Gaming stocks had a stellar week, and the Roundhill Sports Betting & iGaming ETF soared over 7%, bridging its year-to-date (YTD) losses to just about 4%. While it is still underperforming the S&P 500 Index this year, the performance gap has narrowed over the last couple of weeks.
DraftKings and Genius Sports were the biggest gainers last week, while Corsair Gaming and Sea Limited were the biggest losers.
Biggest Gainers
DraftKings (NYSE: DKNG) +16.33%
DraftKings stock rose by over 16% last week, helping it narrow its YTD losses to 16%. The primary catalyst for the stock’s rise was a regulatory filing showing preliminary 24% month-on-month growth in annualized consumer trading volume on DraftKings Predictions.
While sell-side analysts had previously lowered the stock’s target price, there was a flurry of positive analyst action last week. TD Cowen named DraftKings its top small/mid-cap idea with a $30 price target. The brokerage believes that DKNG’s sports betting platform is “inflecting toward durable profitability, driven by product depth, structural hold, and operating leverage.”
Morgan Stanley reiterated its Overweight rating and $39 price target, modeling the prediction market platform adding $50 million in revenue in fiscal 2026 before skyrocketing to $240 million in fiscal 2027. The brokerage noted that the stock’s current valuation doesn’t reflect this growth.
Jefferies also turned “incrementally more constructive” on DKNG following a fireside chat with its CEO, Jason Robins, in London.
Sentiments were also boosted by a report from Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon, who believes global wagers at this year’s FIFA World Cup could rise to a record $50 billion versus the $35 billion in the 2022 event.
Genius Sports (NYSE: GENI) +15.51%
Genius Sports stock rose over 15% last week. The gains could primarily be attributed to its sponsorship agreements with LIGA MX (the top Mexican football league) and Polymarket for the U.S. territory. As part of the deal, Polymarket would be the official and exclusive prediction market partner for LIGA MX in the U.S.
Genius will be the engine behind this deal, supplying official LIGA MX data to Polymarket to create and settle sports prediction market contracts. It will also handle integrity information-sharing services.
This signals a highly lucrative new revenue stream and establishes Genius Sports as a vital infrastructure provider for emerging, rapidly scaling prediction markets, opening up a massive new frontier beyond traditional sportsbooks.
Rush Street Interactive (NYSE: RSI) +13.24%
Rush Street Interactive continued its good run and rose over 13% last week, extending its YTD gains to an impressive 52%. In the preceding week, the S&P 500 Dow Jones Indices announced that as part of the index’s quarterly rebalancing, Rush Street Interactive would join the S&P SmallCap 600 Index effective June 22, 2026.
It’s usual for stocks to rise after being added to the index, as inclusion means passive funds that track the index would need to buy the shares in the same percentage as the index.
Moreover, earlier this week, RSI made waves by applying to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for designated contract market (DCM) status. This move signals that the company is actively preparing to offer event-based trading products and break into the rapidly growing prediction market space, a potential massive new revenue line that energized investors looking for growth catalysts beyond traditional sportsbooks and iGaming.
Biggest Losers
Corsair Gaming (NYSE: CRSR) -6.44%
Corsair Gaming was the biggest loser in our coverage of gaming stocks for the second consecutive week. The drawdown comes after a stellar rally in May, which came amid optimism over its AI pivot.
Last month, Corsair announced a portfolio of AI-powered workstations and servers named Corsair PRO. Subsequently, the company’s creator brand, Elgato, announced Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for its popular Stream Deck. This allows the device to act as a physical controller for AI agents like NVIDIA G-Assist, letting users trigger complex, multi-step AI tasks with voice commands or a single keypress.
However, the stock has been under pressure this month as markets question whether the May rally was really backed by fundamentals or was largely driven by the euphoria we see with many companies that announce an AI pivot.
Sea Limited (NYSE: SE) -4.18%
Sea Limited continued its dismal run and fell over 4% last week, extending its YTD decline to 35%. Last week, Sea announced an aggressive workforce reduction, cutting roughly 8% of Shopee’s (its e-commerce platform) global developer headcount, primarily affecting quality assurance roles.
While management framed this as an AI-driven restructuring to streamline operations and cut overhead, the sudden layoffs reignited investor anxiety about escalating competition on e-commerce platforms and the true cost of maintaining growth.
Sea shares have looked weak after peaking near $200 last year and are now down almost 60% from their September 2025 highs.
Melco Resorts & Entertainment (NYSE: MLCO) -3.51%
Melco Resorts stock fell over 3% last week. There wasn’t any major company-specific announcement last week, but sentiment was dampened by a Citigroup note warning of the FIFA tournament’s immediate historical drag on land-based casino traffic.
Major international soccer tournaments naturally divert a significant portion of Chinese and premium-mass gamblers’ attention and betting budgets away from casino floors and into sports wagering.
In its note, Citi pointed to the 17% fall in Macau’s GGR (gross gaming revenues) during the UEFA Euro 2024. Analyst George Choi noted that “Macau GGR took similar dives during both the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and UEFA Euro 2016.” Choi expects an even bigger impact from FIFA this year and added: “If history repeats itself, this year’s major soccer tournament could have a more severe impact due to its new format and the unprecedented 104 total matches.”
Major Gaming Industry Developments
Data released by the Nevada Gaming Control Board showed that Las Vegas Strip casinos reported an 81% year-on-year drop in net income in fiscal year 2025. However, things are not as gloomy this year, and casinos on the Strip posted win revenues of almost $700 million in April, marking a rise of almost 7% compared to 2025. They also increased year over year in both February and March.
Amid industry-wide headwinds, FanDuel reportedly laid off many of its employees. The cuts are said to be “very widespread,” affecting several hundred employees.
Jobs were eliminated globally across software engineering, customer service, business development, social media, and operations. Long-time managers and employees who had been with the company since its early days of daily fantasy sports were among those let go. This follows the abrupt departure of FanDuel CEO Amy Howe in May, alongside a nearly 50% YTD drop in the stock price of parent company Flutter Entertainment.
Previously, in May, Gambling.com announced an immediate, organization-wide restructuring to shift toward an AI-first business model. This includes cutting 25% of its workforce, which it says would help deliver $13 million in annualized savings.
Talking of prediction markets, the CFTC is aggressively doubling down on the view that sports “event contracts” fall strictly under its federal jurisdiction, drawing sharp anger from state regulators and tribal governments who argue this is illegal gambling that bypasses state laws.
Last week, the CFTC released a massive 267-page draft regulation aimed at solidifying federal oversight over booming prediction platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket.
Crucially, the CFTC classified election and political wagers as “contests, not gaming,” keeping them outside the stricter 90-day review policies for gambling activities.
Meanwhile, the prediction industry continues to grow exponentially. Prediction market wagers for the 2026 FIFA World Cup crossed $2 billion across leading platforms last week. Analysts estimate that total World Cup volume on Kalshi and Polymarket could eventually reach $10 billion.
What Should Gaming Investors Watch This Week?
With the 2026 FIFA World Cup underway, sports betting and data supply stocks are entering their biggest operational test of the year. Investors should watch for early tournament trading updates over the next week, as they could impact the price action of names like DraftKings and Flutter.
Investors should also keep an eye on this week’s Federal Reserve meeting. Gambling executives listed employee wages and tightening consumer budgets as their top margin pressures in recent earnings. A hawkish Fed tone (holding interest rates higher for longer) will pressure highly leveraged casino/sportsbook stocks, while a dovish tone will give discretionary tech and entertainment sectors a green light to rally.
The meeting is all the more important as it would be the inaugural meeting led by Kevin Warsh, who was officially sworn in on May 22, 2026. Moreover, the meeting comes days after data showed that U.S. CPI (consumer price index) rose at an annualized rate of 4.2% in May, the highest in three years.
