Matt earned VIP status at DraftKings, and his host texted him basically every day to check in, offering bonuses and free tickets to games. He turned down the tickets, since people might wonder how an elementary school teacher could afford amazing seats, and had DraftKings ship various freebies to his school rather than his home. (“I can’t have a package with DraftKings all over it mailed to my house,” he explained. At work, the boxes blended in with all the classroom supplies teachers have delivered nowadays.) Not once, Matt said, did DraftKings ask what he did for a living, whether he could afford to gamble so much, or whether he had a problem, even as he aggressively ramped up how much and how often he was betting. “I had no business doing that. So, why didn’t someone question where is this guy getting this money? And is there something else going on? But to them, it’s just money in their machine.” DraftKings declined to comment.
Brian Hatch, who served as Matt’s addiction counselor in Connecticut, told me that “in every recovery room, there’s always somebody who’s also addicted to drugs or alcohol. And without fail, all of them say that gambling was the hardest one to stop.” One researcher after another told me they believe the prevalence of gambling addiction is surging nationwide, fueled by the availability of legal sportsbooks and the ways their games are designed to keep customers engaged for as long as possible. The industry, meanwhile, won’t concede an inch on that subject. Rick Wolf, a pioneer of fantasy sports who, more recently, has lobbied on behalf of the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association, assured me that sportsbooks go to great lengths to promote responsible gaming. “Because of that,” he said, “I think people aren’t as afraid of it as they used to be. They used to think, ‘Oh, I’ll get addicted and it’ll ruin my family,’ you know? And now they realize it’s something you can do recreationally to make the most of watching games.”
Sure, I said, but if between 6 and 8 percent of Americans now have gambling problems, that’s not an insignificant number.
“Well, they’re not using regulated services,” he countered, “because all of them are protecting against that.”
With people like Matt in mind, I told Wolf I knew that not to be true.
“I don’t know what you’re investigating,” he said. “I’m in the middle of the industry, and I’m not hearing those stories.”
Everything about online sports betting seems like a recipe for getting people to overdo it: the mere seconds it takes to deposit money from a bank, PayPal, or Venmo account, or even a credit card in some states; the vast menu of games and props available for betting at all hours; the incessant ads; the daily emails beckoning customers with promotions whenever they take a break from gambling. To ward off negative publicity, sportsbooks trumpet their programs for responsible gaming. These initiatives suggest that people should bet responsibly but also that operators have a responsibility to look out for their customers’ wellbeing.
At PointsBet, for instance, a former VIP host told me that when customers said something concerning, like that they’d just wagered the last of their savings, the host “would flag that to RG.” An ex-trader explained that if bettors exhibited potential signs of compulsive gambling, such as frenetically emptying and refilling their account balance, the trader would check if RG wanted to reach out to make sure the customer was OK. A former marketing official said RG was consulted on promotions so they didn’t misrepresent the risks involved in gambling. After hearing so many allusions to PointsBet’s responsible gaming department, I was eager to speak with Teresa Fiore, who served as the company’s RG manager from 2021 to 2023. By then, PointsBet was handling nearly $3 billion a year in wagers across fourteen states.