Barclays Initiates Rush Street Interactive At Overweight With $24 Target
Analyst Brandt Montour says BetRivers parent Rush Street Interactive's gamified promotions and Latin American growth justify a bullish call despite a smaller marketing footprint than its largest rivals.
Barclays analyst Brandt Montour has started coverage of Rush Street Interactive, the parent company of BetRivers, with an overweight rating and a $24 price target, according to a note reported by Legal Sports Report.
Montour's thesis centres on RSI's 10.4% share of the US online casino market, which ranks fourth among operators despite the company running a far smaller top-of-funnel marketing operation than FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, and despite a comparatively weak position in online sports betting.
He attributed that outsized share to a promotional approach built around gamification, giving customers more ways to win beyond individual bets or spins so that play feels more rewarding than on rival platforms. Montour wrote that this dynamic lifts "value perception" for RSI customers, which he said feeds through to "higher rate of game play" and what he believes is "likely the highest iGaming retention in the industry."
That approach also appears to draw a disproportionate number of pure slot players, a segment Montour said carries higher margins. Combined with a promotional spend rate of around 19%, against an industry average closer to 25%, RSI is extracting more net revenue per customer than its competitors, he said.
Montour expects RSI to stay ahead of any operators that try to copy its model, noting the company has a track record of continually refining its promotional mechanics rather than standing still once a format is replicated.
Online casino access remains the clearest lever for RSI's growth, according to the note. The product is currently available to roughly 12% of the US population, compared with about 50% for online sports betting. Montour estimated that if RSI holds its 10% market share and its gaming revenue per adult of around $384, each additional percentage point of population gaining access to online casino would lift North American revenue by 7%.
Online casino already accounted for 80% of RSI's North American revenue in fiscal 2026, the highest proportion among the major listed operators Montour tracks. BetMGM derives around two-thirds of its North American revenue from casino, Penn Entertainment splits roughly evenly between casino and sports betting, and DraftKings and FanDuel each generate about a third of revenue from casino.
Montour said any near-term share losses to rivals chasing online casino customers would likely prove temporary, since competitors would need to sustain promotional spending at levels that could become unprofitable to pull players away from BetRivers.
Latin America is the other growth pillar in the note. Montour pointed to a 39% compound annual growth rate in Mexican gaming revenue between 2018 and 2026, and 29% in Colombia over the same period.
RSI entered Mexico in 2022 and holds only a low single-digit market share there, but Montour noted the Mexican market is five to six times the size of Colombia's, meaning a small share can still generate comparable returns. He forecast RSI's Mexico revenue at around $65 million, matching the company's revenue in the fourth year of its Colombian operations. Colombia now contributes between $330 million and $340 million in annual revenue, he said, prompting his view that Latin American growth "should accelerate."
RSI shares were trading around 4% higher at 1pm Eastern on Monday following the initiation.