself over and over and over again.”
Wash, rinse, repeat
To Levy, the results speak for themselves. Barstool: bought, mismanaged, and sold back to Dave Portnoy for $1. ESPN Bet: a 10-year, $1.5 billion deal that didn’t survive two years. And theScore: launched in Ontario with double-digit market share and now, according to Levy, about half that.
“You had Barstool, no good. You got ESPN, no good, right? I know what’s going to happen with theScore, and it breaks my freaking heart,” Levy said. “What’s the common denominator here? What’s wrong? And I think everybody knows what’s wrong. This thing hasn’t been managed properly. And that’s what everybody says, under their breath and outwardly now.”
Even the original ESPN Bet announcement from two years ago blindsided Levy and his team. Levy and his family was still part of the day-to-day at theScore and Penn at the time, with his son, Benjie, serving as head of Penn Interactive.
“We get a call from Jay [Snowden, Penn CEO] saying we’re coming up to Toronto, we want to talk about this, and we had no idea what was coming,” Levy said. “We sat in this hotel in Toronto and he says, we just did a deal with ESPN, a big deal, and Barstool’s gone, and we want you guys to have this sort of wrapped up and converted in the next 60 days or 30 days.”
Today’s news
Today, inside theScore’s Toronto office, Levy says the mood is grim, according to employees he keeps in touch with.
“People are walking around in shock. They don’t know what to do,” he said. “And listen, nobody has the balls to say anything because they’re still getting a paycheck.”
A recent company town hall, according to Levy, did nothing to calm nerves.
“There’s no leadership. There’s no north star. There’s no love. There’s no love of the product.”
As for the leadership team?
“The executive team are all, you know, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Jay sir, everything. Nobody says s*** anytime,” Levy said. “I know these people, they’re not dummies. I worked with them, the executive team. They’re not idiots, but it’s just a failed mission.”
And the employees still hanging on?
“They’re on the deck of the Titanic, right? And it’s like, help me, help me, help me. Somebody freaking help me,” he said.
Levy also questioned why Penn’s board has allowed the strategy to what he believes has careened off the rails.
“Where’s the board of directors here? What fiduciary duties do they have to watch this train wreck happening and not do anything?” Levy said. “I’ve been saying it for a long time. Something’s got to break. Something’s got to give.”
He noted that activist investor HG Vora has managed to place two directors on Penn’s board and wants a third, but wonders whether the intervention will arrive in time.
“By the time they get their act together and enough directors on Penn … by the time they get it done, there’s not going to be anything left to save,” he said.
Path forward
Yet amid all the criticism, Levy still sees a path where Penn could salvage real value: by separating the profitable casino business from the digital side that’s dragging everything down.
“Do they have a good casino operation? Yeah, they’ve got like 35, 40 properties,” Levy said. (Penn has 42.) “If you just put a value on those properties, the market cap of this company would be probably 50 percent higher than what it is today.
“If you just sort of segregated it again, let the casino company be the casino company, nuke the interactive stuff, and let theScore go where it should go, I think there’s a way to save this thing,” he added. “But it’s not going to happen unless somebody comes in over the top and realigns the whole positioning of the company.”
Asked whether he’d ever consider buying back theScore — like Portnoy bought back Barstool for a buck — Levy said he be interested.
“I’d even be willing to do double what Dave did. You know, two dollars,” he quipped.
But beneath the joke, the interest appears real.
“You know, as you can probably tell, there’s no lack of interest on our part.”
And the bottom line?
“I don’t think the status quo is viable,” Levy said. “I haven’t thought that for a while. And hopefully, at some point, somebody comes in and tries to revive this thing.”
Calls and emails to Penn Entertainment were not returned as of publication of this story.
