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Penn Entertainment restructures approach towards online casino gaming
Penn Entertainment, which operates Hollywood Casino, restructured corporate leadership to reflect the company's commitment to the online casino industry moving forward.
After years of attempting to carve out a significant share of the legal online sports betting market, Penn Entertainment announced a restructuring of its corporate organizational leadership to reflect the company's new focus moving forward. In a press release, Penn detailed a realignment geared towards leveraging its retail casino business.
Penn shifts focus more toward online casino gaming
As part of the corporate restructuring, chief technology officer and head of interactive Aaron LaBerge will take over Penn's IT functions, which will put him in charge of all the company's retail casino, casino app and security operations, among other duties.
LaBerge steps in as Penn sees the exits of Todd George (executive vice president of operations) and Rich Primus (senior vice president and chief information officer). By eliminating those positions and bringing in LeBerge, Penn's hope is to reduce redundancies throughout the company while accelerating the company's ability to build and launch new products and "omnichannel capabilities."
According to the announcement, chief marketing officer Jennifer Weissman will work closely with LaBerge to enhance the Penn Play loyalty program and maximize omnichannel results.
Jay Snowden, Penn's president and CEO, called the corporate reorganization an effort to deepen customer engagement across all channels. That includes via its Hollywood Casino app, which offers online casino games for real money in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Penn will be searching for a digital chief operating officer to help oversee day-to-day operations of the interactive gaming segment of the company.
Penn looks to gain traction in online casino market
The timing of Penn's corporate restructuring comes just a few months after the company mutually agreed with ESPN to terminate their legal sports betting venture in ESPN Bet. Penn has since rebranded its legal sportsbook as theScore Bet.
But Penn has not found much success in the regulated betting industry, despite investing some $4 billion in various products – including theScore, ESPN Bet and Barstool Sports – over the past few years.
That said, with its sportsbook and online casino products, Penn has seen the average age of its customers drop by about seven years compared with seven years ago. Now the company will offer more effort and resources toward the iGaming segment as Penn looks to turn a profit with Hollywood Casino.
According to an earnings call toward the end of 2025, Penn highlighted a 79% growth in monthly active users – undoubtedly bolstered by the standalone Hollywood Casino app, which went live in December 2024.
