Barstool Heads To Philadelphia Ahead Of Sportsbook Launch
You don’t have to spend too much time reading the tea leaves to know that Penn National is counting down the days until its Barstool sports betting app makes its debut in Pennsylvania.
The latest evidence of an imminent launch is an August 21 tweet from barstool founder Dave Portnoy. In the tweet, Portnoy announced he’s moving to Philadelphia, and apparently bringing along many of the company’s top personalities.
Sports betting is the obvious driving force behind Portnoy’s planned move to Philly. Pennsylvania is ground zero for the Barstool sports betting app, and it will only be available to customers within the state’s borders. In Philadelphia, Portnoy and other Barstool personalities will be able to bet on the app and advertise the company’s sportsbook through their various media channels.
What we Know About the Barstool App
The Barstool sports betting app is slated to launch in Q3 (July 1 – September 30), so it appears to be on schedule.
Developed for Penn National-Barstool in conjunction with Kambi, the app is still unseen, but Kambi has a proven track record of success in the US, where it powers several high-profile sports betting apps.
Kambi is a leading B2B sports betting supplier that offers its partners a highly customizable platform for the partner’s forward-facing brand. That includes providing the partner with the capability to tweak lines and margins. That last part is essential, considering Barstool’s user base is supposedly made up of savvy sports bettors (more on this in the next header).
“We’re very excited about the Barstool Sports launch planned for Q3,” Max Meltzer, the chief commercial officer at Kambi told Betting USA in a recent interview. “They’ve got a fantastic database, a very different database than others, and we think they’re developing interesting technology and hiring fantastic people. That’s going to be really exciting for Penn National.”
Can Barstool Mobilize Stoolies?
When it comes to the Barstool audience, there are two competing theories:
- Barstool possesses an incredibly loyal, highly engaged database filled with easy to convert sports bettors and numerous current bettors that will jump ship to Barstool.
- The value of Barstool’s database is overstated, as is its ability to cannibalize other operators and convert its audience to real-money sports bettors.
To put it another way, much like a get-out-the-vote effort during an election, it will come down to enthusiasm. We’ll soon have a definitive answer when it comes to how motivated and devoted the Barstool audience is.
My guess is Barstool’s audience will, at the very least, give their app a chance and add it to the carousel of online sportsbooks they frequent.
But it could be much better than that. Barstool’s core following has no issue shelling out money for Barstool merchandise or to support one of the many fundraisers the site runs. Basically, “Stoolies” are already monetized.
Don’t Forget About Penn National
The Barstool database is only one part of the equation. Penn and Barstool have a second Ace up their collective sleeve that few people are discussing, Penn National’s database.
Unlike the Barstool database, believed to contain existing sports bettors, the theory is the Penn National database is made up of casino gamblers from the company’s many regional casino properties and is mostly untapped.
That combination makes the Penn-Barstool sportsbook the most interesting second-wave entrant into the legal US sports betting space, and why it has the potential to shake up the market.
Steve Ruddock is the content director for BettingUSA and the Editor-in-Chief of Gaming Law Review.
Steve has covered the legal and legislative developments in the US gambling sector for more than a decade for online and print publications.
