DraftKings Promo AI Flagged Problem Gamblers for Free-Bet Offers, NYT Reports

DraftKings built a promotional targeting system that scored customers on signs of gambling addiction and used those scores to decide who received free bets, according to a New York Times investigation published this week. The report says the company's marketing model treated problem-gambling indicators as signals of a valuable customer rather than a reason to intervene. The findings land as regulators in multiple U.S. states weigh tighter rules on how sportsbooks use player data for promotions.

According to the Times, the system assigned bettors a score based on behavioral markers associated with addiction risk, including escalating wager size, late-night betting, chasing losses, and heavy deposit activity. Customers who scored high were routed into promotional campaigns, the report says, because they were more likely to keep betting and generate revenue. Free bets and bonus credits are a standard acquisition tool across the U.S. sportsbook industry, but the investigation describes the targeting as deliberate rather than incidental.

DraftKings has not publicly confirmed the internal details described in the report. The company has previously said it invests in responsible-gaming tools, including deposit limits, self-exclusion and time-out features, and it operates a compliance program that reports to state regulators. In a statement responding to the Times, the company disputed characterizations of its practices, saying its promotional programs are designed to attract and retain customers within legal and responsible-gaming frameworks.

The story matters because it cuts at the central tension in the U.S. online betting market: the same behavioral data that powers personalization can also identify the customers most at risk of harm. State regulators, including those in Massachusetts and New Jersey, have started asking sportsbooks to explain how algorithms and marketing systems interact with responsible-gaming obligations. If the Times' account holds up under scrutiny, it could accelerate calls for audits of promotional targeting and for rules that bar addiction markers from being used as a marketing input.

It also puts pressure on DraftKings' peers. FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars and others run comparable bonus and free-bet programs, and any regulatory inquiry into DraftKings is likely to prompt questions about how the rest of the industry scores and segments bettors. Gambling-harm researchers have argued for years that operators hold data that could flag at-risk players earlier than self-reporting tools do; the dispute here is whether that data was pointed at protection or at profit.

What to watch next is whether state attorneys general or gaming commissions open formal investigations, and whether DraftKings discloses changes to its promotional targeting. The Times report also raises a practical question for the industry: if addiction-risk scoring exists inside these companies, who outside them gets to see how it is used?

For now, the company's public position is that its marketing complies with the law, while the investigation's central claim — that free bets were aimed at the customers most likely to be harmed by them — remains the fact pattern regulators will have to test.