TLDR A New York Times investigation says DraftKings used AI to send promotions to gamblers likely to lose the most money. Former employees say a separate AI tool meant to flag problem gamblers was shelved in 2025. DraftKings disputes the characterization and says promotions reward engaged customers, not losers. The company said it could not verify the internal documents cited in the report. DraftKings reported about 8.7 billion dollars in gross gaming revenue last year, with roughly 3 billion dollars spent on promotions.
DraftKings built a machine learning model in 2023 to predict which gamblers were likely to lose the most money from promotions, according to a New York Times investigation published this week.
The report is based on interviews with more than 40 former employees and internal company documents. It says the company used the tool to guide free bets and bonus offers toward those players.
Jayden Butts, a former data analyst at DraftKings, was one of the people who tested the model. He said each customer received an elasticity score.
A higher score meant a gambler was more likely to lose money for every dollar of promotion sent their way. Butts said he was told the company wanted to redeploy its promotional budget toward these players.
“We are looking for traits and features that we can target that indicate a good investment,” Butts told the Times. He said that by that logic, a problem gambler would be the ideal target.
DraftKings tested the model on about 5,000 casino players in September 2023 before expanding the test. Butts was let go from the company in late 2024, which DraftKings said was for performance reasons.
Sports Betting Models Expanded
Eight former employees told the Times that DraftKings built similar targeting tools for sports betting promotions. Six said