Closed and Renamed Betting Brands

Betting brands disappear more often than the industry's advertising suggests, and they rarely disappear quietly — they are closed, sold, or renamed as part of a transaction that a listed company has to disclose. That makes the end of a brand one of the few things in this industry that can be dated precisely.

The dated entries on this page come from companies' own filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. A second section lists brands retired from this site as editorial decisions, where in all but one case no filing gives a date — labelled as such, because a list of dead bookmakers assembled from recollection would be the least reliable page here.

FOX Bet — Announced 2019, Closed August 2023

On 8 May 2019 The Stars Group and FOX Sports announced a partnership: the announcement stated that "The Stars Group and FOX Sports expect to launch two products in the Fall of 2019 under the FOX Bet umbrella", one of them a real-money sportsbook "in states with regulated betting", under a commercial agreement running up to 25 years.

The same document lists The Stars Group's existing brands, BetStars among them — "including PokerStars, PokerStars Casino, BetStars, Full Tilt, BetEasy, Sky Bet…". FOX Bet is announced there as a new product — "The second product, which will be named FOX Bet" — rather than as a renaming, and no filing cited here says FOX Bet replaced BetStars or records when BetStars ended.

Flutter Entertainment — which had by then acquired The Stars Group — recorded the end in its annual report on Form 10-K filed 26 February 2026, referring to "cost savings from the closure of FOX Bet in August 2023" — and putting a figure on what the brand had been costing, an adjusted EBITDA improvement of $46 million once it was gone.

Barstool Sportsbook → ESPN Bet → theScore Bet

The clearest example of how quickly a major American brand can be replaced — twice.

On 8 August 2023, PENN Entertainment announced an exclusive United States online sports betting agreement with ESPN. The announcement stated: "The online Barstool Sportsbook will be rebranded ESPN Bet in the Fall of 2023; theScore Bet will continue to operate in Canada." PENN had secured the ESPN Bet trademark for an initial ten-year term, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion in cash over that term plus warrants.

ESPN Bet has since been replaced in turn. In its results announcement of 26 February 2026, PENN reported that it had "successfully rebranded our U.S. online sportsbook to theScore Bet", describing December 2025 as "our first month operating as theScore Bet in the U.S." — so the Canadian brand replaced the American one, rather than the other way round.

Three brands on one sportsbook in a little over two years. For anyone wondering why a betting account's name sometimes changes without the product changing, this is the usual reason: the licence, the platform and the customer accounts stay where they are, and the brand on the front is a commercial arrangement that can be re-let.

William Hill US → Caesars Sportsbook

William Hill's United States business did not close; it was absorbed. Caesars Entertainment's quarterly report for the first quarter of 2022 describes the change in its own segment language: “The William Hill Acquisition and rebranding of our interactive business (formerly, Caesars Interactive Entertainment “CIE” and now, inclusive of William Hill US, “Caesars Digital”)” — and notes the marketing campaign that accompanied "the launch and rebranding of the Caesars Sportsbook app".

The William Hill brand continues outside the United States, which is a useful reminder that a brand's disappearance is often geographic rather than total.

Brands Retired From This Site, and Where Their Reviews Now Go

Alongside the closures above, a number of operator reviews on this site were retired because the brand no longer serves the markets covered here. Three were redirected to a successor confirmed to be operating: PointsBet's United States business to Fanatics, TVG to FanDuel Racing, and BetAmerica to TwinSpires, which now covers racing only.

Nine more had no successor on this platform and their reviews point at the reviews index instead: Sportito, Barstool, FOX Bet, Unikrn, BetRegal, BetStars, FantasyBet, PlayOn and Premier Punt.

Those nine are listed as editorial decisions rather than as dated closures — the redirect map's own note for them is that they are dead brands with no on-platform successor. One of the nine is dated above by a filing: FOX Bet's closure in August 2023. Barstool's rebranding is announced in a filing but as a plan ("will be rebranded"), not recorded after the event. For the remaining seven, no filing found gives a date, so none is given here.

What This Means for a Customer of a Brand That Disappears

A rebrand and a closure are very different events for anyone holding a balance. In a rebrand the licence and the customer accounts usually move intact, and the practical effect is a new name on the app. A closure puts the question of who is holding the money and on what terms — and the answer depends on the regime the operator was licensed under. Under the Gambling Commission's licence conditions, for example, a British-licensed remote operator holding customer money "must ensure that these are held in a separate client bank account or accounts". Regulated versus unregulated markets covers what else a licence requires.

For the operators currently covered here, see the reviews index.