DraftKings has told three US lawmakers that it does not use signs of potential gambling problems to target customers with inducements, defending its VIP arrangements in a six-page letter dated 5 November.
Reported by InGame and highlighted by CDC Gaming on 6 November, the response puts a familiar industry tension back into view. A personal host can understand a customer's preferences and notice when something is wrong. The commercial relationship also gives that host a reason to keep the customer engaged.
Our view is that the meaningful test comes when those responsibilities pull in different directions. A credible VIP service needs to demonstrate how it handles a customer whose continued spending is commercially attractive but whose behaviour warrants intervention.
How the Questions Reached DraftKings
Senator Richard Blumenthal and Representatives Paul Tonko and Valerie Foushee sent their requests on 22 October. Their scrutiny extended to BetMGM, Caesars, Fanatics, Kalshi and Polymarket, as well as DraftKings.
The lawmakers questioned whether personalised benefits could encourage vulnerable people to continue gambling. They sought information about membership, customer losses, revenue, checks and the use of artificial intelligence.
Their announcement cited investigative reporting, including a ProPublica account of a journalist receiving VIP treatment after deliberately displaying risky betting patterns. That reporting helps explain the inquiry. The lawmakers' allegations and the company's response should each be assessed on their evidence; the exchange itself does not establish a regulatory breach.
The breadth of the requests is significant. This is scrutiny of a commercial mechanism that can appear across different products, rather than a dispute about one type of gift.
Hospitality, tailored offers and a dedicated contact can make a service more appealing. The difficult question is what happens when the information that makes an offer persuasive should also give the operator a reason to withhold it.
The Rewards Label Hides Two Different Questions
DraftKings says customers enter its general rewards scheme automatically when opening an account. Fewer than 1% of its total customer base belongs to the Diamond and Onyx tiers, where eligible customers may receive hosts and additional benefits.
Those are materially different relationships. Joining a broad loyalty programme at registration is not the same event as becoming a customer who receives individually managed treatment.
That distinction changes how useful questions should be framed. A comparison of gambling before and after automatic enrolment says little about the effect of a host, because the earlier period will usually precede the person's relationship with the platform.
A more informative analysis would examine the point at which enhanced treatment starts: what changed in contact, offers, spending and risk indicators afterwards? It would also need a sensible comparison group. An increase in activity alone would not prove that the VIP treatment caused it, since the customer's existing activity may have influenced selection.
The company does not disclose revenue by rewards tier and did not supply the requested average loss figures, citing competitive sensitivity for exact figures.
That leaves an important gap in public understanding. The percentage of customers in the highest tiers cannot tell readers how much revenue those customers generate or how concentrated the commercial exposure might be.
A Monthly Check Needs a Timely Consequence
According to the letter, each host is randomly assigned ten hosted customers for checks each month. Missing any required checks within the quarter makes the host ineligible for quarterly incentive pay. Suspected problematic play must be escalated to a specialist team.
Making completion a condition of incentive pay gives the procedure practical weight. But a completed conversation is one stage in protection. The outcome depends on what was learned, what other account information was available and what action followed.
A customer saying that everything is manageable should be considered alongside the wider evidence. Equally, a warning sign should prompt proportionate judgement, rather than an automatic conclusion about a person's health or financial position.
The relevant operational measures would include the speed of escalation, the decisions made by reviewers and whether promotional contact stopped when restrictions were imposed. Routine sampling also needs to sit alongside an effective response to emerging concerns across the wider hosted population.
DraftKings describes promotional restrictions for self-excluded and cooling-off customers, including additional restrictions after their return.
Those commitments should be testable through records of eligibility and contact. The strongest evidence would connect the warning, the decision and the action across every relevant communication channel. A policy that exists in one team's records needs to shape what the customer actually receives.
Britain Has Already Tested a Stricter VIP Model
British readers have a useful history against which to assess the debate. In 2020, the Gambling Commission tightened its approach to high-value customer schemes. Its guidance treats personalised service as a relationship requiring additional safeguards, including a clear explanation of whom the operator regards as high value.
The guidance for reward schemes expects affordability, safer-gambling and enhanced due-diligence checks before entry. It also calls for separation between customer checking and day-to-day relationship management. Staff should not be rewarded according to a customer's losses, spending or activity.
That addresses the incentive conflict at its source. Training can help someone recognise a concern, but the structure around that person must also support acting on it. A business should make it professionally acceptable to restrict a valuable account when the evidence requires it.
The Commission's July 2025 monitoring report recalled an estimated 90% reduction in scheme membership identified in its initial 2021 review. The later exercise found no significant membership growth and fewer relevant casework references following the policy change.
These findings deserve their limits. The research used an operator sample rather than a census, and the Commission identified constraints in its casework and complaints evidence. The report does not establish that every British scheme is safe or that changing the rules alone explains every subsequent outcome.
It does show why tighter controls need not be discussed solely as a prohibition on good service. Schemes continued to operate within a more demanding framework.
That is a British comparison, not a statement of the legal requirements applying to DraftKings' US operations. Its value here is the governance question it brings into focus: who can overrule the commercial relationship, and what makes that authority effective?
Human Discretion Does Not Settle the AI Question
DraftKings says hosts select individual offers, while broader targeting uses data science and machine learning. It denies using AI to exploit problem-gambling indicators or encourage likely losing customers to bet more.
The useful scrutiny concerns the decisions produced by that system. Who qualifies for an offer? What information rules someone out? How is a change in risk reflected in the next decision?
Human involvement can be valuable. A host may recognise something in a conversation that needs prompt attention. It can also introduce inconsistent judgement, especially if staff have different understandings of when a commercial conversation should end.
The same principle applies to the technology. Describing a method as automated, manually selected or based on machine learning does not establish whether the resulting offer is appropriate for its recipient.
An informative review would therefore follow actual decisions, including decisions to make no offer. It would examine whether restrictions reached the people and systems arranging promotions, whether exceptions were justified and whether problems led to changes in the process.
That is a more useful standard than assuming either that a human decision is inherently protective or that an algorithm is inherently exploitative. The company remains responsible for the customer experience created by the combination.
The Commercial Risk Extends Beyond VIP Revenue
Retaining a customer relationship can reduce the need to win that customer again. For a gambling operator, however, a relationship's duration and its quality need to be considered together. More activity is not a sufficient definition of success when there are credible concerns about harm.
Our separate analysis of DraftKings' prediction-market growth model examined the financial importance of customer retention in another part of the business. The VIP debate adds a different question: which customer activity should an operator be willing to forgo?
There are commercial risks on either side. Withdrawing benefits can disappoint customers who have used a service responsibly. Failing to intervene when warranted can damage trust and invite deeper scrutiny of practices across a much larger business.
Neither observation provides a calculation of DraftKings' exposure. Without the relevant figures for each tier and evidence of outcomes, assigning a financial value to these risks would be speculation.
The sensible business case is for a service whose boundaries are understood before a difficult decision arises. Clear eligibility, documented reviews and consistent communication can help staff explain why an offer has changed. They also give management a better basis for defending the decisions it has made.
Our View: Judge the Decisions That Cost Revenue
DraftKings has provided an account of its arrangements that deserves examination. Its denial of deliberate targeting should be reported clearly. The concerns raised by lawmakers also warrant further examination of the evidence.
The next useful step would be information about outcomes. How frequently do checks lead to additional review, restrictions or removal of enhanced treatment? How quickly are those decisions implemented? What happens when staff escalate a concern about a commercially valuable customer?
Publishing aggregate measures could improve understanding without identifying individuals. Comparisons would need consistent definitions, an explanation of the customers covered and enough context to distinguish better detection from a worsening underlying problem. A higher intervention count, by itself, could mean either.
The remuneration question matters as well. Readers need to understand how the whole performance system supports a host's judgement, including decisions that reduce the customer's future activity.
The strongest VIP service should make a customer easier to look after. Familiarity ought to improve the operator's ability to notice a problem, respond appropriately and explain a difficult decision.
That is the standard against which this defence should be judged. The decisive evidence will be what happens when care requires the operator to give up a commercially attractive opportunity, and whether the people managing the relationship have the authority and support to do so.