theScore Bet Will Cease United States Sportsbook Operations to Focus on Canada Sports Betting Market Starting July 1

Big news is happening with theScore Bet. The Canada-based company will be leaving the United States sports betting market. theScore Bet will instead be focusing on its Canadian operations in the sports betting world.

theScore Bet has not been able to make its mark and earn a good share of the United States sports betting market. So, starting July 1, the Score Bet will be shuttering its sportsbook operations in the United States. This means that theScore Bet sportsbooks in Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, as well as New Jersey will cease to operate at that time.

theScore Bet will then be shifting its focus to the Ontario sports betting market, where the company has seen greater success with its sportsbook due to theScore already having a media site in Canada.

The president and COO of theScore, Benjie Levy, indicated that something like this has been the plan for a while. When Penn National Gaming bought theScore, the plan at the time was to continue to grow and focus on the Barstool Sportsbook brand when it comes to the United States sports betting market. At the same time, the hope was to use theScore Bet and theScore’s Canadian brand recognition to push theScore Bet in Canada.

Levy indicated that theScore Bet has done quite well in the Ontario sports betting market since it went live a few months ago. In the next few months, the company will be launching a risk and trading service which will be proprietary. Levy feels now is the best time to set the efforts in the United States all in on Barstool Sportsbook and the efforts in Canada all in on theScore Bet.

That way, he feels that both brands will be able to maximize their strengths and value and their prospective fanbase. The strategy also includes incorporating the media app for theScore with Barstool Sportsbook for the operations in the United States, which should be happening soon. The hope is that bringing these two portions together, the media site and the sportsbook, will help reach more customers and strengthen the product offered to audiences in the United States.

Starting June 15, bets will no longer be accepted on theScore Bet in the United States. However, bets that have already been made that will finish prior to July 1 will still be completed for users. Any bets that have been made that are set to finish after that date will receive attention from the company when they reach out to those bettors.

Any funds that remain in a user’s account that have not been withdrawn prior to July 1 will be dealt with as well. Those funds will be mailed via check to the user or deposited to the user using another depositing method.

In 2020, for a price of $136 million, Penn National bought a 36% stake of Barstool. In 2021, for a price of $2.1 billion, Penn National also bought theScore.

At this time, Barstool Sportsbook has launched in twelve states in the United States. This includes the four previously mentioned states where theScore Bet will cease to operate on July 1 — Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, as well as New Jersey. There are plans from Penn National to, in the future, move Barstool to theScore’s betting platform that is in-house.

theScore is based out of Toronto, so this will give the operator the ability to focus on the Ontario sports betting market. However, since the launch of commercial sports betting operators in Ontario in April, regulators in the province have not released any information about how the sportsbooks are faring.

That said, there is information that indicates theScore Bet is faring pretty well in the Ontario sports betting market. For one, theScore is the most popular sports media app in Canada, a title it held prior to the launch of the commercial sports betting market in Ontario.

This is in contrast to the impact, or lack thereof, that theScore has been able to make in the United States sports betting market. In the month of April, in the state of Indiana, theScore Bet was only able to take in less than 1% of the sports betting market share. In the state of Iowa, combining theScore Bet and Barstool Sportsbook, they were only able to take in a market share of 5.1% in that same month.

theScore Bet is not the first sportsbook operator to shut down or scale back operations in the United States of late. Churchill Downs, back in February, announced that it would be shuttering its online sportsbook and casino operations in the United States. This was after replacing its brand of BetAmerica with its own TwinSpires brand in 2021, which unfortunately did not pay off.

In addition, Caesars Sportsbook and WynnBet have decided to reel in their spending for marketing over the last few months.

Hopefully this new strategy pays off for Penn National when it comes to Barstool Sportsbook and theScore Bet.

Written by Allie Nelson, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert.

The featured image for this post was sourced on Getty Images.