Disney and ESPN bet big on entering gambling arena – but will they win?

The biggest name in US sports broadcasting has graduated from covering gambling to promoting it in an about-face for Bob Iger and a sign of turbulent times

Disney's dim view of betting changed little in the decades since the 1940 film of Pinocchio, when the puppet visits the cursed Pleasure Island and gambling is one of the vices seducing children who turn into donkeys.

As recently as 2019, the CEO, Bob Iger, declared: I don't see The Walt Disney Company, certainly in the near term, getting involved in the business of gambling, in effect, by facilitating gambling in any way."