Rush Street CEO looking to take advantage of Latam “head start”
Richard Schwartz suggests operator is looking to focus on “ample opportunities” afforded by regulatory movement as he namechecks Brazil
Rush Street Interactive CEO Richard Schwartz has suggested the firm will look to expand its operations across Latin America and take advantage of the “head start” it already has in Mexico and Colombia to spur greater expansion.
Schwartz was speaking as a part of RSI’s Q2 2023 financial earnings call, with the BetRivers and PlaySugarHouse operator reporting a 15% year-on-year (YOY) revenue upsurge, aided in part by the performance of the RushBet business in Colombia.
“We’ve been having a lot of success there. It’s not a short-term program we’ve put in place, it is long-term focused, and we have a tremendous amount of talent and sophistication in how we operate down there,” Schwartz said.
RSI has operated the RushBet brand in Colombia since June 2018, becoming the first US operator to expand into the Latam market following the regulation of online gambling and sports betting in the country.
It has since opened two new offices in Colombia, in the capital Bogota, and Medellin’s El Poblado neighbourhood, which plays host to RSI’s Latam-facing tech team.
RSI expanded its operations into Mexico in January 2022, sealing a 25-year partnership with Mexican broadcasting firm Grupo Multimedios and launching a Mexico native version of the RushBet brand in July 2022.
RSI’s Colombian revenues grew by 30% YoY in Q2 2023 and with the contribution from RSI’s Mexican operations set to increase during the second half of 2023, Schwartz was upbeat about the opportunities available in Latam.
“When you look at these other market opportunities, they’re sizable when you look at the populations.
“For example, Brazil finally just issued their regulations after several years, so that’s a market with over 200 million people, which is larger than Colombia and Mexico combined, which is about 180 million. So you have a really large opportunity there in Brazil,” he explained.
“Peru has 33 million people, they’ve just legalized online casino and issued regulations, with a view to launching regulated operations in the middle of next year. Chile is making progress. Argentina is making progress.”
The RSI CEO suggested that in the wake of these positive regulatory moves it would only be a matter of time before the operator expanded further.
“We have ample opportunities and are evaluating each of them and identifying the ones that make the most sense for us to enter,” Schwartz said.
“We’re really excited about that region and we think we have a head start over most of the sophisticated operators in the industry and a chance to really deliver some outsized results in that region,” he remarked.