PENN Entertainment - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 revenue was $1.77B, up 6.1% YoY and 5.5% QoQ, and above S&P Global consensus of $1.73B; Adjusted EPS was $0.10 vs consensus of -$0.02, while reported diluted EPS was -$0.12, reflecting non‑GAAP adjustments and litigation/pre‑opening costs. Values retrieved from S&P Global.*
• Adjusted EBITDA was $236.1M vs $212.1M YoY and $173.3M QoQ; S&P Global EBITDA consensus was $392.4M, indicating a miss on that definition versus consensus, while company-reported Adjusted EBITDA improved sequentially and YoY. Values retrieved from S&P Global.*
• Retail properties not impacted by new supply grew revenue nearly 4% YoY; property-level EBITDAR margins were 33.8%, with headwinds from new supply (notably Bossier City) and elevated industry promo spend; management reiterated 2025 retail guidance unchanged.
• Digital: record quarterly gaming revenue in OSB and iCasino; hold rates ~9.8% in Q2, with sequential improvement since spring; Interactive Adjusted EBITDA loss narrowed to -$62M (incl. ~$2.9M severance); Q4 Interactive expected to turn positive (~$5M).
• Catalysts: Aug. 11 opening of new Hollywood Casino Joliet (on budget, ~6 months ahead), ESPN BET’s FanCenter launch with ESPN Fantasy integration, and an accelerated buyback plan (≥$350M in 2025) supported by updated cash tax outlook (no cash taxpayer in 2025).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Retail resilience: “For the second quarter… retail revenue of $1.4 billion and adjusted EBITDAR of $490 million and adjusted EBITDAR margins of nearly 34%”.
• Omnichannel lift: Online‑to‑retail player count +8% YoY and online‑to‑retail theoretical revenue +28% YoY; Hollywood iCasino cohorts in PA and MI showed strong cross‑channel spend increases.
• Product and hold: “Record quarterly gaming revenue for both OSB and iCasino” with improved hold; July marked highest ever iCasino GGR in PA and MI; FanCenter ties ESPN Fantasy into ESPN BET to drive top‑of‑funnel and retention.

What Went Wrong

• New supply headwinds: Bossier City cannibalization weighed on margins, with table game hold challenges at larger properties; elevated promos in competitive markets pressured flow‑through.
• Interactive profitability still negative: Interactive Adjusted EBITDA was -$62.0M, including ~$2.9M severance costs, though narrowing YoY/QoQ; consensus EBITDA definition implied a miss.
• Litigation/advisory costs: Corporate expense included $9.4M related to activist AGM; ongoing litigation remains a forecasting challenge for “Other” segment.

Transcript

Speaker 5

Greetings and welcome to PENN Entertainment's second quarter 2025 earnings call. I would now like to turn the program over to Joe Jaffoni in Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Emma. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining PENN Entertainment's 2025 second quarter conference call. We'll get to management's presentation and comments momentarily, as well as your Q&A. During Q&A, we ask that everyone please limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. Now, I'll quickly review the safe harbor disclosure. Please note that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks, assumptions, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For more information, please see our press release for details on specific risk factors. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to PENN's CEO, Jay Snowden. Jay, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Joe. Good morning, everyone. Joined here in Wyomissing with Felicia Hendrix, Todd George, Aaron LaBerge, as well as other members of our Senior Management team. As you can see from our earnings release and accompanying investor presentation, our diverse portfolio of retail properties delivered another solid quarter, particularly in those markets not impacted by new supply, where we saw revenue growth of 4% year-over-year. For the second quarter of 2025, we reported retail revenue of $1.4 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $490 million, and adjusted EBITDA margins of nearly 34%.

As noted on slide five, this performance by our best-in-class property teams was highlighted by theoretical revenue growth across all rated age and worth segments, as well as year-over-year theoretical revenue growth in unrated play, visitation, and spend per visit, the first time we have seen this since Q1 of 2022, all of which have remained consistent through July as well. As you'll see on slides six and seven, we have been absorbing the impact of new supply in a few key geographic markets. Starting with Chicagoland, we are responding with the land-side relocations of our Hollywood casinos in Aurora and Joliet to vastly superior locations and with new best-in-class, best-in-market assets.

We're also planning to help mitigate the impact of new supply in Nebraska with the land-side relocation of our Ameristar Casino Council Bluffs property in Iowa, which is currently scheduled to open at the end of 2027 or beginning of 2028. As we've discussed previously, our Margaritaville property is still the market leader, but it has been impacted by the recent new supply in Bossier City, Louisiana. This market has been in decline for two decades now, and the new incremental supply, not surprisingly, has mostly cannibalized the incumbent operators. Our focus remains on continuing to enhance the guest experience, in part through property improvements such as our recently renovated hotel rooms. We're also updating our hotel lobby, lobby bar, and adding new non-gaming amenities.

In addition, on June 16, we were excited to welcome a privately funded 27-acre golf entertainment complex directly next door to our property, which is part of more than $75 million invested by third parties and PENN on gaming and non-gaming amenities in and around the property over the last several years. In Detroit, we expect that the ongoing construction and revitalization of the downtown business corridor adjacent to our Hollywood Greektown Casino will help boost visitation and spend in the Greektown neighborhood and at our property. The project is funded by a $20 million grant from the state of Michigan, with a focus on revitalizing public spaces and improving the pedestrian experience with a more inviting environment, including the ability to host live events and festivals in the neighborhood.

Construction around our property is scheduled to be completed in Q3 of this year, and the entire project is scheduled to be completed in Q2 of 2026. Turning to slide eight, we are extremely excited for the August 11 opening of Hollywood Casino Joliet. Notably, this opening is occurring on budget and nearly six months ahead of its originally scheduled timeline. The new Hollywood Joliet is part of Rock Run Collection, a super regional commercial and residential development conveniently located adjacent to the Interstate 80 and Interstate 55 interchange southwest of downtown Chicago.

From a financial standpoint, there will be no change to our 2025 retail guidance as it relates to the Joliet relocation, as the earlier opening date will offset the ramp down of the existing facility the last couple of months to allow for game relocations, the approximate two-week closure, and the marketing ramp of the new property, none of which was built into our original guidance for the year. As you'll see on slide nine, our other development projects remain on schedule and on budget. Our omnichannel engagement continues to positively impact our results, with our online-to-retail player count growing 8% year-over-year and online-to-retail theoretical revenue growing 28% year-over-year. Turning to slide ten, our pre-existing customers in Pennsylvania and Michigan, who engage with our standalone Hollywood iCasino app, are increasing their spend across both our retail and online channels.

In Pennsylvania, year to date, we have seen year-over-year increases of 19% in retail theoretical play and 133% in online theoretical play from this same cohort. Similarly, in Michigan, year to date, we have seen year-over-year increases of 28% in retail theoretical play and 242% in online theoretical play. These are encouraging trends for sure. Having both a retail and digital relationship with your consumer is clearly a major key to success for the industry moving forward. Transitioning to our interactive segment, we achieved record quarterly gaming revenue in both OSB and iCasino in Q2. While still plenty of work to do, we delivered significant year-over-year improvements in adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA, highlighting the strong year-over-year flow-through we are seeing in our business in 2025.

These results include approximately $2.9 million in severance costs incurred as part of our strategic workforce adjustments to drive efficiencies and support a modern, scalable technology infrastructure. Excluding that one-time expense, we would have come in slightly ahead of the midpoint of our digital Q2 guide and consensus. Our standalone Hollywood iCasino app is continuing to expand its reach, with over 70% of gaming revenue life to date through the second quarter generated by newly acquired retail native or reactivated users, which is also encouraging. As you'll see on slide 12, our interactive segment average MAUs have stabilized over the past two quarters and actually increased in Q2 2025 on a year-over-year basis. Our PMAL has also been on an upward trajectory since launch. We are making great strides in advancing our in-house risk and trading platform and expanding our wagering options, including our parlay and in-game products.

As a result, over the last two quarters, our hold rates have continued to improve, and we expect this trend to continue as we make further refinements. Additionally, the continued month-over-month sequential growth of our Hollywood Casino standalone app, coupled with our improved OSB cross-sell efforts, are driving material growth in our iCasino users' volume, revenues, and market share. The success of our standalone app is incremental to our overall iCasino performance, with minimal cannibalization of our in-app iCasino products. On top of the Q2 momentum, July marked our highest ever iCasino GGR in both Pennsylvania and Michigan. Turning to slide 14, we continue to enhance our ESPN Bet offering by introducing engaging new features, such as the ability for customers to evaluate player statistics in relation to player pot bets. The benefits of the continued rollout of our new offerings are driving engagement.

Since the spring, we have seen strong and consistent year-over-year growth in first-time bettors, which are most recently up over 50% year-over-year in July. Similarly, first-time deposits have more than doubled year-over-year in July. Notably, our promotional expense as a % of handle has remained stable in the low single digits. Further, as we announced earlier this week, this football season will mark the launch of Fancenter, an exciting feature which leverages our connectivity with the ESPN ecosystem to enable players to bet on their favorite teams, players, and fantasy lineups in ESPN Bet. The dedicated hub powered by account linking technology with ESPN creates the ultimate interconnected media betting and fantasy experience.

In addition to fantasy-related markets within Fancenter, a new Find a Bet icon on the ESPN Fantasy app will allow players to view ESPN Bet markets related to their roster and add selections directly to their ESPN Bet Slip. Last year, ESPN Fantasy Football set an all-time mark with more than 13 million playing the game. Opportunities like this to leverage the nation's number one fantasy app is a big part of why we did the deal with ESPN, and we look forward to continuing to work together to unleash the full value of this partnership. With that, I'll turn it over to Felicia.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Jay. As Jay mentioned, our diverse portfolio of retail properties delivered another solid quarter, particularly in markets not impacted by new supply. Our interactive segment generated Q2 adjusted revenues, excluding the skin tax gross up, of $178 million and interactive adjusted EBITDA of a loss of $62 million. Record quarterly gaming revenue for both OSB and iCasino was driven by higher holds and continued momentum on standalone iCasino. Corporate expense of $38.7 million included $9.4 million of legal and advisory costs in connection with our annual meeting of shareholders. The table on page seven of our earnings release summarizes our cash expenditures in the quarter, including cash payments to our REIT landlords, cash taxes, cash interest on traditional debt, and total CapEx. Of our total $159 million CapEx in the quarter, $100 million was project CapEx related to our four development projects.

We ended the second quarter with total liquidity of $1.2 billion, inclusive of $672 million in cash and cash equivalents. In the second quarter, we repurchased $90 million of shares at an average price of $15.47 per share, which takes us to $115 million of shares repurchased in the first half of the year at an average price of $15.90 per share. We expect to repurchase at least $350 million of shares in 2025, which implies share repurchases equivalent to 9% of our current market cap over the last five months of the year. Additionally, on June 20, we repurchased roughly 70% of our convertible notes due 2026 for $233.5 million, which eliminated approximately 9.6 million potentially dilutive shares that were associated with the convertible notes. This transaction is incremental to our $350 million share repurchase target for the year.

I will now provide an update on our guidance for the remainder of the year. Our 2025 retail guidance is unchanged from the ranges and drivers we provided in our earnings call in February. The new Joliet property opening is now included in our guidance, and Jay covered the financial puts and takes related to that project earlier. On interactive, we continue to expect sequential quarter-over-quarter adjusted EBITDA improvement for both the third quarter and the fourth quarter, with the fourth quarter inflecting positive. We are updating our 2025 interactive guidance to reflect $10 million of incremental costs related to the OSB launch in Missouri in December, which was not contemplated in our prior guidance, and the impact of legislative tax increases in Illinois, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Maryland. Our new guidance also better aligns with our current volumes and market share trends.

Our average MAUs increased in the second quarter year-over-year, and we now forecast modest year-over-year growth in market share for the remainder of the year. We now forecast U.S. OSB handle market share, excluding New York, of 3.4% in the third quarter and 4% in the fourth quarter. For iCasino GGR share, we expect 3% in the third quarter and 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Somewhat offsetting these lower volume assumptions are an expectation for slightly higher sportsbook hold rates in the second quarter. We're modeling in the mid-9% range for the third and fourth quarter. We have been closing the gap with the market leaders from a hold rate perspective, given improvements in our risk and trading functions, as well as solid execution of our parlay, same-game parlay, and in-play offerings.

Further, as a function of our strategic workforce adjustments, we anticipate run rate savings in G&A of approximately $20 million, or roughly $10 million, in the second half. For the third quarter 2025, our interactive revenue guidance range is $295 million to $335 million, including a $125 million skin tax gross up, and our adjusted EBITDA guidance range is a loss of $65 million to a loss of $45 million. Our third quarter interactive adjusted EBITDA guidance represents a year-over-year improvement of roughly $36 million at the midpoint. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect interactive adjusted EBITDA of approximately $5 million, assuming normal hold. Other segment adjusted EBITDA continues to be challenging to forecast this year due to the cost of ongoing litigation.

However, with the bulk of our advisory and proxy-related expenses behind us, I can provide you with some metrics to help you with your modeling by running through the various moving parts. In February, we initially provided other segment adjusted EBITDA guidance, which includes corporate expense of $121 million. Before incremental legal and advisory costs related to this year's AGM, this forecast is unchanged. As we look to the remainder of the year, we may incur incremental legal expenses in the second half of the year, given the ongoing shareholder litigation. While we cannot project at this time the magnitude of the legal expenses we could incur in the second half of the year, we do expect that they will be significantly below the $17.1 million of legal and advisory costs we incurred in the first half.

Transitioning to our retail growth projects, as of today, we've received the full $130 million in funding from GLPI for the $185 million Hollywood Casino Joliet project at a cap rate of 7.75%. As you know, for the $360 million Aurora project, we have already committed to take $225 million of funding from GLPI at a cap rate of 7.75%, and we will draw from GLPI closer to the opening of Aurora. Regarding the M Resort Tower and Hollywood Columbus, we will provide funding updates as we get closer to those openings. Our CapEx forecast for 2025 remains $730 million, with project CapEx of $490 million. For 2025 net cash interest expense, we project $160 million. For cash taxes, finally, following the announcement of the Big Beautiful Bill, our 2025 cash tax outlook has shifted meaningfully, reflecting the impact of several one-time items and permanent changes.

While our prior guidance projected a $70 million cash tax liability for 2025, we now do not expect to be a cash taxpayer this year, which benefits free cash flow before project CapEx by 40%. The acceleration of previously unamortized R&E expenses and the utilization of an interest expense carryover generated one-time benefits for this tax year. In addition, the 100% bonus depreciation represents a meaningful benefit given our recurring annual CapEx and our active growth project pipeline. We expect the announcement of the Big Beautiful Bill to continue to be favorable to us in future years. Based on what we know today for 2026, we currently anticipate recognizing approximately $50 million less in cash taxes in each of 2026 and 2027. Our basic share count at the end of the second quarter was 145.5 million shares.

After the redemption of the convertible notes, we now have 4.5 million potential dilutive shares from the remaining convertible notes stub and about 1 million dilutive shares from RSUs and stock options. I'll turn it back to Jay.

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks, Felicia. In closing, I want to reiterate that our core retail businesses remain strong and are growing in the aggregate. We believe the recent federal law changes around SALT deductions, as well as taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits could provide to be tailwinds for PENN, in addition to anniversarying the new supply in key markets later here in 2025 and in early 2026. We're eagerly awaiting the August 11 opening date next week of the first of our growth projects, which we believe will collectively enhance our portfolio, grow our free cash flow profile, reduce leverage, and serve as a catalyst for PENN's retail segment and our overall omnichannel strategy. On the interactive side, we're excited about all the new product enhancements our teams have been making, including the upcoming launch of Fancenter.

This type of integration with ESPN is what sets ESPN Bet apart from our competitors, and we can't wait for football season to showcase it. We're very appreciative of the hard work, strong partnership, and long hours from our friends at ESPN, particularly as we collectively prepared for the start of this football season over the last several months. We're excited and optimistic about our new product enhancements. However, we do still maintain strategic optionality, as discussed previously in the digital business as we head into 2026. As I said on our Q1 call, we are nearing an inflection point with our digital business, and we anticipate each quarter of 2025 delivering a lower loss sequentially throughout the year and our interactive division to be profitable in the fourth quarter of 2025 and the full year of 2026 and beyond. This is still the case.

The significant investments in interactive are undoubtedly behind us. Our focus for the balance of this year and going forward remains operational execution and transforming our strategic investments into consistent long-term returns and value creation for our shareholders. We believe our share price is undervalued and will be even more active in buying back shares and returning capital to shareholders in the second half of the year, as covered previously by Felicia. With that, Emma, we can open up the line for our first question.

Speaker 5

At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star two. Once again, that is star one to ask a question, and we will take our first question from Barry Jonas with Citizens JMP Securities.

Hey, guys. Good morning. A lot going on with ESPN between the coming launch of its DTC product and the announced deal with the NFL. How should we be thinking about potential upside for ESPN Bet with both on top of your continuing product enhancements like Fancenter? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Yeah, obviously, it's been a really busy week this week for ESPN. They announced the launch date of their direct-to-consumer streaming offering. Earlier this week, they announced the partnership with WWE and then acquiring the NFL media assets from the NFL. Very busy. We really don't have anything to comment on beyond what Disney ESPN has shared publicly and on their earnings call. I would just say, and maybe this is stating the obvious, that we think those are all just going to continue to solidify ESPN's position as the worldwide leader in sports. All of those announcements are good for the entire ESPN ecosystem, of which ESPN Bet is certainly part of that. As we've mentioned before, the launch of the direct-to-consumer offering is going to be deeply integrated with sports betting ESPN Bet.

That's going to be the first time that we've seen anything like that in the space. We're interested to see what that means for the sports fans of ESPN and our ability to continue to provide a great betting option for people through those deep integrations throughout their digital and streaming ecosystem.

Great. Just as a follow-up on retail, you know, top line trends, you said, pretty strong at +4% outside of new supply markets. Just wanted to get your thoughts on what you think is driving this and to what degree it's sustainable. Thank you.

I'll mention a couple of things, Todd. I'm sure you'll want to jump in as well. I think there's been less new supply hitting us in a number of markets. If you look at the last 12 months, it's certainly there, as we mentioned, in Bossier City, somewhat in Chicagoland, although some of that is just us moving assets from Joliet old location to new locations. I wouldn't overly read into the Midwest Council Bluffs. I think our property has responded really well. It's a battle, but we're grinding there. I would say overall, and we've said this before, there's really one true macroeconomic factor that has a tight correlation to our business, which is employment. Employment's been strong. Americans have jobs. Americans spend money. It's really quite simple as it relates to the regional gaming business, at least as long as I've been doing this.

Gas prices have been low, and they've stayed low. Those are all helpful tailwinds. Consumer confidence seems to at least be stable. It's a bit volatile month to month, but I would say overall pretty stable and seems to be moving in the right direction. I think people, to some extent, have probably been putting off those destination vacations and trips to Vegas, and they're staying closer to home. All of that, of course, would benefit us in the regional markets. Todd, anything to add?

Speaker 0

Yeah, perfectly said, Jay. I would only add some of the trends we're seeing, it's not just in the gaming revenue side. We're also seeing this in the food and beverage side, the hotel side. To Jay's point about people staying, you know, for a staycation, that obviously is a sign that that's working. I think with some of our capital deployment around the company and the country, we're getting a return on that. The improvements we've made to our property, whether it's keeping our gaming floors fresh or our non-gaming options fresh, really starting to see that pay off. I'm super excited about the opening of Joliet next week. On the heels of that, the next three growth projects, as well as the announcement we made with Shake Shack, I think we continue to innovate and upgrade our offerings.

Speaker 1

It's interesting too, just one last point. I think the entire retail operations team across the country has really done a great job this past quarter. When you think about there were some elevated pockets of promo spend, I think that was well documented throughout the quarter in the space. GGR looked higher and, you know, how much of that was flowing through to NGR and to EBITDA. I think our teams did a great job just staying disciplined and making sure that we're investing in the right customers at the right levels and not getting thrown into any sort of marketing battles. I think that'll die down quickly, but it was certainly a thing in the second quarter.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Barry.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from Brandt Montour with Barclays Bank PLC.

Comment on the 2Q. We saw a pretty outstanding hold quarter in June, specifically in June, and some of your peers showed some upside in the sports, in our sports divisions. We didn't really see that in your results. I'm curious if there's something about your mix or the volumes that you saw in the quarter with why you didn't really participate in that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it was cut out a little bit at the beginning, but I got the question there, Brian, on the second quarter and hold percentage for the space. We saw a nice hold result as well. Our hold percentage is continuing to really close the gap between where we've been and where the top tier of operators are. We held in the mid to high 9%s. I don't have it exactly in front of me for the second quarter.

Speaker 5

9.8.

Speaker 1

9.8% versus an estimate of 9%. We held fine. We've been battling, obviously, on the handle side of things, and we will continue to. We're seeing really nice pickup in terms of first-time bettors and first-time deposits and really gearing up for football season with a lot of new deep integrations with fantasy that we covered during our prepared remarks. We feel like we've got nice momentum. We also obviously had the negative impact of the severance cost of around $3 million for the quarter. I think you should expect to see our hold percentage sort of in that upper tier. We've seen that for the last several months, really since the early spring to where we are now. I think the same will be true in July. Overall, feeling good about hold percentage. We just got to continue to get more and more people into the top of funnel.

I know Aaron and team, Bailey Turchin, who just joined us as our Chief Product Officer, are working really hard to just eliminate friction as we did a deep dive on what’s worked well for us and the things that haven't. I think eliminating friction between the people clicking on integrations within the ESPN ecosystem and coming over to ESPN Bet. Same thing for when people click on or go to the Apple Store and download our apps and register and just go through the whole process. We're working really hard to get that flow to be frictionless. We're feeling like we're in a good spot. Every quarter is getting better. We still got work to do. I think that's the clear message. Going into football, we feel like we've got a chance to really start to make some progress.

The last thing I would say is if you look at handle share on OSB, there is still some pretty aggressive promoing by a couple of the private operators. We've been really paying more attention to our GGR share and even more so our NGR share. We feel like we're making a lot of progress on the NGR side, both here in the U.S. as well as in Canada, which we're pleased with. We just got to keep grinding and keep going. Aaron, feel free to jump in with anything.

Speaker 2

No, that was good.

Speaker 1

Okay, thanks for that. Hopefully, you can hear me. Apologies for my connection. The second question is still on interactive. I think if I heard Felicia's guidance commentary correctly, you guys are aiming for around $200 million loss for the year, which is right at the low end of the prior range. I also, I mean, I know you called out lower volumes. The question, I guess, is, is that really the sort of main driver of that? And/or is there any sort of incremental promos that you guys are planning around Fancenter and/or ESPN regarding their launch? Yeah. It incorporates everything that you mentioned there, Brandt. We want to make sure that we have a successful launch of Fancenter. It's a really bespoke, unique feature.

Remember also that we, for the first time on this guidance, incorporated now that we have a launch date for Missouri that was not in our guidance previously. We have tax increases in four states the second half of the year. We are just truing all of those things up. In addition to, as we laid out for you, our OSB handle share hasn't year to date been where we estimated it. We are still anticipating we will grow our handle share in Q3 and then even more so in Q4. Same thing for our iCasino GGR share. We want to make sure we've got realistic targets out there, that we've got the ability to, you know, make sure that we're showcasing what the new features are. We think that this allows us to do that.

Hopefully, it turns out to be a little bit conservative, but it feels like the right approach at this stage in the year heading into football season with so many new things coming. Makes sense. Thanks, Jay.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from Shaun Clisby Kelley with BofA Securities.

Hey, good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. Jay or Felicia, maybe we could zoom out on ESPN Bet for a second and just think about 2026. I think in general, the idea has been that we could get to profitable in that business for the full year. Is that target still on track? Is it incumbent upon further improvement, especially on the core OSB side, or can we kind of do that on, let's call it a combination of run rate as you exit this year and just continued market growth in that business?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think it's very much dependent, Sean, on us hitting our targets for the remainder of the year and exiting 2025 on the path that we just laid out. It's not, you know, these aren't Herculean targets, but we got to continue to prove it out and grow our share, not just on handle, but of course on GGR and NGR, and make sure that we're reinvesting at the right levels, consistent with what we have been the last several quarters, and then continuing to see progress. Nothing Herculean is built out into our assumptions for 2026. We just want to see Q3 this year, you know, stronger market share results in iGaming than we did in Q2. With the progress we're making, we think that that's realistic. We've got a really strong product offering. We're enhancing the experience all the time, both in OSB and iCasino.

Much like our fourth quarter, which we're anticipating being profitable to the tune of $5 million, we would be exiting with some real momentum heading into 2026, and we would build on that every quarter in 2026 as well. Those are the set of assumptions now. As I've mentioned before, I think our focus, and you can imagine we've got all sorts of different sensitivity models on, you know, there's a lot of variables at play as we go into 2026. We're going to be ready for whatever strategically it is that we're doing and to make sure that we deliver on profitability in 2026. We're laser focused on that.

Perfect. Thank you. As my follow-up, I want to go back to the beginning, and I know you comment on this, but I think it just kind of fits strategically here, which is, you know, about the sort of ESPN NFL deal, Jay. Just like, you know, at its highest level, it would seem like the strategic importance of having sort of a betting option here as we think about sort of what DTC could mean, you know, or a DTC launch could mean, would be pretty paramount strategically. Does this open up, you know, your strategic options or dialogue with them? I mean, obviously, there's a very large fixed cost here. One thing that was unique about the way ESPN and NFL were structured was around equity without, you know, at least as our read is, an ongoing fee structure.

Just trying to think out of the box a little bit, but, you know, to the extent you could talk about it, it would be helpful.

Yeah, and Sean, it's a great question. I'd imagine that we're all going to have more information on exactly the details. That was what was announced, was not the definitive documents. I think it was more of where they are currently on the term sheet. Things might change a little bit. Again, I'm not in those discussions. As time goes, I think we'll have certainly more to share. We found out about it, obviously, when the world did this week, when it was publicized. We talked to ESPN. They're really excited, and they're very excited about the role that ESPN Bet plays in terms of fan engagement and the overall experience, whether you're talking their direct-to-consumer launch, how they think about their relationship with all of their sports league partners.

They see in their own ecosystem, as we've shared before, that those that are part of the linked program with ESPN Bet, there's a high level of engagement, higher than average. We would expect that to continue to be the case in the NFL news and WWE as well. We think it will just strengthen overall where we are in our relationship with ESPN, but also strengthen their position as the worldwide leader in sports. I would just add, more football is better for fans and for bettors. To point out, Fancenter is going to launch this year with native integration to ESPN's fantasy platform. If you're a linked user and you're already linked when you draft a team or more than one team, those teams automatically show up in ESPN Bet and a way for you to bet it very creatively and easily.

We are also going to be on the launch of their DTC platform with betting integrated through ESPN Bet into the video experience. You would imagine those football assets show up in those video experiences. They've announced that they're going to combine ESPN's fantasy platform with the NFL's, which will make that massive. Again, Fancenter is a fantasy integration. I think all of those things are just going to be good, not only for fans, but for our business and our partnership.

Thank you so much.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from Joseph Robert Stauff with Susquehanna Financial Group.

Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to maybe just follow up on ESPN Bet, maybe from a different angle. As it gets switched on August 21, obviously in the beginning of the football season and all the good seasonal factors associated with that, would you expect to see a pretty big spike or ramp in at least the top of the funnel in terms of experimentation and so forth?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean, Aaron, you'll have thoughts on this. I would say that the NFL news from this week, the WWE news from this week, and then certainly with now having a date for the DTC launch, one thing we know is that ESPN is in a stronger position today than they were a week ago. We also know that they're going to be putting a lot of weight behind that DTC launch. The more ESPN is out there, I think that's really good for us and our brand. The fact that we're going to have deep integrations this year with fantasy that we didn't have last year and this year with direct-to-consumer, which didn't even exist last year, those should all be positives.

Obviously, it's incumbent on us to make sure that when people click on those integrations or give us an opportunity, that it's a really smooth, seamless process when they download, when they register, when they go through the whole process. We think we're in a much stronger position this year to execute on that and that we keep them. The retention, we're going to be paying very close attention to every day, every week as we move forward. We've got to be able to keep the folks that come in and test us or try us out for the first time or come in on a reactivated basis. Yeah, I would just add, look, ESPN's fantasy platform, I think Jay mentioned it in his opening remarks, had 13 million people playing fantasy football last year. My guess is they're setting records this year.

Fancenter alone is natively integrated not only into the ESPN Fantasy app, but into ESPN Bet. There's a huge top of funnel audience that gets new exposure to what is going to be a really cool feature if you're a fantasy player that you're going to want to try. When you think about reactivation, when you think about retention, and when you think about new user acquisition, Fancenter is going to drive all of those. ESPN is launching a direct-to-consumer product, which we're integrated with. I won't speak to what level or what the product looks like because that product hasn't launched. We also think that's going to be something that people see and want to experience and be part of because of the way it's implemented. It's very cool and very compelling. That will also be a driver of interest.

We think it's ultimately going to be good for top of funnel.

Understood. Thank you. If I could follow up on the retail side, the four markets, the competitive markets you referenced in the slide deck, Jay, I believe you sort of mentioned, hey, we kind of anniversary this, the impact of this fully maybe in the early part of 2026. Just trying to think about maybe the new tailwinds that you get from your four new projects that'll be placed in service later this year, starting in August. Wondering if you think, say the competitive headwinds from those four markets are offset, possibly from those four new projects. Could that occur earlier than 2026, or just given the nature of those projects, a lot of them are hotel expansions, maybe it takes a little bit longer?

Yeah, I mean, I would say we're going to know a lot soon. We're going to be opening Joliet. Awesome property. Been there several times, Todd and I, the last several weeks. Great location, right off of I-80 and I-55. Tremendous ingress, egress. You roll right into our property from the major roads there. Feel great about that. The rest of our projects are on time and on budget, which we're very proud of. Our design and construction teams executed great despite a lot of tariff noise. The hotels topped out at the right time. We weren't buying tons of steel until after the tariffs were in place, or we were done with that before the tariffs were in place. We feel really good about that. I think the headwinds that we've been facing for the last, I don't know, a lot of years, it feels like it's been forever.

Those start to slow down. Once you get past anniversary and what happened, the new opening in Bossier City, Louisiana, really everything from that point on that we can see is PENN. I would say that the tailwinds should more than offset headwinds. Headwinds should slow down. Tailwinds speed up. We feel like we've got a good setup here. We have a really nice growth story on the retail side and, of course, on the interactive side as well.

Thanks very much.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from Daniel Brian Politzer of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Hey, good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. First, on the retail side, Jay, I think you guys have talked about mid-teens returns or free cash flow returns on those four projects over the next four months. Is there any way you could parse that out or rank by some of those returns, just given the projects do vary in scope and obviously cost, but which ones are you most excited about and where do you see the greatest returns? Thanks.

Speaker 1

I'd get in trouble if I said any of that from the property teams. We really, we're, I would say, and kidding aside, we really look at all four of these as being really solid returns. It's not like one of them is sort of offsetting the other. Look, we are going to be, this is the first time I can remember, certainly in the industry, where we are moving a location miles and miles closer. You think about just the vehicular traffic, what passes by our current Joliet properties, 10,000 vehicles a day, and that is going to be up, you know, 23 or 25-fold or something like that here on Monday. We are very anxious and curious to see how that goes. Of course, we are going to have another one of those with a hotel in our Aurora market, which is also very exciting.

Right now, right next to the Chicago Premium Outlet, when you are exiting the Chicago Premium Outlet, you are literally at a stoplight staring at our parking garage, and it turns green. You can go straight into our garage or turn left to get on the interstate. We have got a really nice setup, and the hotels in Vegas and Columbus, we have needed those for a really long time and for a variety of reasons. We did not break ground until we did, but we think the return profile for those is also looking good. In the case of Las Vegas at the M Resort, over the years, we have had a lot of demand for group business. We take great care of people. We can provide them a lot of attention and personalization because of us being off strip and a little smaller.

They outgrow us and they leave. We have got a lot of groups that are coming back to the M after having left now that we are doubling the size of the hotel there. I do not want to rank them, but we do feel good about all four.

Okay, fair enough. I suppose on interactive, you know, obviously this is your second NFL kickoff with a fully, you know, from the get-go, and now it seems like you have kind of more tools in your tool belt, certainly more experience there. I guess versus last year, what are you looking to do differently that maybe, you know, will improve your market position? Obviously, you have a better product, but like, you know, from a strategic or promotional standpoint, are there any changes that you're thinking of making versus, you know, the prior go-around? Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, look, we're going to be paying very close attention to the KPIs that you would imagine we will be, which is what does the top of funnel demand look like? What is the flow-through from people clicking on integrations and getting them to, you know, register, download, and register the app, make a deposit, and make a wager? We've eliminated a lot of friction. I can't stress that enough that we think is going to have really positive results without us needing to go spend more in marketing. It's just making the folks that are interested in these integrations and interested in betting, making it a lot easier for them to get through and get to the point where they can do exactly what they intended to do. We had some sort of basic level fantasy integrations last year.

This is, as Aaron LaBerge described and I mentioned in the prepared remarks, this is a whole different level. We're going to be doing things similar to the integrations on direct-to-consumer that haven't been done before. The idea that you can be in the fantasy app, you set your roster, and then you've got personalized player parlays that are there for you based on your lineup. You can basically decide what you want to do and bet on within fantasy. Click, move over to ESPN Bet and place your wagers. Very powerful. I would say it's less about how much we're spending in promo and how much we're spending in marketing different. We're going to be, I think, disciplined as we have been. We'll make sure that the word gets out about Fancenter because it's a really cool new feature and it's differentiated.

It's more about our ability to execute at a different level and the experiences that we're offering and the integrations we're offering being at a different level than they were last year. I mean, I would add also, we have much improved KYC. We have real personalization this year that not only flows through the app but flows into Fancenter. We do have better brand marketing. We have a truly differentiated feature that no other sportsbook has. Nobody else is a partner with ESPN Fantasy, the biggest fantasy platform in the U.S. that is integrated with our product. It's going to be clear in our marketing messaging that this is a feature that if you're a fantasy player, that you might want to try out. Where last year we were marketing the brand of ESPN Bet, but we didn't have something distinct enough to hook onto to make that compelling.

We think that's going to matter. We've got improved CRM efforts. We can target cohorts now by fantasy players, by people that play with us actively, that people need to be reactivated. We're much smarter in how we're targeting people in terms of that. There's just a lot of improvement almost in every operational channel this year than last. We're pretty excited about the start of the season.

Got it. Thanks so much.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from Chad Beynon with Macquarie.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Jay, during your prepared remarks at the beginning, you talked about some of the retail KPIs that have been the strongest in over three years. I would have thought that the flow-through in the second quarter would have been a little bit better. Land-based margins have been down first and second quarter. Felicia, you reiterated the retail guide for the year. Todd or Jay, can you talk about why we didn't see better flow-through in Q2? More importantly, as we look into the back half of the year for retail, could we start to see margins increase given all the supply kind of wears off and the unrated is working in your favor? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I'll tackle the first part, and Todd, you certainly can tackle the second part in terms of go forward. As we look at the quarter, there's really two factors. One, the new supply is impacting us, Bossier City, really impactfully. That hurts your overall margins. If you look at the portfolio outside of those markets being impacted by new supply, the flow-through on the top line revenue was strong. We're definitely feeling the pain in Bossier City more so than we are in the other new supply markets and feeling some pain in all of those new supply markets. As I mentioned earlier, we were battling some higher promos in the markets, many of our markets on the regional side. We stayed the course. We had to do, obviously, a little protecting on the VIP side, which you would always do. We stayed the course. We stayed disciplined.

I think margins came in for the quarter just shy of 34% despite the higher promo in the competitive zones. We feel good about our execution. I think that higher sort of elevated promos in the market, that should, I would imagine that will die down. It doesn't usually deliver good returns in these really mature markets. Overall, we feel like the flow-through for the quarter with those factors, if you remove those factors, was very strong. Those were factors in the second quarter.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I would only add, Jay, and you know, Jay and I have talked about this a lot. We did have some table game hold % challenges at some of our bigger properties in the quarter. You know, known players, VIP players, but you know, that always comes back. To your point about going forward, listen, Q4, traditionally, year in, year out, is always one of the lower margins. You're bumping up against a lot of holiday competition. That's baked into our guidance. When you look at the ramp of Joliet, that's in there. We'll look for a good trajectory there. We feel very comfortable that we've identified the issues. Jay spoke to them. We're already starting to see kind of a more rational reinvestment in the promotional environment across the board. We think that'll continue.

Having the tailwinds behind us, the properties that we're opening, the two new properties in Illinois, as well as the hotel towers, our properties were built, especially for the expansion, to have these. All the infrastructure is in place. The restaurants are in place. The gaming positions are in place. These become very margin-accretive. With the new properties moving from a three-story traditional riverboat to a one-story land-based casino, you just build in such efficiency. We feel good about the, you know, the starting Monday, really. Starting Monday and then forward into the first half of next year, some really good tailwinds behind us.

Speaker 1

Yeah, obviously with the openings, you're going to not see the stronger margins immediately out of the gate. You want to make sure that you're supporting all the pre-opening efforts, get the word out, make sure your customers have a great time. As I said earlier, the puts and takes with Joliet wash out for the year, given we're opening earlier. We had to close, and there was the whole relocation of games that impacted us in June and July from a top line and bottom line perspective. Overall, clearly all four of those projects, as Todd said very well, are going to be margin accretive for us. You just need a little bit of ramp time.

Okay, great. Thank you. On the growth in MAUs in the omnichannel journey, how do predictive markets kind of fit into this strategy? Is that something that you could explore, or is that something that you are against and you're looking for that to be shut down, which could potentially help market share? Thank you.

Yeah, not a lot new to say on predictive. We're monitoring. There's a lot going on there, as you know, in terms of how state gaming regulators feel about predictive markets versus what the predictive market space is doing and expanding. I wouldn't expect us to be a first mover. If it's something that does end up getting sort of embraced and legalized and regulated, of course, it's something that we would stay very close to and take a look at. I wouldn't expect us to be a first mover there. We want to see how this plays out. There's a lot going on right now in the courts as well as with the regulators across the country.

Thanks, Jay. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5

Take our next question from Jordan Bender with Citizens JMP Securities.

Hey, everyone. Good morning. In your slides, you pointed out that there was a record cross-sell rate into the standalone app in June, which is good to see. Are you able to talk about either the reactivation strategy of the existing players as well as what's working to get new players cross-sold into that standalone app? Thank you.

Speaker 1

I think probably the number one factor is the fact that we have a casino-first brand on that app. It's really, really targeting slot players even more so than table game players. The Hollywood Casino within ESPN Bet, a little bit more table game focus, Hollywood standalone, a little bit more of a slot focus. We're seeing that in our slot mix, which is, I believe, highest in the industry in the states where it's tracked. Very pleased. Obviously, from a marketing perspective, you can be a lot more successful in targeting your retail database with a brand that they're used to seeing, same brand that's on all of their marketing materials and on top of the building that they're walking into. That's why I think you're seeing so much incrementality. It's more of a retail customer or a new customer, reactivated customer.

In the case of branding, certainly that's a strength that, you know, we did struggle with trying to get slot players at our retail properties to download ESPN Bet to play slots. It just doesn't really resonate. We've been a lot more successful at bringing them in, and the retention results have been strong. You can see the two states where we have a retail footprint. We've seen really strong market share growth, less so in a state like New Jersey, where we don't. We did launch in New Jersey, but we've got work to do there because it's a more mature market and we don't have a retail footprint. Pennsylvania and Michigan are certainly leading the efforts for us in terms of picking up market share in a relatively short period of time.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I would only add a few years back, we actually rebranded Greektown to Hollywood at Greektown to help with that conversion. I think to all of Jay's points, the standalone casino app customer looks a lot like our retail slot player, and we're seeing great migration and cross-play between the two.

Speaker 1

The cross-sell between Sportsbook and iCasino has been very, very healthy. All the things we talked about that are going to drive new users top of funnel into ESPN Bet is also going to be very, very good for our casino business as well.

Great, thank you. Just a quick follow-up. Could or would the timing of Alberta in 2026 impact your 2026 profitability target?

It would not. When I say profitable in 2026, we know that Alberta is going to launch at some point in, we think, early 2026 from what we've been told. That's built into our assumptions. We're targeting right now Q1, which is the best information we have.

Great, thank you.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from Benjamin Nicolas Chaiken with Mizuho Securities USA LLC.

Hey, thanks. Maybe just stepping back, maybe you could further flesh out the opportunities you see to grow share in iGaming over time. What is the lowest hanging, maybe the largest opportunity? Unrelated, back on Felicia's commentary on 2026, did you say it'd be $50 million less cash taxes in 2026 and 2027, or were you saying the cash taxes were $50 million? Thanks.

In 2026, our cash taxes will be lower by $50 million in each of 2026 and 2027.

Speaker 1

Ben, on the iGaming question, I think we're seeing a lot of progress, as I noted just a moment ago, with regard to slot play and our slot mix, which makes sense, especially in Pennsylvania, where we have four land-based casinos, all branded Hollywood, and Michigan, where we have Hollywood Greektown, as Todd just referenced. I think the biggest opportunity for us is to make sure that if you're coming to visit our land-based properties and you're part of the Penn Play loyalty program, we're giving you every reason in the world when you're not with us, but you decide to game from home or outside the building, that you're doing that with Hollywood.

I would say, from a marketing strategy perspective, really making sure that we've got the right value proposition there in the loyalty program, mainly for slot players, because we know table play is more common coming from the cross-sell from within the sports betting app. Feel free to jump in if you have anything.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I don't know if you tracked the fact that a few months ago we launched a free-to-play game called Spin It, which has brought a lot of users into the platform to try the gaming, which has ultimately led to more cash players starting to play. That is going to continue to ramp. We are going to continue to get smarter about marketing and reactivation. We have a lot more automation coming as it relates to how we distribute offers and the targeted groups of which we distribute this to. We just feel we are really just getting started here. I mean, we got a fast start because of our retail database, and we are starting to engage them directly through digital mechanisms, and those are working really well, and we are just going to continue to do that.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Speaker 5

We'll take our next question from John G. DeCree with CBRE Securities.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Maybe for Jay or Felicia, kind of a financing question. You took $130 million from GLPI at 7.75% for Joliet. Could you give us some insight as to kind of how you evaluated that versus other alternatives, you know, whether it was cash on hand or revolver? I know you said in your prepared remarks, you'll kind of update us as you get closer to Columbus and M and how you'd fund those. If you could kind of give us some insight into the guideposts and how you're evaluating that in the context of share repurchases and so on and so forth.

Yeah, thanks, John. Implicit to your question is, we do balance all of those things when we make these decisions. You'll see when we file our 10-Q after the close today, we have drawn on our revolver versus the first quarter, mainly covering our share repurchases, but also the repurchase of our convertible notes. Our options for Joliet and our decision was, again, to further draw on the revolver, like you said, cash on hand, or go into the open markets or to use GLPI's balance sheet. For us, using GLPI's balance sheet was really the best and most prudent option that we considered at this point in time. We also, like I mentioned before, for M and Columbus, we also have the optionality around how to finance those projects. We'll approach each one of those as we get closer. For Aurora, as you know, we're committed to GLPI.

Thanks, Felicia. That's helpful. Maybe one more kind of in a similar capacity. We've gotten a couple of questions about PENN and your market access fees. Boyd had a unique transaction with FanDuel and as part of that monetized some market access fees. Is that a consideration or discussions? I know that was a unique situation, but in terms of a kind of a unique asset that you have, is that something that would be a possibility?

Speaker 1

Nothing to share on that right now, John. We have skin agreements that all are in that 10 to 20-year timeframe from when they were signed, and we feel like we're in a good spot right now. If there's something that we could do to monetize and it made sense strategically and both parties wanted to engage on that, of course, we would entertain and consider that. Nothing to share on that front right now.

Great. Thanks, Jay. I appreciate that.

One more question, Emma.

Speaker 5

We'll take our final question from Jeff Stantial with Stifel.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for squeezing us in. Two questions from us. One sort of high-level strategic and then one a bit more technical, maybe starting off with the more strategic question. Recognize it's only been a few months, but Jay, I'd love to just get any initial thoughts on some of the governance changes and in particular maybe some of the insights that Johnny has been able to bring to the table to help inform interactive strategy at what is, you know, clearly a sort of pivotal inflection point right now. If there are any sort of specific examples you can share to add some color, that would be appreciated as well. Thanks.

Speaker 1

You're referencing the two new board members, Carlos Ruiz-Sanchez and Johnny Hartnett. They joined our board in June, as you know, after the AGM. We've had several sessions with them, getting them up to speed, answering a lot of questions, and also engaging on the business, which is great. It's always nice to have fresh eyes and perspectives. I think specifically as it relates to Johnny, we've had a couple of calls, meetings with him. Obviously, really talented, very accomplished, and just brings a great perspective. We value that. It's great having discussions at the board level and people that bring different skills to the table. We've always valued that at PENN. I think Johnny and Carlos are bringing skills to the board that are different than other board profiles. I would say overall really good.

Nothing that I can share, obviously, in terms of what we discussed with our board members on this call. I would just say that they're as engaged as you would expect them to be. We're having really good conversations. We would expect that to continue as we move forward.

That's great. Thanks, Jay. Maybe sticking on interactive, some of the data in the states that are inter-recognized, it's not a perfect example, but the data out of the states that report promotional level disclosure seems to suggest that your promotional reinvestment on the sports side of things came in a bit Q2 and looks to be much lower and more rational than sort of market-wide levels, both the nominal now and also how much it declined by on a year-on-year basis. Jay or Todd, can you just unpack this a little bit more? Is this a function of user acquisition volumes and maturation in the velocity as ESPN Bet kind of continues to ramp? Is it more efficiencies related? Is there some element of iCasino ramping and allocation of promo and bonuses more over to iCasino from sports?

Any color on that would be helpful because I think it is an interesting trend. Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, I would say overall we really intend to be, you know, at market both with regard to OSB as well as iCasino. Last year we were in a different situation. This year, I think you've seen us really settle into that, you know, right around 3%, maybe a little south of 3% most months and most quarters on the OSB side. On the iCasino side, it's a lot more, I would say, just, you know, stable. You don't see the irrational spending as much as you do at times on the OSB side from, you know, one or two different competitors. We think we're at a good level of reinvestment right now with everything else that we have going on. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen our NGR share continue to grow, even though handle share has been more stable.

That's obviously important for us as it flows through the P&L.

Speaker 0

Yeah, we run these businesses together. When iCasino started to get a little traction, we kind of shift around during the slow sports season the last few months. We have to be creative and efficient in how we deploy our marketing resources. That is part of the decline you saw in OSB.

Great. Thank you both.

Speaker 1

All right. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you, everybody, for joining us on the call. Look forward to speaking with you again in. Remember,

Speaker 5

If you join us for the Joliet opening, we'll see you all next week. Thanks.

Speaker 2

This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.