Online Gambling Player Rush Street Wins Support of Blank Check Firm To Go Public

Chalk up another major deal for blank check companies, one of Wall Street’s hottest new trends, with online gambling and sports betting company Rush Street Interactive’s announcement that it will be going public.

Rush Street Interactive (RSI) said on Monday (July 27) that it will go public via a merger with dMY Technology Group, one of a new wave of special acquisition companies, or SPACs, backed by deep-pocketed investors, which hunt for tech unicorns or other promising startups to take public.

The new, publicly-traded Rush Street Interactive will have a value of nearly $1.8 billion and will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RSI.

The deal comes just a few weeks after superstar investor Bill Ackman announced that he would be raising $3 billion in an IPO of his new blank check company, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, with plans to find tech unicorns to bring public.

The blank check operation that will take Rush Street Interactive public fits the profile. The $230 million dMY Technology just went public in February under the leadership of two veteran tech executives – Harry You, a former top EMC executive who was previously CFO of Accenture and Oracle, and Niccolo de Masi, chairman and former CEO of Glu Mobile, a developer of mobile games for smartphones and tablets.

Founded by Chicago billionaire and casino investor Neil Bluhm, Rush Street Interactive is going public at an opportune time, with a growing number of states weighing plans to legalize online gambling and sports betting amid a looming, coronavirus-driven cash crunch.

RSI currently holds online gambling licenses in Illinois and Pennsylvania, states where Bluhm’s company Rush Street Gaming has casinos, as well as New Jersey, Colorado and Indiana.

RSI is projecting $321 million in revenue for its fiscal 2021.

“This transaction with dMY Technology will provide RSI access to growth capital to allow for the expansion of the business in this fast-growing market, and we expect it will serve our customers and investors well,” Bluhm said in a statement.