Bryan Biehl says he lost nearly $70,000 gambling online, more than half of it on DraftKings. When he started therapy for gambling addiction in late 2024, the promotional emails kept coming. “I would get flooded with bonuses and deposits,” he told The New York Times. “If you are in addiction, you are not going to say no.” Emails the newspaper reviewed showed he received 40 DraftKings promotions in the first two weeks of December 2024. He gave in one last time on Christmas Day, then signed up for self-exclusion lists that blocked him from gambling apps. The New York Post summarized the Times investigation on September 21, 2026.
His story sits at the center of a report built on accounts from former DraftKings employees, who described how the company used data science and machine-learning models to decide who received free bets and similar offers.
“Elasticity” and the problem gambler
Inside the company, the Post reported, staff used a measure called “elasticity” to estimate how much more a customer might wager if offered the right promotion. The goal was to learn whether money spent on free bets would pay off in extra wagers.
Jayden Butts, a former data analyst, put it bluntly. “The best investment would be a problem gambler,” he told the Times. If the answer on a promotion was yes, he said, “open the floodgates.”
Six former employees who worked on promotional targeting told the paper they later regretted helping build technology they considered dangerous. One former analyst described the logic this way: “If you lose more, we give you more, so you keep playing more.” The same analyst called it “as predatory as it sounds.” The Post said these former staff worried the tools could sweep in vulnerable players.
The model that was shut down
A different team inside DraftKings worked on responsible gambling. Nestor Hernandez, a former data scientist, began building a machine-learning model in mid-2024 that scored customers for risk. It drew on deposits, withdrawals and efforts to chase losses, along with age and gender. “The idea of this model is to be more proactive instead of being reactive,” he told the Times. A user headed for trouble could be spotted days or weeks ahead, he said, “and you can act accordingly.”
Former employees told the Times the project was later shut down. Lori Kalani, the company’s chief responsible gaming officer, said leaders made a “collective decision” not to use predictive technology for problem gambling because “we evaluated that it wasn’t evidence-based.” She said DraftKings believed its existing system was a “better methodology.”
What DraftKings says
A company spokesperson rejected the report as “built on a false premise” and told the Post it casts routine promotional reinvestment, common across consumer industries, as scandalous. The company told the Times that promotions go to customers who show “sustained, engaged use” of the platform, not to people chosen for their losses. It declined to comment on Biehl’s account.
DraftKings pointed to a chief responsible gaming officer who reports directly to the CEO and a department of more than 50 full-time employees working on responsible engagement. “Responsible engagement is not a side initiative,” the spokesperson said.
The money involved
Promotions are a large piece of the business. Citizens Bank research cited by the Times put DraftKings’ gross revenue from sports betting and online casino customers last year at around $8.7 billion, against roughly $3 billion handed out in promotions. The company has also boasted publicly about its data work. An executive recently told investors that analytics improved margins on promotion-driven sports bets by 13% in 2025 and that AI helped personalize hundreds of millions of dollars in promotional spending, the Times reported.
Sources
- DraftKings used AI to target losing bettors: 'The best investment would be a problem gambler'
- REPORT: Sports Gambling App Allegedly Uses AI To Target Those Most Likely To Lose Money On Bets – AOL
