US media group The Walt Disney Company is expanding its presence in the gambling industry by entering the sports betting market in partnership with gaming company Penn Entertainment. With ESPN Bet, the two companies aim to establish a new betting provider on the market. But what are the reasons for the long-established entertainment company Walt Disney to enter the betting business?

In the recent past, we at GambleJoe have reported several times on companies from the entertainment industry that are more or less turning to the gambling industry. Back in September 2021, for example, we reported that streaming service DAZN was planning to open a betting shop. Now it seems that multi-billion dollar media company Walt Disney is also looking to get into the lucrative betting business.

Penn Entertainment acquires stake in ESPN Bet betting company

According to the latest information, the Californian media group Disney is planning to enter the sports betting business. To this end, Disney will partner with the experienced gaming company Penn Entertainment to establish the ESPN Bet brand in the US market. ESPN is an existing Disney sports channel. Recently, however, the sports channel has been struggling with high costs and declining subscriber numbers, so it is apparently looking for new sources of revenue and wants to enter the betting business.

Under the terms of the agreement, Penn will pay Disney-owned ESPN the equivalent of around €1.37 billion, as well as warrants worth around half a billion US dollars.

How do the current plans affect Disney's image?

Disney's new presence in the sports betting market does not really come as a surprise, especially to many pundits. After all, Walt Disney bought about a third of the betting company BAMtech in 2016 for one billion US dollars. Since then, Disney has offered extensive betting data on ESPN and can also show the ESPN+ online stream. With so many big-name companies now involved in the lucrative gambling industry, Walt Disney's image is unlikely to suffer as a result.

With annual revenues of nearly $75 billion, Walt Disney is one of the five largest media companies in the world. The company was founded in October 1923 and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Its headquarters are in Burbank, California. Disney's most successful films include The Jungle Book (1967), The Lion King (1994), Bambi (1942) and The Ice Queen (2013).

Image source: https://pixabay.com/de/photos/walt-disney-welt-disney-welt-disney-239144/

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