One of the nation’s smaller digital gaming operators has again topped its competitors in the stock market.
Rush Street Interactive, parent of the BetRivers online casino and sportsbook, saw a nearly 6% stock price growth in December 2024. This follows an impressive 33% growth in stock price from November 2024, which was a better performance than all of Rush Street’s publicly traded rivals with larger national market share.
The growth is all the more impressive coming off of sluggish December returns for much of the market overall and declines for many gaming companies.
Here are more gaming stock highlights from December 2024:
RSI again leads the way
BetRivers trails U.S. market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings significantly in national online gaming market share. It’s also behind the publicly traded U.S. companies that manage BetMGM and Caesars sportsbooks, and is projected to be behind privately held Hard Rock, Fanatics, and bet365.
That hasn’t stopped a torrid return in the market.
Since bottoming out at roughly $3 per share in the second half of 2023, Rush Street stock has eclipsed the $14 mark heading into 2025. The stock grew nearly 275% in just calendar year 2024.
Rush Street Interactive again had one of the strongest performing months of any US digital gaming operator stock, seeing a greater than 5% growth in December while most other stocks declined; $RSI stock was up roughly 275% in calendar year 2024.
— Ryan Butler (@ButlerBets) January 6, 2025
It will likely never come close to the market share of many of its rivals, especially the two market leaders, but Rush Street has seen a route to profitability in part by spending a fraction of the billions invested by many of its rivals on marketing and tech. Rush Street is the largest remaining brand to partner with Kambi, a third-party operator that in 2019 ran the tech platforms for nearly half of U.S. sportsbooks.
By keeping costs low, Rush Street has a lower threshold for profitability in an industry that sees close to 10% holds in sports betting and significantly greater returns from online slots and table games.
Rush Street may not have the brand recognition or financial prowess to keep up its industry-leading stock growth. The year-long growth streak (and a particularly strong past two months) shows the company will still remain a player in the market, either as an acquisition target or a standalone operator.
Bally’s sees a positive month
In a month where most stocks saw declines, Bally’s grew in December.
Bally’s topped a 1% gain last month. This continued a largely static run since July 2024 where Bally’s stock has not closed in an individual trading day below $17 or above $18 coming after the company reached a deal to merge with Standard General, the company's largest shareholder.
The rest of the industry is waiting to see if Bally’s can achieve its audacious growth plans.
Since rebranding as Bally’s from Twin River in 2020, Bally’s has acquired and/or renovated multiple brick-and-mortar gaming and launched its self-branded online sportsbook and iCasino platform. The former Twin River, whose portfolio had consisted of only about a dozen regional casinos and horse tracks, is continuing its push to become a major national gaming and entertainment provider.
Bally’s is constructing a multi-billion dollar destination casino resort and entertainment center in downtown Chicago, which will become the most populated U.S. municipality to have a licensed gambling establishment in its city center. Bally’s is also hoping to top that record as part of an even larger plan to build a casino within New York City.
Meanwhile, Bally’s is also undertaking another multibillion-dollar project on the South End of the Las Vegas Strip as the company redevelops the site of the former Tropicana to build a new Major League Baseball stadium and, of course, casino.
FanDuel, DraftKings slump
December was not kind for most other gaming companies.
The de facto duopoly atop the digital gaming space each saw declines in the year’s final months after strong performances in November. FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment was down more than 6% while DraftKings saw a double-digital decrease.
The industry has had an unusually difficult American football season, by far the most lucrative time of the year, as favorites and overs hit at above-average paces. U.S. sportsbooks may celebrate conclusions of the college and pro football regular seasons – but the heavily bet NFL postseason could mean more bad results if favorites continued to perform well.
Off the field, DraftKings has kicked off 2025 by announcing a first-of-its-kind parlay subscription service. It remains to be seen if this will create meaningful revenue for DraftKings or help it retain and attract customers. It also shows that even leading national brands need to continue innovations.
Other notable gaming stocks- December 2024 performance
Penn Entertainment: (5%) decrease – The ESPN BET operator slumped to end the year, ending 2024 with a nearly 20% decline. As it struggles to gain online market share, Penn management will be under more scrutiny than ever to see returns from its multibillion-dollar investment.
Las Vegas Sands: (10%) decrease – Sands eked out a narrow year-over-year gain despite the rough year-end. All eyes on Austin this year as Sands leads industry-wide efforts to bring a major resort casino to Texas.
Caesars: (10%) decrease – One of the nation’s largest Las Vegas Strip and regional casino operators is seeing year-over-year revenue declines in both areas. Bad winter weather could mean a rough start to 2025.
MGM: (10%) decrease – Gaming stock shareholders seem to have a similarly pessimistic view about America’s other largest brick-and-mortar gaming operator by revenue. MGM’s silver lining is continued progress on major international resort casinos.
Wynn: (14%) decrease – High-end property operators with smaller property portfolios such as Wynn are also seeing declining stock returns.
