- Rush Street Interactive has secured market access in Ohio, Maryland and Missouri via a deal with Penn National Gaming.
- Rush Street will launch their BetRivers.com brand in each of these states subject to regulatory approval.
- Rush Street has an existing online presence in eight states.
One of the more interesting aspects of the way that sports betting and online gaming is spreading across the US is the extent to which companies that are nominally competitors are collaborating with each other. This is particularly true as it relates to market access and we’ve had at least three other stories about this type of partnership in the past week or so. Presumably, gaming companies figure that they can’t be everywhere at once so they’d rather get some revenue via a market access deal than leave money on the table.
Last week, another such deal dropped as Rush Street Interactive (NYSE: RSI) announced that they had obtained market access in Ohio, Maryland and Missouri via a long term partnership agreement with Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN). Under the agreement, Rush Street will launch their BetRivers brand in these three states for both sports betting and casino gaming subject to regulatory approval. RSI also has the right of first offer for a potential skin in Texas should that state ever come into play. Details of the arrangement were minimal other than that “upon and following the launch of the skins, RSI will compensate Penn National with industry-standard payments for market access”.
Richard Schwartz, president of RSI, is happy to extend his brand into three potentially lucrative states:
“We are pleased to gain potential market access to three new states as we continue the execution of our strategy to gain access and bring our best-in-class online gaming offerings to key markets across the United States. The addition of Ohio, Maryland and Missouri to our market access portfolio, specifically, builds on RSI’s success in neighboring states and will create enhanced marketing efficiencies for our BetRivers.com brand. We continue to engage in productive dialogue with industry participants, such as tribal and commercial casinos and other stakeholders, to further our expansion into new states. We expect to continue entering into additional market access arrangements in the future, as other opportunities arise.”
RSI is another one of those companies that doesn’t get the media love of a behemoth like Penn National or DraftKings but has quietly built a solid presence in the US sports betting ecosystem. RSI currently operates online gaming sites eight states with a combined population of more than 68 million: Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. They’ve also got market access deals in New York, Ohio, Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia.
At the time of publication, James Murphy has a long position in RSI and PENN.
