• PENN has responded to HG Vora’s latest criticism of its management and business practices
• The company called the claims made in a recent presentation to shareholders false and unsubstantiated
• HG Vora accused of seeking to exercise control and influence on PENN while disregarding the gaming regulatory regime

PENN Entertainment and HG Vora are back at loggerheads – or perhaps they have never moved past their initial disagreement to begin with.

Following a fresh assault on the brand’s credibility by the activist investor last week, during which HG Vora shared a 116-page investor presentation that made multiple allegations against the current management and directly blamed it for the company’s current underperformance, PENN Entertainment issued a statement criticizing the shareholder.

PENN Entertainment is unhappy with HG Vora’s continued assault on its credibility

PENN Entertainment stated that it had attempted to reach a good-faith settlement with the investor, noting that 25% of its current Board of Directors comprises individuals nominated by HG Vora.

However, the company acknowledged that it could not meet all of the investors' demands. A key point of contention was HG Vora’s effort to nominate multiple individuals to the Board, two of whom were successfully appointed, while a third nominee was rejected.

Regardless, PENN Entertainment largely believed the matter closed until HG Vora issued its latest salvo against the company’s management, and the chronic underperformance of the ESPN Bet brand, which replaced the Barstool Sports brand in one of the strangest decision-making the industry has seen.

In 2020, the company agreed to buy Barstool Sports for $551m but ended up selling it back to its original owner, David Portnoy, for $1, making way for ESPN Bet.

HG Vora criticizes management, PENN calls claims false

In the same stride, HG Vora criticized PENN Entertainment's stock performance and the fact that the company’s executives continued to pay for themselves lavish packages, as well as using private jets at a time when financial performance could hardly justify it.

For its part, PENN Entertainment has rebuffed those claims as spurious and issued a statement in which it countered the claims made by HG Vora:

"Nevertheless, last week, HG Vora issued a 116-page investor presentation full of false claims and mischaracterizations about the Company. Today we issued an addendum to our May 15, 2025 Fact Sheet to set the record straight on these false mischaracterizations."

The company accused HG Vora of disregarding gaming regulations while it attempted to exercise control and influence over the company. PENN Entertainment said that while claims of management enriching themselves unfairly or using corporate jets for private matters were "good headlines," they hardly reflected the facts.

The stipulations made by HG Vora, the company added, were simply not based on fact.

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