Rush Street Interactive (RSI) CEO Richard Schwartz has said the operator’s poker offering “completes the ecosystem” as the firm’s share price spiked on strong earnings.
Speaking on the Chicago-based operator’s analyst call yesterday, 17 December, Schwartz championed the role of poker in the RSI offering.
RSI’s BetRivers brand runs a poker platform in four US states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Delaware, with shared liquidity across all four markets.
Alongside being fronted by poker legends Phil Galfond and Phil Hellmuth, RSI has continued to roll out product updates to the platform.
While RSI remains an online-casino first operator, Schwartz said poker continued to play a role in overall brand awareness and customer retention.
He said: “Poker was expected to be a lot larger market years ago when New Jersey first regulated. You really didn’t get the liquidity you needed to create sustainable table sizes, tournament sizes and variety of tables.
“We’ve now launched, in the past 12 months, poker in four states and tied them all together to share liquidity. There’s no operator right now in the US that has more than four states, and we’ve talked about our plans this year to add a fifth.
“Our view of poker has been really clear that it does appeal to a broad gambler and poker players and enthusiasts like to play other casino games.
“And certainly, if we can attract a customer who likes to play poker and then win their business over to play casino, it’s a win for us. And the same thing happens if we can acquire a customer who then stays with us playing poker.
“We really feel poker completes the ecosystem and it really is a great retention tool for us to have.”
Looking at the Q4 2025 performance, RSI revenue was up 28% year-on-year (YoY) to $324.9m (£239.5m) and adjusted EBITDA shot up 44% to $44.1m.
The performance resulted in RSI’s share price rising more than 18% in pre-market trading.
Total monthly active users in the US and Canada were up 37% YoY to 278,000, while monthly active users in online casino alone rose 51%.
Monthly active users in Latam broke the 493,000 mark, representing a 47% YoY leap.
Average revenue per monthly active user in the US and Canada was $331 and in Latam it was $32.
On a full-year basis, revenue increased 23% to $1.1bn and adjusted EBITDA leapt 66% to $153.7m.
Bosses have noted full-year 2026 revenue should land between $1.375bn and $1.425bn, showing YoY growth of 26% at the top end.
Adjusted EBITDA is expected to hit between $210m and $230m, giving a top end YoY growth rate of 50%.
Elsewhere, management revealed that due to the since repealed VAT in Colombia, RSI’s adjusted EBITDA was impacted to the tune of $25m to $30m.
The 19% rate, which was originally applied to deposits before shifting to GGR and then being struck off, saw RSI mitigate via additional spend in bonusing.
Kyle Sauers, CFO and president, said: “Despite the disruption, [we] grew GGR 66%, grew the user base by 34%, [and] took some meaningful share in the share.
“That headwind, the deposit bonusing, goes away in 2026 because we aren’t making up for that VAT on players.”
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The post RSI CEO: “Poker completes the ecosystem” first appeared on EGR Intel.
Richard Schwartz says vertical supports with customer retention and brand awareness after strong Q4 report sends operator’s shares soaring
The post RSI CEO: “Poker completes the ecosystem” first appeared on EGR Intel.