Penn Entertainment CEO Buys $500K Worth of Casino Stock
Posted on: November 12, 2025, 11:13h.
Last updated on: November 12, 2025, 11:39h.
- Penn CEO Snowden buys stock following post-earnings dip
- He bought 34,700 shares, boosting his holdings to more than 1.11 million
- Investors remain critical of stock’s performance under his leadership
Penn Entertainment (NASDAQ: PENN) CEO Jay Snowden took advantage of a post-earnings decline by the casino stock to add to his holdings.
A new Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicates the chief executive officer purchased 34,700 shares of the regional casino, worth approximately $500K, on November 7 – the day after Penn delivered third-quarter results. On the day it delivered that report, the gaming company also told investors it’s ending the ESPN Bet relationship with ESPN.
Snowden paid an average price of $14.32 per share, and the November 7 buying lifts his holdings in his employers’ stock to more than 1.11 million shares. It appears as though he was prescient with that buying activity because the gaming stock resides around $15.40 at this writing. It was his first disclosed purchase of Penn equity in 13 months.
Snowden’s purchase of his employer’s stock may signal a vote of confidence in the operator’s digital gaming pivot and its regional casinos, but the chief executive’s office didn’t comment to that effect. In many cases, corporate insiders buy their company’s stock because they believe it is undervalued and poised to appreciate.
Penn Entertainment Investors Still Critical of Snowden
To his credit, Snowden is a buyer of Penn stock at a time when some gaming executives aren’t rushing to buy their employers’ shares, and as insider sales at some competitors remain prominent. Still, investors have been critical of Snowden’s performance as CEO.
He took the helm of the regional casino operator at the start of 2020, and over the past five years, the stock has shed almost 76% of its value, badly trailing rival Boyd Gaming (NYSE: BYD) over that span. Las Vegas-based Boyd climbed 143% over that period. During that time, Penn also lagged pure-play sports betting equities, which isn’t saying much because they delivered tepid showings, as well as broader measures of gaming stocks.
Penn’s sagging stock price during Snowden’s tenure sparked criticism from some large shareholders who chastised the board of directors for indulging the CEO’s online sports betting whims and lavishly compensating him while the stock stumbled.
Last year, the Donerail Group pushed Penn to consider selling itself, and earlier this year, hedge fund HG Vora waged a proxy war in a bid to get three directors placed on Penn’s board. It was successful in landing two of those candidates on the board.
Moving Away from ESPN Bet Could Help
Following Penn’s pulling of the plug on the ESPN Bet partnership, the consensus on Wall Street is that an overhang has been removed from the Penn investment thesis. That could pave the way for the operator to refocus its story on iGaming and regional casinos.
In a recent report, Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon, who rates Penn “outperform,” said the move “derisks the Penn value story.”
“We reiterate our Outperform call given potential value if PENN can execute, but acknowledge the margin for error is razor-thin. PENN is well-positioned given recession-resilient history; we think the thesis rests on online momentum in the US/Canada,” he wrote.
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