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Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy says he is finally through gambling - for good this time - after he got a beat down betting the Bills-Eagles game late Sunday afternoon.
“I quit gambling. F–k Buffalo,” Portnoy tweeted.
And, like many gamblers, he too is blaming the referees.
He tweeted:
"I bet the Bills big tonight. Refs were horrible. But bottom line is a high school team can complete the play to the end zone from the 25 that would have ended it. That's it. Nobody else to blame."
Portnoy made out like a bandit buying back Barstool Sports from Penn National over the summer.
Penn sold 100% of the outstanding shares of Barstool back to him “in exchange for certain non-compete and other restrictive covenants.”
Barstool Sports was fully acquired by Penn Entertainment in $388 million deal earlier in the year. Penn paid about $388 million for the remaining stake in Barstool Sports that it did not already own and that made Portnoy very rich.
But Portnoy also admitted his degenerate gambling made it hard for Penn to obtain licensing in certain states. Still others threatened to pull existing licenses.
“[W]e underestimated just how tough it is for myself and Barstool to operate in a regulated world, where gambling regulators, the New York Times [and] Business Insider hit pieces, fucking with the stock price every time did something,” Portnoy said in an “emergency press conference” video posted on X (aka Twitter) Tuesday.
“We got denied [gambling] licenses because of me, you name it,” Portnoy said. “So the regulated industry [is] probably not the best place for Barstool Sports and the type of content we make.”
The Barstool Sportsbook rebranded as ESPN Bet and that could prove to be a nightmare for one of the world's leading sports media companies as gamblers are already voicing outrage over odd rules typically not found with competing brands.
- Dan Shapiro, Gambling911.com
