Online gambling has surged in the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports betting in 2018, prompting public health concerns about gambling addiction and calls for stricter consumer protections. Online sportsbooks such as DraftKings and FanDuel have touted “responsible gaming” features as evidence that they are taking appropriate steps to protect consumers from spiraling out of control.
Reporter Jake Pearson put these safeguards to the test. Bankrolled by ProPublica, he mimicked the betting patterns of a problem gambler for 10 weeks, consulting a panel of addiction specialists, recovering gambling addicts and professional sports bettors for advice.
He found that the safety features were overpowered by the app’s product design and promotions that pushed him to continue gambling.
Pearson detailed his entire journey, which you can read here. Here are five takeaways from his investigation.
1. Sports betting is ubiquitous. The industry relies on very active losers.
Today, nearly a quarter of all Americans, and half of men ages 18 to 49, say they have an active sportsbook account, according to the Siena Research Institute. But that rapid growth has come with consequences: About a quarter of active sportsbook account holders surveyed by the organization this year said that they’d lost enough on a bet that they’d have trouble meeting their financial obligations.
Gamblers who lose frequently are the bettors sportsbooks are most interested in, Matthew Gaskell, a British psychologist and expert on gambling addiction, said. Gaskell noted that a relatively small number of active losers account for a substantial amount of sportsbooks’ revenue.
A 2024 study out of Connecticut found that 1.8% of problem gamblers in the state accounted for 51% of sports betting revenue.
If you’ve bet on sports with FanDuel or DraftKings, you can help ProPublica understand how these apps work. Use our browser extension to download your betting history, then upload your files.
DraftKings says its responsible gaming system provides adequate safeguards to protect customers from spiraling out of control. “I think as a business, as an industry, we’re doing a good job of educating people, of raising awareness, of making tools and resources available, of monitoring accounts,” Lori Kalani, DraftKings’ chief responsible gaming officer, told Pearson.
But policymakers aren’t so sure. Lawmakers from Colorado to Massachusetts are now proposing stricter consumer protections.
2. DraftKings has adopted responsible gaming tools. They require users to opt in, limiting their effectiveness.
DraftKings’ responsible gambling safeguards include in-app notifications that encourage gamblers to take a break after they’ve lost money and “time reminders” that tell users how long they’ve been on the app. The app also features a responsible gaming center that allows users to set a budget, track their spending or opt into tools like those that allow them to limit the amount of time and money they spend in a 24-hour period or enact more severe restrictions such as a multiday “cool off.”
But this system largely relies on users to have the wherewithal to opt into the tools — something that experts say can be difficult for someone struggling with gambling addiction.
DraftKings told Pearson that if a customer’s behavior raises too many red flags, the company will proactively close an account. Yet it wouldn’t specify how often this actually happens.
Pearson’s experiment mimicked the behavior of a problem gambler to see when — and if — the company’s safeguards would stop him. The first in-app responsible gaming prompt Pearson received came more than a week after he began gambling on the NBA playoffs, when he’d already lost roughly what a minimum-wage worker in New York City earns in a month. It told him that he’d hit $2,500 or more in deposits and said to “visit our Responsible Gaming Center anytime to set limits for yourself and access tools for safer play.”
But the app’s warning wasn’t triggered by Pearson’s reckless betting. It was legally required. When New York legalized mobile sports betting in 2023, lawmakers required the apps to notify users when they hit $2,500 in total deposits. The pop-up gave Pearson two options: set limits or “I understand.” He clicked the latter and was back in action.
Even as Pearson exhibited red flag after red flag, according to our panel of experts, his subsequent warnings from the app followed the same pattern.
DraftKings says millions of customers have visited its responsible gaming center, but the little data available publicly suggests only a small percentage opt into these tools. Just over 8% of active DraftKings users in Massachusetts were using them as of April, a company official told state regulators this summer. The official added the number was trending up.
Kalani says her 51-person team manually reviews user accounts suspected of problem gambling. Yet even after Pearson deposited $21,600 into his account in less than eight weeks and exhibited just about every sign of compulsive gambling, he didn’t register for a manual review under the company’s criteria.
3. The design of online sports betting platforms can encourage users to gamble more.
Online gambling companies have created sophisticated technology products designed to squeeze maximum engagement out of users, just as social media companies like Meta did years earlier with users of Facebook and Instagram, according to Darragh McGee, a researcher at the University of Bath.
Indeed, Pearson found that the app’s design encouraged him to keep betting.
As he gambled more, he found that the app’s quick-tap deposit buttons increased automatically, making it even easier to mindlessly transfer large sums from his bank into his DraftKings account. And while DraftKings’ safety warnings were sporadic, he was getting up to six push notifications a day notifying him of rewards and betting opportunities.
DraftKings told Pearson it sent him 32 responsible gambling prompts over 10 weeks of gambling, including emails that every DraftKings customer gets. Pearson counted in-app notifications about his betting 14 out of the 71 days he gambled on the app.
4. Perks can also help encourage users to bet more.
DraftKings, like many other sportsbooks, also offers VIP programs that give users perks, including free bets and concert tickets. After Pearson lost $1,800 betting on basketball in one night, chasing his losses with increasingly long-shot bets, he was invited to audition to become a DraftKings VIP. After only three weeks and $5,800 in deposits on the app, Pearson was formally accepted into DraftKings’ VIP program, which assigned him a personal concierge.
That VIP host told Pearson that he would be “keeping an eye out for opportunities and perks tailored specifically” to his account, plus “reminders about Responsible Gaming.” Company representatives offer VIPs special incentives to continue gambling, such as “bonus bets” (free one-time bets using house money) and “deposit matches” (extra house money called DK Dollars that come along with new deposits).
Pearson found that the program rewarded riskier bets. The more money users spend on long-odds wagers, the quicker they accumulate credits needed to “advance” to higher tiers that offer better perks.
Less than a week after Pearson opted into a three-day “cool-off” period — after losing several thousand dollars betting on tennis — Pearson contacted his VIP representative, who helped facilitate his largest deposit match to date: juicing a $5,000 deposit with an extra $1,250 in free DK Dollars.
5. Online gamblers are left to regulate themselves. Experts say more limits are needed.
Lawmakers face a public policy dilemma: While online gambling generates billions of dollars in tax revenue, research shows that gambling disorder diagnoses are rising in states that have legalized.
In New York, sportsbooks like DraftKings have to submit a “problem-gaming plan” to the state regulator but the law leaves the specifics of it up to the companies. The plan must include, among other things, procedures “for identifying users with suspected or known problem-gaming behavior” and for “providing information to users concerning problem-gaming identification and resources.” The exact details are unclear because such plans are not publicly available. (A DraftKings spokesperson wouldn’t provide a copy, and Pearson’s request for it under the state’s open records law with the gaming commission is under review.)
Other countries have already taken aggressive steps to regulate online sportsbooks’ marketing practices and advertisements. But in the U.S., the industry has actively opposed proposed reforms on the federal and state levels — and even seeded a political action committee with $41 million to influence elections this year.
Rob Minnick, a recovering gambling addict and one of the experts we consulted, said that the framework for protecting consumers shouldn’t be entrusted to a publicly traded company that’s driven to grow revenue.
DraftKings told Pearson that all 5,000-plus of its employees are trained on responsible gaming every year and that it’s “not a side initiative. It is embedded across our business and essential to DraftKings’ long-term sustainability.”
“The system worked the way it was supposed to,” Kalani told Pearson.
Critics say that’s the problem.
If you’ve bet on sports with FanDuel or DraftKings, we want to hear from you. You can help us understand how these apps respond to their users’ betting behavior. Use our browser extension to download your betting history, then drop the files here.
