Amid their prediction market launches, DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel have wavered on some responsible gaming protocols they once held up as examples of their supposed altruism.
At launch, the companies have only brought some of the anti-addiction tools from their mobile sportsbooks into their standalone prediction market apps. While users can set betting limits and lock their accounts in the new apps, all launched last month, the platforms did not immediately provide gambling addiction hotline information, session time data or the same betting history visualizations.
In a statement Thursday night, a FanDuel spokesperson said the company, which launched its prediction market app in five states on Dec. 22, would be adding a support hotline to its in-app customer protection suite “shortly” and had just put it in the fine print of its website. After this story published Friday, FanDuel confirmed the hotline had also been put in its app.
The erosion of responsible gaming protections has been a direct real-world consequence of DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel needing to call prediction markets—an exchange format for betting—a financial asset in order to offer them to the public. The financial asset label pushes prediction markets toward the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a federal agency, and grants immunity from state gambling laws and taxes on gross betting revenue.
Under the Commodity Exchange Act, the CFTC is not supposed to permit event contracts based upon “gaming.” As a result, companies involved with prediction markets could lose legal credibility if they implement a full suite of gambling addiction tools, as doing so might be seen as an admission that the product falls outside the CFTC’s purview.
DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel resist mention of “gambling” and “gaming” at every turn within their prediction market apps and claim users are “trading,” not “betting.” That’s despite prediction markets visually resembling a sportsbook and similarly being structured so the average retail user loses money. The hotline FanDuel just implemented into its app is run by the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG)—but references to it do not include mention of “gambling” or “gaming.”
By prioritizing the business success of a new venture over responsible gaming norms, DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel have acted hypocritically.
Cole Wogoman, director of government relations for the NCPG, a prominent addiction hotline operator and advocacy group, wrote in a statement that his organization “is urging prediction market operators to include the same core safeguards expected of regulated sportsbooks.”
“From a problem gambling perspective, buying and selling futures contracts through prediction markets is functionally gambling, particularly when those contracts are tied to sports, an activity long associated with gambling,” he added. “The legal classification of prediction markets is irrelevant to whether it can contribute to a gambling problem.”
For years, alongside other state-regulated sportsbook operators, DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel suggested their sportsbook addiction resources were put in place at least partially on moral grounds—not just because of strict state licensing requirements or public perception. The companies pointed to the tools as examples of legalized sports betting creating safer conditions for consumers than offshore sportsbooks.
From the start, gambling addiction hotline information was their most ubiquitous help option, visible on every state-licensed sportsbook’s marketing material, homepage and help center. If you listen to sports podcasts, you likely know the phone numbers from the barrage of ad reads.
“From the moment someone registers a DraftKings account, our top priority is ensuring every user has an engaging, fun and, most importantly, a safe experience,” said then-DraftKings chief compliance officer Tim Dent in a 2019 statement as the company unveiled a partnership with the NCPG.
In its sportsbook app, FanDuel, also a partner of the NCPG, touts the organization as offering “hope and guidance for change.” This past September, three months before launching prediction markets, FanDuel announced former NCPG executive director Keith Whyte as a strategic advisor. In a 2024 interview, Whyte told Sportico that prediction markets were gambling and marketing them as anything else could be harmful.
In a direct message Thursday night, Whyte wrote that while he is an advisor to FanDuel, he does not speak for the company. Whyte said there are “no meaningful psychological distinctions” between traditional sportsbooks and prediction markets when it comes to addiction risk. But he claimed the trio of sportsbook operators who have entered prediction markets are showing greater consumer care than competing financial technology firms, such as Kalshi and Robinhood.
Whyte said “it is also important to recognize this is all new and there are differences between the verticals,” adding, “We can’t just assume one size fits all with [responsible gaming]. For example the messaging and wording will likely need to be changed to resonate with traders.”
In an emailed statement, a Fanatics spokesperson wrote, “Fanatics Markets offers consumer protections and equips customers with tools to help manage exposure, trade responsibly and make informed trading decisions. The tools allow customers to set deposit limits, session limits, timeouts and self-exclusion.”
DraftKings declined to comment.
Because CFTC-regulated prediction markets have only implemented sports bets in the past 12 months, comprehensive prediction market addiction studies are sparse. Anecdotally, though, consumers have said prediction markets present similar pitfalls as traditional sportsbooks. The subreddit for Kalshi, the leading U.S. prediction market platform by volume, features users expressing regret for overconfidence and chasing losses—hallmarks of problem gambling.
The NCPG doesn’t take a stance on whether CFTC-regulated sports betting should be allowed. But the organization takes issue with the discrepancies that have emerged between responsible gaming standards under the state and federal betting frameworks, Wogoman said in an interview last fall. Making responsible gaming tools the same across offerings is “what it would take to put people’s mind at ease and say we’re taking this seriously,” Wogoman added.
On one hand, the platitudes of traditional sportsbook operators fracturing under a droplet of business pressure reflects how the world works. It is perhaps more of a dog-bites-man story than man-bites-dog. You’ll see similar things across industries.
Yet moving the goalposts on what responsible gaming should look like simply out of corporate convenience feels particularly craven, given the high stakes in combatting gambling addiction, which multiple studies suggest is being diagnosed in the U.S. at a much higher rate than before the Supreme Court’s Murphy v. NCAA decision in 2018 opened the floodgates for legalized sports betting.
The responsible gaming about-face also puts an incident from last year into a different perspective.
When my colleague Anthony Crupi wrote an opinion column in January 2025 that called the phrase “responsible gaming” an oxymoron, multiple industry sources came to me to complain. I was told how seriously sportsbooks treat these resources. I had some sympathy then, but the thrust of his argument—that “responsible gaming” is motivated by optics—has aged well.
Regardless, the column was Anthony’s opinion, one which plenty of readers likely shared, and the reflexive pushback seemed way over the top even then. Now the protests look ridiculous.
I won’t pretend to know what responsible gaming should entail. I don’t know that anyone has a correct answer there. But I do know that sportsbooks set standards and are now discarding them without a reason that has anything to do with mental health.
And to be clear, this is far from just a DraftKings, Fanatics or FanDuel issue.
Prediction market exchange operators that do not own traditional sportsbooks, including Kalshi, Polymarket and Crypto.com, created the blueprint for the “we’re not gambling” argument. Like DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel, their apps do not exactly replicate the addiction resources present at licensed mobile sportsbooks. (Kalshi has carried over some tools that don’t explicitly reference “gaming,” such as the ability to set position limits.)
Novig, a prediction market platform that exists in a regulatory outer space that is neither state nor federal, directs people in need of help to a video game addiction group rather than a gambling one, presumably as another tactic to avoid explicit association with gambling.
Meanwhile, companies that remain sportsbook-only with no prediction market product, such as Caesars and MGM, could eventually embrace prediction markets. They’ve been more cautious with the emergence of exchange style betting because of their financial stake in Las Vegas brick-and-mortar casinos, which could receive punishment from Nevada regulators who fiercely oppose the rise of prediction markets.
That said, I would not be surprised if circumstances change and they follow the lead of FanDuel, Fanatics and DraftKings. Their prediction market patience is likely not the result of a superior moral code.
At the end of the day, it’s just business.
(This story has been updated to reflect FanDuel adding the hotline to its app after publish.)