Director, Research

Rush Street Interactive (NYSE: RSI) is a market leader in online casino and sports betting, currently operating real-money gaming with our brands: BetRivers.com, PlaySugarHouse.com, and RushBet.co. We’re building bridges between online, social and land-based gaming businesses to create amazing, integrated experiences that keep players in the game.

As part of Rush Street Interactive ’s mission to create phenomenal player experiences, the Director of Research builds and leads a company-wide research function that transforms external intelligence and player understanding into clear, actionable direction for the business.

The Director designs and conducts research across the player journey, benchmarks competitors across experience, content, and market position, and connects behavioral insights to business performance. The role applies this evidence across Marketing, CRM, Product, Commercial, Player Journey, and UX to support informed decision-making.

The scope extends beyond player behavior to the broader competitive landscape, including market share, vendor and content exclusivity, competitive positioning, and emerging market trends. The Director works hands-on with research tools, manages external agency and vendor partners, and owns the research operating model, including intake, prioritization, and insight sharing, enabling one research function to effectively support multiple initiatives across the organization.

This role complements Customer Support and Design System research by incorporating these perspectives into a shared research framework and evidence base used across the business.
What You'll Do:

- Lead and manage a structured, ongoing player, market, and competitive research program across RSI’s regulated markets.

- Own and maintain a competitive and market scorecard covering market share, feature and promotional parity, vendor and content exclusivity, competitive positioning, and player experience across the journey from registration and KYC through onboarding, login, and retention.

- Lead, develop, and manage the Research team, setting clear priorities and performance expectations, coaching team members, supporting professional development, and ensuring the team has the capabilities and capacity to meet research needs across the organization.

- Partner with Marketing to conduct brand perception, positioning, campaign, and creative research to inform messaging and channel decisions.

- Partner with Product to validate roadmap decisions and feature prioritization using player and market evidence.

- Partner with Commercial to inform pricing, promotional, vendor, and content decisions, including analysis of exclusivity opportunities and their potential market impact.

- Design and conduct qualitative and quantitative research, including user testing, focus groups, moderated interviews, player surveys, and other appropriate research methodologies.

- Identify player motivations, behaviors, needs, and friction points and translate findings into actionable recommendations.

- Facilitate structured feedback and research readout sessions with Product, Marketing, Commercial, and other stakeholders to translate insights into business actions.

- Serve as a research partner across Marketing, CRM, Product, Commercial, UX, Data/Analytics, Customer Support, and Design System teams to establish a shared evidence base and reduce duplicative research efforts.

- Establish and manage a centralized intake process through which teams can submit research requests with clearly defined business questions, audiences, and timelines.

- Develop and maintain a transparent research prioritization framework based on factors such as business impact, urgency, effort, and the number of initiatives supported or unblocked.

- Maintain a shared, searchable repository of research findings, competitive intelligence, and market information that enables teams to access and reuse existing insights.

- Establish recurring research and insight read