Wall Street Bets is a roundup of recent notes from analysts covering the gambling industry.
Macquarie’s Chad Beynon evaluated DraftKings’ second-quarter results on August 12:
“DraftKing’s 2Q result, underpinned by exceptional customer acquisition, underlying sports momentum, and faster-than-expected prediction market scaling, reinforces our view that DraftKings is one of the most compelling structural growth stories in gaming. The core business is accelerating while predictions appears to be emerging as a potentially sizable incremental growth vertical rather than a cannibalistic one. Additionally, management’s July/NFL commentary suggests the company enters the second half of 2026 with significant momentum. Against this backdrop and with shares -28% year-to-date (+13% Standard & Poor’s 500), we reiterate our Outperform rating as we forecast three-year revisions/EBITDA compound annual growth rates of 11%/40%.”
B Riley’s Josh Nichols covered Inspired Entertainment in an August 12 statement:
“Buy-rated DoubleDown Interactive (price target from $22 to $24) delivered a decisive 2Q beat, with revenue of $94.3 million (+11.2% year-over-year) topping consensus of $92.9 million and EBITDA of $39.3 million (+17.2% year-over-year) clearing consensus of $36.9 million by +6.5%, driven by continued direct-to-consumer momentum that pushed EBITDA margin +210 basis points year-over-year to 41.6%. Social casino revenue also grew nominally sequentially to $77.3 million while SuprNation igaming revenue of $17 million was effectively flat quarter-to-quarter as management deliberately curtailed UK player acquisition spend to navigate the country’s higher gambling tax rate that took effect on April 1, prioritizing profit protection over growth in a still-early mitigation period.”
David Katz on August 16 looked at Brightstar Lottery:
“Brightstar’s lottery business has historically progressed through significant cash flow cycles that have been key drivers of the shares with current circumstances suggesting a positive set-up. Significant free cash flow acceleration (~$1.6B swing in FY27) follows cyclical lottery concession capital outflows which completed 2Q26. Meanwhile, shares offer a 7.8% dividend yield where we see little risk of a cut.”
Daniel Politzer of J. P. Morgan looked at gaming revenue in Indiana on August 12:
“Indiana July casino GGR of $209 million was +3.% year-over-year. July 2026 had nine weekend days and 2025 had eight weekend days. July sports betting GGR of $40 million was +16% year-over-year, while handle of $384 million was +35% year-over-year, implying a 10.4% hold rate (-170 basis points year-over-year). We note that to provide a true apples-to-apples comparison, we add free play deductions back to the property GGR totals for the month.”
