Editor Spotlight: John Brennan
What was your first impression when you discovered Playboy was expanding into the iGaming industry and that you’d be joining the PlayboyCasino content team?
"The idea made complete sense to me immediately. We’re talking about a brand that offers information about a wide variety of topics that appeal to its core audience.
Beyond the obvious appeal of beautiful women, other areas of interest for this audience are fitness, nutrition, fashion, travel, and so forth. But they also tend to have another interest: legal, regulated gambling. My experience in writing about legalization efforts dates back more than 15 years, and that insight helps inform my current writing."
What would you say has been the most gratifying part of writing for the iGaming industry as a whole?
"There has been a mismatch in recent years between the level of consumer interest for gambling information and traditional media that has tended to overlook the topic, even at a local level.
Part of the reason is that many states only in recent years have authorized gambling, at which point staffing by mainstream media already was dwindling. It is rewarding to analyze aspects of gaming expansion that sometimes otherwise would go uncovered entirely."
Do you have any hopes or predictions for the future of iGaming?
"Many state budgets have been balanced for several years by emergency federal government funding that was provided at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that surplus, for the most part, has disappeared.
State lawmakers know that raising the sales tax or tacking on extra costs to all consumers is “bad for business,” in terms of holding onto office and perhaps advancing in state politics. The higher reliability of tax collection on a monthly basis from iGaming - as well as the prodigious amounts raised in pioneering states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan - seems like an inevitable lure to legislators. State residents who decline to gamble see tax revenue rise overall, at no cost to them."
What originally inspired you to become a casino and sports betting writer?
"I began covering Atlantic City casinos for The Bergen Record newspaper back in 2002, when the industry was still thriving. But in 2006, the opening of casinos in eastern Pennsylvania dealt a much harsher blow to those nearby New Jersey casinos than had been anticipated.
That left elected officials in the South Jersey region scrambling to find ways to support the area’s largest industry. After initial reluctance, the city’s casino executives warmed to the idea of a new revenue stream arising from partnerships with iGaming operators. The state thus authorized the first competitive iGaming market in the U.S. in 2013 - a year after I began covering what would become a landmark six-year battle in federal court over New Jersey’s sports betting laws. The rest, of course, is history."
Have you received any unique awards or public recognition as an iGaming writer, or as a professional/academic writer in any field?
"My Meadowlands Matters blog was chosen by the New Jersey Press Association in 2015 as the “Best Media Blog” - the first time the organization had presented such an award. Much of that coverage was about the economic struggles of the state’s casinos, as well as the real possibility that the state’s major horse racing tracks would be shuttered for good. Over the next six years, I also extensively covered the rise of iGaming on the blog, receiving recognition from the NJPA for a second time in 2016.
I was named as one of the "Gaming Twitter Accounts You Need To Follow In 2017" by uspoker.com, and my @BergenBrennan handle is still followed by thousands of national and international gaming executives.
My 18-month investigation of a doomed condominium and golf course project in the Meadowlands - literally, “The Swamps of Jersey” - resulted in 2008 in my work being chosen, along with my writing colleague Jeff Pillets, as one of two Pulitzer Prize Finalists in the category of Local Reporting. The same work also won for Outstanding Investigative Reporting, the highest honor of the U.S. Society of Environmental Journalists."
What would be your advice for anyone looking to become a professional writer in the iGaming industry?
"Get to know two particular sectors - politics, and finance. The dynamics in each statehouse are different, and understanding that prevailing sentiment makes the resulting coverage much clearer to readers.
The financial aspect of the gaming industry where the most mistakes tend to be made by reporters new to covering it. For instance, it is crucial to fully grasp the difference between sports betting handle and gross revenue of the sportsbooks, as well as keeping up with ever-changing tax rate proposals and other changes in the law. It probably would be easier to cover one particular region of the country at first, before eventually expanding to having a national feel for gaming news across the U.S."
What is your favorite niche within the industry? (sports betting, casino gambling, sweepstakes casinos, other)
"While iGaming provides a larger amount of tax revenue than sports betting, the latter is better understood by the typical consumer. That makes coverage of sports betting very appealing, but almost 40 states already have legalized it as of 2026.
So in the long run, that makes reporting on iGaming - with more than 40 states still having yet to legalize it - the better bet for journalists. I also may be unusual in that I actually look forward to reading extensive dueling briefs in gambling lawsuits. I see it as an opportunity to uncover the most intriguing nuggets of information that too often are almost hidden in a vast number of pages."