CEO Shuffle at BetMGM Amid Strong Growth and Earnings

Watch CEO Shuffle at BetMGM Amid Strong Growth and Earnings - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

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00:00All right, so Sam, a new article over at Legal Sports Report, a shakeup again with Entain Bet MGM.

00:07What is the reasoning behind them, you know, flopping around, flip-flopping around their CEOs?

00:12Is it not bringing in enough money? Is it just some leadership change, structural change?

00:17Because any time this happens, I like to dive a little deeper into the reasoning.

00:21Yeah, for sure. It's got everyone kind of scratching their head around the industry as to why this happened.

00:26This was Gavin Isaacs was Entain's CEO.

00:30He was appointed just about six months ago after coming from OpenBet,

00:34which was a really successful sports betting technology company that ended up selling for about a billion dollars.

00:39He had basically just been getting on the job, had just touted how well their early returns are in 2025,

00:47saying he was optimistic for the rest of the year.

00:49But just yesterday, it was announced that he's stepping down immediately,

00:53and he will be replaced by Stella David, who was the interim CEO while they were searching for another CEO.

01:00But no explanation has really been given so far why he left.

01:05Entain is the parent company of Bet MGM. They split the joint venture with MGM.

01:10If you go on his LinkedIn, it just says taking a break.

01:12So it's really interesting when you talk about, you know, they have earnings coming up,

01:16and he had just been on the record saying that he thinks the company is doing really well.

01:21So we're still searching for answers as to why he left. Maybe he did just need a break.

01:25We'll see how the company pivots. Their stock price took a pretty hefty hit from this unexpected news.

01:31Again, happening right before earnings isn't a great look.

01:33It fell about 11 percent in London yesterday, which is a huge hit for a really major gambling company.

01:40But Bet MGM had been doing well as of late. Their iGaming revenue is up about 13 percent on the year.

01:46Sports betting revenue is up about 4 percent.

01:49A lot of that was thanks to investments that were made under Isaacs.

01:52They bought Angstrom Sports last year, the sports betting technology company,

01:57and made a real priority of integrating those capabilities with their offerings on their sportsbook.

02:04They had increased activity on parlays with the MLB, the NFL.

02:08Everything was kind of looking up after they announced that we kind of need to make this pivot

02:12and focus on our American products more, make them more tailored to U.S. bettors.

02:16So we'll see what Stella David says in a few weeks when they hold their earnings call.

02:21I'm sure there will be a lot more questions. Maybe we'll get some more answers.

02:25But yeah, really interesting sudden move.

02:27You have to wonder why a guy just appointed would leave at the start of the new year.