Massachusetts Regulators Turn to AI Promos After DraftKings Report

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission will examine how DraftKings and every other licensed sportsbook in the state use artificial intelligence in promotions, Chair Jordan Maynard said at a public meeting on Thursday, September 24. The move follows a New York Times investigation, built on interviews with more than 40 former DraftKings employees, which reported that the company used machine learning to find the customers most likely to keep betting and losing after a promo.

Maynard said he had directed staff to engage with DraftKings and to learn how all licensed operators in Massachusetts are deploying AI. As Quartz reported, Maynard told the meeting: “These A.I. technologies are evolving rapidly across our society, and we share the concern over their application.” The commission hasn’t found that DraftKings did anything wrong.

A Score Built Around Losing

The Times investigation, published September 19, says DraftKings built a model in 2023 that gave users an “elasticity” score. Documents showed it looked at how often people played, their daily account balances and how much they lost compared with how much they bet. A higher score meant a player was expected to lose more after getting a free bet or bonus.

Jayden Butts, a former DraftKings data analyst who tested the system, put the logic plainly to the Times: “The best investment would be a problem gambler.” Another former analyst said, “It is as predatory as it sounds.” Half a dozen former employees who worked on these systems said they feared the technology could hurt people already struggling with addiction.

The Risk Model That Was Shelved

Staff also tried to build the opposite tool. Nestor Hernandez, a data scientist, began a model in 2024 to flag customers sliding toward a gambling crisis, and the project was canned in 2025. Jake Shannin, who stayed on it to the end, said a presentation to Lori Kalani, DraftKings’ chief responsible gaming officer, was canceled on the day it was due. Kalani told the Times that company leaders made a “collective decision” against predictive models because the technology “wasn’t evidence-based.”

DraftKings Says It Doesn’t Target Losses

DraftKings said in a statement that it “does not use A.I. to target anyone based on losses and does not market to customers based on indicators of potential problem gaming.” It added that it “vehemently denies” the suggestion that it does anything to make its offerings addictive.

The company told the Times its promotions are “directed toward customers who demonstrate sustained, engaged use of our platform, not toward customers based on their losses.” It also called Butts’s analysis “preliminary and inconclusive,” and says it offers deposit limits, time limits and self-exclusion, the standard Responsible Gambling tools.

The Rule Massachusetts Already Wrote

Massachusetts already has a rule on this. Its sports wagering data privacy rule, 205 CMR 257.02, bars an operator from using a patron’s data “to promote or encourage specific wagers or promotional offers” based on “any computerized algorithm, automated decision-making, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or similar system that is known or reasonably expected” by the operator or a vendor “to make the gaming platform more addictive.”

The same rule makes operators analyze patron data to spot problem gambling and send the commission a report at least every six months on the trends they see and their efforts to curb addictive behavior. Executive Director Dean Serpa and staff will meet DraftKings to go through its use of AI and machine learning, including how it structures promotions. Commissioner Paul Brodeur called the Times findings “troubling.”

A Task Force Was Already Running

The commission formed an AI task force after a 2025 study commissioned through the University of Nevada, Las Vegas found a “governance gap” between new technology, company practice and regulatory guidance. Serpa now leads it. Maynard said the review’s results would decide whether any further action or policy work is needed.

Why Casino Players Are in the Frame

The Massachusetts rule is written for sportsbooks, but the model the Times described scored players on the casino side of DraftKings’ business. According to the Times, a 2023 memo found that Slots players were more elastic, and early 2024 data showed highly elastic Slots players lost more money than less elastic ones, Gizmodo reported.

That’s where the growth is. DraftKings runs online casino games next to its sportsbook, and its in-house studio earned $550 million in gross gaming revenue in 2025. At its Investor Day on March 2, the company promised a “personalized Casino-first experience” in its Super App and told investors that $400 million of its 2025 promotional spend was automated and personalized through AI.