It’s fair to say Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden is bullish on the company’s recent performance. During Thursday’s first quarter earnings call, Snowden noted visitation rates at brick-and-mortar casinos are on the upswing, physical improvements and openings at brick-and-mortar sites are ongoing, and Penn’s igaming business is improving.
“Theoretical revenue growth across all of our rated worth segments, represents the largest quarterly increase in three years for the retail segment,” Snowden said.
Penn Entertainment reported revenues of $1.4 billion for the quarter. Segment Adjusted EBITDAR was $471.4 million.
The interactive segment generated revenues of $358.3 million, with an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $20 million, attributable to Penn’s launch of theScore Bet in Alberta, Canada.
“I said during our last earnings call that 2026 would be a year of strong execution for Penn,” Snowden noted. “While we have the rest of the year still to deliver, I’m happy to report we’re off to a great start. Looking ahead, we will remain laser focused on improving our free cash flow generation while optimizing our corporate overhead and remaining disciplined with our capital.”
Penn’s regional properties continue to perform strongly. Citing properties such as Bossier City in Louisiana and Council Bluffs in Nebraska, Snowden said they remain strong performers because, in part, higher gas prices have not been a deterrent.
“The vast majority of our customers in the regional portfolio come from within a 30-minute drive,” Snowden said. “You’re probably not making a decision on the price of gas as to whether you’re visiting casino once every week or two weeks, or once a month, because it’s not going to cost you much to get there.”
There has been increased competition from prediction markets concerning online sports betting acquisition. Snowden acknowledged there has been ”pressure on the customer acquisition cost side as it relates to sports betting,” but Penn is focusing on the July 13 launch of theScore Bet and online casino in Alberta, Canada.
“We feel really good about the setup there,” Snowden said. “We’ve done, obviously, a lot of analysis on what worked for us with the Ontario launch, what maybe didn’t. We’re doing more of the right things, and we expect to deliver market share results in Alberta that would look very similar to what we’ve generated in Ontario, where we continue to have momentum.”
Penn Entertainment Chief Technology Officer and Head of Interactive Aaron LaBerge said revenue growth in Canada during March was “very strong.”
“I just think it’s important to note our stand-alone casino growth (in the U.S.) is very heavy,” LaBerge said. “We’re setting record revenues there. Growth and acquisition continue to be strong. We’re seeing some softness on the OSB side, but we’re offsetting that with our discipline spend and reinvestment in the areas that matter.”
LaBerge noted that marketing spend in OSB-only states has decreased because it wasn’t yielding results.
“We’re focused in hybrid states that have both icasino and sports betting,” LaBerge said. “And of course, standalone is showing a lot of great momentum, so we’re spending there. And then Canada is starting to pick up as well, so we’re spending there. We have a lot of levers to move around to make sure our marketing is working in the best way for us, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Jefferies analyst David Katz said the firm is neutral on Penn’s outlook.
“The mixed segment performance vs. our estimates, albeit modestly higher than Street consensus, coupled with the update lower interactive guidance, are generally neutral for the shares in our view,” Katz wrote in a note. “We note the strong performance of new and forthcoming land-based capital investments, which are positives, offset by continued appropriate over-weighting of the interactive business and its expected earnings headwind in 2026.”
