The facts
Daniel Vest, a West Virginia resident, filed a proposed class action against DraftKings in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts on 30 September, case no. 1:26-cv-14462, assigned to Judge Brian E. Murphy.
The complaint alleges, largely on the strength of a New York Times investigation published 19 September, that DraftKings built a machine-learning model to identify customers likely to lose more in response to promotions, and targeted them with extra offers and messages.
According to the complaint, the model scored customers so that a higher score meant more expected loss per promotion. Users with below-average scores were deemed "inelastic" and marked for fewer incentives, while a separate model to flag customers at risk of harm was sidelined. On "information and belief," the complaint alleges that customers deemed "elastic" were sent extra emails, texts, in-app notifications, and promotions intended to keep them gambling, without being told their data was used that way.
The complaint says DraftKings "has weaponized AI" to "understand and exploit users’ vulnerabilities". It claims breach of contract, breach of implied contract, and money had and received, arguing that DraftKings' privacy notices promise to use customer data to check that people are "responsibly playing".
Vest says he received about 70 emails, texts, and notifications from DraftKings in the 30 days to 25 September, many of them offering a promotion. He seeks damages, refunds, disgorgement, and an injunction against the use of the model. The complaint was filed by Jason Leviton and Brendan Jarboe of Block & Leviton LLP, invokes the Class Action Fairness Act with more than $5 million in dispute, and demands a jury trial. DraftKings is headquartered in Boston.
The complaint also cites Massachusetts' sports wagering data privacy rule, 205 CMR 257.02, adopted in 2023, which bars an operator from using a patron's personal information to promote wagers based on machine learning or AI known or reasonably expected to make the platform "more addictive".
DraftKings rejected the premise. "DraftKings does not use AI to target customers based on losses, nor do we use AI to target customers based on indicators of potential problem gaming," spokesperson Park Winslow said, according to WBUR, adding that the company would vigorously defend any lawsuits. The company told the Times that promotions go to customers with "sustained, engaged use" and that the 2023 test was "preliminary and inconclusive".
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office said the allegations "raise serious concerns". State Auditor Diana DiZoglio called them "deeply concerning and, if substantiated, completely unacceptable". The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is reviewing how licensed sportsbooks use AI.
Our take
What a beautiful, soulless fucking grift. DraftKings looked at a casino and thought, 'This is too inefficient.' The house always wins, but these greedy cunts allegedly built a machine to make sure the house wins from the most vulnerable, desperate bastards first. According to the lawsuit, they scored their customers. A high score meant you were 'elastic' - a pathetic euphemism for 'this prick will lose his shirt if we blow up his phone.' A low score meant you were 'inelastic,' a fucking cheapskate not worth the bandwidth. Then they allegedly shelved the model meant to flag problem gamblers, because why protect the suckers when you can just milk them harder? That's not business. That's a vampire with a fucking MBA.
And the sheer brass balls of it all. Their privacy policy, that sanctimonious piece of shit, promised to use your data to make sure you were 'responsibly playing.' In reality, the suit claims, they used that data to do the exact opposite: to find the people least capable of playing responsibly and fucking carpet-bomb them with 70 emails, texts, and notifications in a month. The 'responsible play' department was just the hunting blind. They took a promise of protection and turned it into a targeting laser. That's some next-level, sociopathic bullshit.
Of course DraftKings denies it. Their spokesperson, Park Winslow, says they 'do not use AI to target customers based on losses' and called the whole thing a 'preliminary and inconclusive' test. Sure, you fucking weasels. A 'preliminary' test that somehow generated a class action lawsuit, triggered reviews by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, and drew 'serious concerns' from the Attorney General and State Auditor. Three separate government offices don't get the smelling salts out for a fucking science fair project. Your 'inconclusive' test allegedly had a scoring system and a list of 'elastic' marks. That sounds pretty goddamn conclusive to me.
The lawsuit is filed on 'information and belief,' which is legal speak for 'we're about to tear the roof off your server farm and see what crawls out.' Discovery is going to be a fucking bloodbath. Somewhere in DraftKings' systems is the model that labeled human beings as profitable loss-machines. A jury might get to see exactly how the sausage was made - how the algorithm sorted people into 'paypigs' and 'waste of time.' Until then, they can hide behind their PR bullshit. But the stench of this predatory, exploitative scheme is already in the air. It's the smell of greed so pure it bypassed ethics entirely and went straight to building a robot to identify and fleece the weak. Absolute fucking monsters.
