DraftKings Used 2023 AI to Target Bettors Likeliest to Lose

DraftKings built a machine-learning model in 2023 that scored customers by how much money they were expected to lose after receiving a free bet or bonus, The New York Times reported, citing interviews with former employees. The model examined play frequency, account balances, and loss-to-wager ratios to predict which customers would generate more revenue per promotional dollar spent.

Jayden Butts, a former DraftKings data analyst, described the underlying logic to the Times: "We are looking for traits and features that we can target that indicate a good investment." A former employee said the "best investment would be a problem gambler."

Executives credited the work with real revenue. DraftKings said data science and analytics improved promotion-driven sportsbook margins by 13% in 2025, and that AI helped personalize hundreds of millions of dollars in promotional spending.

Six former employees told the Times DraftKings kept refining those methods to push more betting, and four others said the company stalled or shut down parallel efforts to use similar tools to predict gambling addiction risk. The reporting does not resolve whether the group the model flagged as likeliest to lose and the group DraftKings calls its most engaged are the same customers in practice.

In a statement, DraftKings said it "rejects any implication that its marketing practices are unfair or improperly targets customers," and that its promotions are "directed toward customers who demonstrate sustained, engaged use of our platform, not toward customers based on their losses." The story adds to a steady run of AI ethics coverage tracking how personalization systems get pointed at users who can be harmed by them.