Rush Street Interactive, Inc. Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Key Takeaways
- Rush Street Interactive reported second quarter 2026 revenues of $393.8 million, up 46% year over year, marking their fastest quarterly revenue growth in over four years.
- Adjusted EBITDA reached a record $64.6 million, up 61% year over year, with margins of 16.4%.
- North American monthly active users grew 51% year over year to over 296,000, with online casino market growth of 64%.
- Latin American monthly active users grew 62% year over year to over 652,000, with revenue growth of 195% in the region.
- Online casino accounted for 72% of revenue, while online sports betting contributed most of the remaining 28%.
- Gross margin improved to 35.5%, despite a 16% GGR tax in Colombia.
- Marketing expenses increased 34% year over year to $48.6 million, representing 12.3% of revenue, with continued attractive player acquisition costs.
- Net income was $29.3 million, a 2% increase year over year.
- The company launched online casino and sports betting in Alberta on July 13, 2026, with early results showing first time depositors and daily active users at approximately twice the levels seen in Ontario at a similar point after launch.
- Rush Street Interactive filed an application for a CFTC designated contract market license for prediction markets to maintain strategic flexibility, but does not intend to focus on sports prediction markets.
- The company repurchased approximately $29 million of shares under a $50 million share repurchase program and announced a new $100 million share repurchase authorization.
Outlook
- Management is confident in the strength and durability of the business, expecting continued significant growth in core markets and a strong build in Alberta.
- They see meaningful long-term opportunities from expanding in existing markets with low brand awareness, the large percentage of the U.S. population not yet legal for online casino, and additional Latin American jurisdictions that are legal and regulated but not yet entered.
- They remain optimistic about the pace of legalization in the U.S., citing states like Virginia, DC, Indiana, and Ohio as active opportunities.
- They expect the reduction in federal support and increased fiscal responsibility for states to drive demand for new revenue sources like online casino legalization.
Guidance
- Full year 2026 revenue guidance was raised to a range of $1.56 billion to $1.6 billion, representing 38% to 41% year over year growth at the midpoint of $1.58 billion, an increase of $65 million from prior guidance.
- Adjusted EBITDA guidance was raised to a range of $245 million to $265 million, representing 59% to 72% year over year growth at the midpoint of $255 million, a $15 million increase from prior guidance.
- Marketing spend is expected to increase in the second half of 2026, particularly due to the Alberta launch and other growth opportunities, with Q3 marketing spend potentially $7 million to $10 million higher sequentially than Q2.
- Q3 revenue is expected to be relatively flat with Q2 after adjusting for a $10 million benefit from strong sports hold in Q2, with a sizable revenue and EBITDA increase expected in Q4.
- Q3 EBITDA is expected to be the lowest quarter of the year due to increased marketing investments, with Q4 EBITDA rebounding significantly.
Executive Comments
- CEO Richard Schwartz credited the management team and employees for delivering record revenue and adjusted EBITDA.
- He emphasized the casino-first strategy as the foundation of the business model, with online casino as the fastest growing product segment.
- Richard highlighted successful World Cup marketing and player acquisition efforts, especially in Latin America where monthly active users increased over 80% in June and July.
- He noted the highest sports hold in Colombia since inception during Q2, driven by World Cup and NBA playoffs results.
- Richard expressed optimism about the new Colombian government's pro-business agenda and its potential positive impact on the industry.
- Kyle Sauers, CFO, detailed strong financial performance and marketing efficiency, noting continued investment in marketing and technology to support growth.
- Kyle provided adjusted EPS modeling components and explained the expected cadence of revenue and EBITDA for the remainder of 2026.
- Management emphasized maintaining optionality with the CFTC prediction market license application but no current intent to focus on sports prediction markets.
- They discussed competitive dynamics, noting consistent market share gains despite new competitors and no observed impact from prediction markets on sports betting volumes.
Q&A
- On World Cup customer lifetime value, management said it is too early to tell but noted strong cross-sell success in Latin America compared to Copa America two years ago.
- Marketing spend increase in the second half is driven by Alberta launch and other growth opportunities, with flexibility to adjust spend based on ROI.
- Long-term growth opportunities include expanding in existing markets with low brand awareness, new U.S. jurisdictions legalizing online casino, and additional Latin American markets.
- They remain optimistic about legalization momentum driven by state fiscal pressures and reduced federal support.
- North American monthly active user growth is primarily casino-first, with cost to acquire players continuing to decline and player values holding up.
- No significant impact from prediction markets on sports betting volumes has been observed.
- Retention of World Cup players is early but initial signals are positive, with hopes to replicate post-Copa America casino volume inflections.
- Additional Latin American market expansions are being considered but no details were shared.
- The CFTC license application is to preserve strategic flexibility and optionality for future market or regulatory changes.
- Competitive environment remains strong with new entrants, but RSI has grown market share for four consecutive quarters.
- Marketing spend increase in Q3 is not reactionary to competitors but driven by attractive player economics.
- Q3 revenue expected flat to Q2 after adjusting for sports hold benefit; Q3 EBITDA likely lowest quarter due to marketing investments; Q4 expected to see strong revenue and EBITDA growth.
- Player cohorts increase in value over time with faster payback in casino than sports; North American player counts grew sequentially for the first time in six years.
- Colombia's temporary 16% tax is under Constitutional Court review, with potential for change.
- Multi-brand strategy including Rush Bet brand for Spanish-speaking U.S. players is considered but timing and jurisdictional complexity are factors.
- Prediction markets have not caused decelerating sports betting volumes in RSI states, partly because RSI does not target sharp players who may prefer prediction markets.
Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, July 29th, 2026. I will now turn the call over to Kyle Sauers, President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator.
Good afternoon. By now, everyone should have access to our second quarter 2026 earnings release. It can be found under the heading Financials, Quarterly Results in the Investors section of the RSI website at rushstreetinteractive.com. Some of our comments will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact and are usually identified by the use of words such as will, expect, should, or other similar phrases, and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. We assume no responsibility for updating any forward-looking statements. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on them. We refer you to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition.
During the call, we will discuss our non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We will be discussing adjusted EBITDA, which we define as net income or loss before interest, income taxes, depreciation, amortization, share-based compensation, adjustments for certain one-time or non-recurring items, and other adjustments that are either non-cash or not related to our underlying business performance. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is available in our second quarter 2026 earnings release and our investor deck, which is available in the Investors section of the RSI website at rushstreetinteractive.com.
For purposes of today's call, unless noted otherwise, when discussing profitability, EBITDA or other income statement measures other than revenue, we're referring to those items on a non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA basis. With me on the call today, we have Richard Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer, who will first provide some opening remarks and then open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Richard.
Thanks, Kyle, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I dive into our second quarter results, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that while Kyle and I have the opportunity to present these results each quarter, our continued success is driven by the exceptionally smart, dedicated, and experienced management team we work with every day, as well as our talented employees across the organization. I want to thank the entire team for all their hard work and dedication and for once again delivering record revenue and adjusted EBITDA, which continues our consistent track record of strong performance. I'm particularly proud that we delivered our fastest quarterly revenue growth in over four years, even while operating from a significantly larger revenue base. We generated revenue of $393.8 million, up 46% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA of $64.6 million, up 61% year-over-year.
Our results this quarter reflect the continued strength of our casino-first strategy, disciplined execution across operating regions, alongside a well-planned and strongly executed World Cup period. Our casino-first approach remains the foundation of our business model. Online Casino continues to be our primary value driver, with sports betting and poker serving as important complementary products that drive incremental profitability, brand awareness, and bring new players into our ecosystem. Online Casino continues to be our fastest-growing product segment in both North America and Latin America. This quarter, Online Casino represented 72% of our revenue, with online sports betting contributing most of the remaining 28%, a mix that continues to support the consistent engagement, higher lifetime values, and stronger retention that come with our casino players. Player growth remained strong across both regions.
Monthly active users in North America grew 51% year-over-year to over 296,000, with growth in our North American Online Casino market reaching 64% year-over-year. In Latin America, which includes Mexico, MAUs grew 62% year-over-year to over 652,000. Across the company, we again delivered record first-time depositors and continue to deliver attractive player acquisition costs, reflecting the ongoing advancements in our brand awareness and marketing efficiency. We just finished a month of exciting World Cup soccer, and I'm incredibly proud of our teams and the results we produced. There was incredible effort and execution that went into our marketing programs, player engagement and operations, merchandising our offerings in a compelling way to our players, and of course, ensuring our technology performed fast and reliably at record volumes.
The end result was very successful outcomes, both in terms of near-term financial impact and, more importantly, impressive acquisition and reactivation efforts, especially in Latin America. In June and so far in July, our monthly active users in Latin America are up over 80%. Another good sign is that more than 25% of our new first-time depositors that joined us during the World Cup have engaged with our casino product as well. This is about 50% higher than what we saw during the Copa América two years ago. This is an encouraging sign and validating that the work we've put into improving the cross-sell flows have delivered positive results. When it comes to the specific results, both handle and hold came in very nicely for the World Cup in June. In fact, Q2 was our highest sports hold in Colombia since inception, driven by solid World Cup results.
In North America, we also, again, had our highest sports hold since inception, driven by both NBA playoffs and positive World Cup results. This wasn't just good outcomes. It's a reflection of an improving product and improving mix of parlays and prop bets that drive higher hold. Turning to the political situation in Colombia specifically, in June, Colombia held its widely anticipated presidential election. With the winning candidate scheduled to take office at the end of next week, we believe that his pro-business agenda will provide a constructive backdrop for our industry and for the broader operating environment in the country. These policies appear to be in stark contrast to the existing and opposing party. To be clear, the results of this election have no impact on our reported numbers or guidance today. The new government's broader review of prior tax decrees and future budgeting decisions remain outstanding.
Consistent with our prior earnings call, our full-year guidance continues to assume that the 16% GGR tax remains in effect through year-end. We'll keep you updated if there are changes on the regulatory front within Colombia. We're also excited to announce that we successfully launched online casino and online sports in Alberta on July 13th. While it's still very early days, we're encouraged by what we've seen so far. As a reminder, Alberta is transitioning out of an unlicensed market. Consistent with our experience in Ontario, we expect this to be a gradual build. On a population-adjusted basis, first-time depositors and daily active users are currently tracking at approximately twice the levels we saw in Ontario at the same point following launch. It's of course, very early, but we are excited to watch the Alberta market build over the coming quarters.
Moving on to the topic of prediction markets, this past quarter, we filed an application for a CFTC Designated Contract Market license. As we have stated previously, we continue to operate with a casino-first focus and do not intend to lean into the crowded sports-focused prediction market space. However, the prediction markets landscape is highly dynamic, and we will continue to monitor developments in the space. This filing ensures we have the flexibility to navigate all possible outcomes. As we look to the second half of 2026, we remain confident in the strength and continued durability of our business. We're executing well and taking market share across our core markets. We're off to a strong start in Alberta, a market with meaningful long-term opportunity, and we see continued significant growth ahead in the other markets where we operate.
With that, I'll turn it back to Kyle to discuss the financial details.
Thanks, Richard. Let me walk you through the details of our second quarter performance. Record second quarter revenues of $393.8 million represents 46% year-over-year growth, a continuation of our accelerating growth and a new watermark for our fastest growth rate in over four years. This performance was driven by strong execution across all aspects of our business, particularly in our two areas of primary focus, Online Casino and Latin America. Gross margins for the quarter came in at 35.5%, a continuing improvement reflecting our faster growth in higher-margin markets, but still negatively impacted by the temporary tax in place in Colombia. Marketing efficiency continues to be a key component of our success with marketing expenses of $48.6 million in the quarter, an increase of 34% year-over-year, and representing 12.3% of total revenue, compared to 13.4% in the prior year period.
As Richard mentioned, we continue to see attractive player acquisition costs alongside strong player growth. Therefore, we expect to continue investing marketing dollars throughout the second half of the year, particularly as we ramp in Alberta. In fact, because our efficiency continues to improve, even as we have been scaling up, we now expect to spend more on marketing than previously planned in the second half. As we've always said, when we find strong ROI opportunities, we will increase our marketing spend. G&A for the second quarter was $26.5 million or 6.7% of revenue, compared to 7% in the prior year period. As previously discussed, while we're achieving leverage over this line item, we have been increasing our investments in people and technology in 2026 to support our growth. Turning to profitability, adjusted EBITDA reached a record $64.6 million, representing 61% year-over-year growth and 16.4% margins.
We continue to demonstrate scalable profitability expansion through the operating leverage built into our business model. Additionally, while our year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth remains strong, it's worth noting that on a sequential basis, Q1 had the benefit of no extra tax in Colombia for about two and a half months during the constitutional court's reversal of the prior emergency decree. Whereas Q2 and the remainder of 2026 assumes a 16% VAT in Colombia. For context, that benefit in the first quarter was around $7 million. Net income for the period was $29.3 million compared to $28.8 million in the prior year period, representing a 2% year-over-year increase. User acquisition and retention continue to be key pillars of our success. As Richard mentioned, our user growth this quarter hit record levels once again, while also setting another record for first-time depositors.
In North America, monthly active users grew 51% year-over-year to over 296,000, with MAUs in Online Casino markets growing 64% year-over-year. In Latin America, MAUs grew 62% year-over-year to over 652,000. North American ARPMAU was $320 in the second quarter, down 18% year-over-year, but up modestly from the first quarter. As we discussed last quarter, this reflects the impact of our player acquisition levels. Newer player cohorts start at lower value than our established base, but we continue to see this as both healthy and consistent with our historical experience as these cohorts mature over time. In Latin America, ARPMAU was $55, up 82% year-over-year, reflecting continued strength across the region, the elimination of bonusing in Colombia to offset last year's bet on deposits, and favorable movements in the Colombian currency. Breaking down our performance by geography and product, we saw continued strength across all areas.
In the second quarter, Online Casino revenues grew 40% and Online Sports Betting revenue grew 64%. Regionally, revenue in North America grew 23% in the second quarter, and revenue in Latin America grew 195%. Growth remained broad-based across regions and products, and we continue to see the benefits of the brand awareness and player loyalty that we continue to build. Our balance sheet remains strong, with $340 million in cash on hand as of June 30th, and we still have zero debt on our books. In May, we completed a secondary offering in which we repurchased approximately $29 million worth of shares under our $50 million share repurchase program. In addition, our board authorized a new $100 million share repurchase program, which allows us to continue to be opportunistic with share repurchases.
Turning to guidance, we now expect revenue in the range of $1.56 billion-$1.6 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 38%-41%. At the midpoint of $1.58 billion, this represents a $65 million increase from our previous guidance and 39% year-over-year growth. This increase reflects continued share gains in North American iCasino, sustained outperformance across Latin America, and a well-managed World Cup period. For adjusted EBITDA guidance, we now expect it to be in the range of $245 million-$265 million, representing year-over-year growth of 59%-72%. At the midpoint of $255 million, this represents a $15 million increase from our previous guidance and 66% year-over-year growth. This is inclusive of our plans to further lean in to that efficiency by increasing our marketing investments in the second half of the year. We're pleased by the continued strength of our business.
We're growing both rapidly and profitably, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our full-year guidance. With that, operator, we're ready to take questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimal sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first call is from Bernie McTernan from Needham. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Just had a question on the World Cup customers that you were acquiring. I know it's early days, any thoughts on the LTV of those customers maybe versus customers you were acquiring previously? I have a follow-up. Yeah, it's a good question, Bernie.
I think you're right. It is probably too early to tell for sure. Certainly, you're going to have some players who are joining just for the cultural moment and the excitement around their country and their team. I think we've proven in the past that in events like this, we can bring people in, get them excited about the platform, and keep them around. We mentioned on the prepared remarks that we had really good success early on with cross-sell in Latin America over to the casino side quite a bit more so than we did in the Copa América a couple of years ago. We're real excited about that. You're right. It's pretty early on that.
Okay. Understood. Just wanted to double-click on the marketing commentary in the second half of the year, now investing more than previously planned. Can you just dive into that a little bit more? Is that all Alberta or anywhere else that you're spending? Thank you. Yeah, no, good question.
I think as you already know, we've increased marketing pretty significantly this year. I think we're up for the whole first half, maybe it's around 25%, 26% so far. I think as the data we've continued to share, the results are really, really strong out of our marketing teams and the strategies they're using. We just feel like it makes sense to push harder. The player values are still really good.
We've continued to push our cost to acquire players lower. Certainly there's more spend because of Alberta and because of that launch a couple of weeks ago. Really what we were referencing in the call is that we're going to push harder on spend in other markets where we see opportunities, and we're going to, like we always have, we're going to move quickly and be dynamic. If something isn't working, we'll probably pull back, and at the same time, if other things are working really well, we're going to lean in further. Maybe just to put a number around it, which I'll go back to the fact that we're going to remain flexible, but maybe sequentially from Q2 to Q3, we might spend something like $7 million-$10 million more on marketing in Q3 compared to Q2. That's inclusive- Great. Thanks, Kyle of the Alberta launch.
Understood. Thanks, Kyle. Your next question is from the line of David Katz at Jefferies.
Your line is open. Please go ahead. As a reminder, please remember to unmute your handset.
Maybe we go to the next person, operator, and we can circle back to David.
Your next call is from Zach Silverberg at Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question.
In the press release and some of the management commentary, you mentioned that you continue to see meaningful long-term opportunities ahead of you guys to drive shareholder value. Can you maybe quantify or qualify some of that, and provide some color on what those opportunities might be?
Yeah. Hey, Zach, it's Richard. I think that the two areas that I would just focus on clearly is that we have a large percentage of the population in North America that are not yet legal for Online Casino. Alberta just launching on July 13th, represents a really meaningful new opportunity for us. What I would also indicate is that within existing markets where we're operating today, I think because historically our brand doesn't have the same high awareness as some of the other brands we compete with, there's a large percentage of the population in these jurisdictions that haven't really had their first experience with us.
When they do have it's a positive experience for the most part, which is why we've been able to deliver the type of results where we're growing share and getting exposure from new players to our platform for the first time in many cases. I think we're really excited for the ability to us to continue to grow share in our existing markets, and also naturally we have these other 88% of the U.S. population, which today is not yet able to play Online Casinos. I think between those things, and you even bring into Latin America all the jurisdictions down there that are legal and regulated that we haven't entered yet, we certainly are really excited by all the opportunities ahead of us.
Yeah, the only thing I would add to that is that's going to drive the top line, which is obviously key to the success. As we have been doing for several years now pretty consistently, we'd expect to be able to get leverage over all of our different P&L line items as we continue to grow.
Got you. I appreciate that. Just for my follow-up, maybe if you guys have any updated view or outlook on the potential legalization landscape. We've heard from one of your peers that they're kind of expecting Virginia, D.C., obviously we know about Maine, Maryland. Maybe just any commentary on that would be great. Thank you. Sure. For us, each new Online Casino market is meaningful to us.
We're working hard, as we've said in the past, to try to educate legislators to try to improve the pace of legalization. We remain optimistic about the long-term outlook for iGaming and believe that additional jurisdictions will legalize over time. I think one of the key drivers is going to certainly be that reduction in federal support and some increased fiscal responsibilities for states over the next 2 fiscal years, is going to create even more pressure on funding gaps that we think some reductions in major social programs in many states, including some of the very large population states like Illinois and New York, are going to create opportunities for a greater emphasis on new and sustainable sources of recurring revenue.
We believe that's going to drive a discussion around proven revenue-generating policy proposals like Online Casino legalization. I think between the protecting consumers, and for the first time starting in October of this year, you're going to start to see some impact from some of these major social programs reductions. I think that's going to become real, and that's going to be in terms of deficits and gaps the states are going to have. We feel like it's a good time to kind of have a momentum being built. We feel, in terms of specific states, I did know that BetMGM referenced a couple of states yesterday.
I think Virginia clearly is one that progressed furthest during the 2026 legislative sessions, and each chamber passed its own authorization bill. They failed to reconcile it before they adjourned, but there's certainly going to be another effort this next year. D.C. you referenced, certainly that's an active opportunity. Indiana, Ohio, are other markets that we have an eye on and we're monitoring and being active when possible to try to accelerate some of the adoption opportunities there.
Thanks for all the call.
Your next question is from the line of Jed Kelly at Oppenheimer. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, great.
Thanks for taking my questions. Just circling back on the MAUs. Are you seeing any change in the CAC or what's going on with the spending? Can you just talk about more where your North American MAU is coming from? Is it more slots first, or are you having more success with some of your sports first customers that might be a little more table game-centric? Thanks. No, good question, Jed.
I think the reality is that our cost to acquire players has continued to go down. Most of our spend in North America has been in the markets that include iCasino. A lot of that is slots first type creative. Obviously, we welcome all kinds of players and we're catering to table players as well, and clearly we're still doing quite well in sports. Most of it is casino first, the cost to acquire players has continued to go down. The player values continue to hold up as well. It's the primary reason that we're going to be spending more in the back half because there's a lot of opportunity there.
Got it. Just as a follow-up, when you look at the sports that are getting most of the prediction market share, tennis, I think is doing about 2x the amount of baseball. Do you have any insight on what's going on there? Are you seeing certain pockets of your sports handle, maybe, down sort of because it's going more to a sharper player or anything you're seeing in some of tennis in particular, if there's anything to call out. Thanks. Yeah, I don't think we have anything to call out there that we've seen as a big change.
It's an interesting call-out. Thank you and good job.
Thanks, Jed. Your next call is from the line of David Katz from Jefferies.
Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks.
Hi. Good evening. Appreciate the come back around. It was a misunderstanding with a mute button.
David. Good evening. I just wanted to go back to the retention of these high volumes of players that you are capturing during the World Cup.
I think, Richard, in your prepared remarks, you talked about the ability to cross them over to sports being 50% higher than from Copa América. If we look out into the future, your ability to retain those people in your system over time, is there any perspective or any data you can give us to that end?
Yeah. I think it's challenging to have a great comparable to this event. The World Cup, as we all know, was in the right time zone this time around for people in the Americas to watch it and engage in a lot more meaningful way. Our business has changed dramatically since the last World Cup, even since the Copa América, which was more of a LATAM event for us. In North America, we had really good engagement. It was more about a reactivation and using the World Cup as a pop culture event to engage people across the platform. In Latin America, it was a really big player acquisition opportunity for us, and we were really pleased with how that turned out.
One thing I'll point out is that after Copa América, even though I just mentioned it's not the greatest comparable because we're so much larger at this point, the product's better, but we saw a nice inflection after Copa América in our casino volumes down in Colombia. We're certainly hoping to be able to capitalize on a similar situation this time around. I think good early signals, but too early to give too much detail.
Understood. If I can ask one follow-up from a longer-term nature. I notice some of the other Latin American countries that you've listed as potential future opportunities, at least the last couple of quarters in your deck. How far away or what are the gating factors for those to become a reality?
Yeah. Thanks for that question. As you can imagine, we're very thorough here and we're very focused on making sure that we pick the right markets to enter, and we do so in the proper way where we're prepared for success. There are markets down there that, as you know, are legal and regulated that are exciting, but we have a lot of growth, as you see in our existing markets, and we have to be very thoughtful how we invest in additional markets. There are thoughts and efforts going into additional expansion in other markets down there. Certainly it's not something we're prepared to share at this time.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, David. Your next call is from the line of Dan Pollitzer from JPMorgan.
Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, good afternoon, everyone, Thanks for the questions.
First, I wanted to touch on the prediction markets, the application you filed with the CFTC. I know you mentioned that you don't intend to lean into the sports area here, I guess, can you talk about maybe what does this allow you to do specifically? Do you envision yourself as a taker or maker? Is this just a way to give yourself optionality? How are you thinking about this in the medium or longer term?
Yeah. We do view the applications as a way to preserve our strategic flexibility, to maintain our optionality, as you just mentioned, ensure that we're not caught flat-footed should the market or regulatory environment evolve in a way that becomes relevant for our business. It's really just being prepared and preserving optionality.
Okay, great. Can you talk about maybe what you're seeing in terms of the competitive environment within iGaming? Obviously, you've been acquiring a lot of users. I know that you're seeing, it sounds like, strong LTVs and CACs. In Michigan or any other states, have you seen any incremental competition or even wallet impact from prediction markets?
I think on your last piece on the prediction markets, I think the answer is we don't believe so. Obviously, it's hard to know for sure. I think on the competitive intensity, listen, it depends on the number of operators in a given state or market in North America, of course, but there's really good competition, and we've had to deal with that for a long time. There are some new competitors that have entered in a couple of our markets, which certainly increases the competition, and we've had some of our competitors who have, I think, recognized that iCasino is a great place to focus on and have talked about putting more efforts there. All the while that that's been happening, we've been consistently growing market share for, I think, four straight quarters here. We're very proud of that.
Understood. Thanks so much. Thanks, Dan.
Your next question is from the line of Ryan Sigdahl from Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, good afternoon, Richard, Kyle.
I want to double-click on the World Cup, the activations. Well, let's start reactivations in North America, just given that strong 25% cross-sell to iCasino. Was there a specific focus on players that maybe had a higher potential to play iCasino, or is it just product everything and it was kind of gorilla across the board? Then maybe secondly on that, just the Latin America activations. Was there also specific player targeting for players that maybe had a higher likelihood of playing iCasino or that you thought would?
Yeah. Just for clarification on that data point that Richard had given, that was related to Latin America. I just want to make sure that was clear. I think you're right. There was a lot of different efforts and different styles of marketing and trying to attract different types of players. We definitely leaned into sports first and World Cup first in the Latin American markets, and obviously had a lot of success with that. I don't know, maybe clarify if I missed a piece of your question there.
Yeah, just on the reactivations in North America, if there was a specific focus on maybe players that weren't active anymore, gone inactive, but had played iCasino in the past, if they were a greater focus. Just curious how you kind of focused from an activation, reactivation on iCasino players.
Yeah, it was across the board, right? When you think about reactivations, you know who the people are and you know information about them, you can tailor the messaging and the creative to them based on what you know about their past experiences and their interests. I think it was kind of all of the above there.
Very good. Just for a quick follow-up, Kyle, the increased marketing spend, that is pure kind of marketing spend through OpEx, right? Curious how you think about promotions in conjunction with that.
Yeah. Yes, that increase is intended to show up in the marketing line on the P&L, correct. From a bonusing perspective, obviously the more new players we're bringing in, that can have an impact on bonusing. I think we've continued to refine our bonusing strategies, adjust those as we go, and it's different depending on the market, the rules, how taxes are affected by bonusing, how players engage with bonusing. I'll point out that our bonusing sequentially, this is a North American comment, but bonusing sequentially is down in Q2. Up a little bit year-over-year, but it's an area. We spend a lot of money on bonusing, right? We pay a lot of attention to it, and we want to make sure the right bonuses are going to the right people.
Other than hopefully extra new players coming in because of extra marketing spend and some associated bonusing with them, I wouldn't think about a big change in bonusing strategy otherwise, outside of typical seasonality heading into the football season.
Great. Thanks, guys. Nice job.
Thanks, Ryan. Your next question is from the line of Mike Hickey at StoneX.
Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, Richard, Kyle.
Congrats, guys. Awesome quarter. I guess the first topic, Kyle, the second half revenue and EBITDA cadence post 2Q here. I guess post 2Q and your raised numbers for the year, how should we think about the relative cadence of revenue and EBITDA between 3Q and 4Q?
Yeah, good question, Mike. I think first thing I'll point out, we mentioned that we had really strong hold in Q2 on the sports side. Q2 was aided by that and probably benefited revenue by around $10 million. After you net that out of Q2 results, to think about the sequential look going forward, at the midpoint of our guidance, I'd probably expect Q3 revenue to be relatively flat with Q2. Ex that $10 million, Q3 being up by around $10 million over Q2. Obviously, there's a range of outcomes around that, but that's the way I'd think about it. Like we typically do, we'd expect a real nice uptick in revenue from Q3 into the fourth quarter.
If I move to EBITDA cadence, if you think about a revenue that's kind of flat from Q2 to Q3, we're talking about additional marketing spend in Q3, particularly with the Alberta launch. Spending even more in marketing than we previously planned. I think it's likely that Q3 EBITDA will be the low quarter of the year for us, with Q4 being a sizable step-up in EBITDA due to much larger revenue, moving away from the Alberta launch costs. I think that's largely in line with what analysts are already modeling, given our previous commentary and kind of historical results. I guess maybe, you didn't ask this one, but while I'm at it, I'll talk about adjusted EPS real quick.
As we've become kind of consistently growing and profitable, it's a metric that some investors are looking at in addition to EBITDA. Just a few components for people to be able to have some help with modeling. I'm going to give you exact amounts, but keep in mind there's a range of outcomes associated with each of these. Depreciation and amortization is probably around $47 million for the full year. Stock comp expense is around $30 million for the year. Interest income around $12 million. Tax expense of around $74 million. A fully diluted share count, around $237 million. At the midpoint of guidance, all those numbers, midpoint of the guidance, that gets you to about $0.62 in adjusted EPS for the year. As people are modeling, hopefully that gives a little more color that everyone can look back at.
Nice. Thanks, Kyle. Keep you talking here, maybe Richard too, just on your 2028 growth opportunity. Sort of as you are today, what you think are sort of the most important drivers that could help you sustain that double-digit revenue growth from your current base, at least on 2028, how much further can you take EBITDA margins or maybe how we should think about those will take shape for you? I guess just overall, Kyle, how we think about the World Cup as a comp in 2028. Is it sort of the unlock for growth if you retain and cross-sell like you expect, or is that elevated volume and the success that you had sort of more of a challenge for you as you look at 2028? Thanks, guys. Yeah. I'll take that last piece first, maybe.
There's certainly a comp element there. It added a significant number of games to the meaningful soccer schedule for the world in 2026, right? That does impact comps next year, and we had nice hold. That's an element. I feel very good that with the rest of our growth profile and the number of players we've added and reactivated through that big event, that'll help us push through those tougher comps next year. You said 2028- Kyle- I'm assuming you're talking about 2027.
I did mean 2027, yeah. Sorry about that. We don't skip a year here.
Go ahead. It's probably a little early for that.
We'll give 2027 guidance in a couple of quarters. I think here's a few things to think about. We're obviously in a growth industry, a really nice growth industry. We've been able to consistently take share in the North American iCasino market, where we're focused in North America. I think in 2027, I think we feel good about taking our fair share of the industry growth. In North American sports, I wouldn't expect as much growth from us. That part of the industry has slower growth, and we aren't investing as much or that much in player acquisition in the sports-only markets. If you go south to Latin America, again, the markets that we're live in are growing really nicely.
We believe we're taking share in all of those markets, and we'd expect those to be significant growth drivers for us. If you move down the P&L, I'd expect that we'll continue to see operating leverage again next year, just like we've seen over the last four years. We're growing more quickly in our higher-margin markets. With all else being similar, the revenue mix alone should improve our gross margins. Even when adding in the investment market of Alberta, we'd expect to get leverage over marketing spend next year. I suspect the same would be the case with G&A as well. The only wild card I would throw in is if, back to a question Richard was responding to earlier, if we have a new state or two in the U.S. legalize and launch iGaming next year, that would change the profile a little bit.
I'm sure that's something we would all welcome.
Nice. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
Thanks, Mike. Your next question is from the line of Joe Stauff at Susquehanna.
Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Good evening, Richard, Kyle.
Your North American active growth is impressive. I was wondering if you could talk just structurally about how this pays off and when it pays off in terms of, say, ARDMAU. I don't know how you want to discuss that, but certainly, it's been fertile. Your active growth has accelerated. It's even higher this quarter. Seems like it could continue given the investment, and it's paid off. Just wondering how to think about if you were to normalize your level of marketing, how we see that sort of in the ARDMAU. Does a new customer that you acquired, call it, in the third quarter, do they contribute maybe a corporate level of ARDMAU a year later? Just talking about details of how an iCasino new customer ramps in that spending. I don't know what you could share with us.
Yeah. Without getting into exact numbers, it's a good question, Joe. First of all, I'd say I think it's already paying off when you look at our growth across the business. Our added players are driving a lot of growth, right? In terms of the progression of the value of players or maybe a player cohort, there's two things that happen. The longer players stay with us, the more valuable they become. Also, the retention improves dramatically. There's a natural fall-off for us and for this industry of players that get acquired, and early on, you're going to lose a decent amount of those players, at least for a while. Then their value builds over time. In iCasino, that payback is faster than in sports. At least that's been our experience.
I don't want to get in the habit of forecasting ARPMAU future quarters, future years. If and when our player growth slows, which we're at a pretty high clip right now, that's probably natural that it's going to happen at some point. That's when it's more likely to see that ARPMAU increase. I think we pointed out that it improved a little bit sequentially, which I think is great. This is more on the MAU side, the denominator, but this is the first quarter in 6 years, or first second quarter in 6 years, where we had a higher player count in North America in the second quarter than the first quarter. It just tells you how much we're driving growth there and how much of it is casino-led and not as dependent on the sports season.
Hopefully that gives you a little bit to think about there without going into a lot of quantification.
Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Just to clarify, in Colombia, Richard, you had mentioned sort of the pathway we'll see next week, where I guess the executive branch of the Colombian government and if they're going to remove that tax or not. Just remind me, is there a constitutional court pathway as well that's active, similar to the last one?
Yeah, there is. There is an opportunity to be heard again. The current temporary tax that exists will be heard by the constitutional court, and there's always a possibility they'll rule against it, which would mean there could be a change in that tax impact for us.
Okay. Thanks very much, guys.
Thanks, Joe. Your next question is from the line of Jordan Bender at Citizens.
Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hey, everyone.
Thanks for the question. Maybe to start more broadly, you've obviously had a ton of success down in Latin America under the RushBet brand. Would you guys ever look to bring that to the U.S. just to kind of cater to some of the Spanish-speaking population here?
Jordan, it's a conversation we do have internally at times, and certainly it's something we've considered and thought about. I think certainly a multi-brand strategy is something that every operator should consider at some point. Some have already pulled the trigger on that. Certainly, I think that for us, it comes down to the right timing to try to address multiple brands in a similar market. Some jurisdictions are easier to have multiple brands, some are more challenging. Ultimately, I do think that we have an opportunity to really cater to some of the Spanish-speaking Americans who certainly would probably prefer, at times, to play a site that's very native for their preferred language.
Great. Thank you. Just to follow up, just to take another swing at some of the incremental marketing costs. That 3Q, that comes at a time when you're normally ahead of the NFL season, you get a ton of spend from the sports betting industry. This year, we all can imagine how much is going to be spent on the prediction market side. Is the increase in marketing going into 3Q, is there anything within that to say, maybe that's a little reactionary to what is to come, or is it truly the customer economics of what you're seeing are just very attractive and you're just stepping in ahead of that?
I would say zero of it is in reaction to what others are doing and where they're spending, and that we feel like we have to match something. It is all about the player economics, the player values, and the economics around acquiring those players and how successful we've been. Actually, improvements we've continued to make within our marketing programs and technology where we think we can spend more and do it at the same rates.
Understood. Thank you. Thanks, Jordan.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Your next question is from the line of Chad Beynon from Macquarie. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Hi. Afternoon.
Thanks for taking my question. Just one from us tonight, just around the prediction markets again, more related to, I guess, what you saw at the end of the second quarter, during the World Cup and maybe into the third quarter. We've seen lots of data in terms of prediction market volumes that are out there. I think most of it's probably in the States where you don't participate. Just wondering if you could add any additional commentary, if you believe that in the states where you have sports betting, so 28% of your business, if you have seen decelerating volume trends or anything else that you can talk to help us think about the trajectory of OSB into the back half. Thanks. Yeah, I'll start. I think the answer is no, we haven't seen that impact.
It's also true that we probably don't have perfect visibility into it. I think the fact that we're not focusing on new player acquisition in sports-only markets, and we're doing as well as we are in sports relative to our peers, probably tells you that we're not being impacted by it a whole lot.
I would just add as well that we're not catering to the sharp customers either, potentially the way they may find prediction markets more appealing than maybe a conventional sportsbook.
Yeah. One other thing I was just going to clarify for you, because you did mention 28% of our revenue. You got to keep in mind that about half of that, maybe more than half of it if I went back and checked, is coming from Latin America. That isn't at risk in the areas that you're referring to.
Thank you both. Appreciate it.
Thanks a lot. There are no further questions at this time.
We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Richard Schwartz for closing remarks.
Thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to updating you on our progress when we share our third quarter results in the fall.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending.
