outcome of a single baseball pitch<\/a>, as especially dangerous. A study published last year in JAMA Internal Medicine cited a rise in Google searches like \u201cAm I a gambling addict?\u201d Calls about sports betting to Ohio\u2019s problem gambling help line have more than quadrupled since the state legalized it in 2023. The state\u2019s outgoing governor, Mike DeWine, told The Times that signing that law was his biggest regret.<\/p>\nPromotions, which take on forms like a free bet, a \u201cprofit boost\u201d or a deposit bonus, play a vital role in DraftKings\u2019s business: The company brought in around $8.7 billion in gross revenue from sports and casino gamblers last year, and gave out about $3 billion in promotions, according to research by Citizens Bank. <\/p>\n
DraftKings and some competitors, including FanDuel, have boasted publicly about their use of customer data for promotions \u2014 without disclosing what those efforts entail. A DraftKings executive recently told investors that data science and analytics helped it improve its margins on promotion-driven sports bets by 13 percent in 2025 and that it used A.I. to personalize hundreds of millions of promotional dollars.<\/p>\n
One former DraftKings data scientist who worked on promotions, Jacob Shulkin, said that they were effective because they take advantage of gamblers\u2019 psychology. \u201cI feel I\u2019m getting free money,\u201d he said, \u201cbut really it\u2019s dragging me back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several gamblers told The Times that promotions fueled their addictions. Bryan Biehl lost nearly $70,000 gambling online, more than half of it at DraftKings. Mr. Biehl recalled how in late 2024, when he started therapy for his addiction, his email inbox began to feel like a relapse risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would get flooded with bonuses and deposits,\u201d Mr. Biehl said. \u201cIf you are in addiction, you are not going to say no.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first two weeks of December 2024, Mr. Biehl received 40 promotions from DraftKings, emails show. He succumbed to temptation one last time on Christmas Day before putting himself on self-exclusion lists, which blocked him from gambling apps.<\/p>\n
DraftKings declined to comment on Mr. Biehl\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
Asked whether promotions contribute to problem gambling, Ms. Kalani said they are \u201ca marketing tool that every company out there uses,\u201d comparing DraftKings to businesses like Amazon. Other industries face similar issues, she said. \u201cShopping can be problematic for people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Open the floodgates\u2019<\/p>\n
Jayden Butts grew up watching his grandfather\u2019s gambling addiction play out \u2014 three trips a week up I-95 to Oxford Casino in Maine.<\/p>\n
Fresh out of college and eager for a high-paying tech job, he joined DraftKings\u2019s casino division in May 2022 as a data analyst. He initially didn\u2019t think much about customers like his grandfather. Then he had his own string of losses playing online slots through an offshore website. He later quit gambling with a new appreciation for people who might be struggling. <\/p>\n
DraftKings is famous for sports betting, but its online casino games, including slots and blackjack, bring in nearly one-third of the company\u2019s revenue, even though it offers them in only a handful of jurisdictions.<\/p>\n
The online casino is where, in mid-2023, DraftKings set out to build a model for predicting how promotions would translate into a user\u2019s eventual wins or losses.<\/p>\n
The core question was, \u201cIs this person going to give us more than we\u2019re giving them?\u201d Mr. Butts said. \u201cAnd if the answer is yes, open the floodgates.\u201d<\/p>\n
DraftKings already had a system that weighed factors like a gambler\u2019s skill, how much they bet and tax rates on gambling revenue in the state where they lived.<\/p>\n
But it was relatively crude. According to one internal memo, it offered \u201cno information or insight on expected user-level profitability of reinvestment dollars\u201d \u2014 in other words, DraftKings did not know how effective its promotions were at inducing gamblers to lose. <\/p>\n
Figuring this out required machine learning. Unlike traditional data analytics, where researchers decide which patterns to look for, machine learning models can sift through hundreds of variables on their own to find combinations that help predict particular behaviors.<\/p>\n
Data scientists had trained the new casino model on historical data. It was Mr. Butts\u2019s job to test it on real customers. Each week, the model vacuumed up information about a user\u2019s recent activity. The score it calculated was known internally as \u201celasticity,\u201d a term borrowed from economics.<\/p>\n
Users with below-average scores were deemed \u201cinelastic\u201d and marked for fewer incentives. The \u201celastic\u201d bettors remained.<\/p>\n
In September 2023, Mr. Butts tested using the elasticity model to influence promotions for about 5,000 casino players. He later expanded the tests to a larger population.<\/p>\n
He initially thought DraftKings aimed to save money by avoiding people who were unlikely to be profitable. But he said his supervisors told him that the company did not want to reduce its promotional spending but rather to \u201credeploy\u201d it. He understood this to mean the goal was to direct more promotions toward the biggest losers.<\/p>\n
Mr. Butts said he also worried that his experiments might lead DraftKings to send more promotions to players who played more addictive games, including his own former vice: online slots, widely regarded by public health experts as among the most addictive forms of gambling.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear the extent to which DraftKings has targeted slots players more than others. But in a 2023 internal memo, researchers reported that slots revenue was \u201cmore elastic\u201d than earnings from other casino games, meaning that promotions were particularly effective at driving users to those games. A Times analysis of internal DraftKings casino betting data from early 2024 also found that bettors with high elasticity scores gambled more on slots, on average, than those with low scores.<\/p>\n
DraftKings said that it could not provide a \u201cdefinitive response\u201d to Mr. Butts\u2019s tests, the 2023 memo or the Times analysis because it had not \u201cseen or verified\u201d the material. But it said Mr. Butts\u2019s test \u201cappears preliminary and inconclusive,\u201d and that his views do not \u201creflect DraftKings\u2019 approach to promotional investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around the same time that Mr. Butts ran his tests, DraftKings began building similar models for sports betting promotions, according to eight former employees. It has continued to develop techniques for targeting sports and casino bettors as recently as this year. <\/p>\n
One former employee said he had worked on a system that looked for people at risk of leaving the platform and tried to coax them back. Another said he helped develop a program that ramped up promotions for people gambling more aggressively than usual.<\/p>\n
Two other former analysts who worked on targeting projects told The Times that they independently raised concerns with their superiors that these models would identify vulnerable gamblers as promotional targets, and asked to put protections in place. <\/p>\n
Both received the same response: no. That would be handled by another part of the company, they said they were told.<\/p>\n
Ms. Kalani, DraftKings\u2019s responsible gaming head, said she was not familiar with those requests.<\/p>\n
\u2018At Odds With the Rest of the Company\u2019<\/p>\n
The job of limiting problem gambling at DraftKings largely falls to its responsible gaming division, a group of around 50 employees at the 5,000-person company.<\/p>\n
DraftKings offers a variety of tools for gamblers who need them. Its advertisements feature phone numbers for 24\/7 gambling help lines. \u201cCool-off periods\u201d let people turn off access to the app for up to a year, and those with a longer-term problem can put themselves on self-exclusion lists for years \u2014 or indefinitely.<\/p>\n
Gamblers with a high degree of self-awareness may find these tools helpful. But they put the onus on the gambler. \u201cWhen someone is struggling with an addiction, a rational suggestion that this is not in your best interest is falling on deaf ears,\u201d said Mark Gottlieb, a lawyer who has sued DraftKings and other internet gambling companies, accusing them of practices that lead to addiction.<\/p>\n
Although many at DraftKings feel proud of their work to protect problem gamblers, their efforts have created friction with the wider business, according to six former employees who worked on responsible gaming projects. One described the responsible gaming group as \u201cat odds with the rest of the company,\u201d because it aims to slow gamblers down, which in turn makes them less profitable for DraftKings.<\/p>\n
DraftKings said there was \u201cno tension\u201d between its business goals and its responsible gaming efforts. <\/p>\n
But Hassel Velasco, a former member of DraftKings\u2019s customer service team, told The Times that on about a dozen occasions he heard complaints from problem gamblers who continued to receive promotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt pushes people to almost chase their losses,\u201d Mr. Velasco said. \u201cThey\u2019re going, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m getting a bonus so I can make up whatever I lost.\u2019\u201d Troubled by these conversations, Mr. Velasco struggled to sleep. He quit in 2024 after five months on the job.<\/p>\n
DraftKings said its representatives were required to report problem gambling concerns to the company. Ms. Kalani said the company did not send promotions to bettors who have been flagged or who have taken themselves off the platform.<\/p>\n
The company does monitor for vulnerable customers, even if they don\u2019t reach out for help. DraftKings follows guidelines from New Jersey regulators, who have instructed operators to set automatic triggers for specific indicators of potentially reckless betting, such as a customer depositing more than a certain amount during a set time period or a notable spike in time spent gambling.<\/p>\n
DraftKings said that it does this nationwide, watching for more than two dozen such indicators. The company declined to share the thresholds it uses to prompt a response \u2014 how much someone would have to deposit, for instance \u2014 \u201cbecause doing so could enable customers to circumvent our systems.\u201d <\/p>\n
When a customer trips one of these triggers, DraftKings can take three escalating steps. It first sends a message about responsible gaming, then an educational video and finally a questionnaire about gambling habits. Sometimes, DraftKings will close a gambler\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
But there are limitations. Intervention is based on customers demonstrating a specific behavior, and even if that happens, they can deny that they have a problem.<\/p>\n
DraftKings described the system as \u201cadvanced technology\u201d and said that it allowed the company to reach out to gamblers who have not yet asked for help. The company declined to share how many accounts it had suspended using this system.<\/p>\n
A Collision Course<\/p>\n
Inside DraftKings, some employees believed the company could go much further.<\/p>\n
One was a data scientist named Nestor Hernandez, who in mid-2024 began building a system that would help the responsible gaming division identify gamblers in trouble.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hernandez, a computer science Ph.D., had spent years using algorithms to detect unusual patterns in large amounts of data.<\/p>\n
He reviewed academic research into problem gambling, then developed a machine learning model to analyze the betting records \u2014 the same used for promotional targeting \u2014 of customers the company had already flagged for risky behavior. <\/p>\n
His model scanned, among other things, deposits and withdrawals, attempts to chase losses and even age and gender, for patterns that might anticipate a gambler\u2019s impending crisis. The risk score it assigned each user could theoretically help the company step in early with warnings or an outright ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of this model is to be more proactive instead of being reactive,\u201d Mr. Hernandez said. \u201cYou will basically predict that a user will be in trouble, let\u2019s say, a few days or a few weeks in advance. And you can act accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Hernandez left the company that November for personal reasons, his model still unfinished. A new team of data scientists continued the work. Just a few months later, he received news from two former colleagues: The project had been shut down.<\/p>\n
One member of that team was Jake Shannin. \u201cOur conclusion was that it is possible even with simple rules to get a better-than-guessing sense\u201d of whether a customer would end up needing an intervention, Mr. Shannin said.<\/p>\n
In early 2025, Mr. Shannin said, the team prepared to share the new model with company officials, including Ms. Kalani. But the day of the presentation, the meeting was canceled. Two other attempts by DraftKings employees to build similar algorithms have also been shelved, according to two former employees.<\/p>\n
Ms. Kalani said that company leaders made a \u201ccollective decision\u201d not to use predictive technology for problem gambling. \u201cWe evaluated that it wasn\u2019t evidence-based,\u201d she said. The company decided that its existing system was a \u201cbetter methodology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several third-party firms offer their own versions of risk scoring. Other gambling companies say they have signed up for this, including two of DraftKings\u2019s largest rivals, FanDuel and Fanatics. <\/p>\n
Phil Sherwood, senior director of responsible gaming at PrizePicks, another competitor, said his company had a \u201cmoral obligation\u201d to use these tools. \u201cFrankly, without technology like this, I can\u2019t look you in the eye and say, \u2018We\u2019re doing our best,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
DraftKings does not use any of these tools. \u201cWe\u2019re always considering our options,\u201d Ms. Kalani said. The company said its \u201cprimary commitment is to approaches that demonstrably help customers, not simply to adopting technology for its own sake.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About a year into his job as a data analyst at DraftKings, Jayden Butts received a new assignment.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[141420,200925,218,267503,49947,72153,267498,230275,267500,103,61,60,267504,267501,191383,267502,410,411,35745,267499],"class_list":["post-630088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-addiction-psychology","tag-advertising-and-marketing","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-butts","tag-computers-and-the-internet","tag-consumer-behavior","tag-data-mining-and-database-marketing","tag-draftkings-inc","tag-fanduel-com","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jayden","tag-kalani","tag-labor-and-jobs","tag-lori","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-mobile-applications","tag-tests-and-examinations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}