Rush Street Interactive enters September with a notable divergence at its core — short sellers have been quietly unwinding while analysts collectively lifted targets following July earnings, yet the stock still trades 40% below the Street's consensus view.
The most compelling story in RSI's positioning right now is the sharp unwind of short interest. Shorts have fallen 24% over the past month, dropping from roughly 9.6 million shares to 7.3 million — now sitting at 7.4% of free float. The retreat has been orderly and sustained, not a single-session squeeze. The borrow market confirms there is no pressure driving this: availability is extremely loose at 667%, meaning more than six shares are available to borrow for every one currently lent out, and cost to borrow has eased to just 0.38% — near the low end of its recent range. This looks like deliberate cover, not a forced exit. The ORTEX short score has drifted lower in sympathy, easing from 46.9 to 44.4 across the past two weeks, consistent with a position that is gradually unwinding rather than building.
Options tell a contrasting story. The put/call ratio has dropped sharply to 1.56, well below its 20-day average of 2.37. Two weeks ago the PCR briefly hit 4.55 — its 52-week high — as protective demand spiked. That spike has now fully reversed, and the ratio is running nearly one standard deviation below its recent mean. Options traders who were aggressively hedging in mid-to-late August have stepped back. The pullback in defensive positioning, combined with the short cover, suggests investors are becoming less fearful of downside into the next catalyst.
The Street's direction is unusually unified. A wave of target raises arrived immediately after the July 29 results. Macquarie lifted its target to $35, Wells Fargo moved to $36, Needham to $36, Susquehanna to $36, and Oppenheimer to $36 — all maintaining positive ratings. Citizens and Benchmark were similarly constructive. JP Morgan sits as the lone dissenter, holding Neutral with a $30 target. The consensus mean lands at $36, implying roughly 40% upside from the current $25.75 close. The bull case rests on RSI's 66% gross gaming revenue growth and 34% monthly active user expansion recorded in fiscal 2025, alongside strong Latin American penetration and a cash balance of $336 million that funds continued expansion. The bear case is structural: states increasingly restrict market access to one or two operators, which compresses RSI's addressable market even as headline legalisation news sounds positive. The EV/EBITDA multiple at 9.3x has eased about 6% over the past month, while the P/E of 34x has compressed nearly 20% from where it was 30 days ago — both consistent with a stock that ran hard into results and has since given back some of the re-rating.
The ownership picture carries one headline worth noting. Founder Neil Bluhm holds a 13D activist filing — as-last-disclosed at 46.5% of the class, down from 77%. That reduction represents a meaningful structural shift in the float. Alongside Bluhm, BlackRock has built aggressively, more than doubling its reported position to 13.3% of the class per its most recent 13G/A. Divisadero Street Capital filed a fresh 13G on September 1, disclosing a 6.2% stake — up from 4.7% previously. The combined picture is one where passive and active buyers have been absorbing shares as Bluhm's stake has declined, adding institutional depth to the register. As always with 13D/G disclosures, these are event-driven filings around the 5% threshold, and positions may have moved since the last filing date.
The next earnings event is scheduled for October 28. RSI's most recent print — July 29 — delivered a 13% one-day drop and a 16% five-day decline, a reaction that clearly drove the subsequent surge in put buying now visible in the August PCR spike. With that defensive positioning now largely cleared and shorts covering steadily, what to watch heading into October is whether the stock can reclaim the gap left by the July sell-off, and whether the unified analyst community begins to see any follow-through on the aggressive target upgrades in the price action itself.
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