ESPN Bet to Shutter its Doors as Network Turns to DraftKings

By: Devin Erickson-Sheehy Published 11/06/2025, 12:20 PM ET

The sports-media and betting worlds are shifting again. ESPN Bet will end it's short run of just a little more than two years, closing on December 1, 2025, and rebranding as theScore Bet.

ESPN remains among the largest and most influential media platforms in the sports world, but they will be bowing out of the betting operator game, agreeing to a new partnership with DraftKings as their official odds provider.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s changing at ESPN and the fallout for its betting venture.

ESPN Bet Winds Down

Back in 2023 the goals were lofty, as ESPN Bet seemed to make a significant mark on the US sports betting landscape and challenge some the already established best sportsbooks.

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Launched in partnership with PENN Entertainment in 2023 under a 10-year, approximately $1.5 billion licensing deal, the newly minted sportsbook aimed to carve out a major share of the U.S. online sports-betting market. However, results fell well short of expectations: by early 2025 PENN estimated its share around 4.7 %, far below the original target.

Today, the companies announced a mutual termination of the deal, effective December 1, 2025. At that point, ESPN BET will cease operating in its current form, and PENN will rebrand the platform to theScore Bet.

This move comes amid other pressures: not only underperformance, but also optics challenges around gambling and sports coverage — ESPN reportedly removed its own sportsbook branding temporarily during coverage of a gambling-ring arrest (“a banner for ESPN BET was removed mid-segment”)

ESPN Turns to DraftKings

While the ESPN–PENN venture winds down, ESPN isn’t entirely exiting sports betting.

ESPN (owned by Disney) announced a new collaboration with DraftKings Inc.. Under a new multiyear deal announced in early November 2025, DraftKings becomes ESPN’s official sportsbook and odds-provider.

Beginning December 1, DraftKings’ products will integrate more fully into ESPN’s ecosystem. In short: ESPN shifts from producing a branded sportsbook platform to embedding an already-dominant operator’s tools within its media footprint.

The move comes amid in ongoing probe into an illegal NBA betting scandal, with an investigation that has extended into the college game. Look for college basketball picks to come under increased scrutiny in the months ahead.

What it Means

For sports-media and betting audiences, there are several key takeaways:

Brand strategy rethink: ESPN’s move away from being a direct-operator of a sportsbook to being more of a partner/embedded platform suggests it views the betting business less as a standalone product and more as an integrated component of its broader media strategy.
Competitive realities: The struggle of ESPN BET to gain share against entrenched players shows the difficulty of entering a heavily saturated, highly regulated market, even with a marquee media brand behind it..
Regulatory/optics advantage: By outsourcing the core betting operations while supplying media and promotion, ESPN mitigates some potential conflicts of interest inherent in running a sportsbook while also covering sports news and gambling stories.

In summary: the era of ESPN as a branded betting operator is ending, but the network’s betting ambitions remain very much alive — now executed via one of the industry’s strongest incumbents.

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