What is Penn National Gaming?
Penn National Gaming is one of the United States’ biggest and most diverse gaming companies. They have a land based presence in over 19 states that is comprised of 41 properties and counting.
Penn National Gaming also has a serious online gaming presence in terms of online casinos, and online sports betting platforms amongst other offerings for consumers. It is a publicly traded company that is listed on one of the biggest stock exchanges in the world – Nasdaq. In order for a company to be listed for trading stocks on Nasdaq, it needs to meet at least 1 of 4 sets of listing requirements which includes the requirement for the company to have a minimum 1,250,000 publicly traded shares upon listing, excluding those held by officers, directors or any beneficial owners of more that 10% of the company.
To give you a further overview, Penn National owns over 50,000 stand alone gaming machines, 1300 land based tables for table games and also operates in excess of 8,800 hotel rooms. They also own and manage several online gambling platforms through various brands and collaborations.
Stock value of Penn National Gaming unstable at this time
If you have stocks in Penn National, these are certain interesting times because the stock value seems to be erratic mostly because of the many direct and indirect implications that the pandemic has had.
NASDAQ:PENN went up by a striking 42.7% in September as per data from the S&P Global Market Intelligence. Back in January, Penn National bought a 36% stake in Barstool Sports. The value surged at that time, mostly driven by forecasted success of the anxiously awaited Barstool Sportsbook Gambling app.
Add to this that there were a lot of major sporting events underway and transpiring in September, stock prices seem to be on a steady incline.
However, there was a period where sports were restricted in many ways due to the pandemic and that certainly affected the Penn National stock for a time period. Angie Harper from FlashCasino.org commented on the 2 forces dragging Penn up and down, “The acquisition of Barstool stake coupled with the release of the Barstool sports betting app has sent the stock sky rocketing, only to be kept in check by the Pandemic that seems to be coming back with a vengeance in what people are calling the second wave. This hugely affected the balance sheets at their physical casinos and hotels.
How was the Barstools Sports betting app received?
It is safe to say, Barstool sports betting app’s launch was a success. After its launch in the third week of September, it took the poll position of the No.1 sports betting app in the iTunes app store in record time. In fact, the rate at which the Barstool sports betting app was downloaded is reported to have been 4 times that of the other biggest players in the game – DraftKings and FanDuel, in the initial few weeks of their launch.
Big Deal
Should you buy yourself some Penn?
It is hard to say, but we can help you do some due diligence before you decide to buy stocks or if you already have stocks, before you decide to sell them and capitalize on the astronomical rise thus far.
To begin with, you should know that Penn has gone up 185% already for 2020 and the company sold even more stock just recently to profit from this wild surge. If there are some reasons to buy Penn stocks or hang on to the Penn stocks you already have, it is probably the fact that most major sporting seasons are back underway in full swing. With a lot of people confined to their homes in quarantine, they may be willing to spend more on sports betting rather than other forms of entertainment that they would have access to if the pandemic never happened.
Secondly, if you are thinking of buying and holding on the longer run, you ought to feel assured by the fact that online gambling market is expected to grow at alarming rates over the next half a decade. That should see companies like Barstool, DraftKings and FanDuel all doing well. Furthermore, Barstools enormous social media following is certainly going to play to their advantage when it comes to promotions and taking over the market share from their competitors. Penn has purchased just a third of the stakes of Barstool at this time. However, the contracts do make provisions for Penn to expand that and own half of Barstool’s empire.
On the flip side, the number one reason to sell Penn stocks would be because you might not see the rates this high again. Furthermore, Penn owns a huge number of land-based gambling centers and hotels which are weighing it down under the on-going pandemic.
If you decide to hang on to your Penn stocks or buy further in, it is likely that the ride is going to be a bit bumpy. If we do know one thing – Penn stocks are volatile right now and the economic climate seems to have gone off the deep end.
