TheScore stands out as a unique story in the gambling space. As so many operators start to compete in the U.S. space, theScore comes from a media background, but with plenty of name recognition. To understand the company’s path, our Becky Liggero Fontana spoke with John Levy, CEO of theScore.

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TheScore came to the gambling industry gradually, and from learning its own lessons in its previous expertise. “Our origins were a TV network in Canada and then through that we developed this digital world of the mobile app and we’re like the second most popular app in North America, ESPN is number one, were number two,” Levy began. “And we’ve always known that a high percentage of all the people who engage with us bet on sports. So it seemed unfulfilling for us just to become the super affiliate we looked at the market we said look the best thing to do is just go all-in. And we said, are we licensable? Absolutely because we kept ourselves perfectly clean for the last twenty years, hoping and praying that sports betting was gonna open up. Had to cut some deal, so we got a deal with Bet.Works, that allowed us to do the backend technology. Then we met Dennis Drazen from Monmouth Park, and that got us our license in New Jersey. And boom, five weeks ago we launched in New Jersey, we’re literally the only sports media company that’s actually the operator. We’re the bookie, and we’re having a lot of fun, and we’re learning like crazy. It’s amazing.”

While theScore is building up its gambling cred in New Jersey, they already have plans to expand further, starting with a deal with Penn National.”We’ve always said the New Jersey was just our entrance point, right?” he asked. “And our users, 65% of all of our users on our app come from the States. You know, we have 4 to 5 million average monthly users, they hit our app 100 plus times a month. This is always about doing a national footprint, but we have to do it on a state-by-state basis which is fine with us. So our options were one of two things: either we go state by state, or we find a bigger company, a gaming company, that actually kind of thought like us, and thinks like us, and they’re not many of them around. Like there’s a lot of the big guys, the MGM’s. They’re kind of stuck in legacy land and they got a lot of other interests to protect, huge revenue streams.”