A vote for change
Activist says AGM votes show Penn shareholders in revolt
Penn sees huge votes against pay plans, welcomes new board members.
In +More: IGT lottery now Brightstar, New Jersey data, New York buy in.
BetMGM’s co-parents enjoy a share price boost after guidance upped.
Betr to continue with bid despite PointsBet accepting Mixi offer.
Venture playground: Zoot fundraise, Gamewagrs in focus.
Hard Rock Bet is growing – we know you know! And we want to bring in some more maestros to make beautiful music in our Sportsbook. You need to be among the very best in the industry to be considered for these roles. Are you up to it?
A show of hands
You say you want a revolution: Activist investor HG Vora claimed Penn Entertainment’s shareholders “voted overwhelmingly for genuine change,” after a majority backed its proposal for three new board members and also rejected the company’s executive compensation plans.
Parag Vora from the eponymous firm said 55% had voted with its gold proxy card.
This had put forward the name of William Clifford alongside the two board nominees that Penn had already accepted, Johnny Hartnett and Carlos Ruisanchez.
Take your seats, gentleman: What is certain is that the former Superbet CEO Hartnett and the former Pinnacle CFO and co-founder of Sorelle Capital Ruisanchez have duly been elected. This was a formality after Penn accepted their nominations in April.
The future is uncertain: But what is less certain is what happens next. None of the votes cast are binding, even though the percentages voting against the board leave it in a perilous position.
According to HG Vora, based on preliminary tabulations provided by its proxy solicitor Okapi Partners, over 60% of shareholders voted against the company’s ‘say-on-pay’ plans.
Meanwhile, HG Vora said more than 55% of all votes cast in the election were submitted on HG Vora’s gold proxy card. This put forward Clifford’s name as another board nomination.
J’accuse: Penn had refused Clifford’s name and had reduced the number of seats up for election to two at the same time that it had accepted Hartnett and Ruisanchez in April. From that point, the two sides engaged in a tit-for-tat exchange, which saw accusations fly.
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Bright idea: The IGT lottery business, due to be separated from the Apollo-owned games and digital business in the coming weeks, has renamed itself Brightstar Lottery with immediate effect.
Table stakes: The New York State Gaming Commission has confirmed that the winning bidders for the three downstate casinos will need to stump up $1bn of minimum investment and licensing fee combined. Bids are due in the long-running process next week, June 27. Eight bidders are left in the race, including MGM Resorts, Resorts World New York, and hedge fund and Mets owner Steve Cohen and Hard Rock.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix will remain on the F1 calendar until 2027, under a two-year contract extension, according to a report from AP. This year’s edition of the race is set to take place on November 23.
Data points
New Jersey: iCasino’s march continued with GGR up 28.5% in May to $247m, while OSB was up 30% to $103m and B&M gaming enjoyed an 11% YoY uplift to $265m. In sports betting, handle rose 10% and hold was up by 70bps.
Michigan: iCasino GGR for May was up 27% to $252m, while OSB revenue of $50m represented a 22% YoY increase on handle that rose 12% and hold of 12.9% was up by 100bps. Promos represented 29% of GGR.
Read ahead
AGs assemble: In Compliance+More tomorrow, a look at the move made by a coalition of attorneys general from 34 states to row in behind New Jersey’s suit against Kalshi. It argues the prediction market provider is side-stepping state gaming laws by offering sports event contracts, which it said is just a rebrand for sports betting.
Earnings extra
Coining it: Hacksaw Gaming revealed the extent to which its business is exposed to the cryptocasino sector as it published the prospectus for an IPO, which it hopes will end up later this month with the company valued at SEK22bn or ~€2bn ($2.3bn).
See yesterday’s Earnings Extra ‘Crypto exposure’ edition (E+M PRO subscribers only).
Parental guidance
The mother and father of success: BetMGM’s co-parents both enjoyed the benefit of the upgrade to the 2025 numbers released on Monday, with Entain seeing its shares leap 13% on the day and MGM Resorts enjoying an 8% boost.
On Monday, BetMGM announced it had upped its guidance for 2025 based on the continued growth trends evident from Q1.
Revenue for the 12 months is now expected to be at least $2.6bn vs. the previous range of $2.4bn-$2.5bn, while adj. EBITDA is now forecast at $100m vs. just positive previously.
BetMGM restated its long-term target for $500m of adj. EBITDA.
You make your own luck: Deutsche Bank said the positive Q2 performance was about more than just a run of sporting luck, noting that sports-betting margins have largely been in line with expectations.
Instead, the team suggested that the rising growth trend was due to improved products, both in sports and iCasino.
Specifically, it called out the contribution from Entain’s Angstrom pricing unit, which was beginning to demonstrate “value creation” from a superior product offering and better risk management/pricing.
Diary date: BetMGM said it would provide a Q2 update on July 29.
Frothy: Monday’s share price boost comes on top of a revival in fortunes for Entain, which has recently seen Stella David given the CEO posting full-time. David issued a positive Q1 trading statement in which she said Entain was “starting to win again and winning in the right way.”
The shares are now up nearly 21% YTD.
🔥 Too hot to handle: Entain enjoys a BetMGM boosted bump
Retirement clock: Separately, LeoVegas CEO Gustaf Hagman has announced he is leaving the now MGM Resorts-owned business, which he co-founded with Robin Ramm-Ericson in 2011.
After enjoying “one of the greatest adventures of my life,” Hagman said he was “passing the baton” on to new CEO Mattias Wedar, who has been with the company for six years.
Contested narratives
Mixi fix: Betr said it will proceed with its revised offer for PointsBet despite the latter rejecting it after due diligence uncovered cost synergies that were "significantly overstated" and dis-synergies that would reduce any of the gains.
Betr said it “strongly believes” its offer is superior to the A$402m ($261m) bid from the Japanese entertainment group Mixi, which PointsBet’s board officially accepted this week.
PointsBet said Betr’s cash plus shares offer was “materially below” Mixi’s A$1.20 a share offer, but Betr insisted in its response that its bid amounted to A$1.33 in value to PointsBet shareholders.
It added that “at all times during the due diligence period Betr has sought to proactively and constructively” engage with PointsBet.
However, it added that PointsBet’s announcement on Monday “raises questions as to whether PointsBet has acted constructively and in good faith” over the Betr proposal.
Specifically, Betr said the Mixi proposal “provides for the accelerated 100% vesting of management performance rights, which is not conditional on future service.”
Not better after all: On Monday, PointsBet said Betr’s proposition underestimated the brand and digital investment required to maintain the number four position attained by the company in the highly competitive Australian sports-betting space.
It added that the dis-synergies would come from the high levels of customer crossover between Betr and PointsBet.
What a carve up: Moreover, it said the proposed sale of the Canadian business came with “significant integration and implementation challenges,” with Betr assuming the business could be carved out and large synergies realised concurrently.
Recall, Betr’s presentation had suggested the customer database of the Canadian-facing PointsBet business would be sold to Hard Rock Digital following completion of any deal.
We fight on, we fight to win: Betr is a near 20% shareholder in PointsBet and said it would be voting against the acceptance of the Mixi proposal at the forthcoming shareholder meeting on June 29.
It added that, “based on unsolicited interactions,” it was aware other shareholders have indicated their support for its proposal and predicted the Mixi proposal would fail.
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Venture playground
Funding news
Zoot alors: A real-money gaming platform designed to combine video games with blockchain payments called Zoot has received $6m in seed funding, led by CoinFund and Griffin. Zoot was founded by Sean Ryan, who helped build and lead Facebook’s multi-billion dollar games business and was previously the co-founder of social casino games company OpenWager, which was acquired by VGW in 2017.
Prague-based esports betting odds provider Oddin is reported to have raised new funding from lead investor J&T Ventures with the participation of Rockaway X, Naše Česko, BD Partners, and others. The financial details were not disclosed, although one report suggested the valuation was in the “low hundreds of millions” in Czech koruna or anywhere between ~$5m and $15m.
In focus – Gamewagrs
Who are you? Launched in 2023, the Salt Lake City-based Gamewagrs is a skill-based gaming platform, co-founded and led by Andrew Lea. It offers casual gamers the ability to earn real money by betting 1x1 wagers on their performance in popular video games without the need to livestream or become a professional esports athlete.
What’s the big idea? Lea says Gamewagrs addresses a major pain point in the gaming economy: the limited pathways for monetization available to non-professional players.
“Today, unless a gamer becomes a streamer or breaks into esports, both highly competitive and inaccessible routes, there are few ways to profit from skill alone,” he says.
Gamewagrs flips that model by allowing everyday gamers to wager on their own performance.
In the same way DraftKings transformed fantasy sports, Gamewagrs is betting on a future where performance-based esports wagering becomes mainstream, scalable and available to all.
KPIs: Despite operating on a shoestring budget with no paid user acquisition, the company has achieved notable early traction, including 228 verified users, $1,400 in platform revenue, over 45 paid challenges completed and 2,000+ social media followers.
Funding backgrounder: To date, Gamewagrs has been entirely self-funded by its founding team, and the company’s lean approach and early KPIs position it well for future investment.
Growth company news
Thunderkick will provide its online casino titles to Elantil’s online casino aggregation platform.
Micro-betting provider nVenue has added longtime wagering tech exec Matt Holt as an advisor and given him a seat on the company’s board of directors. Holt was previously CEO for IC360, before departing for a role outside the sports industry in 2024.
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